Categories
Books Film Me

March

Watched

  • 10 Cloverfield Lane – Enjoyed the middle third a lot, the simmering tension was great. The twist, once we hit it, was fine, but it killed any tension. Our heroine was going to survive, or die, but it wasn’t going to be that interesting either way.  ★★★
  • Mute – This was pretty bad. ★★
  • Icarus – This was very good. ★★★★
  • Gattaca – I remember this coming out, which makes it all the stranger that it took me twenty years to watch it. It’s a great bit of speculative fiction, the world and characters are great, as it the cast. ★★★★★
  • Annihilation – I’m gutted we didn’t get a theatrical release in the UK, there’s some incredible scoring and sound design in this movie that would’ve been even better in a theatre. I loved this. Just the right amounts of beauty, weirdness, and horror. ★★★★
  • The Master – Jonny Greenwood’s score for this is outstanding, genuinely unsettling. Some very good performances, characters that aren’t easy to like, not always an easy watch. ★★★★
  • For the Love of Spock – I have fond memories of watching Star Trek re-runs as a kid and loving Mr Spock. This was nice. ★★★
  • Isle of Dogs – Love it. I highly recommend watching it then listening to the Wes Anderson episode of the Adam Buxton podcast where they discuss the film (amongst other things) ★★★★★
  • The Eagle Huntress – From what I gather, the director took some liberties with the story, but as a showcase of Mongolia and eagle-hunting this was pretty darn beautiful. I didn’t like the part where the eagle fledgeling was taken from her nest. Or the parts where the various foxes were killed by eagles. But without those there wouldn’t have been much of a documentary here! Also one of the grumpy elders they lined up reminded me so much of Bill Murray I couldn’t help but chuckle any time he was on screen. ★★★★

Read

  • Red Seas Under Red Skies – This is the second book in the Gentlemen Bastard series. I thoroughly enjoyed The Lies of Locke Lamora, this took me a little longer to get into; I think I read the first few chapters back in December or January then put it to one side. I think I was expecting more of Lies, when this is a different story, in a different part of the world. Once I got my head around that I chewed through this pretty swiftly. ★★★★
  • Flintstones Vol. 2: Bedrock Bedlam – If you haven’t read any of the Flintstone comics do yourself a favour, they’re so sharp. ★★★★
  • Jim Hensons’ The Storyteller: Witches – I was sucked in by the art for an upcoming issue in the Storyteller series so picked up the back issues on sale. This collection was pretty so-so: the art was variable, one of the stories was nice, the rest forgettable. ★★★
  • The Long Earth – This was neat, on one hand I would’ve liked more Pratchettian touches, but equally they might’ve made the idea too implausible. I’ll definitely read the next one. ★★★★
  • The Dying Earth – I listened to an episode of the Plot Points podcast recently where they designers of each edition of D&D talking about the game. Jack Vance came up, of course, so I decided to the Dying Earth a go. They were fun! A collection of vignettes that paint an interesting world. There’s part of me that wants to know what an alternate me who hasn’t played D&D would think of them, but this me enjoyed them. ★★★★
  • Doctor Strange, Vol. 2: The Last Days of Magic – This was ok. I enjoyed the first volume, but I don’t think I’ve enjoyed enough of Doctor Strange wielding supreme magical powers to get a kick out of the destruction of magic across the multiverse. ★★★