🧟♂️ Sunday Shuffle #30
TV/Movies/Books recommendations reviews, and more...
Greetings from Northumberland.
Weird springtime weather has meant lots of time to consume books, movies, and TV shows…
🎬 The Cabin in the Woods - Prime: I somehow missed this one back when it was released, and ever since. I’d assumed it was some sort of Hostel-like torture-porn thing that I wouldn’t enjoy, so I skipped it. Over the years I’ve picked up hints that my assumptions were wrong, so I finally got round to watching it. Playing with horror movie tropes in a meta kind of way, much like my beloved Scream franchise, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Just a lot of good, horror fun.
🎬 Adaptation - Prime: Here’s another one I’ve hovered around for years and just needed to be in the right frame of mind to watch. Nicolas Cage plays screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who wrote this movie as a sort of unflattering self-parody, writing about being unable to write a film adaptation of the book The Orchid Thief. The result is one of those great films of the early 2000s of the type you don’t really see much of anymore - back before everything seemed to have to be a remake or a comic-book adaptation. Or maybe that’s my age talking. But this sort of comedy-drama seems to land as a series or limited series these days, to my mind, at least. Cage is fantastic in the dual roles of Kaufman and his brother Donald (who is completely fictional and invented for this film). A really good watch.
🎬 Nocturnal Animals - Prime: my third viewing of this one. I love its dark soul and had to share it with wor lass to see if it lingers in her mind as much as it does mine.
🎬 Ready or Not - Disney+: I’d forgotten how fun this movie is. Samara Weaving is fantastic as the bride who’s signed up for more than she bargained for when she joins a wealthy family whose fortune rests on a boardgame empire, and a deal with something far more sinister. Can’t wait to see the second one, but I fear I’m too late to catch it at the cinema.
🎬 Phantasm 2, 3, 4 - Prime: Having mostly enjoyed the first instalment of this franchise, I’ve ploughed on through the madness. They’re a mixed bag, but not without grungy straight-to-VHS charm.
📺 Under the Banner of Heaven - Disney+: Like a True Detective-lite, focusing on murders in a Mormon community and based on true events, this show took me a while to get into, but I was convinced by the end. Some good performances throughout, and with flashbacks showing some of the early history of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, I saw this almost as a companion piece to Netflix’s American Primeval.
📺 Banshee - NowTV: I finally got round to finishing this series, and I’m so glad I did. I sort of chewed through the first season and part of the second. By the end of the second season, I was hooked and blasted through all the way to the end. It’s a nuts show. Totally over-the-top and extremely entertaining. I started out sceptical, and ended a fan.
📺 Currently watching: Something Very Bad is Going to Happen - Netflix: belting through this one - very much enjoying it.
📖 Recommended: Starve Acre, by Andrew Michael Hurley. I’ve a feeling this book isn’t for everyone, but I enjoyed it. A slow-burning meditation of grief and mental health, this folk-horror tale is more disturbing than horrifying. It’s written with a simplicity that somehow layers up into depth without the prose getting in its own way. To that end, the novel whips along, particularly in the second half, where things take a turn for the weird.
📖 Currently reading: The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum.
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Best wishes and bad dreams,
Jack
All platforms mentioned above are the UK version, unless indicated otherwise.
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