Tag: Reviews

Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams by Tyler James Cook – A Book Review

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Tyler Cook is the blogger known as the Portly Politico.  He writes about music, politics and all manner of things from the point of view of his corner of South Carolina.  And personally, I think he’s a very good guy.

Tyler has written a book, “Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams” that I would describe as a travelogue.  It chronicles his various trips to small towns in his state along with a trip to the Grand Canyon and environs.  The writing is a first-person account of the trials and tribulations that go along with travel.  Tyler describes the various sights and activities that he partakes in and we get his take on the experience of exploring the environment he sojourns through.  There are local festivals and local cuisine and we even travel with him on a river rafting excursion with his girlfriend.

As far as my recommendation, this book is for those who are looking for the Millennial take on the road experience.  Tyler enjoys experiencing the small-town world of his neck of the woods.  Reading this will provide you with that sensibility.

Nefarious (2023) – A Movie Review

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Here’s another film that I won’t have the spoiler alert attached because I won’t spoil any surprises.  My review will have more to do with the nature and the quality of the film than the plot synopsis.

The basic plot is that a psychiatrist, Dr. James Martin (played by Jordan Belfi) goes to a prison to interview a death row prisoner, Edward Wayne Brady (played by Sean Patrick Flanery) to determine if he’s sane enough to electrocute.  But when Martin enters the interrogation room, he discovers that the prisoner claims to be a demon from Hell possessing Brady’s body.  For the sake of convenience, he tells Martin to call him Nefarious.

And the great majority of the film is the interaction between Martin and Nefarious.  And that brings us to the question of what type of movie is this?  Is it a religious film?  Is it a horror movie?  Is it a suspense film.  I guess it’s little bit of each.  I’m not giving anything away by saying it’s not a gorefest.  The most visually disturbing scene is a prison electrocution.  But that’s hardly in the league of things like Saw.  I guess you call it a horror film in the same way that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a horror movie.  I would say that a psychological drama might more closely describe the atmosphere of the film.

And the film is definitely an attack on the lack of respect for human life that our civilization exhibits with respect to its attitude toward abortion and euthanasia.  And it was produced by a Christian production company, “Believe Entertainment.”  So, from these perspectives this is a religious film.

But whatever else it is, it’s also a well made and compelling film.  The characterizations by the two lead actors are highly entertaining.  Flanery’s Nefarious is mesmerizing.  He has all the best lines and he plays the part over the top and to the hilt.

Belfi does a very good job of portraying a somewhat smug member of the intelligentsia, an avowed atheist who comes up against a persona who tears away many of his comfortable assumptions about himself and his way of life.  And to the film’s credit it’s not a simplistic strawman exercise.  It’s done with skill and very effectively.

Now none of this is to say that Nefarious is a perfect film.  There are a couple of scenes that were less successful.  But overall, it was compelling and kept my interest throughout.  And now here is my recommendation.  I recommend this movie but with a caveat.  I paid twenty bucks to see this movie!  Camera Girl thinks I’m crazy and I kind of have to agree.  That’s an awful lot of money.

Ford v Ferrari (2019) – A Movie Review

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Since this is a true story, I’ll skip the spoiler alert but I also won’t give away any surprises.

Matt Damon and Christian Bale star in this dramatization of Ford’s grudge match with Ferrari to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans road race.  Damon plays Carroll Shelby, the legendary race car designer and Bale is Ken Miles a race driver who partners with Shelby to design a car that can give Ford the victory over the Ferrari in the race that they perennially win.

The movie highlights the contrast between the passionate individualism of Shelby and Miles and the hierarchical and bloodless conformity of the Ford upper management that looks to interfere with Shelby’s team at every turn.

I’m not a racing fan or a car connoisseur.  But the movie provides an infectious excitement that reminds me of that same feeling in movies about the American space program of the 1960s.  There’s a conquering spirit that strives for greatness and pushing the boundaries.  It captures the optimism that America still had in those times and it is exhilarating.

Both Bale and Damon provide excellent performances.  Bale especially disappears into the role.  I won’t elaborate much more except to say this is a surprisingly compelling movie and I recommend it highly.

A Meditation on Iron Man 3 – Or Why Sequels Suck

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I won’t frame this post as a movie review.  I won’t synopsize the plot or provide a detailed opinion on it as a movie.  Instead, I’ll use watching the movie as the launching pad for a rant.  Because rants are fun (for the writer).  Unloading on a movie that disappoints and especially one that trades on the good reputation of an earlier installment feels like a noble action.

I’ll start out by saying I really enjoyed the original Iron Man movie.  Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges and the supporting cast; Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow, provided plenty of entertaining content to this comedy/adventure movie.  That movie was fun, exciting and highly entertaining.

Alternatively, Iron Man 3 is none of those things.  It’s a complete waste of time.  The plot is confusing and essentially meaningless.  All of the characters are annoying and uncompelling.  Even Downey’s Tony Stark is surprisingly uninteresting and poorly written.  He is suffering from anxiety attacks based on his experiences in the Avengers movie that occurred before this film.  He has several of them during the movie and they just seem so contrived and pathetic that it feels like really lazy writing.  So, by the end of this movie, I’m feeling fairly unhappy with the time I’ve wasted watching this crapfest.

So, this is what you get with these movie franchises.  The first one is probably very good.  There’s good writing, good acting and an original idea.  But two or even three sequels down the road you end up with a crappy director, hack writers and a much less talented supporting cast.  And voila, an awful movie.

Now it doesn’t have to be this way.  There have been movie series where the quality was more or less maintained.  Downey, himself for instance, was in one such.  His two Sherlock Holmes films were almost equally interesting and entertaining.  But in general, Hollywood has an equation where sequels are a money-making strategy where quality is abandoned after installment one.

So, what’s my point?  Well, there isn’t one.  Except that I was so annoyed watching this movie that I wanted to carp and moan about my outraged sensibilities.  Robert Downey Jr. is an amusing actor who can carry a picture to great effect if you give him a decent plot and some good lines to recite while he mugs for the camera.  It would have been entirely possible to allow his character to carry this movie without any expensive supporting cast if they had only invested in an actual story!

And so, the takeaway is “caveat emptor.”  Do your homework when it comes to sequels and make sure you don’t pay for a movie that is just a pale shadow of its predecessor.  Luckily, I watched this for free on my cable service.  But I did waste more than two hours of my, at this point, limited time left on this mortal coil.

And shame on you Robert Downey Jr.  You’re better than that.  Now go make the third Sherlock Holmes movie.  And don’t let them phone it in!

Short Sequel to Justified on FX This Year

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Justified was one of my favorite television series of all time.  The show provided a combination of drama and comedy that worked very well.  The writers were able to adapt Elmore Leonard’s stories and characters skillfully.  Olyphant and the rest of the ensemble cast (with an especial shoutout for Nick Searcy as Raylan’s boss Art Mullen) were fascinating to watch.

So now the powers that be are going to do an eight episode series with Raylan Givens in his iconic cowboy hat bringing law and order to Detroit.  It’s on FX late this year.  Can the producers catch lightning again?  Well I guess I’ll have to watch to see.  Hey, do I have FX on my crappy cable package.