Severance

“Shit, I've left Gordon's foot on the coach... sorry mate.”

Severance is one of the many horror comedies that have come out in recent years. It’s not as good as some, but it’s got some funny moments. It’s definitely heavy on the sarcasm and black humor.

In Severance, a group of sales people from an international weapons company head off to a team-building retreat in the deep woods of Hungary. Things start off bad, with the bus breaking down and the group finally finds a lodge out in the woods, but it is certainly not what they expected. Soon, people start disappearing and the group comes face to face with a group of cannibalistic, psychotic commandos carrying the same weapons the group sells. These commandos are bent on the group’s destruction, and the sales people must learn to get out of the office and work together to live to see another day.

I was hoping it would be an even funnier movie than it was. It’s certainly no Shaun of the Dead, but it was worth a rental. In fact, I will probably end up watching it again. Laura Harris is great as the girl everybody wants (she looks remarkably like Kirsten Dunst), Danny Dyer is the drug addled guy every body likes, and Toby Stephens is the suave guy.

If you think the premise sounds good, check it out. It’s not a movie for everyone, and it could have been better, but it’s not bad for a newish time director. Christopher Smith directed another movie I rented awhile back, Creep, which was also pretty good. Franka Potente was in that, and if woman trapped in a subway being chased by a bloodthirsty mutant, check Creep out.

Rating: 3 ½ purrs

Recent Aquisitions to the Library

My most recent haul from Half-Price Books 20% off sale, Christmas gifts, and my trip to Barnes & Nobel.

Books:

• 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die by Peter Ackroyd - This should be interesting to see what is listed in this book!
  
• Little Children: A Novel by Tom Perrotta
• The eye of the beholder ; The queen of the night ; The ice maiden (A Black box thriller) by Marc Behm
• Murder & Other Acts of Literature: Twenty-Four Unforgettable and Chilling Stories ed. by Michele B. Slung
• A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
• Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
• Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
• The Afghan by Frederick Forsyth
• Thriller: Stories To Keep You Up All Night ed. by Lee Child
• Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
• Last Bus To Woodstock , Last Seen Wearing , The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn, Dead of Jericho , The Jewel That Was Ours , The Daughters of Cain, and The Way Through the Woods (Inspector Morse Mysteries) by Colin Dexter
• Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks
• Sock & Glove: Creating Charming Softy Friends from Cast-off Socks and Gloves by Miyako Kanamori
• The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters
  

Graphic Novels:

• Flight, Volume One by Kazu Kibuishi
• Sleeper Vol. 1: Out in the Cold by Ed Brubaker
• Ex Machina, Vol. 3: Fact v. Fiction by Brian K. Vaughan
• The Blot by Tom Neely
• Glister Vol 1 by Andi Watson
  

Black Sheep

When I first read a blurb in Entertainment Weekly about a movie where sheep go crazy and attack people, I knew this was a movie I had to see. Finally, Black Sheep came out on DVD, and I lapped it up in all of its ovine glory. Baa, baa, Black Sheep indeed.

A young Kiwi’s older brother plays a cruel joke on him, one he never recovers from. He vows never to return to the sheep ranch where he grew up, harboring a deep fear of sheep from then on. Then one day he returns to sign over his half of the family ranch, only to find out things aren’t what they used to be. Why is his brother genetically engineering sheep? What happens when a vegan-Peta-organic-farming couple raids the genetic laboratory? Why are the sheep licking their chops? Who will survive the “violence of the lambs”?

Weta Workshop did the special effects, and they were fabulous. The relatively unknown cast did a great job. The script had its moments, with some really great sheep jokes sprinkled throughout. I will never forget the scene of the sheep barreling over the hillside into the crowd of people, just like the Ork armies in Lord of the Rings. Brilliant.

If you like a horror movie with some good gore and some great jokes, check out Black Sheep. It’s not quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, but it is definitely a DVD purchase in my future.

Rating: 5 Purrs for the mint sauce and were-sheep! I mean, come on – were-sheep!!!

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Lovely Bones is one of those books I put off reading because I knew the story would probably be a tough read. I finally pulled it off my bookshelf recently, and wow, what a book. I love to read, and I read a lot, but it’s not often I get a book in my hands that rips me up and stays with me even now, weeks later. I was sucked into this book, and it ripped me up emotionally, but it was such a beautiful story I just can’t say I regret the experience. As I remember the story and how it was told, I can feel that sorrow work its way back into my heart, but it is bittersweet.

Susie Salmon, a 14 year old girl, is the narrator of The Lovely Bones. When we first meet her, Susie is in heaven watching over her family. She tells us how she died, and she watches her family deal with that loss. He parents struggle to keep their marriage together, her sister refuses to feel anything so avoid the sorrow of losing her sister, and her baby brother struggles to understand where Susie went and why she is never coming back. Susie watches the world and struggles with letting it all go. While she works through the grief of losing her life, Susie sees her family grow, mend, and eventually move on.

I really don’t want to say too much because I truly believe this is one of those novels that you simply must just discover on your own. I couldn’t do Alice Sebold’s prose justice. Her words are too lyrical and haunting to condense, and I hate to take that experience away from anyone. The Lovely Bones is a memorable and stunning story about love, loss, grief, marriage, memory, heaven, and moving on. I can’t recommend it enough.

Rating: 5 Purrs for one of the best books I have ever read, hands down.

Recent Aquisitions to the Library

I have been on a book spree lately. Recently added:

• Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand by Fred Vargas, Sian Reynolds (Translator)
• Sunshine by Alex Garland
• Lace by Shirley Conran
• The Maul and the Pear Tree by P.D. James,T. A. Critchley
• After Dark by Haruki Murakami
• Angelica: A Novel by Arthur Phillips
• I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert

Graphic Novel trades:

• Ex Machina, Vol. 2: Tag by Brian K. Vaughan
• Torso: A True Crime Graphic Novel by >Brian Michael Bendis
• Nightmares and Fairy Tales Vol. 2 Beautiful Beasts by Serena Valentino
• Gloom Cookie Vol 5: The Final Curtain by Serena Valentino
• The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
  

The Proposition

The Proposition is one of the best movies I have seen this year. It’s a western, true life, dirty, gritty Western with and excellent story, acting, and landscape. I haven’t seen a Western I have liked this much since Unforgiven or Silverado. It’s that caliber of a movie.

In The Proposition, Guy Pearce is Charlie Burns. He and his brother Mike are caught by Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) and given a proposal – hunt down and kill his older brother Arthur in order to gain a pardon and save the life of his younger brother Mikey. Arthur is the leader and mastermind behind the Burns gang, responsible for attacking the Hopkins farm, raping Mrs. Hopkins, and murdering the entire family. Capt. Stanley’s wife, who was a close friend of Mrs. Hopkins, doesn’t accept the proposal. The tensions surmount as the community cries for justice, the relationship between husband and wife become strained, and Charlie hunts for his brother in the Australian outback. Will Charlie kill his brother; will the town have their own justice?

The screenplay was written by Nick Cave, and while I like his music I was very surprised that he could write a screenplay so amazing. The complicated relationships between a husband and wife, a brother and a brother, a town and its leaders are so well written. Everything about this movie feels real, from the flies buzzing people’s faces, the heat rising in the desert, the blood and violence of carving a life out in the rough Outback. There are some scenes that are so iconic that they stick in your brain, like the scene of Stanley and his wife having Christmas dinner, the china set out, the turkey ready for carving, or the roses outside of their home, fighting for life in the arid desert, or the Aborigine leaving the homestead and returning to the land, removing his shoes at the gate.

I can't recommend this movie enough. What a brilliant, bleak, beautiful film.

Rating: 5 Purrs for perfection – Guy Pearce excellent as always , and a gritty, dirty, down to earth Western

The House Where Evil Dwells

What a surprise! The House Where Evil Dwells was an unexpectedly good haunted house movie that I stumbled across on NetFlix. It’s pretty similar to another movie, Ju-On or The Grudge, but it was made in the early 80’s, so it was appealing to see a different version of the same idea.

The House Where Evil Dwells starts out in mid-1800 Japan. A samurai comes home to find his wife in bed with another, and in a rage murders them all in a great bloody slaughter. Zip forward to modern day Japan (well, modern 1980’s Japan), where a young American couple have traveled to Japan so the husband can work. An old family friend, who lives in Japan already, has found them a house. Guess what house it is. The family finds out that sometimes old ghosts stick around. Will they survive, or will they be forced to reenact that horrible night?

Many people say the ghosts were quite silly, and well, yeah, they are a little. But I just chalk that up to it being an early 80’s film, and too many people expecting stringy-haired girls crawling around walls like you see in modern day Japanese horror films. It did at times feel a bit like a movie-of the week, outside of the nudity of course. But overall, I felt the idea and the plot felt fresh, even though I have seen Ju-On, The Grudge, and most of the sequels. It felt new to me anyway. The acting was better than most horror movies you find from that age, including Susan George who shines in the troubled, haunted wife role.

If you like the stream of Asian horror movies being churned out on DVDs, you might take a look at this one. It’s refreshing to see an early version of an idea we have seen over and over in movies today.

Rating: 4 Purrs for a gigantic crab attack and creepy ghosts in the soup

Recent Aquisitions to the Library

I just bought a few books from Amazon:

• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
• Black Light, Point of Impact, and Time to Hunt by Stephen Hunter
• Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs

The Stephen Hunter books I ordered for Pandabob. We watched Shooter the other night and now he wants to read about Bob Lee Swagger, master sniper.

Crank

Crank is one of those movies I had to rent because I just love action movies, even if they are bad. Well, Crank was bad. I mean ridiculously silly, Don “The Dragon” Wilson bad. I think I even laughed out loud a few times at just how asinine it was.

Jason Statham if Chev Chelios, just your average, amazingly talented hit man. He kills someone, and in turn, his minions come after Chev and inject him with a potent poison. He and his doctor figure out that he has to keep his adrenalin pumping to stay alive, so he begins this crazed hunt for the guys who set him up. Enter the video game, where Chev runs from location to location fighting folks and trying to protect his girlfriend Eve, who doesn’t know he’s a hit man until just now. After all, he was going to retire to spend more time with her. But first, he needs to find a cure and kick some ass while he looks.

Jason Statham is a great action hero; I just wish someone would give him something more to do than these types of movies. At least give the man a starring role in a bigger action flick, like a Die Hard movie. Amy Smart plays Eve with a great California vibe, and she is nice window dressing, but she’s not more than that. Dwight Yoakam is Chev’s doctor, and at least this time around he didn’t creep me out.

I can’t say I would recommend this movie, unless you really like movies that have no substance whatsoever, ludicrous plot points, and not so great acting. I mean, I like bad movies, I like silly movies, and I like absurd movies. There was just something missing here.

Rating: 1 Hiss for just being plain awful. Not even Jason Statham having sex with Amy Smart in the middle of Chinatown with onlookers could save this movie.

Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz

True crime is one kind of nonfiction I can tear through. Terri Jentz’s Strange Piece of Paradise was engrossing on a level most true crime doesn’t reach. It’s probably because Terri Jentz lived through this crime, kept it as part of her, and finally, took the case up to find that man who trespassed upon her campsite and tried to kill her. The story is gripping, her search for truth engrossing, and her journey is told with a true voice. It’s the best nonfiction I have read in awhile.

When Terri Jentz was a college kid in 1977, she and a friend began a cross-country bike tour. Their goal was to follow the year-old Centennial bike path across the United States. They made it just over a week. Eight days in they stopped for the night in Cline Falls, Oregon. That night, a cowboy brutally attacked them, driving over their tent with his truck and attacking them with an ax. It was a cruel, unprovoked attack, and both girls barely survived.

Nearly 20 years after the attack, Terri decides to return to the scene of the crime, a community that has taken the attack into itself and its memories. The “two girls from Cline Falls” have been in their minds for 20 years, and the community wants answers as much as it wants to hide the truth. Jentz won’t let them hide anymore. With some new allies, she tries to uncover the truth after such a long time, facing the difficulties of the criminal justice system and the inner workings of the small towns surrounding Cline Falls. Eventually, she finds some sort of truth and healing in the process.

Terri Jentz’s Strange Piece of Paradise is similar to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in that it closely resembles a report, a true life, cleanly written report of a truly horrible crime. It is one that makes no sense and truly haunts the people involved, even remotely. The difference is Terri Jentz is that girl from Cline Falls, and it is her story.

Rating: 5 Purrs, for telling a true story even when it uncovered her own warts.

Recent Aquisitions to the Library

Here are some books I just picked up at Half-Price Books:

• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver
• Oriental Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn
• The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
• The Mammoth Book of New Historical Whodunits edited by Mike Ashley
• Heartsick by Chelsea Cain