Viewing: John Wick

 The only upside to being sick is when you're still well enough to enjoy movies. The hubby got me hooked into all the services on the seldom used bedroom TV, so I've started my sickbed movie marathon with John Wick. Great fun and perfect for my mood (I hate being sick and would really like to blow some things up instead of blowing my nose). 

 

John Wick was a very satisfying flick and more fuel for my theory that Keanu Reeves does his best work when he doesn't talk too much. He's so good at the physical: body and face work. Though, he did pleasantly surprise me with one great angry explosive speech.

 

The fight scenes were creative and fun to watch. The whole secret society angle of hit-people and other dangerous folk was intriguing, with all the layers of loyalties and betrayal. Adrianne Palicki was a nice surprise for me, as she's not an actress I've been aware before The Orville, and this role as Ms. Perkins is nothing like her Kelly on that show. 

 

I always love the reluctant hero (or antihero) story line, where a person had turned their back on a life and gets pulled back in. It's not a story with a lot of surprises, but it hits every expected beat well. 

viewing: Red 2

 I continue my sickbed movie marathon with Red 2. I enjoyed the first movie some years ago, and considered this one worth seeing if only for Helen Mirren. I can take or leave Bruce Willis doing another Bruce Willis type guy, and John Malcovich's character doesn't seem to know if he's the philosophical backbone, or the comic relief. Sometimes he felt more like Doc Brown from the Back to the Future movies than anything else.

 

But Helen Mirren's Victoria is one of my favorite characters ever. So the movie did not disappoint in that regard. Helen killed in evening wear and army fatigues with equal efficiency and panache, and even as dressed as a lunatic who believed she was the queen. In fact, I'd argue it's worth the whole thing just to see her shooting out both windows of a careening car and then sitting smugly while it all blows up behind them. When I daydream about having movies made of my books, I always cast Helen Mirren. 

 

The movie overall wasn't quite as much fun as the first one, but I guess we'd already done the "coming out of retirement" gig, so this wasn't a bad way to go, and Anthony Hopkins was a delight. I think I'd probably be more critical of it if I felt better, but I'm looking for popcorn, and popcorn is what I got. :-)

Reading: A Pocketwatch, Spraypaint and Morphine: How Viv the Librarian Weathers the Boom

 #bookeveryweek Kimberly Lynne's A Pocketwatch, Spraypaint and Morphine: How Viv the Librarian Weathers the Boom. 

 

This book started out so normally, then took a left turn at Albuquerque and never looked back. I was so pleased! In fact, there's not much I can tell you about the book that doesn't spoil the fun. It's better if you don't know what the left turn is or if we ever turn right again. 

 

Viv the Librarian had, in fact, an amazing adventure that had me thinking about what I might do in similar circumstances. If you need a hard scientific explanation for strange happenings in a book, you won't find one in here, but you will find an interesting cast of characters who are brought together by strange circumstances. 

 

Quite enjoyable! 

Viewing: Pan's Labyrinth

 Last of my sickbed film festival for tonight. Pan's Labyrinth. My comments are spoilery, so don't read if you want to view it unspoiled and haven't yet. 

 

You know, I've only seen two movies about war in Spain, this one and Carol's Journey. Both of them (spoiler alert) end with dead girls. War in Spain is definitely not good for prepubescent girls. I jest about heavy things, but I did find it funny that in such a small sample there was that similarity. 

 

I'd heard a lot about Pan's Labyrinth, and most of the things I'd heard panned out (ha!). The puppetry was beautiful and creepy as heck. If all the labyrinth stuff was in this little girl's imagination, as the story certainly leaves room for, she was a child of darkness for sure. 

 

But then again, what other kind of child could she have been given all the tragedy and sadness she'd experienced already? The story doesn't give her age, but I'd guess her at about 11 years old, and she'd already lost her father, seen her mother hook up with a dangerous guy, seen her mother suffer through a life-threatening pregnancy, lived in the scary household of said dangerous guy, connected with members of the resistance, and then seen her mother die. 

 

The other Del Toro movie I remember well is Shape of Water, and there are some similarities in feel between the two films, including the fantasy happy ending representation of what came for our tragic heroine after death. 

 

Definitely on the darker side of fairy tale, bringing to mind other movies like Legend and Labyrinth. So much ambiguity all the time. I couldn't tell whether I should be hoping she'd do what the labyrinthian creatures told her or that she'd discover their lies in time, because it definitely seemed like they were dodgy and playing right into what she wanted to hear. (Which makes sense if they only exist in her imagination). That deep ambiguity was woven through every scene in the real world and the fantasy one and is the main emotion the story evoked in me. 

 

Quite good. I'll watch it again sometime when I don't have a fever. 

 

(no subject)

 #smileaday Digital content when you're sick. 

 

When I was a kid and I was sick, we didn't even have a VCR or Cable television. Those didn't enter my household until I was a young teen. I remember that every time I'm stuck in bed feeling too sicky to want to read. Lucky me, here in the 21st century, I can choose from any number of services to feed me entertainment of variable quality and content without lifting my head off the pillow.