Watch it if you like Lily James and Armie Hammer for how pretty they look. Otherwise, it's not *bad*, but it misses the mark.
Defending Jacob is a moody legal and domestic drama full of twists, turns and secrets that keep you hooked and guessing, with solid performances by its cast.
Buckle up, because this is going to be a long one. Like many Singaporeans last week, I watched Crazy Rich Asians to see how well Singapore comes off in the movie. I'll try to corral my many thoughts into a manageable puddle here, rather than an uncontrolled torrent of words.
Stephen King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower, a long book series with a sprawling mythology and epic battle of good against evil, has finally been made into a movie. I've heard it being talked about for years as this practically unfilmable book series -- kind of like The Lord of the Rings -- that Hollywood has been trying so hard to adapt for at least the last decade, but hasn't been able to succeed until now.
I recently finished And Then There Were None, a thriller by Agatha Christie. I haven't read an Agatha Christie book in ages, but I picked it up on the recommendation of Anne Bogel from Modern Mrs Darcy in one of her "What Should I Read Next" podcast episodes. Her son also read the book and said it was the best book he ever read, which intrigued me to see what about this book could cause a teenager to love it. I ended up agreeing it is great too. What a baffling mystery and chilling thriller!
I just finished this book called Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and it is mind-blowing. I'll avoid spoilers, so you can enjoy it yourself, but basically, it's a story of a college physics professor who gets abducted one night, taken to an abandoned location and drugged. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a different world where he's a genius atomic physicist living a successful but career-oriented life, his wife never married him and his son was never born.
'Mockingjay - Part 2' follows the book pretty much faithfully -- except for all the subtext that they could not (dare not?) translate to screen, which Darren Franich from Entertainment Weekly explains in a brilliant analysis.
I just saw The Martian last night and I desperately want people to watch it, so I'm posting a quick review of the film first.
'Mockingjay - Part 1' is as true to the book as it can possibly be, even with the addition of Effie in District 13, but it feels a little bland without Katniss' internal monologues and all the other details that brought flavour to the story.
Gone Girl was absolutely -- to borrow a word from the film -- *amazing*. The story is superb, supplemented with top-notch acting by Rosamund Pike…
