Reviews and thoughts about movies, books, pop culture, and Doctor Who
Author: Peter Kanelis
I was born in Portland, Oregon and currently reside in Texas. I am an avid reader and movie watcher. I also am a long-time Doctor Who fan and collect the audio dramas as well as watch the television series. I have been writing reviews of this nature on social media for a few years now and want to expand on that practice.
Holy Ghost is a pretty solid mystery novel by the prolific John Sandford and features his Minnesota state investigator, Virgil Flowers.
The small, dying town of Wheatfield, Minnesota is the beneficiary of an economic boon when images of the Virgin Mary are seen at the local church. Visitors from all over start to galvanize the town’s economy. Then, the shootings start. Virgil Flowers is sent by the state’s investigation bureau to get to the bottom of the violence. At first, people were just seriously wounded, and Flowers becomes even more desperate when a woman is murdered, and a local hunter is found dead in his house. Flowers is not sure if this is the work of an unhinged psychopath or if there is more of a purpose to the terror unleashed on Wheatfield.
Sandford has been around for a long time, and his popularity is well deserved. Flowers is an interesting, proficient protagonist. There is something very stable and reassuring when Flowers is on the scene. Also, Sandford knows how to write some pretty amusing banter between Flowers and his colleagues who come in to assist.
There are some pretty interesting twists and turns as Flowers narrows down a motive. Most of the characters are pretty interesting. There is a peculiar young man named Skinner who seems savvier than his fellow townsfolk. He has an interesting friendship with the mayor in that they open a shop together once the money from the tourists starts coming in.
It’s a pretty quick read, and Sandford is a competent and engaging writer. He does a good job with keeping a reader engaged, and he does gallows humor quite effectively.
The novel is interesting and does the job of keeping the reader entertained and interested in the outcome of the mystery. Sandford has certainly had a lot of practice with that, and I expect it will not be too much longer before I dive into another of his works.
Next up, I will be staying in the mystery genre with my next read, which is The Final Detail by Harlan Coben.
Absolution is a slow-moving, yet interesting crime thriller directed by Hans Petter Moland and written by Tony Gayton. Liam Neeson is in the lead role and is joined by a cast which includes Yolanda Ross, Ron Perlman, and Daniel Diemer.
Neeson plays an aging gangster who learns that he is afflicted with a degenerative brain disease and is motivated to reconnect with his daughter and her son. He also has to dodge other gangsters who want to kill him. He also wants to make some amends for his violent past before he totally loses his mind.
It’s not a terrible film, but I would not call this one of the better additions to Neeson’s credits. It’s kind of slow, but it picks up in the second half when the bodies start piling up. Neeson is compelling enough to make this a little better than watchable. There is a repeated dream sequence with Neeson’s character talking to his deceased father on a boat, which seemed an awkward fit.
Also, this was one of those films where some of the lead characters apparently didn’t have proper names. Yolanda Ross plays someone just credited as Woman. Neeson’s character isn’t named either. I just find that a little distracting and frustrating.
This may be a film I need to watch again in order to appreciate it better. It was just interesting and unique enough for me to revisit eventually, but I suspect there are plenty of legitimate criticisms as well.
The Carnivale of Curiosities is a pretty decent debut novel by Aimee Gibbs that takes place in the always fascinating world of Victorian London
Ashe and Pretorius’s Carnivale of Curiosities arrive in London with a headline show that features a fellow who can manifest fire from his hands and a number of impressive people with startling abilities. The sideshow has become the place to be for bizarre entertainment. One of the proprietors is a magician who can make any wish come true for the right price. A troubling attraction between the main star and a new addition to the group adds to the mix as dangerous gangsters threatens to expose secrets and bring the show to a tragic end.
First of all, Gibbs does display some impressive prose style. Her efforts to capture the feel of the Victorian era in London are well executed.
I had some trouble really getting into the story or finding the characters all that interesting. That may have been more due to some of my natural reservations about new authors and genres that I don’t typically read more than any deficiency in the writer’s abilities.
Anyway, I am sure that other readers will find this more enjoyable, and they would not be wrong. It may be that I just need to give this one another go in a few years when I am in a different frame of mind. Still, Gibbs should continue her writing, and I will likely be on the lookout for a follow-up to this novel.’
Next up, I return to a genre where I am most familiar. Virgil Flowers heads to a small town in Minnesota to unravel a mystery involving shootings, religious visions, and of course, murder in Holy Ghost by John Sandford.
Venom: The Last Dance continues a string of mediocrity in the latest comic book films from Marvel. Tom Hardy reprises his role as Eddie Brock/Venom in what is promised to be the final entry into a trilogy. Kelly Marcel wrote the screenplay and serves as director. The cast includes Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rhys Ifan, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, and Andy Serkis.
Basically, some imprisoned tyrant from Venom’s home planet has sent some strange, demonic creatures through these space/time portals to find something called a Codex. They find Earth where Venom has to elude these creatures and the government because he is wanted for murder due to some events in the previous film. There are battles across the country and mountains. Venom and Eddie are bonded, but that connection seems to be the catalyst for impending destruction of Earth.
Hardy is talented and interesting enough to make this at least watchable. The story is not that interesting, probably due to the main villain, a guy named Knull, not being able to move. The special effects were well done, and there were some cool fight scenes. I just don’t find Venom as witty or amusing as the writers intend for him to be. Venom has a hunger for brains but will only eat those of the most despicable of people. All kinds of symbiotes are introduced. Of course, this is what Venom is. He is an alien symbiote who bonds with a host and gives them superpowers. In the comics, Venom was bonded to Peter Parker and had abilities similar to those of Spider-Man. The initial introduction has been ignored in these films.
My reaction to the film was mildly amused, but this was not one of the better of the Marvel output. Comic book films require a lot of grace in order to find some enjoyment, but this one almost stretched my willingness to give that beyond endurance.
It’s not the worst film in the franchise, but I can understand why the enthusiasm and the box office returns have been somewhat lackluster.
The Quintessence is an excellent Doctor Who audio drama from Big Finish Productions and features the Third Doctor and Jo Jones. Nicholas Briggs directs this episode which is written by Stewart Pringle and Lauren Mooney. Nicholas Briggs provides the voice as the Cybermen, as usual. The rest of the guest cast is comprised of Chris Larkin, Felicity Cant, Emily Joyce, and Gary Turner.
Tim Treloar resumes his role of the Third Doctor with his steadily improving impression of the late Jon Pertwee’s performance. Katy Manning plays a much older Jo Grant, who is now Jo Jones, and has rejoined the Doctor in the TARDIS.
The story begins with a strange dream that Jo is having about a young girl in an isolated manor. She receives a set of coordinates and convinces the Doctor to check it out. They find the estate in the midst of a storm raging across a desolate planet known as Nethara Reach. They find that it is occupied by a couple with a sickly daughter who believe they have been communicating with angels. It doesn’t take long for the Doctor to recognize these supposed angels as one his most ruthless adversaries. The Cybermen have targeted the daughter for a horrifying purpose. The Doctor and Jo will have to embark on a rescue mission to save a family from a terrifying transformation.
The Daleks are apparently the most popular villains in the franchise, but my heart still goes with the Cybermen as the more chilling of the Doctor’s foes. The relentless of survival by converting anyone and anything into one of their numbers is effectively chilling…especially without all of the maniacal shrieking the Daleks like to cut loose.
The plot is actually pretty creative even if some old adversaries are brought out of the mothballs. Katy Manning gives one of her stronger performances. She is always good and obviously slips into the role with ease. Treloar is good. I also have to note that Chris Larkin as Arthur Pepperdine undergoes a compelling and convincing character transformation, which was quite wonderfully performed.
This is a six-part story, which has a tendency to drag, however the writers for this serial kept this one pretty interesting throughout. Nicholas Briggs handles the directing with his usual precision and skill as he voices the emotionless, unrelenting Cybermen.
Big Finish is reliably solid when it comes to casting and story ideas, however this particular release ended up surprising me with stronger than usual performances and a pretty fascinating use of common scenes and soundscapes. This story would be an unusual fit for the Pertwee era, however it’s a welcome departure and stretch of creative muscles.
The Quintessence is probably one of the top releases for the year, which is saying something since Big Finish is so consistent with the care and attention they put into these releases.
Smile 2 is an adequate but forgettable horror film that is a sequel to a Smile which was released in 2022. Parker Finn is the writer and director with Naomi Scott in the lead as a troubled pop star named Skye Riley. The cast includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Ray Nicholson, and Dylan Gelula.
The film picks up about six days after the previous entry ended. A police officer is attempting to pass off the curse of the Smile Entity to a couple of notorious drug dealers, but that goes awry when one of their hapless customers gets the brunt. The police officer is killed, and the drug user passes the curse onto pop star, Skye Riley. Skye has a tragic past which involves drug addiction and the horrific death of a boyfriend when they were both in a car accident. Skye’s sanity starts to unravel when she notices the people around her approaching her with the unnerving, fixed smiles that is familiar to those who have seen the previous film.
I will start off and say this film is not that bad for another sequel in the horror genre. There were some genuinely creepy moments. It’s not that great, and we learn nothing all that new about this admittedly interesting entity. I will try not to give too much away, but the conclusion seemed rather pointless and predictable to some extent.
The performances were fairly compelling. The problem, as usual, is in the writing. There were not many characters I cared about ultimately. I didn’t find the main character to be all that sympathetic because a lot of her troubles she brings upon herself. No one seems to have a real chance to defeat this creature. Some of the scenes were just gross in a ridiculous way.
In spite of the numerous flaws, there was still a real effort to create a fairly unique menace. The film was not without some points of interest, but not enough to really warrant much enthusiasm from this viewer.
The Silkworm is a decent continuation of the Cormoran Strike mystery series by Robert Galbraith, who is really J.K. Rowling. This is the second outing for the one-legged gumshoe.
Strike’s detective business has received a bump since his highly publicized murder case was solved in the debut novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling. One of his clients is a distraught wife who is wanting to find her husband who walked out of the house in a huff. The husband is moderately well-known novelist and was apparently planning to publish a novel which would be rather embarrassing for some of his associates. Strike eventually finds the writer after he has been eviscerated in an abandoned house. Suspicion falls on Strike’s client, which doesn’t sit well with the detective. Strike gets an up-close look at the publishing industry as he proceeds to uncover the truth.
Cormoran Strike is getting a little more interesting as the reader rides along on a new case. Strike also is contending with the news that his ex-girlfriend is getting married. He has a bit of an erratic psyche, but I am finding him more likeable, and he seems to be a sharp investigator. His new assistant, Robin, wants to learn more about investigating crimes, but she has a fiancée who is not quite on board with her current job.
The case itself is kind of interesting, but Galbreath seems to be indulging in a bit of overdone gruesomeness. The book in question that was written by the victim is pretty explicit and gross. I found the gorier aspects of the plot to be somewhat distracting.
The plot was pretty average, but it did the job as far as holding my attention. I think Galbraith’s strength lies in the creation of interesting protagonists. Some of Strike’s struggles with getting around on a prosthetic leg does make him rather unusual among fictional detectives.
The Silkworm isn’t likely to set the genre on fire with its greatness, but it’s not without any merit or interesting features. Galbraith is a talented writer, so I have some expectations that each novel gets better in this genre. I will see once I get to the next installment.
Time to delve into a newer author in both my book collection and the literary scene as a whole. Amiee Gibbs kicks off her novel writing career with The Carnivale of Curiosities.
Saturday Night is a film about the premiere of what would be better known as Saturday Night Live, and the idea is better than what I saw onscreen. Jason Reitman directed the film which he co-wrote alongside Gil Kenan. The cast is quite lengthy, but it includes Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Dylan O’Brien, and Willem Dafoe.
This supposedly chronicles the ninety minutes leading up to the first broadcast of the venerable sketch comedy show. All manner of chaos is occurring including a writer getting high, a stage light crashing down during a practice run, and one of the cast members picking fights at random. Lorne Michaels has his hands full trying to get this eclectic, chaotic group of diverse performers to work together to create a unique television experience for the American public. Of course, it’s no major spoiler to reveal that it does work out obviously.
The impressions of some of the more well-known original cast members were not that bad. Corey Michael Smith pulls off a pretty convincing Chevy Chase. O’Brien’s impression of Dan Aykroyd is also impressive. The cast on the whole seems to be well selected. I was not familiar with Lorne Michaels as a younger man, but I imagine that LaBelle did just fine in that role as well.
Maybe it was just me, but I didn’t find the film to be on the whole all that interesting. The antics and chaos that supposedly went on behind the scenes really seemed to be exaggerated. I know there needs to be some allowance for artistic license, but Reitman is asking for a bit too much suspense of disbelief.
It’s not quite to the level of being a dumpster fire of a movie, but there was not much there to really impress me. I just found this particular story to be rather unnecessary. There were no real surprises. It’s a waste of a rather talented cast.
Christopher Eccleston continues his deservedly popular journey as the Ninth Doctor in the audio boxset entitled Travel in Hope from Bog Finish Productions. Helen Goldwyn returns to direct the three episodes that make up this set.
Below There is written by Lauren Mooney and Stuart Pringle and has the Doctor lend a hand to a lonely monitor named Vyx who is assigned to a teleport relay in space. She is having visions, and the teleport system she helps maintain may not be as safe and reliable as billions of galactic citizens would expect.
Kelly Adams, Daniel Cerqueira, and Homer Todiwala make up the guest cast to an effectively spooky episode. The small cast and rather claustrophobic setting are well realized through the sound effects and performances. The writers draw inspiration partly from a short story written by Charles Dickens called The Signal-Man, which has been mentioned before in the television series by this particular Doctor.
This was a pretty good start top the set. The banter between the Doctor and Vyx is quite profound at times. The episode begins with a rather lengthy section where they are communicating through transmitters, which makes the Doctor’s arrival on the station itself seem like a bit of a payoff for the listener.
Anyway, the episode gives this a set a promising start.
The Butler Did It is written by James Moran and is an homage to the classic mysteries written by the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Emma Swan, Andrew French, Paul Thornley, and Louise Fletcher make up the guest cast.
The TARDIS is in need of a tune-up as usual and arrives at a spaceport where he encounters a couple of old friends who also happen to the last of their species. One of his friends is poisoned, and the Doctor has the chance to brush up on some old-fashioned investigative skills. He is aided by a medical tech with a bit of s confidence problem and hampered by a collection of some of the surliest suspects gathered in one place.
Moran was going for something pretty light-hearted here and pulls it off quite nicely. The story does intentionally lean heavily on the some of the tropes of the mystery genre without being overdone. Basically, I got the joke. Also, in spite of the cheeky rip-off, the plot still had a sense of originality and was at times even unexpectedly amusing. Eccleston seems to have a rarely tapped knack for comedy in which this episode brought out.
Run completes this set and is written by Robert Valentine. Jane Goddard is back as the Doctor’s old friend, Alpha Centauri, who from its perspective has yet to meet the Doctor’s earlier incarnation. David Langham, Jane Asher, and Philip Pope make up the guest cast which also includes Nicholas Briggs playing the role of Martian senator Zzargol.
A dangerous demagogue is poised to take control of the Galactic Federation by any means necessary, and the Doctor convinces a very young representative named Alpha Centauri to run against her for the presidency. Politics is often a dirty business, but when the Doctor steps into the ring, it gets deadly.
I sometimes get rather cynical with some of these recurring character bits. Alpha Centauri was first introduced many moons ago during the Jon Pertwee era on television. It is a species of hexapod with one of those most shrill, squeaky vocalizations one could imagine. Goddard actually emulates the original performance and manages to tone down the more grating qualities about the character. I actually don’t dislike Alpha Centauri, but a little of bit goes a long way. The interaction between it and this Doctor were quite well written. It’s pretty obvious what political circumstance inspired this story, but Valentine manages to still present it without any real effort to offend any group of voters. It’s a clever, fun story to close out a highly entertaining collection.
I have enjoyed the Ninth Doctor audio series pretty consistently; however, this particular set brought its A game. All three stories were diverse in all the right ways. Eccleston’s performance was captivating in all three episodes. Even though the inspirations for these stories seemed a little too obvious at times, they still displayed some creativity and wit from all of the writers here.
Travel in Hope gives me hope that Big Finish may still have some great ideas left in the tank.
Joker: Folie à Deux is the musical thriller comic book film that has Joaquin Phoenix reprise his version of one of the most iconic super villains in entertainment. Todd Phillips directed this one and also co-wrote it with Scott Silver. Lady Gaga, Catherine Keener, and Brendan Gleeson are also included in the cast.
It’s five years after the first Joker film, and this sequel picks up a couple of years after Arthur Fleck dons the well-known persona. He has killed six people and is about to face his trial. He is incarcerated at Arkham Asylum, where he meets another patient named Harleen Quinzel, known as Lee, and enjoys a disturbing romance. In his imaginings, he is suddenly breaking out into song, and strange, demented musical numbers commence. Anyway, the Joker has gotten a fanbase due to his disdain for the government and the system which often exacerbates the sufferings of the downtrodden. His lawyer wants him to lean into his delusional tendencies so that she can get him off on an insanity plea. Lee wants to see more of the Joker identity and is encouraging Arthur’s more destructive proclivities. The trial is looming, and Arthur will have to decide whether or not fully embrace the Joker.
This has had a tough opening, and the overall reviews have not been kind. I have to admit I was a bit more drawn to it than I anticipated. Phoenix and Lady Gaga really are compelling together. I do sympathize with the critics in that some of musical interludes were rather distracting. Also, there is not that much action. There is a rather surprising twist at the end, however I recognized that twist from another iteration of the series. Of course, part of the problem is that the Joker really works best when he is actually having to contend with a certain batlike vigilante.
Phillips was going for a rather complicated character study and bring some attention to the failing of the mental health systems.
The charisma of the two leads does a lot to hold my attention in a sometimes rather slow story. It’s an interesting effort from Phillips to add his take on the legendary adversary of Batman.
Even though I can appreciate the efforts to try something rather creative and different, I found myself not entirely disagreeing with the criticisms from the professional reviewers.
Lady Gaga was a good choice as the female lead. She got to display her singing talents, and I have no objection to that. Phoenix seemed to not have any real difficulty picking up where he left off in his portrayal of his take on the Joker.
The film was not a total dud, Phillips would likely have done everyone a favor by letting the previous film stand alone.
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