“Field of Bones” is the latest crime novel by J.A. Jance and features Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County, Arizona.  Life has changed considerably for Joanna in recent years. She has married for the second time and has given birth to her third child after tragically losing her mother and step-father no long before.  Her husband is finding some success as a mystery writer and goes on a book tour while she is on maternity leave.  While she is out, a headstrong mother brings in he soon to turn in a human skull that was found in a field.  An investigation turns up the remains of several people in this field.

In the meantime, a young girl is held in captivity by a depraved monster who wants to be known as the Boss.  Brady does her best to let her people handle these new challenges, however there is a reason the series bears her name.

Jance actually reveals her villain pretty early so there isn’t much that is a real mystery to the reader.  The story introduced a couple of new characters I hope are seen again in future installments.  It’s a fine continuation of a solid series with an admirable protagonist who overcomes some tragic events in her life with the help of charming colleagues and a noble purpose to protect her community.  It was sort of interesting to see Brady sidelined a little throughout this novel by her maternity leave and obligations to the homestead.  Some of the other characters got to shine a little more, including a new deputy who ends up showing some grit when he is injured in a shoot-out and having to care for a traumatized girl, who in turn saves his life.

Jance has been in this business for a long time and still is capable of telling a pretty compelling story and still manages to keep Joanna Brady exceedingly honorable and relatable at the same time.  Jance has given Joanna Brady more than her share of sometimes unbelievable and inexplicable tragedy, but she also has created a world where the friendships and comradery she has with her friends and colleagues still seem genuine and something to admire.  Anyway, I have been a long-time reader of J.A. Jance, and this novel was more than sufficient to keep me interested in her upcoming releases.

The next reading indulgence will be a new author to me with “An Unkindness of Ghosts” by Rivers Solomon.

 

“The Green-Eyed Blonde” is a drama film released in 1957 and directed by Bernard Girard.  The writing credit is sort of interesting.  A fellow named Dalton Trumbo wrote it under the name of Sally Stubblefield.  He was alleged to have had some Communist sympathies and was blacklisted by the Hollywood industry and yet was still able to provide some scripts under some pseudonyms.

The film’s cast includes Susan Oliver, Beverly Long, Melinda Plowman.  I really know nothing about anyone in this film, which could make this a little more interesting, however it didn’t really help me stay tuned to this one easily.

It takes place at some kind of girl’s reform school.  One of the residents turns up with a baby who is about be placed in foster care.  The girls led by the pretty and rebellious blonde decide to hide the baby in their dorm.  Oliver plays the title character, but the child does not belong to her.  She does have a boyfriend on parole, so I suppose that makes her somewhat compelling…apparently.

I am not sure of the popularity of this film when it was initially released, however I did not find this to be all that riveting.  There are a few somewhat interesting performances such as the sympathetic matron played by Sally Brophy.  The song that was performed over the credits was pretty dire.  Other viewers may find more value in this effort, but I was not that impressed when it was said and done.

“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” is a spin-off action film  of the “Fast & Furious” franchise just in case the full title wasn’t a dead giveaway.  Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprise their roles as Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, respectively, in their very own ridiculous action cinematic extravaganza written by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce and directed by David Leitch. Idris Elba plays the superhuman bad guy with the unlikely name of Brixton Lore.  Of course, there has to be a killer of a pretty girl, this time in the shape of Vanessa Kirby, who joins the boys as Shaw’s sister, Hattie.  Helen Mirren turns up with a couple of other somewhat surprising cameos.

Time for a full confession. I have not really gotten into this franchise as a whole.  I missed the first movie several years ago and never tried to catch up.

So there is some super virus that everyone is fighting for and is coursing through the veins of Hattie Shaw.  Hobbs and Shaw can’t stand each other and have to work together to save the little sister, who is also in the spy business, and of course the world from some secret organization known as Eteon.

The storyline is a bit of a mess, however the charisma and chemistry between the leads is more than enough to still make this reasonably enjoyable.  Kirby is quite a surprising find here.  She looks great during her own action moments.  She has no trouble keeping up with the witty banter of Statham and Johnson.  Elba is as compelling as always even when spewing some fairly cheesy lines.  This is really just the ultimate mindless popcorn flick, but with a bit more talent in the writing and choreography.  Of course, this one requires a significant amount of suspension of disbelief, but the humor and charm displayed by the cast did help me get on board.  I hope Kirby shows up again in this franchise.  She not only looks great, but she is a scene stealer, which doesn’t seem all that easy when it comes to Statham and Johnson together.

Anyway, don’t try all that hard to make sense of the plot, and there is plenty of pleasant diversion to be found in this piece.

“Wayfaring Stranger” could probably be considered a crime novel primarily, but author James Lee Burke doesn’t make it easy to classify this one.  I haven’t read many of Burke’s works, but he is largely known for the series of mysteries featuring Dave Robicheaux.  He also writes about a family named Holland.  Weldon Harland is the protagonist on this particular novel.  The reader first meets him as a sixteen year-old who lives with his  mother and cantankerous grandfather, Hackberry Holland, a former lawman with a past as wild as his name.  This starts off in Texas not long before the beginning of the Second World War where Weldon meets the lethal lovebirds known as Bonnie and Clyde.

Weldon later goes off to fight in the war and rescues a woman from a Nazi concentration camp and marries her.  Just when one would think his life would go easier after the war, Weldon’s efforts to break into the oil business introduce him to a different and more insidious type of corruption and dark motives.

The characters here turn out to be quite complicated and layered.  Weldon is a man who can fight in a war and sometimes thinks he can act as ruthlessly as those out to bedevil him.  Although he may at times hesitate more than is necessarily wise when dealing with people without scruples, he does not come off as a coward.  He is a man who wants to honor and protect his wife whose Jewish background tends to bring suspicious and abuse to their doorstep.  Weldon’s best friend is a fellow soldier who fell for the wrong woman.  A wealthy would-be benefactor is also someone who he may not be able to trust easily.

Almost all of it works quite nicely.  Burke does have a somewhat distracting style of shifting from first to third person, but the novel still kept me engaged.  There is a kind of gritty eloquence in his style of prose.  This novel is part of a series but it works quite well on its own.

The next literary destination is going to be the sun-drenched landscape of Cochise County, Arizona where Sheriff Joanna Brady has another killer to find just after giving birth to a new child in “Field of Bones” by J.A. Jance.

“The Rosemariners” is a Doctor Who audio play released from Big Finish Productions and is from the Lost Stories Range.  Donald Tosh is the writer for this installment which features Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury as they narrate as well as reprise their roles as Jamie and Zoe.  Hines once again stands in for the late Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor.  There is not a large guest cast here, but it’s still an impressive one that has science fiction icon, David Warner, and Clive Wood.

The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe arrive aboard another seemingly deserted space lab.  They have a tendency to wander into these kind of settings, especially in the Second Doctor era.  The space station is in orbit over a planet known as Rose Damascena and is actually about to be shut down with the staff being relocated.  The Doctor and his friends meet Professor Briggs and quickly learn that a commander named Rugosa has a few dangerous secrets involving the indigenous population on the planet below.

It turned out to be a fairly good story, but I didn’t find it to be all that unique.  Fortunately, the performances of the Hines and Padbury help considerably.  Hines’ still manages to capture the spirit of the Second Doctor quite well.  Warner was quite good as well, but he always seems to provide a certain gravitas.  The story also involved killer plants, which also has been used quite a few times in the series.

It’s one of those stories in which the history of it almost being on television and the performances make this a worthwhile listen.  It is not really a terrible episode, but that may be because of the strength of the performances more than a stellar plot.

“Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood” is the latest Quentin Tarantino film in which he both wrote and directed, as usual.  Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are at the center of this unique reintroduction to 1969, Sharon Tate, and the Manson Family.  Margot Robbie plays the late Sharon Tate.  Al Pacino is in this one with Kurt Russell along serving in a minor role as a stunt coordinator and narrator.  Dakota Fanning plays Squeaky Fromme. All kinds of occasionally surprising talent shows up here, which is a staple of a Tarantino flick.

DiCaprio plays an aging actor of mostly western television who is concerned that his Hollywood career is winding down.  He is usually in the company of best pal and stunt double, Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt.  Rick Dalton is the name of this rather amusingly temperamental actor.  I have to say, I love the names of these two guys.  Dalton lives next door to the Tate and Polanski residence in 1969.  Booth has an encounter with members of the Manson Family.

This is Tarantino, so his depiction here isn’t historically accurate.  In fact he ignores the history almost entirely, although there are some interesting tidbits of Hollywood history that do make its way in this piece.  I would encourage readers to take a gander of the Wikipedia page about this film to get a better idea of what I am referring to.

There’s a quite a bit of traditional Tarantino trappings;  lots of swearing, copious amounts of blood splattering, and jarring time jumps at times.  If it sounds like I am being critical of this film, here’s my twist.  I think this is one of his better releases.  I struggled a little bit with getting hooked in at the beginning, however it does get better.  I am not a rabid Tarantino fan, but I do find myself interested when I learn he has something new coming out, and I do find him to be one of more unique and creative filmmakers out there.  There wasn’t much in the way of cliché predictability here in spite of it being based on real events and real people at the time.  I ended up getting very invested in the main characters played by DiCaprio and Pitt.  Pitt’s portrayal of Booth had just the right amount of swagger that kept me hooked, especially when he is at Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his family were staying at one time.  Bruce Dern is also there with his portrayal of George Spahn, who I had just read was initially going to be played by the late Burt Reynolds.

The performances were all quite good.  The recently deceased Luke Perry was there which brought a tinge of sorrow to see one of his final performances.

The film isn’t for the more sensitive of viewers, but it captures the setting of 1969 Hollywood quite convincingly.  The characters ended up being quite engaging even if the movie has a few slow moments.  The soundtrack was great as well.  Sometimes, the flashbacks and time jumps could have been handled better, but overall the movie was more enjoyable than I expected.

 

“Ravenous 2” is a Doctor Who audio boxset from Big Finish Productions and stars Paul McGann alongside Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, with Mark Bonnar returning as the extra crazy Time Lords known as the Eleven.  There are four episodes which propels the Doctor into further encounters with legendary creatures and old adversaries.  This is also first time the Doctor actually confronts the Ravenous for the first time.  The Ravenous lives up to its or their name by always needing a snack.  The favorite item on the menu is a Time Lord, of course.

Matt Fitton starts off this collection with “Escape From Kaldor” in which the Doctor brings his companions to Kaldor City where Nicola Walker’s Liv Chenka has a reunion with an estranged sister.  Also, some very familiar automatons are on hand.  The Robots of Death are back at it with their defying their programming and causing all kinds of mayhem.  Hattie Morahan has rejoined the TARDIS crew as Helen Sinclair after she was rescued from the Eleven.  Claire Rushbrook has a guest role as Liv’s sister, Tula Chenka and does well.  It’s a pretty strong start for this set, but it gets better.

John Dorney writes a two part adventure starting with “Better Watch Out” where the Doctor brings his friends to Salzburg to celebrate Christmas, however as expected with the Doctor being on site, something else has other plans.  People are suffering in spite of the holiday season, and the legendary Krampus has been unleashed.  The Doctor and his companions get separated which leads into Dorney’s “Fairytale of Salzburg” where another legendary figure is found to oppose the will of the Krampus.  This one has some great performances, however I was once again not all that clear as to what was going on during some of the action sequences.  There are some interesting twists and revelations at the end though.  McGann puts in his usual compelling performance.  It was pretty fun to explore the Christmas legends and traditions of another culture as only Doctor Who can.

“Seizure” by Guy Adams concludes this particular piece of the audio journey.  The Doctor and his two friends answer a distress call from everyone’s favorite psychotic and schizophrenic Time Lord known as the Eleven.  The Eleven has the unique affliction  of coping with all of his previous incarnations’ personalities at once.  The Doctor find him aboard a crippled TARDIS on the verge of death.  A ghostly presence is also lurking in the shadows.  A much more corporeal and Ravenous presence also is there to greet the travelers.  This is one of my favorite types of Who takes with the crew trapped in an isolated claustrophobic setting with a ruthlessly insatiable creature stalking our heroes.  Although all four of the episodes got the job done, I think this final one for this set is my favorite.

I enjoyed this set well enough, but I expect that I will be anticipating the next volume more now that the Ravenous has been properly confronted.

“The Lion King” has been remade as a more live action CGI-laden film by Disney.  Jon Favreau is the director with Jeff Nathanson the credited writer. It is based on the script originally penned  by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. The voice talent includes Donald Glover, Alfre Woodard, Seth Rogen, and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. James Earl Jones returns to voice Mustafa, which he performed in the 1994 animated film by well…Disney.

Glover voices the adult Simba, the lion prince who wandered off after his father’s demise which allowed his cruel uncle Scar, voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor, to take over the pride and decimates the land.

The visual effects and scenery were quite spectacular as expected.  No one really put in a bad performance, which is good.  The comic relief between Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner, as Pumbaa and Timon, worked well enough.  Pumbaa is a warthog while Timon is a meerkat, in case anyone forgot.

There was not much wrong with the movie, however it was basically an almost complete retread of the 1994 animated version.  There are some elements to marvel at, however it falls short in the originality department.  The whole thing just feels unnecessary. although it’s still a reasonably entertaining unnecessity.

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” was originally written by Victor Hugo and first published in 1831. It has undergone countless adaptations on both stage, screen, and radio.  The cast of Amarillo Little Theater Academy went with the musical adaptation by Peter Parnell with music and lyrics provided by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.

I don’t usually attend plays, although I have aspirations of doing better with that.  I reside in Amarillo, Texas which is actually home to a pretty impressive theater community.  The production I saw last night featured the cast from the ALT Academy under the direction of Jason Crespin.  It was a very young cast, but that’s no reason to underestimate the formidability of their commitment to their performance.  Although there were a couple of moments where I was pulled out of setting of 15th Century Paris by some problematic choreography of the fight scenes, I was able to sit back and go with the flow.  As far as the fight scenes go though, I get it.  No one needs to see a high school kid get whacked accidentally even with a fake sword.  I think one can chalk that up to just trying to find the right balance between safety and art as well. Even the most dedicated performer should balk at losing an eye over a community theater production.

A young actor named Bradley Hurt was cast as the deformed bell-ringer, Quasimodo, and I found myself really enjoying his take on it once I got used to how he shifted his performance from the moments when he was by himself and talking to the statues that kept him company in the bell tower of Notre Tower and to when he had to interact with the other characters.  It’s a musical, so Hurt turned out to have a pretty solid singing voice, at least to my amateur estimation.  When he was out of his own imagination and talking to those in the real world, he had a pretty effective rasp and cadence that was quite convincing.  I also had little trouble understanding him, and I was sitting near the back.  He had hair that kept flopping his face when he put on a more pronounced hunch and shuffle, so that was mildly distracting.  Hurt still manages to be engaging in his performance in both his singing and acting.

Quasimodo’s guardian is Dom Claude Frollo, played by Kayden Burns. Frollo is the power-hungry Archdeacon of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and uses scripture and other people’s faith and desperation to his own advantages.  A villain who is a bit cliche’ but that’s not the fault of the actor.  Burns does give Frollo a pretty nasty edge that is convincing.  Burns does appear to be one of the older cast members here. By older, I mean he is probably a bit further along in his twenties than the others. As mentioned, the other main actors were probably in high school.  I hope I’m not wrong about my estimation of Burns’ more mature look.  Anyway, he’s appropriately loathsome in his role which would probably earn him an appropriate “Great job!” from his director.

The spirited and gorgeous gypsy at the center of the discord with Quasimodo, Frollo, and a smitten guard captain played by Ethan Worsham, is Esmeralda, being performed by Alexis Bodkin.  I could buy into Bodkin being an exotic gypsy, at least from my seat in the back of the venue.  She also put forth a strong performance in both her acting and singing.

The costumes were quite good.  I thought the gypsies, in particular looked great. Tre Butcher plays the gypsy leader, Clopin, and does quite well himself.

I have no real issue with the performances.  The songs were quite well performed by the extras, but that is not surprising for ALT production. I have been to a few of their performances and have yet to catch anything that bothered me unforgivably.

I was more amused than really annoyed, but the a couple of more intimate or romantic moments did not quite look all that natural.  I suspect that was because of the perfectly understandable reluctance to encourage overly amorous behavior among the cast members.  It was one of those moments I noticed it, but I also got why it was there.  Truth be told, I probably would have been blushing considerably if those moments looked more authentic since the players are so young.

Anyway, I wish I could encourage people to see this particular production, but there is only one more performance scheduled on the day I am writing this blog.  What I can do though is encourage those in the Texas Panhandle to keep an eye on what ALT and the Academy are doing in the upcoming seasons and catch some shows.  I was really glad I took the time to have a fairly unique evening out for me and support an important piece of local performing arts at the same time.

“The Tattooed Stranger” is a crime film released in 1950 about New York police detectives trying to solve a series of murders that begins with an unidentified woman with a distinctive tattoo.  Edward Montagne directed this not so much of a masterpiece written by Philip H. Reisman Jr.  The cast includes John Miles, Patricia Barry, and Walter Kinsella.  Jack Lord, who later starred in “Dragnet”, also has a minor role here.

There are a few interesting facts about this film that make it more interesting than the actual plot.  During that time, it was one of the few films shot on location in New York City.  There is a heavy emphasis on the forensics angle.  The detective played by Miles is actually a forensics expert.  Kinsella plays the mentor cop.  There’s a pretty girl whose knowledge of botany becomes important.

It’s unfortunate to say, but I had a hard time with getting interested in this one.  The acting seemed pretty stilted, which isn’t unusual for this era of cinema, however I noticed it a bit more this time.

The effort to depict some authentic seeming police work is appreciated, but the film just dragged at times. The film doesn’t have a long running time, but I couldn’t wait to reach the end of this thing.  I get where the filmmakers wanted to go with this, but it just couldn’t keep my interest in spite of my affection for this genre of film.