“Slumber” is a horror film that was released in 2017.  Jonathan Hopkins directed this thing which he co-wrote with Richard Hobley.  I don’t know who these guys are, but I do know of some of the cast members such as Maggie Q and Sam Troughton.  I definitely know who Sylvester McCoy is, and was it was pretty fun to see him.  McCoy, of course, is best known as the Seventh Doctor in “Doctor Who”.

Maggie Q plays a sleep doctor who lost her brother in her childhood under some very unusual tragic circumstances.  A family come in to consult her after their son faces some terrible nightmares.  The other family members start sleepwalking and doing other disturbing things.  So there is this demon or entity called a nocnitsa, which can be found in Wikipedia believe it or not, that’s really the cause of this family’s bizarre sleeping woes.  It also is the cause of the sleep doctor’s tragic past.

McCoy plays some eccentric old man who turns up in the movie who has a history with this thing known also as a Night Hag.   He overacts a bit, but I am used to it.  It’s still great to see him.

It’s a horror film, so there is a lot to overlook and forgive here a bit to gain some kind of enjoyment.  It’s actually not too bad.  It’s not any sort of must-see either, unless you’re a hopeless Doctor Who enthusiast.  For some of us who find some amusement out of B horror flicks, it works just fine.  If you just stumble across it on a slow evening, it serves its purpose as a meaningless diversion especially with a friend who has strange tastes as well, but no need to go out of your way to watch it unless, of course, you’re the aforementioned “Doctor Who” fan who gets a kick out of Sylvester McCoy showing up in surprising projects.

“Us” is the latest horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele.  Lupita Nyong’o stars alongside Winston Duke as a married couple who are taking their children on vacation that turns into a bizarre encounter with deranged and distorted versions of themselves.

The films starts off with a flashback to 1986 where Adelaide Wilson has a very troubling encounter when out with her parents at a carnival on the beaches of Santa Cruz.  Adelaide has grown up, married, and has her own family but is still haunted by her experience over thirty years before.

This is a film with quite a bit of clever originality to it but still leaves some loose threads. Lupita Nyong’o does put in a pretty convincing performance on the lead role as both the protective yet terrified mother as well as the doppelganger.  I get that she was the lead role, but I think the father, played by Winston Duke, could have been created as less of a doofus.  He has his moments of courage, I suppose, but sometimes he just stumbled his way through whatever peril he encounters by dumb luck.  Duke’s role is supposed to be kind of an everyman, but I would have liked to have something there where I was better convinced as to how Adelaide fell for this guy and started a family with him.

There are some of the standard moments designed to startle, and I was often quite startled.  I thought the two children played by Shahadi Wright and Evan Alex were pretty well cast.  Wright’s Zora Wilson had just the right amount of teenage sass without being unlikeable.  Even the young Jason Wright got some moments to show some courage and cleverness throughout the film.  Both performed their darker roles quite well.  Wright  had an appropriately creepy grin when playing the doppelganger.

One of the other issues I had was that some of the gallows humor Peele tried to inject throughout didn’t quite land right at the moment it was being delivered.  I wasn’t sure if he was trying for some kind of black comedy or what at times.  Not all of it missed the mark though, in my view.  There were times I was sort of in on the joke.

There was this other family with whom the Wrights were friends that seemed a little odd to me.  Tim Heldecker plays the patriarch of the Tyler family and just seemed to be more of an obnoxious caricature.  He just seems to be the obligatory buddy who really wouldn’t have been missed. I just didn’t care about the family’s fate when it came about.

There’s a lot in this movie that works well enough even if it is a strange one.  I also think this is a hard genre to play in at times.  I do appreciate that Peele is going for something with more originality than what we viewers usually get, so he should continue that effort.  For the most part, he does succeed in being interesting and stoking some curiosity when he has something else coming out.

The film does have a pretty solid cast and some creativity in the storytelling.  In spite of some annoying flaws, I would still count as one of the better horror films I have seen in recent years.

“An Interview With God” is a film that was released last year.  Perry Lang is the director of this piece written by Ken Aguado. Brenton Thwaites plays Paul Asher, a journalist who recently worked as a war correspondent coming home to a crumbling marriage, with the unique opportunity to use his gifts to get some answers from the Almighty.  David Straitharn has the daunting task of portraying God and handles it pretty convincingly.  Morgan Freeman is considered one of the most recent definitive cinematic representations of God, but I also liked Straitharn’s version.

The set-up is that Paul has three meetings scheduled with this unassuming gentleman who claims to be God.  He has thirty minutes to ask whatever question he wants each session.  He also demonstrates the resistance many of us tend to exhibit when God wants to help us through difficulty and tragedy.

A lot of Christian films of this sort tend to be burdened with some clunky dialogue. Although this film isn’t entirely free of that, it does have some very compelling moments and a few interesting twists as to what is really going on in Asher’s troubled personal life.

God does have the somewhat frustrating technique of answering questions with questions in this one, but it doesn’t fail to hit home.  This is one of the more poignant efforts to encourage knowledge of Scripture and to stay engaged with God.

The film does get into the common but often short-sighted questions such as why bad things happen to good people but still manages to not try to leave at one pat answer.

This isn’t a film with a large budget obviously, but of course it doesn’t need it.  Christian films can come off as a little naïve and simplistic at times, however this one has a little more complexity to it.

I don’t know this film hits the bulls-eye for this genre, but I don’t know if any film does that for any genre anymore.  I was glad that I took the time to watch this one.

“Crimson Lake” is a crime novel written by Candice Fox and has a couple of very unusual protagonists.  It is told from the perspective of Ted Conkaffey, a former detective from Sydney, who has fled to northern part of Australia after being released from prison. Conkaffey has been accused of the violent kidnapping of a young girl.  He managed to avoid a conviction, but he was not acquitted either.  His situation has been left in a peculiar sort of limbo that does nothing to ease the suspicion of the public.

Conkaffey is directed to a rather eccentric private investigator named Amanda Pharrell. Amanda Pharrell has the distinct stigma of being a convicted murderer when she was a juvenile.  Amanda has been hired to find a beloved author who has disappeared and could use a little help.  Of course, they are each rather fascinated by the other’s legal situation.

A lot of elements in the story hinges on quite a bit of coincidence and circumstance, however the main characters were pretty interesting.  Amanda comes off as a bit nuts, frankly, however she still is likeable and interesting.  Conkaffey has to also contend with disgruntled residents not too pleased to have a suspected kidnapper and pedophile as a neighbor.  The local law enforcement isn’t too welcoming either even if he was a fellow officer at one time.

This turned out to be a pretty engaging crime novel.  The two protagonists are social outcasts.  Pharrell is quite experienced with navigating her way through the suspicion and scrutiny from the public following her release from prison.  Conkaffey is still new to this unwanted attention.  It’s an interesting dynamic between the two of them.

There is little that is original about the actual main plot and the other character, but Fox is a decent enough writer to keep me hooked in.

I wish I had gotten some better descriptions of what life in Australia was like in this story, but it is a crime novel.  Having detectives and solving a crime is really the primary purpose.  I believe this is Fox’s first novel, however it’s a pretty strong effort.

In short, I liked this one well enough to keep my eye out for the follow-up.

Time for a little reflection and potential self-improvement as I next delve into a book that has caused some discussion and angst for others.  Jordan B. Peterson has decided to relate his “12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos”, and I have decided to finally learn them.

“Maigret Sets A Trap” is the beginning of a very short-lived British mystery series from ITV.  Rowan Atkinson, best known as Mr. Bean, is the latest to take on the role of Jules Maigret, the Parisian detective initially created by author Georges Simenon.  This episode was adapted by Stephen Harcourt and directed by Ashley Pearce. The series ended up being comprised of four ninety minutes episodes.

This episode begins with Maigret working to identify a serial killer who already has a body count of four dark-haired women left on the streets of Paris .  Pressure from the higher-ups in his department compel him to use police women as bait.

Atkinson is a talented performer, however he stayed largely on one note as the seasoned investigator.  I am not sure if that is Atkinson’s interpretation or if Maigret comes off as this bland in the original canon.  I may go ahead and try one of the novels out anyway.

The tension toward the end as Maigret closes in on a confession was kind of interesting. Much of this was pretty slow,  but British mysteries aren’t really known for bombastic action sequences.

The setting of 1950’s Paris was well depicted even though I just read that the scenes were actually filmed in Budapest and Hungary.

I was a little underwhelmed by this introduction to this latest iteration of Maigret.  It was still interesting to see Atkinson is a much more serious role this time around.  I actually have some affection for Atkinson so I hesitate to place all the blame for my reservations on his shoulder.

I will watch the remaining episodes to see if this could have gotten better.  It could be that Atkinson is too typecast to be easily believable as a formidable French detective, but I hope he continues to take on more atypical roles even if this particular one may not have worked out as he hoped.  The shadow of Mr. Bean is still quite long indeed.

 

“The Kid” is a western film directed by Vincent D’Onofrio.  Andrew Lanham is the scriptwriter.  Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHann, Jake Schur, and Chris Pratt are part of the pretty impressive cast.

Jake Schur plays a boy named Rio who flees from a vengeful uncle with his older sister after killing his father who was in turn beating his mother to death.  Pratt plays the ruthless uncle.  He isn’t necessarily bad in the part, but I had some trouble buying it. Pratt just doesn’t look all that convincing as a villain no matter how much of scraggly heard he grows.

Schur is pretty good and carries the film well enough.  Leila George plays the older sister. Neither of these actors I am familiar with, but they seemed to be cast well enough.

Hawke takes on the role of legendary lawman Pat Garrett, who is known for ending the escapades of young William Bonney or Henry McCarty, okay…it’s Billy the Kid.  I was just showing off what I learned on Wikipedia.

The film has a talented cast, some competent camera work, and an interesting premise.  It just didn’t work for me all that much.  The writing was okay, but it was just okay.

It’s rather strange that I felt so underwhelmed by the film in the end.  One of the issues that I noticed that some of the scenes didn’t transition all that smoothly.  It took me a few more beats than necessary to mentally catch up to where some of the scenes were taking place, and I don’t think it was just me being slow on the uptake.

It ended up not being terrible when it’s all said and done, but it isn’t going to be one that stays in my memory for very long past the weekend.

“The Guardians of Prophecy” is a Doctor Who audio play released by Big Finish Productions is one of the Lost Stories episodes produced in 2012.  Jonathan Morris adapted the original script from Johnny Byrne and did so quite nicely.  Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant are the leads in this pretty entertaining tale which is meant to be a sequel to the television serial “The Keeper of Traken”, which starred Tom Baker.

The planet Serenity is the last world of the Traken Union that survived the destructive force unleashed by the renegade Time Lord known as the Master.  The Doctor and Peri are forced onto the planet where they encounter tomb raiders and the evil beings known as the Melkur.  The Melkur are dormant on a planet such as Serenity and can awaken when another evil force gives the green light.  In this case, an ancient and sleeping being known as Malador will be the catalyst.  Stephen Thorn provides the menacing vocal performance when the malevolent Malador arises and does so quite compentently.  Thorn actually has a well-established history with providing his talents to megalomaniacal powerhouse villains in Doctor Who.  He performed in such classic television serials such as the “The Three Doctors” and “The Daemons”.  Thorn has a distinctive voice which serves this story quite nicely as well.

I am not the most enthusiastic of fans when it comes to revisiting old stories or villains which appeared only once before in the series, however this one was done was quite effectively.  At the risk of being repetitive, Colin Baker’s performance as the Sixth Doctor remains as energetic and compelling as ever in this one.  Even when revisiting somewhat what would have been the more acerbic television version of this particular incarnation, Big Finish does a much better of making him much more likeable.  Even Peri is a companion who I have come to miss when Big Finish goes a while without having her paired with the Doctor.

Graham Cole had a pretty amusing role as renowned safecracker Ebbka. Really, the guest cast all handled their various parts quite well.  I can’t think of anyone who I thought was a bit of a weak link when it came to the performers.

I had some minor trouble with Malador in that there was a certain lack of originality in his presence.  He just seemed like type of villain I have heard a little too often at times.  Of course, I sometimes find the idea of characters like this vocalizing their appreciation for Evil a little strange.  Most people who carry out dastardly deeds seem to excuse it somehow or make themselves the victims in their own head.  Even the people most recognized as evil don’t seem to actually see themselves as some epitome of Evil.  Doctor Who is pretty strange overall, so I guess I should be more forgiving, however that mentality of Malador just sort of stuck out to me, and I think a little better effort could have helped him stand out more.

In spite of that, there was still quite a lot of enjoyment I found in this episode.  It still seems to have other complexities and layers in the writing and character development that makes it easy to appreciate.

I will also mention that the scene where Malador psychically tortures another character to death was performed a little too well.  That was quite chilling, and it takes quite a bit to rattle me.

This episode had a couple of blemishes, in my opinion, but nothing that really dampened by enjoyment to any significant degree.

 

“Devil in the Mist” is a Doctor Who audio play released by Big Finish Productions.  Cavan Scott is the author who was able to bring back the shape-shifting android known as Kamelion.  Peter Davison is joined by Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson with versatile voice impressionist Jon Culshaw joining the crew as Kamelion.

The Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, and Kamelion find themselves aboard a prison ship where the sole inmate known as Nustanu has the unique ability to transform into mist.  Nustanu is under the watchful eye of two alien guards who resemble the hippopotamus, however it all goes a bit wrong when they crash on a planet and the prisoner makes hi escape.  The Doctor suffers a grievous while Tegan is separated from her friends and has to contend with Kamelion.  Kamelion has the rather unfortunate problem of being easily influenced by the strongest personality nearby.  He was first encountered in the television serial “The King’s Demon” and met a tragic end in “Planet of Fire”. Big Finish has decided to provide some new adventures for the hapless android.

Simon Slater pus in an effective performance as the former warlord with the dangerous talent of transforming into mist.  Anjella Mackintosh and John Voce are the two guards, known as Orna and Rako, respectively.

This actually turned out to be quite compelling.  The Doctor coping with paralysis is not something that has been explored before.  Tegan gets a pretty good opportunity shine as well.  The realization of Kamelion was pretty well handled as well.  It isn’t surprising that Culshaw would do well.  He is quite the performing veteran and is well known for his uncanny impressions.

Davison is quite good as well in this one.  His chemistry with Fielding and Strickson has not waned at all.

It was hard to imagine aliens who resemble hippos in this one since there was not much of a voice modulation, but the twists and turns the story takes keeps me from minding that too much.

This episode is a strong start to the monthly range of 2019.

“Gorky Park” is a thriller by Martin Cruz Smith which brought Russian homicide investigator Arkady Renko to literary life.  It starts off with Renko being called out to a scene where three corpses are found in the frozen landscape of Gorky Park.

Renko finds a much more complicated situation when the brother of one of the victims arrives on a mission of revenge.  He is also getting enmeshed in the machinations of the KGB and a millionaire fur dealer from America.  His marriage is collapsing as he is falling in love with a beautiful dissident with a ruthless streak.

This book was published in 1981 and has all kinds of glowing reviews.  It was adapted into a movie, starring William Hurt, a couple of years later.  I actually had some trouble staying interested in this one.  It got to be somewhat too complicated for my taste as far as the plot goes.  I didn’t find Renko all that interesting or unique as a main character. Even though the setting was somewhat exotic, I didn’t really get drawn into anything special about Moscow or the culture there.  It was just navigating through one gruesome death after another and shifting alliances.  I made it through the book and was glad to read it in some ways.  In other ways, I just had a hard time caring the deeper the story got after the initial murders.

I can’t say that Michael Cruz Smith is a terrible writer, but it seems that his style of prose just fails to resonate in any memorable way with me.

I will next try out a new writer, to me anyway, with Candice Fox’s “Crimson Lake”, which apparently will be taking place in Australia.  Hopefully, this is will turn out to be a newly discovered literary gem for me.

“Captain Marvel” is the latest cinematic release from Marvel Studios.  Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck directed this film which they co-wrote alongside Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Brie Larson tales on the title role alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, Jude Law, and Annette Benning.

The movie starts off with the introduction of a Starforce member named Vers who is in service to protect the Kree Empire.  When a mission brings her to 1995 Earth, she meets Nick Fury and Phil Coulson of SHIELD an is even more baffled to find memories being stoked of a prior life as Carol Danvers, an Air Force pilot who had been presumed dead six years earlier.  Carol brings an impressive array of superpowers with her but has no memory of how she acquired them.  She also finds that her real home has been caught between a conflict between the Kree and another race known as the Skrull, but it no longer becomes clear which side she should be on for a time.

Captain Marvel suffers a bit from seeming too invulnerable.  Once she masters her abilities, the villains really don’t seem to be that much of a threat, which rather removes any sense of real tension.  Jude Law plays her mentor initially, named Yon-Rogg, however it doesn’t take long to realize that he has a darker agenda.  Jackson ends up, rather unsurprisingly, being the best addition to the cast.  He has been playing Fury for quite a few years in the Marvel films, but the audience gets to see a younger and less cynical version.  Larson is fine, I suppose.  I don’t think the writing really served her talents all that effectively.  She has a few amusing lines, but her delivery seemed a bit off to me.  It took me quite a while to get all that engaged by her performance.  There just seemed something to be rather by the numbers in this latest superhero origin story.

The visual effects were pretty spectacular, but that is getting to be pretty par for the course in these installments.  I just found the whole experience to be rather bland overall.  Jackson is always good, but he was merely a major reason why I didn’t dislike this movie more, but that shouldn’t be the goal of any actor in any film.

It’s a very uneven movie that left me vacillating between finding it tolerable and agreeing with other criticisms I had heard.  It works well enough as part of the Marvel film series for the most part, but it ended up merely being not that bad where it should have been better.