Faithless in Death

Faithless in Death (In Death #52)

By:

J.D. Robb

Blurb:

The scene in the West Village studio appears to be classic crime-of-passion: two wine glasses by the bed, music playing, and a young sculptor named Ariel Byrd with the back of her head bashed in. But when Dallas tracks down the wealthy Upper East Side woman who called 911, the details don’t add up. Gwen Huffman is wealthy, elegant, comforted by her handsome fiancé as she sheds tears over the trauma of finding the body–but why did it take an hour to report it? And why is she lying about little things?

As Eve and her team look into Gwen, her past, and the people around her, they find that the lies are about more than murder. As with sculpture, they need to chip away at the layers of deception to find the shape within–and soon they’re getting the FBI involved in a case that involves a sinister, fanatical group and a stunning criminal conspiracy.

Review:

Alright, book number fifty-two in the In Death series, Faithless in Death. Once again, Roberts delivers a great futuristic mystery with just the right amount of personal life progression. Eve and Roarke’s relationship is going great. Peabody and Mavis are brought up. Mira is there. Everyone gets their moment, and that always makes me happy.

A little while back, some people had issues with Roberts because of the casting of Alyssa Milano in an upcoming movie adaption of her book Brazen Virtue. Milano has been pretty vocal about her politics, and people were not happy with her. Roberts made a statement confirming, for anyone who’s never actually paid attention in her books, that she’s a liberal democrat. Now here’s the thing, I know that Faithless in Death was written long before this whole thing happened, but it honestly felt like a huge sign to those people that they were not represented in Roberts’s work. Well, not portrayed in a positive light. It was awesome.

The villain in Faithless in Death was a cult that I read as a mixture of Scientology and hardcore fundamentalist Christians and Trump supporters. There were digs throughout the book, and one of my absolute favorites is at the end, where Eve off-hand mentions that the Kentucky senator O’Donnell has been arrested and will be going to jail for a long time. Talk about a book boner that put a smile on my face for hours.

I wasn’t a fan of the previous book. I felt that it went too far into the police brutality zone. I was supposed to give it a pass because the bad guy had attacked Roarke and Eve, but I couldn’t do it. However, after fifty great books, I continued with the series. Oh, man, am I glad I did. I truly loved Faithless in Death, and I’m excited for the series to continue.

5/5

My Last Duchess

My Last Duchess (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #0.5)

By:

Eloise James

Blurb:

Hugo Wilde, the Duke of Lindow, has a drafty castle, eight naughty children—and no wife. Ophelia, Lady Astley, has a fine house, one well-behaved daughter—and no husband.

Hugo takes one look at Ophelia and loses his heart, but she doesn’t want more children or a castle. She takes one look at him and heads for her carriage.

Desperate to find a duchess, Hugo identifies an appropriate lady to woo. Yet when he meets Ophelia again, the duke realizes that he will marry her, or no one.

Now he faces the greatest challenge of his life.

He must convince Ophelia that their blazing sensuality, his exquisite castle, and his eight charming children add up to a match made in heaven.

When duke finds his duchess, can he win her heart?

Review:

My Last Duchess works as a standalone novella. You don’t have to have read the other books in the series to appreciate it. Just keep in mind that it’s shorter than your standard novel.

Often, with these novellas, there is a lot of fan service to the point where it’s confusing, but that was definitely not the case with My Last Duchess. It was a nice, spicy, love at first sight, romance about the parents of characters we’ve already met. I like those.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

Director:

John Carpenter

Writers:

Gary Goldman

David Z. Weinstein

W.D. Richter

Starring:

Kurt Russell

Kim Cattrall

Dennis Dun

James Hong

Victor Wong

Kate Burton

Donald Li

Blurb:

A rough-and-tumble trucker helps rescue his friend’s fiancée from an ancient sorcerer in a supernatural battle beneath Chinatown.

Thoughts:

I’ve only watched Big Trouble in Little China once before. I’d forgotten how crazy awesome it is. I’ve kind of only been paying half attention to a lot of the movies I’ve re-watched so far. I couldn’t do that with Big Trouble. There’s always something either funny or crazy going on, and it’s hard to look away. Especially since it’s not a movie, I’m very familiar with.

What makes the movie is that Jack, Kurt Russell, isn’t the hero. He’s an everyman thrust into a fantastic story and becomes a sidekick. He isn’t a joke and has his moments to shine, but he’s also not a savior, even if he did kill the bad guy in the end. He’s the movie’s main focus, but while he’s surviving, you see the other characters doing most of the heavy lifting. It’s, frankly, awesome. I’d love to see more movies like this, and if anyone has any recommendations, please post them in the comments.

Gracie, Kim Cattrall, comes off a bit manic. She’s constantly moving and has a positive energy even when talking about the potential end of the world. She’s smart and has a Lois Lane vibe. She gets herself in trouble but also gets herself out of it. She’s more capable than Jack.

Big Trouble in Little China was a financial flop. The studio had no idea how to market it because they didn’t understand it. For them, Russell was supposed to be the hero, but he clearly wasn’t, so they made Carpenter write something to “explain” the character. This is why we get the opening scene, which makes the least amount of sense in the entire movie. Thankfully, the film ended up finding its audience and now has a cult following.

I already want to re-watch Big Trouble. I’m kind of ashamed that I own it and have only seen it twice. It should be one of those movies I watch periodically throughout the year. It has many of the things I liked about Last Dragon. It has a large minority cast, weird fight scenes, and a heavy 80s influence. Only Big Trouble does it all, just a bit better. There is a huge 80s influence, but it’s done in all of the best ways. It’s easily in the top ten movies I’ve watched so far, quite possibly top five.

Moxie (2021)

Moxie (2021)

Director:

Amy Poehler

Writers:

Tamara Chestna

Dylan Meyer

Starring:

Hadley Robinson

Lauren Tsai

Alycia Pascual-Peña

Nico Hiraga

Blurb:

Fed up with the sexist and toxic status quo at her high school, a shy 16-year-old finds inspiration from her mother’s rebellious past and anonymously publishes a zine that sparks a school-wide, coming-of-rage revolution.

Review:

Listen, I am not a fan of young adult and high school centered media. Except, apparently, I am? Netflix has me watching and enjoying movies and TV shows set in high school, with Moxie being the most recent. It’s mind-boggling. I didn’t have a horrible experience in high school. I have just never liked angsty teens.

Moxie is about a school in Texas that has a problem with toxic masculinity. It isn’t until a new girl in school pushes back and inspires another girl that things start to change, though. Everything bad that happens in this movie is entirely too believable. What I love, though, is that the students fighting back are able to make a difference. Even if it’s just learning that they aren’t alone. The female bonding was awesome.

Something that I love to see is women working together instead of working against each other. For too long, the toxic idea that if another woman succeeds, then you can’t. Having that be completely flipped and women beginning to rely on and help each other is wonderful.

Moxie was inspiring. It was hopeful and fun. There was a complete, angst-ridden meltdown at one point, but I fast-forwarded through it. I would watch more young adult movies like this in a heartbeat.

4/5

Cobra (1986)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Cobra (1986)

Director:

George P. Cosmatos

Writers:

Sylvester Stallone

Starring:

Sylvester Stallone

Brigitte Neilsen

Reni Santoni

Brian Thompson

Blurb:

A tough-on-crime street cop must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far-reaching plans.

Thoughts:

Cobra has a lot of tropes that have become overused, or it has stuff borrowed from much better works. Stallone’s character, Marion Cobretti, seems influenced by Dirty Harry and a character played by Steve McQueen in The Reivers. He’s also named after John Wayne. It’s too much for me.

It’s all a bit heavy-handed, and there are a couple of my least favorite tropes in action movies. Stallone gets the girl after being a dick to her. They have sex while she’s being chased by a violent cult of murderers that like to bang axes together. There’s a genuinely awful montage about halfway through the movie. It is painful to watch and doesn’t fit in with the film. There are several attempts by Stallone to be funny, some running gag about eating healthy, but it comes off as weird and awkward.

The original director’s cut was two hours long, but they cut stuff so that they could get more showings in theaters. Stallone was apparently in charge of or had a say in what was cut, so they cut many scenes with other characters. Which explains at the end of the movie where his partner is shot and then disappears until Stallone is putting him in an ambulance.

Reading the Wikipedia entry for this movie is peak diva Stallone. The man sounded like he was unbearable while filming this. Not just making the movie all about him to the detriment of the plot, but he wanted the author who wrote the book this was loosely based on to re-release the book and list him as coauthor—the absolute ego on this man.

The best part about Cobra was the tagline, “Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.” Everything else was too over the top, cliché, and honestly too dark, in my opinion. It might as well have been set in a post-apocalyptic world with how L.A. was depicted. Not a fan.