Ang Mutya Ng Section E

 

tags: action, comedy, drama, Filipino series, High School kids, romance, violence

⭐⭐⭐⭐

from IMDB

A notorious all-male section is shaken up by the arrival of a female transfer student, causing chaos as the grumpy class section president tries to drive her away.

I noticed the second season of this Filipino series in one of Kdrama websites but the first season is missing. I looked for and found the complete first season 16 episodes in another website and finished watching. I'll start the new season when it is complete. 

The Jewel Of Section E is the literal English translation of Ang Mutya Ng Section E. Mutya, pronounced moot-ya or moo-tcha, means pearl, gem, jewel, or muse. The series obviously got the idea from Japan's Hana Yori Dango but I can't accuse the writers of ripping off HYD because HYD is a Japanese anime version of Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy and Lizzie Bennet. Yes, it is.* The lead male is always wealthy, arrogant, and a snob and the lead female is feisty and not afraid to speak her mind. Pride and Prejudice probably created the original love triangle with Darcy, Elizabeth and Wickam. But the similarity ends there because Wickam is a cad and HYD and AMNSE made the second lead a kind lovable boy. In HYD, he has blonde hair and in Mutya, he is Japanese with rooster red hair.   

The girl JayJay, was expelled from her school because of violence and she was taken in by the International School with the help of her wealthy cousin. JayJay is not just feisty, she is downright gangster. LOL. In no time did she become friends with the boys in Section E and also a few of the girls in the higher Sections. 

Recommended for Hana Yori Dango fans.

* Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet pairing is the staple of Mills & Boon romance novels - wealthy, stiff, arrogant mid 30s male and very very young spirited female. I read enough of them to say it is true at the time. I can't say for sure if it is the same today, though. 

Guns & Moses

 

tags: Amazon Prime movie, gun toting Rabbi, thriller 

⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

from Amazon Prime Video 

A small-town rabbi becomes an unlikely detective and gunfighter after his community is violently attacked in this sharp, high-stakes thriller packed with action, wit, and heart 

The title got me to check it out on Amazon Prime Video. I thought it will be a comedy but it is not and I loved it. A murder mystery with cliched usual suspects but I enjoyed it very much. Rabbi Moyshe is an unlikely gunslinging detective wannabe but he had no choice in order to protect not just his family but also the innocent patsy. 

I like the part where rabbi Mo, a few days before the murder, approached the young man falsely accused by police. The boy was taunting the group of Jewish people outside the strip mall. Rabbi Mo offered some brownies and asked him to talk to the group. The boy listened to the old man about being a holocaust survivor and he eventually got a brownie and ate it, didn't argue with them at all. Rabbi Mo believed his innocence because he "ate the brownie". It's very meaningful, IMHO. The movie is not about anti Jews but about money and corruption. Cliche, I know.

Having gun protection during congregations not just for Jewish people but all religions specially Christian gatherings, is absolutely necessary. Hanukkah and Christmas are specially targeted by satanic moslems wherever in the world they are. So, this line is important not just in a movie but also in real life: "May God and your Glock protect you."

Highly recommended.

The Great Flood

tags: AI, disaster, Korean, mystery, Netflix movie, sci-fi 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐out of 5

from Netflix

When a raging flood traps a researcher and her young son, a call to a crucial mission puts their escape — and the future of humanity — on the line. 

I loved the movie. Visuals, acting, dialog, and CGI are very good. One of my favorite Korean actresses, Kim Da-mi stars as the "mother". 

It is part disaster, sci fi and mystery, I was confused at first but I stayed on watching the seemingly endless time loop similar to Tom Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow. 

When researcher An-na died, her memories and emotions were used to create an AI version of a mother who genuinely cares for her child, recreating it over and over again until they are ready to be sent to Earth and repopulate it after devastation from the flood disaster. 

Viewers who love a disaster movie will be disappointed because the story is about AI and how it might become useful in the future. The movie is not for everybody but will be appreciated more by true science fiction fans.

Spoilers

Brat Farrar

tags: mystery, ugly

goose🥚

From Goodreads 

What begins as a ploy to claim an inheritance ends with the impostor's life hanging in the balance. In this tale of mystery and suspense, a stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance, and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception until old secrets emerge that jeopardize the impostor's plan and his life. Culminating in a final terrible moment when all is revealed, Brat Farrar is a precarious adventure that grips the reader early and firmly and then holds on until the explosive conclusion.

This is the worst mystery novel written by Josephine Tey and the worst I have read this year. She made an impostor, criminal, and thief an honorable character and made a 13 year boy murder his twin brother right after their parents were killed. Just because he didn't like his brother. No other explanation and not believable at all. This was an awful read.  

Tey had a habit of telling instead of showing. Throughout the short novel, now 21 year old adult Simon, never showed that he is an evil Cain. It was all in the mind of the impostor who was always sure it was Simon, at age 13 who killed his brother, without explaining why he thought so. Just a hunch. What?? Simon confessed to him when got drunk and justified the impostor's suspicion. 

The author never showed any sympathy for the fictional family who lost the parents at the same time, just told what happened., as though in real life she abhored the landed gentry. Anyway, the parents left 13 year old twin brothers Patrick and Simon, 11 year old Eleanor, and 1 year old twin babies, Ruth and Jane. I was so annoyed when out of the blue, the impostor Patrick thought that 9 year old Ruth probably has never been spanked. She hadn't done nor showed anything to make an adult spank her. She was a well behaved and spoken young girl. That's lazy crazy writing. Tey was not a talented writer or she was absolutely bonkers when she wrote this book. 

Not recommended.