Carter

tags: Korean movie, mutant virus, Netflix tudum, nonstop action

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Netflix

A man wakes up missing his memories. Directed by a mysterious voice from a device in his ear, he sets off on a hostage rescue mission rife with danger.

Joo Won loses his boyish image and he bulked up adding more than 14 pounds in muscles, has buzz cut hair and tattoos. He is naked wearing only a thong in the opening scenes which includes a bloody seemingly endless knife fight inside a bath house full of yakuza and one naked lady with a gun. I have never seen so many naked butts in a movie in all my life. 😆

The action is dizzying and really nonstop. I like it regardless of the CGI and story. Netflix needs more entertaining action movies like this.

Lady Tamara

tags: Netflix streaming, reality TV, Spanish, Tamara Falcó

6 episodes

Tamara Falcó is the 40 year old daughter of Filipino Spanish socialite Isabel Preysler and the late Marquess of Griñón, whatever that is. She is the half sister of singer Enrique Iglesias on her mother's side. She is a TV personality and influencer [her mom is the original trendsetter - influencer in today's lingo], also a chef and now she wants to open a pop-up restaurant in their rundown castle which her father inherited from an aunt. It is a large property with its own chapel and pet cemetery but the castle itself needs major renovation with its crumbling roof and peeling walls.

Broken Summer

tags: drama, Korean, mystery, revenge

⭐⭐

From Goodreads

A death, a lie, a secret. For twenty-six summers he didn’t have the courage to face the past.

Lee Hanjo is an artist at the peak of his fame, envied and celebrated. Then, on his forty-third birthday, he awakens to find that his devoted wife has disappeared, leaving behind a soon-to-be-published novel she’d secretly written about the sordid past and questionable morality of an artist with a trajectory similar to Hanjo’s. It’s clear to him that his life is about to shatter and the demons from his past will come out. But why did his wife do it? Why now?

The book forces Hanjo to reflect on a summer from his youth when a deadly lie irreversibly and tragically determined the fates of two families.

First time I read a book written by a South Korean set in Korea, one of the free books on Amazon First Reads and the only worth reading. I didn't download books last month because they are waste of my time. I thought this will be different but I was wrong. What else is new? 

The premise is interesting but I was put off right away by the short sentences that remind me of David and Ann reading primers in Kindergarten. Like See Ann run. See David run. Something like that. It's boring. Once in a while there are longer sentences that are more descriptive but too flowery for my taste. Then the author goes back to David and Ann mode. Very frustrating. Lost in translation maybe? 

I liked the mystery enough of the wife's disappearing act and the novel she wrote to be published that might ruin her husband. The book then shifts back and forth from the present to the past 20 plus years. A teenage girl neighbor and friend of Hanjo didn't come home one night and was found dead a few days later. Hanjo's father confessed to the killing and was jailed. So I continued to read regardless of David and Ann distractions until I finished and it is underwhelming. 

Stupid drama annoyed me. It read like a typical Korean TV drama, mystery, incompetent police, social disparity, perceived sexism, love pentagon (oh give me a break!), alcoholism (the ever present soju), suicide, and unnecessary revenge because of misunderstandings and presumptions of the characters. Contrivances abound. The 2 stars are for Hanjo's success story as a painter because that's the only interesting part in the whole novel. How he became successful regardless of his mediocre talent is worth reading but his wife's reason for her actions is unbelievably shallow. 

If you can tolerate David and Ann style of writing, go ahead and download from Amazon First Reads.

The Entitled

 

tags: comedy, Filipino movie, Netflix streaming

humongous goose egg 0

After learning her estranged father is a hotel mogul, Belinda bumbles her way through a new, sophisticated lifestyle with the help of a charming lawyer.

Why oh why was this horrible movie made? I'm not fond of Filipino movies and this one made me more than cringe. This movie is garbage and I hate it. The acting is over the top and dialog is atrocious. The girl Belinda is so vulgar using all the crude stuff [vomit, poop, fart, stomach growling, Brazilian wax, the attorney's d*ck] for what she thinks is "comedy". She is a loudmouth, obsessed with sex ugly lead character and almost everything that comes out of her dirty mouth has sexual reference. When she gets startled or stumbles, she utters male or female sexual anatomy. Each. And. Every. Time. I wanted to drag her into the bathtub and wash her including her mouth with disinfectant soap.

The writer and director think this is funny. Even the poorest people in the Philippines are not as crass as this Belinda creature. I am so ashamed for the Filipino people for creating this dreadful abomination they call a comedy movie and streaming on Netflix.

Not recommended.

Keep John Rich's Progress Number 1

Song by John Rich has reached Number 1 on iTunes. Keep it at number 1.

There’s a hole in this country 

Where it’s heart used to be. 

Old Glory’s divided on fire in the street. 

They say building back better, will make America great 

If that’s a wave of the future all I’ve got to say is…. 

Stick your progress where the sun don’t shine 

Keep your big mess away from me and mine 

If you leave us alone we’d all be just fine

They invite the whole world to come live in our land 

And leave our countrymen dying in Afghanistan

They say let go of Jesus and let Government save

You can have back your freedoms if you do what we say 

They Shutdown our pipelines and they shut down our voices 

And they shutdown our main streets 

And they shutdown our choices

They bent us all over but it’s all over now 

Because we figured it out 

We ain’t backing down

The Roundup

tags: action, cop movie, Korean,  

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sequel to The Outlaws | BumJoedoshi (2017)

4 years have passed since Detective Ma Suk-Do (Ma Dong-Seok) wiped out Jang Chen and his group. Ma Suk-Do and his team members receive a mission to bring a suspect who fled to Vietnam back to  South Korea. Ma Suk-Do chases after Kang Hae-Sang (Son Suk-Ku) in Vietnam and back in South Korea.

Detective Ma Suk-Do tries to give the bad guy a taste of his own medicine by lightly poking his butt several times with his own knife

The movie is a nonstop action brutal bloody knife fights and murders, and comedy. Ma Dong-Seok, an American Korean actor, Don Lee, is one of my favorites. He is not your typical tall and handsome movie star but he is great in action and comedy movies.

Son Suk-Ku of My Liberation Notes is awesome as the villain! What an entertaining cops and thugs movie. 

Son Suk-Ku as vicious Kang Hae-Sang 

The Big Dark Sky

tags: horror, mystery, sci-fi

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

A group of strangers bound by terrifying synchronicity becomes humankind’s hope of survival in an exhilarating, twist-filled novel by Dean Koontz, the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.

As a girl, Joanna Chase thrived on Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana until tragedy upended her life. Now thirty-four and living in Santa Fe with only misty memories of the past, she begins to receive pleas—by phone, through her TV, in her dreams: I am in a dark place, Jojo. Please come and help me. Heeding the disturbing appeals, Joanna is compelled to return to Montana, and to a strange childhood companion she had long forgotten.

She isn’t the only one drawn to the Montana farmstead. People from all walks of life have converged at the remote ranch. They are haunted, on the run, obsessed, and seeking answers to the same omniscient danger Joanna came to confront.

All the while, on the outskirts of Rustling Willows, a madman lurks with a vision to save the future. Mass murder is the only way to see his frightening manifesto come to pass.

Through a bizarre twist of seemingly coincidental circumstances, a band of strangers now find themselves under Montana’s big dark sky. Their lives entwined, they face an encroaching horror. Unless they can defeat this threat, it will spell the end for humanity

Dean Koontz has written another satisfying novel - science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and horror. 

It has almost all the things I like in a novel - aliens, AI, resourceful good people, evil villains, and as a bonus, a hilarious young couple for comedic relief. A little romance, albeit one-sided. The 2 year-old AI falls in love with her creator, the handsome and elegant genius Ganesh Patel. No dogs in the novel but plenty of wild animals.

Highly recommended for Dean Koontz fans.

Jimmy Two Eyes

The Night Shift

tags: mystery, soap opera 

⭐

From Goodreads

What connects a massacre in a Blockbuster video store in 1999 with the murder of four teenagers fifteen years later?

It's New Year's Eve of 1999 when four teenagers working late are attacked at a Blockbuster video store in New Jersey. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, four more teenagers are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive. In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre, who is forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who is convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller, who must delve into the secrets of both nights to uncover the truth about the night shift murders.

Another soap opera disguised as mystery thriller. It has the same clichéd elements I have come to detest in new mystery novels:

• The rich haughty ice queen mother is becoming a staple in new books.
• A father estranged from daughter because of her career choice.
• Mentioning the race of characters as if it matters to the story.
• Most characters are cardboard cutouts with no difference in personalities for all ages and sex.
• Filled with annoying red herrings for higher page count.

Spoiler

Valley of the Dead: MalnaZidos

tags: movie, Netflix streaming. Spanish, zombies

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Valley of the Dead is a Spanish zombie movie set during the Spanish Civil War. Two opposing sides agree to a temporary alliance to deal with an army of the dead created by the Nazis. It uses a historical setting and I like it for its combination of zombies and smart comedic dialog but tells a good story. My only complaint is the English subtitles. Why are the names of people translated into English. Example: one guy named Mecha is translated to Fuse. It's a nickname like the female Matacuras (priest killer) but still. Just leave the Spanish names, not the English translated.

Recommended for zombie movie fans.

The Key To Midnight

tags: Dean Koontz, mystery, romance 

⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

This book was originally published under the pseudonym Leigh Nichols.

Who is Joanna Rand? Alex Hunter hasn't come to Japan to fall in love. But Joanne Rand is the most beautiful, exciting woman he has ever met. But Joanne is not who she thinks she is.

Ten years before, and halfway across the world, a brutally bizarre experiment recreated her mind. A violation so hideous that her dreams are filled with terror and her memories are a lie.

If they are ever to be free, Alex and Joanna have to reopen the dangerous door into the nightmare past. Somehow they have to find the key to midnight.

I hardly read any books by Dean Koontz published in the 70s and 80s. Dean Koontz explained that he revised the original 1979 edition, cutting 30,000 words and adding 5,000 and in August 2010, he released a "better" version in paperback. My Kindle copy was issued on November 30, 2021. 

The book is a mash-up of murder mystery, romance, Russian infiltrators, sci-fi. It is not the best Dean Koontz novel and it reads like a lethargic James Bond movie. Still a good enough read and I enjoyed it.