My Demon

tags: fantasy, Kdrama, Netflix, romance, supernatural 

16 episodes, Friday and Saturday

A demon Jeong Gu-won is superior to humans in every way, but when he loses his powers, he will have to work with a chaebol heiress Do Do-hee to recover them, and romance begins to bloom in this process.

Song Kang and Kim You-Jung. They are both pretty. Kim You-Jung is not only beautiful, she is also one of the best acting actresses in KDramaland.

Song Kang's Sweet Home Season 2, a horror fantasy series is coming on December 1, 2023 on Netflix. Can't wait.

Adjustment Team

tags: Philip K Dick, science fiction, short story

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

After getting held up on his way to work, Ed Fletcher worries about the repercussions he will face when he reaches his office. Little does he know that his late arrival will give him a glimpse behind the very fabric of human existence and put him at odds with powers he cannot comprehend.

"Adjustment Team" is a science fiction tale of Ed Fletcher, a real estate salesman who leads a normal life, until one day, when he leaves the house for work a few minutes later than he should have. A man called the Clerk approaches a talking dog, and explains in businesslike manner that "Sector T137" is scheduled for "adjustment" at 9 o'clock. He instructs the dog to bark at exactly 8:15, which the Clerk explains will summon "A Friend with a Car", which will take Ed Fletcher to work before 9, but while the Clerk is preoccupied, the dog falls asleep and as a result barks a minute too late. Inside Ed's house, while he is getting ready for work, Ed is accosted by a door-to-door insurance salesman and doesn't leave for work until 9:30. Ed arrives at his office building, but upon stepping onto the curb, finds himself in a sunless version of the world where everything and everyone is immobile, ash-grey, and crumbles at his touch. Ed is accosted by white-robed men, who talk about "de-energizing" him with a hose-like piece of equipment, but he flees outside and across the street, back to the everyday world, fearing he's had a psychotic episode.

I'm again on a Philip K. Dick binge-reading. It started when I watched The Adjustment Bureau on Netflix streaming which is based on PKD's short story, Adjustment Team.

The movie IMHO is a great adaptation of the story adding a love story to explain further the short story. I liked it very much regardless of the female lead, Emily Blunt. Matt Damon is very good with his boyish looks and natural acting. I also liked the script, mysterious and philosophical yet full of humor, just like the short story.

Back to the short story which feels dreamlike, maybe nightmarish. It has a "happy ending". It is equally funny and serious while imparting a relevant or maybe debatable message. I like PKD's simple writing style, no flowery language, just straight story telling.

Highly recommended.

The Nine Tailors

tags: Lord Wimsey, mystery

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

While ringing in the New Year, Lord Peter stumbles into an ominous country mystery.

Lord Peter Wimsey and his manservant Bunter are halfway across the wild flatlands of East Anglia when they make a wrong turn, straight into a ditch. They scramble over the rough country to the nearest church, where they find hospitality, dinner, and an invitation to go bell-ringing.

This ancient art is steeped in mathematical complexities, and tonight the rector and his friends plan to embark on a nine-hour marathon session to welcome the New Year.

Lord Peter joins them, taking a step into a society whose cheerful exterior hides a dark, deadly past. During their stay in this unfamiliar countryside, Lord Peter and Bunter encounter murder, a mutilated corpse, and a decades-old jewel theft for which locals continue to die.

In this land where bells toll for the dead, the ancient chimes never seem to stop.

Lord Wimsey and his valet Bunter were visiting the Fen country when they had a car mishap. They walked to look for help and Bunter guessed they were near Fenchurch St. Paul. The church clock chimed at the same time and Lord Peter uttered "Thank God! Where there is a church, there is civilization." How true! 

They walked on to the church where they met the rector and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Venables. The rector was eccentric but lovable and his wife was smart and efficient. I love the setting and numerous characters, specially Mrs. Venables. 

There is mystery alright, a dead body with an unlikely "murderer", but the story is centered on the bell-ringing called change ringing. I had to stop reading and watched it on YouTube. Very interesting. 

I have just voted it my favorite Lord Peter novel. Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a very engaging novel with her usual sense of humor. It was hard to put down once I started reading.

Highly recommended for Dorothy L. Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey fans.

Burn The House Down

 

tags: Japanese dorama, Mei Nagano, mystery, Netflix streaming, revenge

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Anzu (Mei Nagano, charming and enigmatic) watched her family home go up in flames when she was young. Her mother, Satsuki, apparently left the stove on. All her material possessions were lost and, soon afterward, her family broke apart.

Satsuki developed generalized amnesia, and her husband, Osamu, married her former best friend Makiko. The two of them now live in the same house, which has been restored.

Working with her sister Yuzu, Anzu adopts the identity of Shizuka Yamauchi and gets a job as Makiko’s housekeeper.

Anzu: "That woman stole my home and my family…”

Lovely Mei Nagano as Anzu is all grown up and starring in a revenge family drama. I first saw her in Rurouni Kenshin when she just 13 years old. She's now 24!

Mei Nagano in 2016 Japanese high school dorama, Koe Koi

Highly recommended for Japanese manga live action drama series fans. I loved it!

A Room With A View

 

Beautiful music. Kiri Te Kanawa singing an aria, Chi il bel sogno di Doretta, from Puccini's opera La Rondine (The Swallow).

Julian Sands's death was all over the news feed last week. So sad. I've only seen 2 of his movies, A Room With A View and Warlock.

A Room With A View is one of my favorite movies of all time. I watched it a gazillion times since its release in 1986 or 87. I have 3 different copies. I first watched it on Betamax. Yup, Betamax which was what's available in the Philippines at the time. When we moved to Hong Kong the following year, I had to buy a VHS copy because Hong Kong didn't use Betamax and it had a different system too (PAL). After 3 years we moved to the US so I had to get another VHS copy because USA had a different system (NTSC). When DVDs arrived, of course I had to get it. Same with Sixteen Candles. The tapes of both movies are in a box somewhere in the basement.

A Room With A View is almost perfection with a superb cast. Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch - her luxuriant hair was to die for and I love her character getting peevish after playing a Beethoven piano sonata. Daniel Day-Lewis as Cecil Vyse - magnificent as a snobbish aesthete but accepting in his defeat, his acting was over the top funny. I think in his own way, he truly loved Lucy. Maggie Smith - great in her role as the uptight "poor" Aunt Charlotte with her defective boiler and all. Judy Dench - as Elinor Lavish, a gossipy writer of trashy romance novels. She included the kiss in Florence in one of her novels that Cecil mockingly read to Lucy. Rupert Graves was cute as Lucy's brother Freddy. Denholm Elliot as Mr. Emerson, Simon Callow as Reverend Beebe, and of course Julian Sands as dour George Emerson.

George Emerson and Jake Ryan (of Sixteen Candles) are the best male romantic characters in a movie but are almost impossible to find in real life. LOL

L'Arc-en-Ciel 30th Anniversary Concert

 

tags: Japanese, L'Arc-en-Ciel 30th anniversary concert, streaming on Amazon

Hyde is over 50 years old and he still looks young. I saw him in one movie together with Gackt, another Japanese musician. The movie is called Moon Child about vampires, if I remember correctly. Now I want to watch the movie again if I can find it.

Where Are The Children Now?

tags: mystery, sequel

⭐⭐

From Goodreads

The legacy of the “Queen of Suspense” continues with the highly anticipated follow-up to Mary Higgins Clark’s iconic novel Where Are The Children?, featuring the children of Nancy Harmon, facing peril once again as adults.

Of the fifty-six bestsellers the “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark published in her lifetime, Where Are the Children? was her biggest, selling millions of copies and forever transforming the genre of suspense fiction. In that story, a young California mother named Nancy Harmon was convicted of murdering her two children. Though released on a technicality, she was abandoned by her husband and became such a pariah in the media that she was forced to move across the country to Cape Cod, change her identity and appearance, and start a new life. Years later her two children from a second marriage, Mike and Melissa, would go missing, and Nancy yet again became the prime suspect—but this time, Nancy was able to confront the secrets buried in her past and rescue her kids from a dangerous predator.

Now, more than four decades since readers first met Nancy and her children, comes the thrilling sequel to the groundbreaking book that set the stage for future generations of psychological suspense novels. A lawyer turned successful podcaster, Melissa has recently married a man whose first wife died tragically, leaving him and their young daughter, Riley, behind. While Melissa and her brother, Mike, help their mom, Nancy, relocate from Cape Cod to the equally idyllic Hamptons, Melissa’s new stepdaughter goes missing. Drawing on the experience of their own abduction, Melissa and Mike race to find Riley to save her from the trauma they still struggle with—or worse.

Just like the original, Where Are the Children Now? keeps readers guessing and holding their breath until the very last page.

I can't remember when I read and what was the last book I read by Mary Higgins Clark. It was so long ago. Where Are The Children is the most memorable of Mary Higgins Clark's books. When a sequel popped up in the library's recommendations, I had to borrow it although I have stopped reading her books more than 15 years ago. 

Mary Higgins Clark's writing style was simple without using big words but she had the ability to create complex interesting characters, although sometimes the stories are too forced. What I liked was her great sense of humor which is lacking in new novelists.

I already had low expectations before reading so I don't get disappointed. Alafair Burke did her best but she is no Mary Higgins Clark. Her main character Melissa, the girl who was abducted in the previous book almost has 2 personalities, one was brilliant and the other was brainless. How can she marry a guy and not meet any of his family and friends. She hardly knew what he did for a living, never noticed his home office desk is almost empty. She only started looking at his past after the child disappeared. SMH. 

The police were incompetent and never bothered to investigate meticulously if Melissa was indeed guilty of child murder.  

Knowing Clark's usual suspects (hint: close friends and even family), I guessed correctly who was one of the culprits. Why was this sequel even written after more than 30 years and the original author already dead? 

Not recommended

Death Of A Kingfisher

tags: audiobook, Hamish Macbeth, mystery-crime, "reread"

⭐⭐

When Scotland is hit by the recession, Police Constable Hamish Macbeth notices that the Highland people are forced to come up with inventive ways to lure tourists to their sleepy towns.

The quaint village of Braikie doesn't have much to offer, other than a place of rare beauty called Buchan's Wood, which was bequeathed to the town. The savvy local tourist director renames the woods "The Fairy Glen," and has brochures printed with a beautiful photograph of a kingfisher rising from a pond on the cover. It isn't long before coach tours begin to arrive.

But just as the town's luck starts to turn, a kingfisher is found hanging from a branch in the woods with a noose around its neck. As a wave of vandalism threatens to ruin Braikie forever, the town turns to Hamish Macbeth. And when violence strikes again, the lawman's investigation quickly turns from animal cruelty to murder.

I didn't particularly like Death of A Kingfisher when I read it 10 years ago and rated it only 3 stars. I listened to the audiobook as a "reread" and downgraded it to 2 stars.

The story is too twisty, convoluted, too forced and without the signature humor of M. C. Beaton. The latest Hamish books written by R. W. Green are very similar to this book. I suspect he probably wrote the last 8 Hamish Macbeth novels, from the 27th on. The presence of the regular village characters is almost non-existent which gave me the clue this is written by Mr. Green.

My beef with this novelette is the inclusion of a Russian thug, the 2 evil children spawned by Rhoda Penmark, and an unnecessary bloody chainsaw murder. The book also has the highest body count including the kingfisher, of any Hamish Macbeth books, 8 people and 1 bird.

Let's Get Divorced

tags: dramedy, Japanese dorama, Netflix streaming 

9 complete episodes

A politician and his actress wife have been married for five years... but their domestic bliss now faces a crisis, including a fling, an affair and potential divorce!

What should be an issue between just the two of them causes an uproar that sweeps up everyone in their orbit! Where will this dizzy divorce drama end up?

Laugh and cry along with this divorce comedy featuring a star-studded cast, including main co-stars Tori Matsuzaka and Riisa Naka, as well as Ryo Nishikido, Yuka Itaya, Koji Yamamoto and Arata Furuta.

 

Killing Moon

tags: crime, Harry Hole, mystery, Norway

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

Brilliant rogue police investigator Harry Hole is back, this time as an outsider assembling his own team to help find a serial killer who is murdering young women in Oslo in the next novel in the New York Times best-selling series.

THE HUNT IS ON AND THE POLICE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. Two young women are missing, their only connection a party they both attended, hosted by a notorious real-estate magnate. When one of the women is found murdered, the police discover an unusual signature left by the killer, giving them reason to suspect he will strike again.

THEY’RE FACING A KILLER UNLIKE ANY OTHER. And exposing him calls for a detective like no other. But the legendary Harry Hole is gone—fired from the force, drinking himself to oblivion in Los Angeles. It seems that nothing can entice him back to Oslo. Until the woman who saved Harry’s life is put in grave danger, and he has no choice but to return to the city that haunts him and track down the murderer.

CATCHING HIM WILL PUSH HARRY TO THE LIMIT. He’ll need to bring together a misfit team of former operatives to accomplish what he can’t do alone: stop an unstoppable killer. But as the evidence mounts, it becomes clear that there is more to this case than meets the eye…

Harry Hole is in a bad bad shape and is in Los Angeles trying hard to drink himself to death. No one can blame him after his wife was murdered then getting fired from his job.

The opening chapter finds Harry drinking in a not too classy bar. It reminds me a little of Philip Marlowe specially Harry's opinion of Los Angeles, the reality of the movie industry, the homeless people occupying sidewalks. Overall a disgusting place in his eyes.

His credit card maxed out and his tab was paid by an aging former actress whom he had to rescue from bill collectors. He postponed his death wish by alcohol poisoning to help this lady by going back to Oslo to find a serial killer. He asked, as a free lance investigator, for a certain amount from the person police suspects as the killer to cover the lady's debt.

This is a very dark kinda twisty tale with hard to guess demented evil villain. One negative is too much red herrings and one story line was not necessary to the novel. The revenge of the Jeffrey Dahmer wannabe may be too much for some readers but I'm used to Jo Nesbø's bloody stories and his sense of humor makes the novel worthy of my time. I specially liked the parts when Harry and his odd group argue about musicians. (Jo Nesbø is a professional musician BTW)

advice to Harry regarding drinking and moderation

All you have to do is is decide beforehand where to draw the line, how many units, But, it goes without saying, you have to work at it.

You're smirking Harry, but I'm serous. It's about a sense of achievement. I can offer the world's best substance abuser as living proof.

Hm, I presume you are talking about that overrated guitarist you like so much.

Hey, have some respect for Keith Richards! Read his biography. He gives you the formula. Survival is about two things. Only the purest, best dope. It's the stuff mixed in that kills you. And moderation...

babysitting his 3 year-old son

Harry doesn't know any lullaby so he sang The Rolling Stone's Wild Horses and Hank William's Your Cheating Heart, and a blues song about cocaine...

after the murderer (wrong one) was caught they didn't have any reason to get together anymore

We can argue about other things, like who is the most underrated drummer in the world...that's Ringo Starr; the most overrated - Keith Moon; and the best - John Bonham of Led Zeppelin...

Highly recommended for Harry Hole and Jo Nesbø fans.