Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (2015)

My Internship in Canada

This French Canadian film follows a Haitian intern to a Quebec member of parliament. He arrives as tensions lead to a nation wide issue in which the MP has the deciding vote.

Upside
Funny - I know I missed things because I was watching with English subtitles
Authentic - As someone who grew up in small town Canada I found this hilarious and realistic to a point. People who have never lived in a small town may not enjoy it as thoroughly as I did.
Canadian award winning film - Best Canadian Feature Film Special Jury Citation(TIFF 2015)

Downside
People will miss out on this because it is french

You - Austin Grossman

You is a fascinating look behind the scenes of videogame development in the 1990s. The story follows Russell as he joins the company of his highschool friends. During his new job at Black Arts he begins to unravel the mystery of why he didn't really stay friends with this group after highschool. As he works on the newest project he finds glitches in the old games that shouldn't be there. With the help of his memories of Simon, the new game and the four game characters he finds the source. Eliminating the glitch is another problem....

Upsides
Fascinating style jumps between past, present and imagination without notice
Believable characters - all the dated references are time appropriate (set 1990s written 2013)
It is just really good!

Downsides
Some of the jumps in narrative between past and imagination are hard to determine. I am still not sure if some things actually happened

Tag (2018)

Tag is a true story of friends from Spokane, Washington. They have been playing an ongoing game of tag for 30 years.

Upsides
Comedy based on reality = believable characters
The beginning has a great hook

Downsides
Certainly earned the 14A rating - swearing and sexual comments and constant marijuana use
The end is a strange mix of heartfelt emotion and over the top comedy action

Ocean's 8 (2018)

This movie follows Debbie Ocean, Danny Ocean's sister. Debbie gets out of jail and reconnects with her partner. She makes a female crew to pull a heist she thought up over the last 5 years in jail. They will steal a necklace that has not been out of the vault for 50 years. Like the other Ocean movies this includes a revenge plot and detailed plans going wrong.

Downsides
Like the previous movies the character set up was really long
It felt less suspenseful and tense than the previous movies - there was space to breathe even when things seemed to go wrong

Upsides
I liked the way Anne Hathaway played her character
The end was clever

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie

Dr. Sheppard begins the story establishing the village of King's Abbot. He then lays out the characters invovled in the murder of Roger Ackroyd. As the police work on solving the murder Dr. Sheppard realizes that his new neighbour is Hercule Poirot. Soon Poirot is soon asked to solve the case by the girlfriend of the main suspect. As usual Poirot says yes and promises to find the whole truth. As more and more information is revealed different people become the subject of investigation until the very end. Poriot asks all involved or suspected to meet together, he promises that he knows the truth, and if the guilty does not confess all will be told to the police. The truth is finally revealed and Dr. Sheppard finishes writing his account of the mystery.

Upsides

The ending! (The end is amazing, I have read another book with a similar ending but this one was much superiorly executed) I thought I had it figured out about halfway through but I was very wrong

The character development - I really like the butler


Downsides
Poirot has information the reader does not which allows him to solve the murder (with this information I may have suspected the truth, but no reader could be certain)
The regional setting is very confusing for someone not familiar with it



This is the best book I have read since "The Silmarillian"

Doctor Who: Engines of War - George Mann

Engines of War follows the Doctor through a period of the Time War. The War Doctor crashes on Moldox and meets Cinder. Cinder becomes his companion as she learns to hope and the Doctor looks for an end to the Daleks' plan without casualties. The story takes place on both Moldox and Gallifrey.

Upsides
The War Doctor on Gallifrey and his interactions with other Timelords
Cinder (a pity she is a single story companion)
The consistency in the WHO universe

Downsides
Since the War Doctor's TARDIS interior was not established on the show I had a hard time picturing it
He claims the name Doctor doesn't suit him now but offers no alternative
(how cool would it be if he said "I was called the Doctor but now I go by Greg" and Cinder tries to call him Greg while the Timelords call him Doctor)

Ready Player One (2018) !Spoilers!

This post will be more of a comparison between the book and the movie with spoilers for both.

 

 

In the book you always enter The Oasis through a screen that says READY PLAYER ONE. This was the first item of nostalgia in the virtual world. The movie doesn't include the title in this way at all.

 

The Oasis is like an online world based on avatars and real world money (think Second Life). In the book the first clue was on the school planet because everyone had access to it and it was free. The movie doesn't include that fact that online schools were virtual and all student avatars looked like their real life controllers. The movie has no rules about avatars looking like controllers so it is not a big deal when 'Aech' is revealed to be a girl in real life and that 'Art3mis' has a birthmark on her face.

 

The virtual school was really important to the book because it was how Wade and others got the equipment to enter The Oasis in the first place. In the book Wade had to power up his generator by riding an exercise bike. In the movie he has a couple car batteries he hooks up. The fact that he only has the basic equipment from  going to school in the book and that he isn't plugged into regular power really shows how bad the stacks are.

 

A lot of the nostalgia and interactions with 80s pop culture is missing from the movie. They did include a walkthrough of a movie - which I thought was the coolest part of the book.

 

The movie takes place in a very short period of time compared to the book. It makes the challenges seem less daunting than in the book. Of course harder challenges would require a longer runtime and the movie is already more than 2 hours long.

 

The big reveal at the end of the book with Parzival not being wiped out with the rest of the Oasis at the last challenge was due to a quarter. In the movie he made a bet with what he believed was a just a part of the archives and won the quarter. In the book he spent considerable time to beat PacMan and won the quarter which then stayed dormant in his inventory.

 

I really enjoyed the movie but if you are expecting it to be like the book you could be disappointed. The movie is much more about relationships and even the hints are based on Hallidays personal life rather than his favorite games. The nostalgia is still there. People in the theatre got very excited whenever their favorite thing showed up. I recommend watching with a large group of people at least once.