movies – Sean Monaghan

Note -the IMDB pages about the movies I’m discussing contain details that would be considered spoilers, in the context of what I’m writing about here.

I think I’ve written before about how I too often find book blurbs and movie trailers too revealing. As in, containing plot spoilers. How often have you watched a trailer and felt like you’d seen the whole movie?

Now, I do know that the makers of these trailers are experts at pulling disparate parts of a movie together to create a kind of flow within the trailer that creates a different story that’s distinct, perhaps even distracting from the movies true story. Still.

Long ago I watched a movie called “The Girl With All The Gifts“, on the basis of seeing the title and the movie poster (which as I recall was different from the poster on IMDB). I had no idea that it was a particular kind of movie, and didn’t realise for quite some time way through the movie – because it was well-crafted and neatly told.

Had I watched the trailer and read the blurb, I think I would have enjoyed the film less (something backed up when I was at a writers’ convention and the title was mentioned-I hadn’t know it had orginated as a book-I said what a great movie it was, to receive some murmurs of disdain from some others who had clearly read the book and found the movie wanting).

Now recently I watched another movie that I enjoyed, titled “Hurry Up Tomorrow“, again on the basis of the poster – well, the Netflix title card which showed a woman standing in front of a burning house. That was enough for me. There’s a whole bunch of story in that single image. So I watched the movie.

It started out weird, but went along the kind of off-beat, arthouse trajectory of many movies I’ve enjoyed in the past. Just plain odd. Well-made, well-lit, surreal and, for the most part, engaging.

I did not know that the lead actor is a well-known singer, and the story follows a vaguely autobiographical arc, with many liberties. I knew of him, but didn’t really know his music or his story. Afterward, I followed up, and read some more. Now, this guy’s music is not really to my taste-I had a listen to the sountrack album and some other songs. That’s okay. I like the movie.

Then, still following up, I found out the movie bombed at the box office. That it was critically panned, as self-indulgent and essentially an extended video for his latest music.

I didn’t get that at all. I just enjoyed a weird movie with an odd structure. If I had know all that ahead of time, I suspect I would have enjoyed it less.

What would I know, though?

I guess I’m just coming at this saying that, however my brain works, I like not knowing too much ahead of time. At least when it comes to entertainment.

Oh, since I’m supposed to be using this blog as a promotion tool for my writing, I should mention that my Yearbook 2025 is out now, both in print and as an ebook. This is a lot of reading-130,000 words-for not too much coin-$9.99 electronic.

The First Annual Collection by Sean Monaghan

A treasure trove of great reads, filled with compelling, mind-bending fiction.

Includes the Full novel The Ingersal Ballet, the Award-Winning novelette “Daisy and Maisie, External Hull Maintenance Experts” and more, including “Sigrid’s Eagle”, “Caprock”, “Mangled Gravity”, “Peruser”, “Heading for Boise”, “Lying Cameras”, “The Quiet Hours”. And the never before published Morgenfeld story only available here, “The Diorama”.

With an introduction and an afterword by the author.

I think I’ll do a follow up post in the near future about working on my own blurbs so that they give away just enough of the story to get the reader intrigued, and not enough to put them off.

The High Wire Artist.

Thanks for reading.

Sean

Movie ticket image: Adobe stock

I went to Terminator Genisys in the weekend and had a ball. While it’s not quite my new favorite film, I’m surpised by some of the criticism out in the media. I found it a fabulous, creative reinvention. It was fun and well-structured, with some great set-pieces that the genre demands, and some nicely thrown in homages and nods to the previous films.

This MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS, so feel free to skip 🙂

My movie-going companion had not seen any of the previous terminator movies so over the weeks before hitting the theatre, I did a rewatch while she had her first watch of those previous four movies. Some I enjoy more than others, but I enjoy them all. Some seem dated, some seem try hard, at least one seems “how is this a terminator film?”. It was good to refresh my mind, especially with so many reflections back on those films in the new one.

I’ll admit I delight in big-budget films where lots of stuff blows up, but I do like them to make sense. (I do love art house too – I saw Mr Turner recently, 2.5 hours of Timothy Spall’s monosyllabic grunts – and I’m looking forward to Palmy’s film festival starting in a couple of weeks). Terminator Genisys made sense to me. As with many films there were gaps and fudging and some silliness (the bus flips, getting airborne in the process), but those things felt less important than a generally strong movie.

Some critics have suggested that this new film retreads the old films. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe in the way that Back to the Future Part II retreads Part I. It seems to me that if that “retreading” hadn’t happened then Back to the Future Part II would have fallen apart as a story: revisiting the first film made sense. Likewise in Terminator Genisys. That moment where older Arnie confronts younger Arnie confronting the punks at Griffith Observatory with “He won’t need any clothes” was a clever approach (if anything it was more like a retreading Back to the Future II – Marty watching Biff confronting George again). Likewise having the T-1000 chasing Kyle Reese right after he’s arrived in 1984 cleared up any “what about the advanced terminators from T2 and T3. I enjoyed the nods to both films in those sequences.

Where Terminator Genisys comes into its own is ripping up the rules. Sure it’s easier to “reboot” when you can fool with timelines. I loved Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese – especially with his bafflement arriving to find that Emilia Clarke’s Sarah Connor knows more about the situation than he does. I loved how Arnie has aged into the role – his most human yet. I loved especially the twist that John Connor – whose continued existence has for the most part has been central to the plot – had become the bad guy.

This movie was an absolute thrill. For an action buff who’s become jaded by endless Transformers movies (honestly I struggle to tell them apart – which one had Mark Wahlberg? Which one did Chicago start looking like San Francisco looks in every-other movie?), and can pretty-much predict the action in the Fast and Furious franchise*, it was magic to see a strong, clever reinvention of the franchise.

I only hope that somehow the film makes its way to profitability and someone, somehwhere green-lights the sequel (or even two).

*(yes, I know F&F is a franchise that’s reinvented itself too).

Category: movies

In Praise of Not Knowing

Note -the IMDB pages about the movies I’m discussing contain details that would be considered spoilers, in the context of what I’m writing about here.

In praise of Terminator Genisys