Month: October 2017

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Yogisha X no Kenshin – Higashino Keigo

The Devotion of Suspect X is a crime story of a single mother Yasuko and her daughter Misato who in self defense kills her violent ex-husband and their neighbour Ishigami- a briliant math teacher – who helps them make an alibi for the murder. The detective investigating the crime ask for help by a physicist Yukawa who went to the same university as Ishigami.

A great part of the many books that I have read are crime stories. After so many crime stories I find it more and more difficult to be surprized both by the story but also by the characters. What I find most intriging and fascinating about the book is the Japanese culture. The behaviour of the characters is more interesting than the story. The way honor and respect is so important in their lives, how they express love … or choose to hide it. The daily routine, how they live, what do they do on a normal everyday evening. I haven’t read much literature from Japan, so it’s always an eye-opener.

The revealing at the end of the book is different than seen before, however it didn’t rock my boat. Luckily I’m not the only reader to this book and it has won numerous awards in Japan and has been adapted into films as well.

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Mother! – Darren Aronofsky

First let me say that this post will have spoilers, so if you haven’t watched the film yet and plan to, consider yourself warned.

SPOILER ALERT!

I entered the cinema expecting to get scared, like when I watched It (1990) or The others (2001). Expecting to sleep with the lights on for a couple of weeks, expecting to be introduced to new kind of ghosts, a history of violence in a haunted house. But the film didn’t give me those ghosts and haunted house that I expected and left the cinema disappointed. But…

just because I didn’t find the scary ghosts that I thought I would find doesn’t make Mother! a terrible film. On the contrary, the film forces you to think differently about what are the ghosts in this film, what is the director trying to tell you with this film? Is he trying to tell you anything? Does he want you to make your own conclusion based on his pictures? Is the film based on religion? Is he a narcissistic God or a Devil? What is she? A condemned soul?

Fairly soon after the film starts, it’s easy to see that he is the issue in this house and she really is the heart and soul of the house, she is the mother, she is home. She is nesting, feeling the house, restauring the house, taking care of him, doing her outmost to avid to disturb him. He’s a writer and apparently has a writer’s block and she is trying to say to him that it is okay. She seems to be a girl married to a dominant man. It’s a 3 part film, a sandwich, first she is nervous, his writer’s block and the strangers in their house, then the rosery period with her pregnancy where he manages to write again and publish his book, that lastly turns into a things that just spirals the story downwards. This is where you really gets confused,  because normally there are absolutely no outside persons in their life. No grocery shopping, no mail man, no family visits, no phone calls, and suddenly the doorbell…

For a film that is listed as horror, drama, mystery on Imdb.com I kinda expect to get spooked, and for me that didn’t really happen. As soon as it started to build up a scare, nothing happens. However I would like to watch it again. The film has so many different angles to it, so many ways to see it, and this is one of the few and very rare films where you can make your own conclusions on what you see.

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Sapiens: A brief history of human kind – Yuval Noah Harari

I enjoyed this book very much!

Professor Yuval takes the reader on a journey that starts thousands of years ago and up to present day. He has based his written on a great deal of scientific literature and he has a light approach to book. Not to mistake that he doesn’t take the subject seriously because he absolutely does. It is meant as he makes the book readable for a larger audience and he shows he sense of humor.

He brings up big questions like, why are we the only human species left? Why did we grow to conquer the world? And how, when there are several of other species that can kill us in an instant? When did religion kick in and why? How did you evolve from hunter and gatherers to become farmers? Politics, economy, industry, societies and the size of them, he manages to cover a lot in the book without it becoming difficult to follow.

The book puts human behavior on the spot and it’s difficult to ignore that what he writes is what you see when you walk outside your front door.

I know the book is a few years old but I didn’t hear about until this year and I can’t wait to read his Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow. 

It is worth to mention that the scientific papers that is the I foundation of the book, can be seen in several ways and his book is not the final answer to the evolution of human kind, but the authors take on it.

The book is still very interesting and I will read the sequel. Enjoy the book and read it with an open mind and remember it’s not the key to our history but a possible answer.

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Logan Lucky – Steven Soderbergh

I saw this comedy Logan Lucky directed by Steven Soderbergh the other day. Packed with hollywood stars, Daniel Craig, Adam Driver, Channing Tatum, I was expecting a good comedy. Something better than the ones you watch half asleep on the sofa Sunday evening.

And I wasn’t disappointed, eventhough the story was like most other heist stories, no surprices here, it somehow made it to the finish line afterall.

Adam Driver I only know from Star Wars VII – The Force Awakens,  here he plays the brother who is convinced to take part in the heist during a NASCAR race. The Logan family Jimmy Logan played by Channing Tatum, Clyde Logan played by Adam Driver and sister Mellie Logan played by Riley Keough. The brothers don’t seem as the sharpest tools in the shed but manages to plot the heist including an escape from prison to free Joe Bang played by Daniel Craig, the bomber they need for the heist.

Well back to Adam Driver, he does an amazing job playing Clyde Logan, he is convincing as the slow brother, who has his own bar after returning from the war. All of the characters plays a convincing role, but I was just especially impressed by Adams performance!

The film has the signature of Steven Soderbergh, it resembles his Oceans Eleven. He manages to get his certain kind of humour out of his actors, they seem comfortable in their roles and delivers a absolutely believable performance.

Logan Lucky is funny, well written, well played and well directed. And eventhough Daniel Craig is mostly (for me at least) know for his role as James Bond, you only think James Bond fr the first few seconds before you just see him as Joe Bang.