The Sundown Motel is a supernatural mystery novel that is told by two different narrators, thirty five years apart. In 2017, Carly Kirk is trying to uncover the mystery of her aunt’s disappearance by going to Fell, New York, the place where her Aunt Vivian had been living at and where she disappeared from. In 1982, Vivian Delaney, Carly’s aunt, is working the overnight shift as the front desk person of a rundown barely used hotel, which just happens to be haunted by ghosts. Vivian is embroiled in an investigation of a traveling salesman, who she believes to have raped and killed several women in Fell.
I liked the shift in narration. It worked well because the narration from Vivian parceled out information that Carly was uncovering. I thought the way the writer alternated between past and present really stood out. It didn’t feel contrived or gimmicky but made a lot of sense with the way the story was told. The writing was top notch. Characterization was also strong. Both Carlie and Vivian were well developed characters as were many of the supporting cast.
I didn’t really see any negatives in the story. The twist at the end was a little predictable, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Just because you can see something coming doesn’t mean that it doesn’t fit the story arc and narrative. This was an excellent story with good supernatural elements and a strong mystery that I would highly recommend.
I just finished watching The Nun the previous week for the first time before watching The Nun 2 in the theaters. I have watched all of the movies in The Conjuring universe with this movie. Generally speaking, these are quality horror movies with The Conjuring being one of my all time favorites. The Nun 2 falls somewhere in the middle of the pack, better than the first movie in the series but not up to par with the better movies within this universe.
This movie follows the demon Valak, who has now infested Maurice, who was instrumental in saving Sister Irene in the first movie. Valak, working through Maurice, has been terrorizing churches in Europe searching for the eyes of Saint Lucy, a powerful relic in the Church. The Vatican has tasked Sister Irene, who is befriended by Sister Debra, who is played by a subpar actress and is a poorly written character, with stopping the current attacks on these churches. This leads them to a boarding school for girls where Maurice is working at. There, they once more do battle with the demon Valak.
Overall, I liked this movie more than The Nun. It’s not a great horror movie, but it is very watchable and enjoyable on an entertainment level. There is good creepy religious horror imagery and good suspense. The power of prayer and faith is emphasized in this movie as a way to defeat this demon, which I enjoyed. But the movie had some plot holes, and wasn’t quite the edge on your seat, gripping horror movie that would take this from good to great. Although I would not rush to the theater to watch this movie, if you enjoy horror films, this is worth your time.
Blue Beetle is another mediocre movie in a long line of mediocre movies featuring DC superhero characters. It seems that most DC movies fall into either the absolutely dreadful category or the mediocre but watchable category. Blue Beetle wasn’t terrible and was somewhat entertaining but definitely not good. After just watching The Flash a couple of days ago, it is clearly better than that trainwreck of a movie. On the good side, the action and fighting were good. I thought the movie was well cast, in particular Xolo Mariduena as the Blue Beetle and George Lopez as his uncle.
On the bad side, the desperate quest for laughs was often ridiculous and over the top, in particular the Grandmother character was absurd and not remotely funny as the movie intended her to be. The storytelling was weak. The biggest example of this was through dialogue, they kept hammering onto the audience the message that the Reyes family (standing in place of Mexican immigrants in general) love each other and are resilient to adversity. This is a fine message and I have no problem with it, but trust your audience that through the action and dialogue that they will be able to pick up this message. Instead, they treat their audience like idiots who are incapable of understanding a message unless they are repeatedly spoon fed this message. Or in other words, show don’t tell. Suspension of disbelief was stretched to ridiculous levels. As I said, this movie wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good either.
The first season of this show was intriguing, entertaining to watch, and generally piqued my interest. It wasn’t great, but it was solid television. The second season can politely be described as a train wreck. That’s not to say there wasn’t anything redeeming about season 2. It had some good moments within the dreck, but overall, it was pretty terrible.
Spoilers ahead, so be warned. Among the myriad of issues was that this was a slow moving season. It seemed as if it took forever to get things moving. Episode after episode, Misty and her new boyfriend looked for Natalie. The entire plot with Shauna’s daughter and the police officer was dumb and slow moving. Taissa and her sleepwalking both past and present was tortuous to watch. This entire season could have been made in four episodes at most.
For the most part, the plot made absolutely no sense and was riddled with holes, especially the final two episodes, which were a bigger train wreck than the rest of the season. I’m not sure what was more ridiculous—that the Coach burns down the house trying to kill all of the kids inside, that Shauna nearly beats Lottie to death in front of the rest of the girls and nobody makes a move to stop her even though Lottie is apparently their leader, or most likely the dumbest plotline of all, that Misty’s boyfriend kills a cop, and for some inexplicable reason, his partner goes along with the plan that his partner was dirty and that he was the one who actually shot him.
The characterization is generally quite poor. Misty is the only really compelling character in the entire show. It’s hard to care about any of these characters. I was glad that the season was finally over and don’t intend on watching season 3.
Prior to reading this novel, I had watched the movie, Ready Player One, and I was surprised at just how different the novel was than its movie adaptation. After reading the book, I understand why the movie went in such a different direction. A true adaptation of this novel would never work as a movie, since it wasn’t anywhere near as action packed, and it wouldn’t have worked well on the screen watching someone play video games, which were the root of most of the challenges. Having said that, I think both the novel and the movie succeeded in what they were trying to do.
I thought this was a very creative novel, weaving in nostalgia with a dystopian/post-apocalyptic world. Being a child of the eighties, I thoroughly enjoyed some of the eighties references. In particular, I geeked out when Wade used Ultra Man in a fight in his quest to get the golden egg. I thought there was good commentary about people’s addiction to machines and how some people would prefer to live in a fictitious online world instead of the real world. Yet, I think the message here is that true happiness can’t be achieved by hooking yourself up to a machine, but through living in the real world.
There were some things I didn’t like about this novel. The most notable being the evil corporation that was trying to destroy the Oasis by winning the competition through nefarious means. First, the evil, giant corporation is so utterly cliché. Have a little more creativity and come up with something more original please. Second, this evil corporation was so ridiculously over the top that it wasn’t remotely believable even in this dystopian setting. Otherwise, I found the novel to be enjoyable, although I probably enjoyed the movie more.
