TV Series - Furies (French)

In French, with subtitles

Watched on Netflix
Season 1
Number of Episodes: 8
Length of Episode: 45 min.
IMBd: 6.2/10
RT Critic's Consensus: n/a
RT Audience Score: no ratings
cag: 4.5

Premiered: 3/1/2024 (US)

Note:  VERY violent 

My comments:  This kept me totally engrossed all day Sunday, despite its violence and having to read subtitles.  Twists, turns, surprises, love triangle....what's not to like?  I didn't enjoy the huge amount of violence, but the relationships and story were great!

Storyline from IMBd: A dive into Paris's criminal underworld, where Lyna meets the enigmatic and brutal Furie, the boss of this hazardous environment.

Storyline from IMBd:  Seeking to avenge her father's death, a young woman becomes entangled in the web of the Fury, peacekeeper of the Paris criminal underworld.

35. Saga: Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan

illustrated by Fiona Staples
interlibrary loan from Fredericksen - book was in pretty bad shape and sort of gross, pages coming out and stuck together, even a bit of an odor.....
2012, Image Comics
164 pgs.
Adult Graphic Novel - explicit sex
Finished 4-12-18
Goodreads rating: 4.23 - 165,022 ratings (holy schmoley!)
My rating: 2.5
Setting: Somewhere out there....

First line/s:  "This is how an idea becomes real."

My comments:  Granted, I’m pretty new to this genre - trying to be an eclectic reader - but I’m yet to discover the joy that others seem to get from reading graphic novels. This one was easier to follow than my other Brian Vaughan read (Paper Girls), I had no questions or head scratching when I finished. And my borrowed library copy had pages falling out, stuck together, and a faint odd odor, which didn’t help. Think I’m going to try another graphic novel author before I give up,

Goodreads synopsis:  When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. 
          From bestselling writer Brian K. Vaughan, Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in this sexy, subversive drama for adults. 

MOVIE - Triple 9

(R) 1:55

Wide release 2/26/16

Viewed Tuesday, 3/1/16 at ElCon with Sheila

RT Critic:  54  Audience:  50
Critic's Consensus:  Triple 9's pulpy potboiler thrills don't quite live up to the ferocious talents of its cast, but the film's efficient, solidly crafted genre fun is often enough to balance its troublesome flaws.

Cag: 4 - this was a good movie, had to pay close attention to "get" it all (I hate that I love dark, gritty, full-of-murder books and movies)

Directed by John Hillcoat

Open Road Films

Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Kate Winslet, Chiwetei Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie

My comments: Very entertaining, once you got past two things.  One: very, VERY violent. Two: shows the "underbelly" of cities in the US in a really shocking way.  Even though I was aware of gloom, gangs,guns, drugs, darkness, crazy people this really, REALLY showed it - too well.  It was really unsettling.  The story was intricate and interesting.  You had to pay attention.  It wasn't until the drive home afterward that something said at the very beginning of the film was remembered and made sense (the three in the car were talking about their upcoming heist, and the guy in the back seat said he didn't worry about Marcus, but wasn't sure about the "other guy."  I'm glad I remembered that later!  (It always amazes me how Woody Harrelson totally takes on a role - he definitely becomes the perosn he's portraying.  He was great!)

RT Summary:  In TRIPLE NINE, a crew of dirty cops is blackmailed by the Russian mob to execute a virtually impossible heist and the only way to pull it off is to manufacture a 999, police code for "officer down." Their plan is turned upside down when the unsuspecting rookie they set up to die foils the attack, triggering a breakneck action-packed finale tangled with double-crosses, greed and revenge.

80. In Search of Mercy - Michael Ayoob

Minotaur Books, 2010
HC $24.99 TPPL
293 pgs.
for: adults
rating: now that's a good question. The ending just sucked. So.....3?

Modern day Pittsburgh, PA. The story is told in the first person by Dexter Bolzjak,a young man still living a brutal part of his past over and over. An unusual loner with few friends, he spent most of his youth watching gruesome videos and trying to discover when and how they were edited. He was enlisted to become his high school hockey goalie when his quick reflexes were discovered. He'd never had any interest in sports at all, but became quite a hockey star. However, when sadistic fans capture him and brutally torture him, his life becomes more-or-less a non-life.

Now, years later, he makes a weird friendship with an old, sick drunk, who enlists him to find his long-lost love, a movie actress named Mercy Carnahan who had disappeared without a trace perhaps fifty years before. Is it possible to try to unweave the mysterious story after so much time? Dexter becomes determined to figure it out. And as he discovers clues, he flashbacks and mulls over his own devastating trauma.

This story had twists, turns, and plot devices that I would have never considered. However, when I finished the book I wanted to throw it across the room. It was and incredibly unsatisfying ending, left me flat, flat, flat.

I am writing this review 6 weeks after I finished the book, so it's spotty. I just remember that it's an unusual story with an unsatisfying ending and really odd happenings. Whew.

MOVIE - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Wow. An incredible, topnotch movie.
Released 3-19-2010
R (2:34)
6-13-10 at the Loft
RT: 86% cag: Do I Dare Rate This as My Highest? 97%
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
In Swedish, with subtitles
From the book by Stieg Larsson

NOTE: There was some incredibly graphic violence in this movie that was extremely disburbing.

But, WHAT A MOVIE! Incredbile storytelling, fantastic acting, setting and tone and mood that just worked perfectly together. Within ten minutes I wasn't even realizing that I was reading subtitles. And since I come from a Swedish background, hearing the lilting accents, checking out the countryside, and even having one of the small towns included that are part of my own family history was pretty cool.

Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist, was set up, charged with libel, and as the film begins, has been sentenced to six months incarceration. He has six months before he has to submit to this. So when a wealthy industrialist and CEO of a powerful family conglomerate hires him to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of his much-loved niece, Harriet, he takes on the job and moves to a cottage on the Vanger property in northern Sweden, away from the craziness of Stockholm.

Lisbeth Salander is a 24 year old computer hacker with lots of baggage, a trouble past, and a dozen reasons to be sullen. She has dozens of piercings, a huge tattoo on her back, and a cigarette constantly between her lips. Her new probation officer is a sexual predator that is one of the nastiest I've ever seen portrayed. But Lisbeth is smart. She retaliates. And since she was the researcher that helped put Mikael away, she realizes that he's innocent and keeps hacking into his harddrive to see what he's up to.

Well, the two stories come together when she joins him to help him investigate.

So we are really examing two scenarios - hers, and their investigation. What a story, so well told. This movie does it justice. I've heard talk they're going to do an American edition. Why? I don't think they could top this one.

I'm really glad I didn't read the book before I saw the movie. The suspense was wonderful. But NOW....I wanna read the book!