From Up on Poppy Hill Review

From Up on Poppy Hill is a 2011 Japanese anime produced by the world famous Studio Ghibli. Chances are you will probably have seen films produced by the movie studio without realising it even if you are not an anime fan (thinks Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo).

I’m not a big anime fan myself but like previous movies by the studio, From Up on Poppy Hill has a way of connecting with audiences the world over despite cultural differences. The movie is set in the Pork of Yokohama, in 1960s Japan and tells the story of the blossoming romance between 16-year-old Umi and classmate, Shun.

The story is very gentle and is a departure from previous works by Studio Ghibli which all include some form of magic, spirits or monsters. From Up on Poppy Hill features none of this magic that made the studio famous, opting to tell a simple love story instead. While a little slow in places the film is visually stunning. It’s drawn in the same colourful and detailed style as its predecessors and is a treat to the eye. In an age where most cartoon films are drawn entirely on computer, the artists at Studio Ghibli have shown they can still surpass this with a traditional, entirely hand-drawn movie.

Also rather uniquely to a Studio Ghibli film From Up on Poppy Hill has some musical numbers thrown into the mix as well. I was not keen on this myself but then I am not a big fan of musicals anyway, but it is nice to see the studio try new things.

I give it 6/10.

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A Dance with Dragons Review

After what seemed like an eternity I finally finished A Dance with Dragons, which is the sixth book in George RR Martin’s epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. Or to bring this down to a broader cultural understanding for those who haven’t read the books: Game of Thrones. 

If you have never read the novels or watched the show then maybe you should go put the kettle on and have a nice cup of tea…are they gone? Then we’ll continue. A Dance with Dragons takes off where A Feast For Crows finished. But unlike A Feast For Crows it was not nearly 800 pages of filler. Basically Crows spent more of its time following the misadventures of minor characters the series has never shown an interest in before and suddenly decided that they deserve a whole book for some reason. While that’s not to say nothing of any importance happened in the book that was essentially to the overall plot, those golden nugget moments were very few and far between.

A Dance with Dragons once more focused on the main characters and their continuing adventures. Tyrion Lannister, having fled King’s Landing is roped into some mysterious quest to the other side f the world while Daenerys Targaryen sets up home in the desert city of Mereen. Jon Snow has to contend with the reality of a shortage of rangers to defend The Wall and Bran Stark finally meets the mysterious three eyed crow that has been plaguing him through dreams for the last six books. 

There is a game changer this time round, resulting in probably the best twist in the series so far (which I will not spoil here). This very easily makes A Dance with Dragons the best in the series to date.

As usual the story sucks you in, with events running in tandem across Westeros and other parts of the world. As ever George RR Martin’s characters are memorable and on form.

The only critique I have is that once again, another war is looming within the pages of the book. After six books of other wars and scuffles, I kind of feel I’ve had my belly full. There are a lot of new locations visited in the book and some great revelations along the way but I do feel the series is starting to run out of steam a bit now.

The Field of Blackbirds Review

I do not read a lot of crime thrillers but Thomas Ryan's The Field of Blackbirds has made me rediscover an affection for the genre. I very rarely give out five star reviews but this was one of those rare books that was hard to put down.

What begins as a New Zealand vineyard owner's quest to find his missing friend, Arben Shala, in Kosovo after he disappears turns into an international hunt for a terrorist network that are blowing up the European landscape. There's double crossing, corruption at the highest official level, secret agencies and murder.

While the story is fictitious it feels very real. The characters, both Jeff, Morgan, Sulla and their enemies are all well crafted characters with their own personalities. The bad guys are not shady, pantomine figures which you never see, they feel like real people.

Thomas Ryan has hit the nail on the head with HIS crime thriller, offering a believable portrayal of the covert world of terrorist hunting with a balanced mix of danger, humour and romance thrown in. A story with many twists that will keep you turning the page. I hope to see Jeff Bradley returning in a sequel.

It gets 8/10 and can be purchased here.

Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts Review

This is something I have put off for a long time but I don't think I can for any longer. So let's all take a shot of vodka, or two, and just get it over with. It's time to talk about Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. If you are not familiar with the game series here is a bit of a flashback. The game series follows the adventures of Banjo the bear and Kazooie, his wise cracking bird that lives in his backpack...don't ask me why she lives in a backpack. 

Anyway Banjo Kazooie`s first outing was on the Nintendo 64 back in 1998. The platformer was a smash hit and in 2001 a sequel in the same vein was released, receiving a similar reception. At the end of the second game it was revealed that a third was in the pipeline. Development was on and off for several years after the games creators, Rare, were bought by Microsoft. And that's when things nosedived. 

In 2010 the long awaited third instalment was released. So you will be wondering why such a popular series bombed? Quite simply this: they turned it into a car building/racing game. This is not what people expected after ten years of development for a game series that was known for being a platform adventure. If would be like the makers of Bioshock making a new game but instead of it being a third person shooter the game took on the format of Tetris. So you can imagine why a lot of people were pissed off. 

Some of you will probably be thinking that I’m being unreasonable and that I should give this game a chance. Well, I did. I never bought into the whole car aspect but I still got the game and gave it a chance. I never finished it. It wasn’t the change in gaming style that did it for me though, it was how frustrating the game was. 

To complete different missions and thus advance in the game you have to modify your vehicle. I would not have had a problem with this but it is all the time. You spend more of your time looking at menus and switching wheels and engines with other parts than you do actually in the levels. Also you are dropped in at the deep end, it is impossible to know what works with what equipment and what doesn’t. 

The lack of variety is another major issue. The original games were as much about exploring and finding things to help you in your quest as they were about boss fights and puzzles. In Nuts and Bolts you are either racing, building a car or racing. It’s just so repetitive. I have a car in real life. I don’t mind driving but it’s not the highlight of my day. Why would I want to play a virtual version of this or spend my time in a virtual garage for that matter? This will sound hypocritical but I love Mario Kart. But the tracks on Mario Kart are interesting and you never stop.

                                           Glory days: Banjo and Kazooie on the Nintendo 64

In Nuts and Bolts the races are dull and unimaginative and there are many times you come to a sudden halt simply because your vehicle isn’t advanced enough. Guess what? Back to the garage to spend another twenty minutes randomly sticking virtual van belts and gizmos together to see if that will help. You might get strike the right combination on the twentieth go and win the race. Are we having fun yet?

It gets 2/10.

Nightwatch Review

With only about six weeks to go until everyone’s fourth holiday of the year - Halloween - I thought it would be the ideal time to break out the horror movies, and what better way than to get started than to review Nightwatch. Not only is this a fresh take on the vampire legend but also proof that other countries make movies besides Hollywood in the US. 

Nightwatch was filmed in 2004 in Russia and was a big hit when it first came out; such a big hit in fact that I only recently got round to watching it. The film opens with a battle in medieval times between two warring vampire factions: The Light and The Dark. But as the battle continues both forces realise that they are evenly matched and will not outdo each other. So the Light leader, Geser, and the Dark side’s head honcho, Zavulon, agree a truce. In this pact the Light create a Night Watch and the Dark tribe a Day Watch to maintain balance before the coming of a “Great One”, who will lead one side to destroy the other.

Ignoring several really obvious problems with this set-up, the film skips to 1992, where we meet protagonist, Anton. Having split up with his wife, Anton seeks the help of a witch to exact revenge. The witch tells him that his ex-wife is pregnant with her new partner’s child and Anton asks her to kill the baby. She attempts to do this through a spell. However, her efforts are thwarted when Nightwatch come bursting into her apartment. Half way across the world, Anton’s ex-wife collapses - even before the spell is complete - and it is unclear whether her baby survived the paranormal attack or not. Meanwhile Anton sees the Nightwatch team, much to their surprise. 

The film then skips on 12 years and we find that Anton has become a vampire and member of Nightwatch. The main premise of the film after that is for Anton and his fellow “good” vampires to try and track down the person who cursed a doctor, who is unwittingly killing other people as a result, unaware of her affliction. 

 At the time of its release a lot of people marvelled at this movie because there were shape-shifting vampires who turned into animals. I will admit I was looking forward to seeing this, only to be disappointed. One of the main characters, who is called Tiger, (guess what she transforms into) only shape-shifts once in the entire movie, and that’s within the opening five minutes. Her partner, Bear, doesn’t even change once. So yeah, a little misleading and a little disappointing. There is also an owl that turns into a woman but again this only happens once. 

That aside, Nightwatch does have a good story at heart. There are quite a few characters and a lot more going on than just the Light vampires trying to find out who cursed the doctor. In fact, this takes a back seat later on when Anton discovers his son is still alive and that he and the other vampires have been protecting him unawares from another bloodsucker.

The film also has some nice ideas, like the shape-shifting and an out-of-faze, faded world vampires can occupy called “the gloom”. When in “the gloom” vampires become invisible to the rest of the world but they can’t stay in there for too long, for some reason. There are also mosquitoes in “the gloom” as well…for some reason. Also sometimes non-vampires can get inside there…for some reason. 

This takes us on to probably the biggest problem with the film. A lot of concepts are poorly explains, if at all, which is a shame because there were some really interesting ideas in the movie. Unfortunately this vagueness also spills over into the plot as well. There’s no explanation to the differences between The Light and The Darks factions of vampires. Also why some have certain abilities and others don’t is also not explained. In a very early scene Anton fights against one of The Dark vampires after he abducts a child to feed on. This vampire has no reflection in a mirror - while Anton does - and is killed by a headlight Anton reflects off a shard of mirror. This gave me the impression that The Dark tribe could be killed by daylight: only for the film to show you several of them walking around in broad daylight some afterwards. So why did the headlight trick work only that one time? There are quite a few more instances like this in the film that are never explained. I think the director just thought “fuck it” and went with whatever was written in the first draft of the script.

That’s not to say Nightwatch is a bad film. The story is good and there are some interesting moments of magic, but a lack of explanation at some key plot points makes it very easy to get lost. 

Nightwatch gets 6/10.

Song of the Divided Review

Angel and demons go to war once again in the third and final part of CJ Sullivan’s Wings of the Divided trilogy. Song of the Divided is set immediately after the ending of the second book, following the separation of fallen angel Laphelle and goodie two-shoes Gidyon. 

Now all by his lonesome, Laphelle finds himself in a desolated waste land and sets out across desert, caves and warped forests to find out who he used to be. This is all while trying to avoid moving plants with eyeballs that want to eat his boots and the twisted ‘vivors’ who would prefer to chow down on his flesh. 

While all this is going on, Gidyon begins his own journey of discovery to find out who he really is. Trained to be a healer, but gifted with the skills and instinct of a natural-born warrior, Gidyon sets out to discover his true calling. 

The story alternates between Laphelle and Gidyon but also weaves in a third tale told from fallen angel, Malynko’s, point of view. Malynko, having served the underworld for thousands of years, begins to ask certain questions about why he does what he does. All this goes on while the threat of all-out war between the factions of light and darkness looms, in ever increasing urgency, over their heads.

If you’ve read my briefer Amazon or Goodreads reviews, you will know that I complimented the author on how well she wrote these three interweaving perspectives. I’ve seen authors try this before with more than two characters and they usually get lost along the way, leaving a confused plot and flat characters. CJ Sullivan does not fall into this category however. Her three leads are well-rounded with many sides to their personalities. 

In my reviews of the previous books in this series, I did comment that some of the characters lacked personality but I feel this has gone into complete reverse in book three. Even the co-characters seem really thought out and have plenty to offer. 

Like the second book in this series, Song of the Divided sees the characters travelling between worlds. Again, in my review of the second book, I felt at times that the constant location changes made the story disjointed. This time though it seems to work really well. I felt a combination of fewer places and far deeper scene setting really went a long way. Each locale really drew me into their unique environments.

Song of the Divided is definitely the best of the three and a great end to a fantastic series.

It gets 9/10.