A woman and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a small French village that shakes up the rigid morality of the community.
So as 'descriptive' as the summary above is, I understand why it couldn't be much longer. Chocolat is one of the most interesting movies I have seen in a while but it is one of those movies that has so much subtext that you have to keep your brain ON while you watch it.
That being said, this one is not for all movie-goers if you're just looking for a 2 hour distraction from everyday life. But if you feel like using your thinking muscles then it's a pretty good investment.
It opens with Vianne and her daughter Anouk coming to a small town in Frace with SUPER DUPER strict unwritten rules. Everyone goes to church, everyone listens to the mayor, and everyone ignores the general flaws of the townspeople to keep the peace.
Vianne and Anouk don't go to church, Vianne was never married (so Anouk is not exactly welcomed into the town either...), and they open a chocolate shop in the middle of Lent--a time of fasting.
As scandalous rumors spread about the mother and daughter a group of so-called pirates sail into town. They are solely embraced by Vianne and Anouk, but the rest of the town is trying to 'boycott immorality' and ignores them hoping they'll leave of their own accord. The leader of the River Rats (as the mayor calls them) is played by Johnny Depp and he falls in love with Vianne, making them both even more hated by the town.
As tensions mount, the townspeople make some serious judgement calls and the ending is pretty surprising. It wasn't quite a happily ever after...but it was kinda close.
I really liked the idea of this movie, the social prinicples involved and how the townspeople were awakened near the end of the movie were awe inspiring. The filming was captivating, interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat...well it kept me awake in my sociology class so THAT is impressive!
Overall 4 stars. I don't know if I would rush to see it again but I would definitely re-watch it in the future.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.
This book had so much promise, but fell short of every expectation. When I first read the summary this book sounded cool and different, but low and behold, it was just another dystopian love story. *sigh*
Lena's family history is slathered with the love disease "deliria". Her parents were actually in love (which never happens anymore because all couples are paired based on favorite colors, income, etc) and this caused her mother to contract the disease and go crazy once her father died. Her mother killed herself so Lena goes to live with her aunt and cousins, most of which have been cured.
This book is one of the dystopians that assume you know everything about the made-up world. I HATE that. It may be the near future, but still I wish the author would have taken some time for world building. The whole book takes place in Portland, but since I have never been there I can't imagine what it looks like, and the author never takes a second to describe it. Pages are spent on how Lena feels about running, her mom, school, her best friend but never on the setting itself. It was frustrating.
Of course Lena is too eager to be cured so she meets a guy. She falls in love like the summary mentions and they try to escape together into the Wilds (which again, I know nothing about this place because it was never explained to me).
I also noticed that authors of dystopians like to capitalize EVERYTHING. I don't read dystopians too often because of their horribly predictable plots, so it took me a while to notice. I mean, it might be important but that doesn't mean every other word needs to be a proper noun. You could just tell me it was important and I would be satisfied.
Examples from this book:
the Invalids
the Wilds
the Governor
the sympathizers (which ok that's not capitalized, but it was ALWAYS in italics...wtf??)
the Crypts
the Dumpsters (I really hope that's a typo)
And those are just off the top of my head. If it wasn't a library book, then I would have gone through and hilighted all the capital words that don't make any sense. How important could dumpsters be anyway?
So continuing on with the story...Lena and her lover try to escape but kinda fail. Which wasn't that surprising because both of these characters are so self-sacrificing it's ridiculous. I bet Lena would kill herself to prevent her hubby from getting food poisoning or something.
It ends with Lena making a huge self-discovery that the reader made halfway through the book. I can't believe there are more of this series, but then again...*smacks forehead*...people eat up this crap.
This book reminded me of the Uglies series. To anyone that read and liked those, I would recommend this book and possibly the rest of the Delirium series as well. Both plots are surrounded by forbidden love which is so overused at this point. Can't a girl just save the world and be single-and-ready-to-mingle?
I would consider reading the second installment of Lena and her lovesick puppy BF, but only if I was desperate for a quick read. It wasn't interesting or boring, my only motivation to finish was to find out the ending and finish the book. Overall 3 stars.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.
This book had so much promise, but fell short of every expectation. When I first read the summary this book sounded cool and different, but low and behold, it was just another dystopian love story. *sigh*
Lena's family history is slathered with the love disease "deliria". Her parents were actually in love (which never happens anymore because all couples are paired based on favorite colors, income, etc) and this caused her mother to contract the disease and go crazy once her father died. Her mother killed herself so Lena goes to live with her aunt and cousins, most of which have been cured.
This book is one of the dystopians that assume you know everything about the made-up world. I HATE that. It may be the near future, but still I wish the author would have taken some time for world building. The whole book takes place in Portland, but since I have never been there I can't imagine what it looks like, and the author never takes a second to describe it. Pages are spent on how Lena feels about running, her mom, school, her best friend but never on the setting itself. It was frustrating.
Of course Lena is too eager to be cured so she meets a guy. She falls in love like the summary mentions and they try to escape together into the Wilds (which again, I know nothing about this place because it was never explained to me).
I also noticed that authors of dystopians like to capitalize EVERYTHING. I don't read dystopians too often because of their horribly predictable plots, so it took me a while to notice. I mean, it might be important but that doesn't mean every other word needs to be a proper noun. You could just tell me it was important and I would be satisfied.
Examples from this book:
the Invalids
the Wilds
the Governor
the sympathizers (which ok that's not capitalized, but it was ALWAYS in italics...wtf??)
the Crypts
the Dumpsters (I really hope that's a typo)
And those are just off the top of my head. If it wasn't a library book, then I would have gone through and hilighted all the capital words that don't make any sense. How important could dumpsters be anyway?
So continuing on with the story...Lena and her lover try to escape but kinda fail. Which wasn't that surprising because both of these characters are so self-sacrificing it's ridiculous. I bet Lena would kill herself to prevent her hubby from getting food poisoning or something.
It ends with Lena making a huge self-discovery that the reader made halfway through the book. I can't believe there are more of this series, but then again...*smacks forehead*...people eat up this crap.
This book reminded me of the Uglies series. To anyone that read and liked those, I would recommend this book and possibly the rest of the Delirium series as well. Both plots are surrounded by forbidden love which is so overused at this point. Can't a girl just save the world and be single-and-ready-to-mingle?
I would consider reading the second installment of Lena and her lovesick puppy BF, but only if I was desperate for a quick read. It wasn't interesting or boring, my only motivation to finish was to find out the ending and finish the book. Overall 3 stars.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Spell Bound by Rachel Hawkins
Just as Sophie Mercer has come to accept her extraordinary magical powers as a demon, the Prodigium Council strips them away. Now Sophie is defenseless, alone, and at the mercy of her sworn enemies—the Brannicks, a family of warrior women who hunt down the Prodigium. Or at least that’s what Sophie thinks, until she makes a surprising discovery. The Brannicks know an epic war is coming, and they believe Sophie is the only one powerful enough to stop the world from ending. But without her magic, Sophie isn’t as confident.
Sophie’s bound for one hell of a ride—can she get her powers back before it’s too late?
Wow. That's all I got for this one. It was intense, cliched and probably the equivalent of a soap opera in a book series. I liked all of the Hex Hall trilogy, but this one takes the cake.
Sophie is pretty much useless at the start of the book, and can't stop complaining about it. That was ANNOYING AS HELL. The whole 'I miss everyone who maybe died, but I'm not sure if they really did or not' thing was killing me, but since I enjoyed the other books so much I kept going. It was sooooo worth it!
The love triangle was shattered (thank god) and the whole series was tied up in a nice ending...which I did and didn't like. This book had an ounce of realism but the rest was so totally convienient that it turned me off. I was hoping that the ending could be at least somewhat realistic. Sophie happened to have this, or did that or met this person who knew this other guy who helped them out in the end.
The writing was nowhere near 5-star quality, but overlooking that, I could feel Sophie's predicaments and relate to them easily enough. There was no 'Sophie is sad'; the author made you feel sad in a way without directly saying that. Yay!! And on top of that, the world that the Prodigium live in is expanded which was really interesting. There was also a how-demons-came-to-be history lesson in there which I totally enjoyed.
Of course, like any cliche, the bad guys aren't that bad--they're just doing what they think is right. Because daddy told them too. *yawn*
Lastly the main thing that bugged me is listed below, it's a spoiler so ignore it if you haven't yet read this book. This might sound like a negative review overall but that's only because I didn't want to give away the good parts, because I think people should still read this book. It's a good completion to a good series. Every book's got its issues but if those are overlooked you can thoroughly enjoy Spell Bound. 5 stars :)
*****SPOILER*****
Ok, so when Soph and her friends walk into hell. Someone should have died or whatever, because I know she's freaking powerful but the point was to make her go alone. Then they went all scooby-gang on her and friends til the end apparently seemed like a good idea. That is totally going against the whole plot line. I get that the author was trying to make a mushy moment, but in my opinion it failed miserably. The stupid school kids should have been punished for their mistakes, not live through going to hell because they're friends with a demon. LAME...but then it got better ;)
Sophie’s bound for one hell of a ride—can she get her powers back before it’s too late?
Wow. That's all I got for this one. It was intense, cliched and probably the equivalent of a soap opera in a book series. I liked all of the Hex Hall trilogy, but this one takes the cake.
Sophie is pretty much useless at the start of the book, and can't stop complaining about it. That was ANNOYING AS HELL. The whole 'I miss everyone who maybe died, but I'm not sure if they really did or not' thing was killing me, but since I enjoyed the other books so much I kept going. It was sooooo worth it!
The love triangle was shattered (thank god) and the whole series was tied up in a nice ending...which I did and didn't like. This book had an ounce of realism but the rest was so totally convienient that it turned me off. I was hoping that the ending could be at least somewhat realistic. Sophie happened to have this, or did that or met this person who knew this other guy who helped them out in the end.
The writing was nowhere near 5-star quality, but overlooking that, I could feel Sophie's predicaments and relate to them easily enough. There was no 'Sophie is sad'; the author made you feel sad in a way without directly saying that. Yay!! And on top of that, the world that the Prodigium live in is expanded which was really interesting. There was also a how-demons-came-to-be history lesson in there which I totally enjoyed.
Of course, like any cliche, the bad guys aren't that bad--they're just doing what they think is right. Because daddy told them too. *yawn*
Lastly the main thing that bugged me is listed below, it's a spoiler so ignore it if you haven't yet read this book. This might sound like a negative review overall but that's only because I didn't want to give away the good parts, because I think people should still read this book. It's a good completion to a good series. Every book's got its issues but if those are overlooked you can thoroughly enjoy Spell Bound. 5 stars :)
*****SPOILER*****
Ok, so when Soph and her friends walk into hell. Someone should have died or whatever, because I know she's freaking powerful but the point was to make her go alone. Then they went all scooby-gang on her and friends til the end apparently seemed like a good idea. That is totally going against the whole plot line. I get that the author was trying to make a mushy moment, but in my opinion it failed miserably. The stupid school kids should have been punished for their mistakes, not live through going to hell because they're friends with a demon. LAME...but then it got better ;)
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins
Sophie Mercer thought she was a witch.
That was the whole reason she was sent to Hex Hall, a reform school for delinquent Prodigium (aka witches, shapeshifters, and fairies). But that was before she discovered the family secret, and that her hot crush, Archer Cross, is an agent for The Eye, a group bent on wiping Prodigium off the face of the Earth.
Turns out, Sophie’s a demon, one of only two in the world—the other being her father. What’s worse, she has powers that threaten the lives of everyone she loves. Which is precisely why Sophie decides she must go to London for the Removal, a dangerous procedure that will destroy her powers.
But once Sophie arrives she makes a shocking discovery. Her new friends? They’re demons too. Meaning someone is raising them in secret with creepy plans to use their powers, and probably not for good. Meanwhile, The Eye is set on hunting Sophie down, and they’re using Archer to do it. But it’s not like she has feelings for him anymore. Does she?
So this is the second installment of the Hex Hall trilogy. And it was almost as good as the first. I would have rated it better if not for the obvious love triangle that kept popping up to distract you from the action.
Sophie is in love with Archer, who's supposed to kill her, but is engaged to Cal thanks to an arranged marriage. Of course she wants to call off the engagement with Cal because he says they're just friends and that what she thinks too, but of course it's NEVER like that. Archer is forced to flee back to his group of assassins known as 'the Eye' and leave Sophie wanting for more. This is where he should have been written out as a character because when he comes back everything gets complicated and confusing.
In the meantime, Sophie finds out that people are raising demons to fight the Eye which is frowned upon because they are dangerous killing machines and cannot be controlled easily.
Jenna, the BFF from book 1, pops up every now and again. I think there might be some missed storyline between Jenna and Sophie...they could definitely be a couple (especially with Jenna being gay already). I mean there's gotta be some reason she sticks around. Maybe it's just me but if I was being ignored by my bestie for days at a time I would seriously start re-thinking some things, like WHY WE WERE STILL FRIENDS...unless I wanted something more ;) ya know?
But other than the awkward love triangle/square this book was pretty engaging. I liked the introduction of Sophie's dad and how he played a role in everything. There were definitely some shocking moments with some major characters. Betrayal, backstabbing and mysterious deaths--heavy stuff.
Overall, 4 stars for action. Not 5 stars because of the annoying love triangle, but still worth reading!
That was the whole reason she was sent to Hex Hall, a reform school for delinquent Prodigium (aka witches, shapeshifters, and fairies). But that was before she discovered the family secret, and that her hot crush, Archer Cross, is an agent for The Eye, a group bent on wiping Prodigium off the face of the Earth.
Turns out, Sophie’s a demon, one of only two in the world—the other being her father. What’s worse, she has powers that threaten the lives of everyone she loves. Which is precisely why Sophie decides she must go to London for the Removal, a dangerous procedure that will destroy her powers.
But once Sophie arrives she makes a shocking discovery. Her new friends? They’re demons too. Meaning someone is raising them in secret with creepy plans to use their powers, and probably not for good. Meanwhile, The Eye is set on hunting Sophie down, and they’re using Archer to do it. But it’s not like she has feelings for him anymore. Does she?
So this is the second installment of the Hex Hall trilogy. And it was almost as good as the first. I would have rated it better if not for the obvious love triangle that kept popping up to distract you from the action.
Sophie is in love with Archer, who's supposed to kill her, but is engaged to Cal thanks to an arranged marriage. Of course she wants to call off the engagement with Cal because he says they're just friends and that what she thinks too, but of course it's NEVER like that. Archer is forced to flee back to his group of assassins known as 'the Eye' and leave Sophie wanting for more. This is where he should have been written out as a character because when he comes back everything gets complicated and confusing.
In the meantime, Sophie finds out that people are raising demons to fight the Eye which is frowned upon because they are dangerous killing machines and cannot be controlled easily.
Jenna, the BFF from book 1, pops up every now and again. I think there might be some missed storyline between Jenna and Sophie...they could definitely be a couple (especially with Jenna being gay already). I mean there's gotta be some reason she sticks around. Maybe it's just me but if I was being ignored by my bestie for days at a time I would seriously start re-thinking some things, like WHY WE WERE STILL FRIENDS...unless I wanted something more ;) ya know?
But other than the awkward love triangle/square this book was pretty engaging. I liked the introduction of Sophie's dad and how he played a role in everything. There were definitely some shocking moments with some major characters. Betrayal, backstabbing and mysterious deaths--heavy stuff.
Overall, 4 stars for action. Not 5 stars because of the annoying love triangle, but still worth reading!
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