Movies: Atomic Blonde

Ugh.

Okay, I haven't read the source material. But I knew how this story was going to play out within the first five or ten minutes of the film. And I could tell it had all come from men. Because this is a male fantasy masquerading as a strong female story. There are a lot of those, especially in comics and graphic novels, which is where this originated.

Sigh.

Charlize Theron stars as Lorraine Broughton, MI6 agent sent to Berlin in the weeks before the Wall comes down to retrieve a MacGuffin list of agents (remember Skyfall?). Yawn. Her contact is David Percival (James McAvoy, with not enough to do). The list is missing and too many people seem to know who Broughton really is, so she spends a lot of time fighting off people, and the movie is really just one action sequence after another strung together by a plot none of us actually cares about. We don't even care much about the characters because we don't know them and aren't made to particularly like them. This movie is an excuse for a soundtrack, nudity, and blood. That's about it. You see the "twist(s)" coming miles away thanks to the absolute lack of originality. Boo.

Oh, and there's a frame story, of course. Broughton is being debriefed, and you're supposed to wonder why, although it's painfully obvious where everything is headed.

Look, I love a good Cold War story (I even wrote one, though mine is 1960s rather than 80s), but this clearly wasn't made for me. It's for men who want an excuse to stare at women and like to think they're supporting women by watching a movie with a "strong female lead." Or something. Yuck.

Movies: Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Starring: Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore . . . Elton John?
Directed By: Matthew Vaughn
Written By: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn (screenplay) from the comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons
20th Century Fox, 2017
R; 141 minutes
3.75 stars (out of 5)

_______________________________________________________

First question: Was there a fire sale on John Denver music for use in film or something? Or is it just that films with any connection to Channing Tatum are required to use John Denver songs now? Because between this one and Logan Lucky, I've heard more John Denver in the past few weeks than I have since that episode of The Muppet Show from when I was a kid. You know the one.

If that weren't weird enough, Elton John is in this movie and you still hear more John Denver than anything else.

Okay, okay, whatever. Let's get to the nuts and bolts.

A disgruntled Kingsman reject attempts to hijack Eggsy's  very sophisticated cab one night, and while Eggsy manages to fend the baddies off, they still get the info they need to incite the rest of the plot. Namely, they discover locations of all Kingsman agents and properties and destroy them all. Only Eggsy and Merlin survive.

There is a Doomsday Protocol for this kind of thing, and that leads our heroes to Kentucky, where they team up with the Statesman operation—a U.S. cousin to the British Kingsman, natch. But while the Kingsman cover is a tailor shop, the Statesman agency makes whiskey.

Julianne Moore plays Poppy, a psycho drug dealer who craves recognition for her work as the most successful "pharmaceutical CEO" in the world. Alas, she's forced to live in the jungles of Cambodia in an HQ that looks more like she runs Johnny Rocket's. She explains this by saying she grew up amid 50's nostalgia and still loves it. Which is why she's also kidnapped Elton John for her personal entertainment.

Questions you didn't even know you wanted answered:

(1) Do they give an explanation for Colin Firth's survival? A: Yes, and while it feels like a bit of a reach, it is in keeping with the world that has been built.

(2) Is Channing Tatum in this movie? A: For about five minutes. Despite what the trailers have led you to believe, we mostly spend time with Pedro Pascal (you know him from Game of Thrones, but in this film he looks like he's going for gold in a Burt Reynolds lookalike contest).

(3) Is it as violent as the first movie? A: Hmm. There are a couple not lovely moments with a meat grinder, but other than that, it's not terrible.

I enjoyed this film, though not nearly as much as the first. Apparently Eggsy is still in a relationship with the princess who let him "do butt stuff" (and her English has improved) . . . I feel like there is a lot of talent that didn't get fully explored in this movie, and I think the overall problem of drug users being in imminent danger of dying if Poppy doesn't distribute the antidote was weak. As in, not very compelling. And then the denouement felt too easy, and Agent Whiskey's motivation was not established early on, and Galahad Sr.'s mental issues get dropped halfway through, etc. Like, just a lot of minor problems that built up to be a distraction for me from my overall pleasure in the film.

And then at the end (minor spoilers), I have to assume some time has passed? Impeachment doesn't happen that quickly (as we all know), and I don't think a wedding can be slapped together so fast either. So I can only assume there's a leap in time there somewhere.

That said, the action sequences are well done as ever. Halle Berry does a fine job with a limited role. Too bad there wasn't more Jeff Bridges, but I'd say that even about movies in which Jeff Bridges is the star, so . . .

tl;dr: I had fun. But not as much fun as I expected to have.

Podcasts: James Bonding part deux

Because apparently today is my day to blog about podcasts.

I've written about James Bonding before, and then it went away for a while and I was sad and sort of shiftless, but now it's back! So go find it on Earwolf or whatever. (I can't be arsed with branding. One day it might matter where my podcasts come from, but today is not that day.)

So why am I mentioning it again, you ask? Well, I just listened to the episode where Matt and Matt and Paul Scheer detail their ideas for a James Bond theme park. And I had some thoughts about that.

1. The first hotel has got to be called HQ. It's somewhat basic, but that's just the starter hotel. It's the Disneyland Hotel for Bond, nothing fancy, just somewhat themed—the padded leather doors in the M Suite or whatever. Then you can branch out to the upscale hotels like Casino Royale.
2. When you arrive at the park, you're given a dossier. It's like a daily itinerary or one of those passport type things where you have to get something stamped, you have to get photos of something or find someone.
3. You are not Bond. You are an agent of some other number, possibly tasked with aiding Bond or finding him.
4. There is a park-specific villain. Yes, the other villains will also be showcased, but the theme park has its very own story and unique villain. We can't lean on Blofeld for everything.
5. There are multiple ways to enter the park based on (a) which hotel you're staying in and (b) where in the park you want to go first.
6. Yes to areas themed by environment. There are too many movies to do a separate area for each, so we'll have to Epcot the place and divide it by location. Bond is a world-hopper, after all.
7. 007 Land? 007 World?

I think I need to be on this podcast. I think I need Matt & Matt to help me flesh out my next Peter Stoller novel, or really a Jules Maier novel, since he's my Bond character.

Follow James Bonding on Twitter: @JamesBondingPOD

ETA: We just re-watched Skyfall, which is probably my favorite of the Daniel Craig Bond movies (with Casino Royale a close second), and we decided Silva must get his henchmen from calls to Spectre. They have some kind of service, right? "Yes, I need half a dozen men dressed as Met police, oh and a helicopter..."

Books: Peter on Sale on Smashwords

My publisher has put my spy novel The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller on sale on Smashwords for the month of July. So if you haven't already grabbed it, this is a great time to pick it up at a discount.

1960’s London: British Intelligence agent Peter Stoller is next in line to run the Agency—until he falls in love with cab driver, Charles, and his life goes off the road. When Charles is accused of treason, Peter is guilty by association. Peter manages to extract them both, but the seeds of doubt have been planted, putting Peter’s mind and heart at war. Is ignorance truly bliss or merely deadly?

Movies: Jason Bourne

Oh my God, you guys. This movie was so f***ing boring. I tuned out pretty early on, glancing up now and then, and still knew exactly what was going on because nothing much happened. Even the action scenes weren't that fun.

Part of the trouble may be that all these movies now look and sound alike, and there's just nothing new under the sun. Here's a car chase, here's a crowd scene, here's someone hanging off the side of a building . . . *yawn*

But part of the trouble also had to do with the very flimsy plot. Bourne suddenly cares about whether and how his father was involved in Treadstone? Whaaaa? That's fine, but none of us care, nor does this movie make us care. We hardly care about Bourne any more, much less his dad.

Like, they didn't try to make Bourne sympathetic at all. We're just supposed to care about him because we saw those other movies or read some books? Nope. We don't. Sorry, but you do actually have to put some character development in your movies, even when they're part of a series.

Then there was some side plot about using a big tech company to mine data for the government. You know, the CIA was going to buy all the data off them, I guess? I mean, it wasn't a very well-developed plot, so . . . Whatever.

Other things that distracted and bothered me: Tommy Lee Jones' lips—were they, like, really chapped or something?—and Alicia Vikander struggling to mask her natural accent.

So yeah, this movie is NOT worth wasting your time. It's SO BORING. Go do something fun instead, like making a big stack of toast or clipping your toenails. Seriously, those would be way more entertaining.

Books: The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller

On sale as part of the Virtual Book Fair on Facebook. Although the fair kicks off next week, you can already pick Peter up for 99 cents on Amazon.

Books!

So while I'm away at InD'Scribe this weekend, you can pick up a couple of my Sherlock Holmes stories FREE and my spy novel The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller for just 99 cents! What are you waiting for? Click here!

Books In Season

Do you feel that books have seasons? For me, fall is when the mysteries and spy novels ripen and are ready to be read. If you agree, consider picking up The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller to add to your stack. It's perfect to read with a cup of hot tea. Read more about books at various seasons and enter to win a $100 gift card here.

Books: Mata Hari's Last Dance by Michelle Moran

I've enjoyed Moran's books in the past, particularly the ones about Nefertiti and Nefertari. However, I knew more about those lives going in than I did about Mata Hari when I picked up this book. All I knew of Mata Hari was that she'd been a dancer and supposed spy. I couldn't even have told you who she'd supposedly spied for.

Now I know.

The book is told in first person, which gives us some of Mata Hari's feelings. Yet somehow it all still feels rather thin. It's not a bad book—it's a quick, smooth read. But it's like gliding over the surface of water rather than plunging in. Mata Hari's Last Dance is a glass-bottomed boat. I can see the fish and the colors but I still feel separated from them. Disconnected.

It may just be that I don't connect with Mata Hari herself. Maybe she doesn't interest me enough. In this version of her, she seems to make the same choices and mistakes over and over again, so I found it difficult to sympathize despite her sad life. I understand her motivations, her desire and need to be taken care of and always have enough so that she might never again suffer the privations of her youth. That's fair. But here my understanding did not progress into any kind of empathy.

In short, this is a good book. It simply didn't entirely work for me. I never felt fully immersed. But I don't know if the glass in the boat is mine or Moran's.

Books: Smashwords Sale

Throughout the month of July, you can grab my novel The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller (and a lot of other good books too) for half the price. That means if you buy two, it's like BOGO! Great summer reading! Don't miss out!

[Aside: A lot of hits from Mauritius today. I want to go to Mauritius. Y u no invite me?]

Movies: More Gay, Please

So I was reading this Variety article about how Finding Dory isn't as gay as people might've hoped. And they talk about none of the big superheroes are gay, and James Bond isn't gay, and isn't it time for a little more gay in our movies?

Which is why I once again want to make a case for bringing The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller to the screen. He's more intellectual than Bond, but he is the next best thing to a gay Bond.

(I know a lot of people don't want gay characters in their movies. They also don't want chocolate in their peanut butter and vice versa. But not all movies are made for just those people, any more than all candies are.)

The article cites the need to be able to market to China, which has no homosexual rights. Well, okay. But if we start letting close-minded countries dictate our entertainment policies, we'll be just as censored as they are.

So I guess the rule is: No expensive movies unless we can sell them to China. Which is why we don't have gay superheroes or gay James Bond. Cuz those movies cost too much to make for them not to play in the lucrative Chinese market.

Sigh.

For the record, I don't think Peter would cost all that much . . .

Television: The Night Manager 1.6

Okay, so the whole thing wraps up with a decent amount of tension and a satisfying ending. I'll give it that.

Jonathan, Roper, et al are in Cairo to complete the deal. I'm not sure why Jonathan would tell such a stupid lie when Roper asks whether he's ever been to Cairo. (For the record, Jonathan says no, but since he worked at a hotel in Cairo in the first episode . . .) So of course it's only a matter of time before he's recognized, but at the same time he also has access to human resources that help him set bombs on trucks or whatever.

Angela and Martian Manhunter (seriously, can't even be arsed to go look up the character name) are also in Cairo after their respective assignments are scorched after the last mishap. You know, the one where they had the wrong trucks. Jonathan had managed to get a call through to let them know where he—and everyone—was.

And then of course Roper continues to sound Jonathan out about his loyalty, and it's clear Roper isn't sure, though it's the wife thing that tips him rather than any of the other bazillion red flags. Roper even ends up admitting he'd gotten Jonathan wrong, and that just plays false for a man we're supposed to believe is so cunning and careful. The whole thing hinges on Roper being played, after all. By the time he unmasks Jonathan, we're trying to decide if Roper is that stupid (despite everything we've been told to the contrary) or else wondering why he took so long to make his move against such an obvious threat.

Then again, the case is made for Roper to be simply too arrogant to believe he can't squash anyone or anything that tries to work against him. And yet . . . Why not squash sooner? Why, in the last moments, as he's pulling out his trump cards only to be holding Jokers . . . I dunno. There's a disconnect in there somewhere between all the lead up and the end. Yet the end is actually quite good, so I'm willing to forgive a lot.

Makes me wonder about the book, which I have not read. And as I've said, I'd love to see The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller get similar treatment. Though I think it would have to stay set in the 60s . . . Or not. Might be something worth exploring.

Television: The Night Manager 1.5

That "so close yet so far" feeling. Jonathan manages to get info to Angela re trucks he thinks are carrying arms but . . . Nope. Just farm equipment and grain. On the plus side, Corky finally bites it. God, he was obnoxious. Not wrong, but obnoxious anyway.

Roper brings his chippy out to the mercenary camp, though it's not clear why. Corky warns Jonathan there can be no good reason for it, but the reason has yet to be revealed.

One suspects Roper can't be so stupid as to not have put two and two together, though. Everything goes to hell just when this one guy shows up in his life? Though his haste in making Jonathan one of the gang is also bizarre.

Meanwhile, Angela is having the rug pulled out from under her and her project. Her superior is shuttled off to a cushy new job, and her American counterpart (I just call him Martian Manhunter) is called home. That Game of Thrones guy (Tobias Menzies) comes to her house and threatens her, and the next night Angela finds her place ransacked and her husband suffering a blow to the head. All this + the bad info from Jonathan = not a good time.

One more episode to wrap it all up.

And if you enjoy The Night Manager or other Le Carré novels, try mine: The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller. Let's get that one made into a miniseries, shall we?

Television: The Night Manager 1.4

Eh. So Roper rechristens Jonathan as Andrew Birch. (It's all about trees with this guy.) Sets up some elaborate deal with Andrew as the face of some other big corporation buying farming equipment or whatever. Truth is in shows like these, it hardly matters. You know who is bad and who is good, and you have some vague notion of how and why, and the rest makes little difference.

Corky is unhinged by Jonathan's promotion, so to speak. Corky is usually the wingman on these deals.

And of course Jonathan sleeps with Roper's wife. Ugh. This subplot, just please. It's so cliché and feels very forced and pedantic. Yet of course so much of what happens relies on it. Because it's Jonathan's involvement with Mrs. Roper that causes Angela to try and yank him from the mission.

Oh, and Angela is in trouble, too, because the higher-ups that have been working with Roper have been uncovered, and they know she's the one behind it. They've killed one informant, and it's only a matter of time before they finger Jonathan/Andrew.

Probably the best episode so far, as we finally get to the meat of things here. Anticipating a sprint to the finish line in the final two episodes.

Television: The Night Manager 1.3

. . . In which Tom Hiddleston becomes a terrible "manny." He emotionally manipulates a child in order to use said child as a pawn in a potentially deadly game, and he steals the kid's phone besides.

Jonathan (Hiddleston) continues to be hounded by Roper's (Laurie) security team, so he—and from the outside Angela—work to get this particular sniffer dog by the name of Corky off the job. By planting seeds of suspicion of his own, and by making a show of bonding with young Danny, Jonathan appears to slowly win Roper to his side.

Meanwhile, it's made plain that uppity-ups back in London are in with Roper. They continue to insist there is no need to take any action on Roper. So Angela, and by extension Jonathan, may have their legs cut out from under them if/when their work is brought to light. Worse still, Jonathan might (is likely to, based on previews, but then again they edit those fairly broadly) be compromised. One can only hope Angela has buried things deeply enough.

Of course things continue to be dragged down by a pseudo-romantic plot in which Jonathan can't stop thinking about Roper's wife. I'm sorry, but I just find it so difficult to believe him as a person who can't keep it in his pants. It probably doesn't help things that women always seem to be crying when he's around. He does, however, discover that Mrs. Roper (wasn't The Ropers a sitcom?) is also spying on her husband.

Minor annoyance: the On Demand feed repeated one portion of the episode. Someone should fix that.

I do wish they'd make The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller into a miniseries. I feel like more happens in that book than seems to be happening here. Tom Hiddleston would make a good Peter, too.

Television: The Night Manager 1.2

So Jonathan (Hiddleston) gets tapped by Angela (Broadchurch's Olivia Colman) to go undercover and infiltrate Dickie Roper's organization.

That more or less sums it up.

Of course, all of this is way under the radar. Angela is doing it off the books because she can't get clearance from the uppity-ups. She does have some American guy helping her, though.

Then there's a lot of setup, just to get to the point where Jonathan saves Roper's son from would-be extortionist kidnappers. He's badly hurt in the process but begs for "no police," and Roper is, of course, grateful enough to take Jonathan home like a stray and nurse him back to health. Still, there are questions. Roper recognizes Jonathan from the hotel in Switzerland, for one thing. Lots of background checking that spits Jonathan out as a common thief. [To be clear, Jonathan has an assumed name at this point, but I've forgotten it. It's already taking all my energy not to think of him as Chris Pine, or even just Tom Hiddleston.]

The weakest points in the story thus far continue to be Jonathan falling into bed with women—just seems really unbelievable for some reason—and Hugh Laurie as at all threatening. He has his moments, but on the whole I'm not feeling it. Yet. Maybe this is the kind of thing that intensifies as we go along.

I do think the life insurance ads are a funny counterpoint, though.

Television: The Night Manager 1.1

Finally getting around to this as my usual television schedule falls away for summer break. Though I've read some John Le Carré, I am not familiar with this particular book. My understanding is that it has been repurposed for a modern-day story line.

So far the upshot of the plot is that Tom Hiddleston plays Jonathan Pine, the titular night manager of (at first) a hotel in Egypt. He's hit up by the mistress of a dangerous individual, she gives him some sensitive information which he passes on to British agents of some sort, and then she ends up first beat up by the boyfriend and—when Pine's people refuse to give her passage out of the country—eventually dead.

Pine then evidently paraphrases Davy Crockett and says, "You all can go to hell, I'm going to Switzerland," where he becomes night manager at some other fancy hotel. Like you do.

The information the mistress gave Pine hinges on a famous British businessman named Richard Roper, played by Hugh Laurie. He's clearly set up as a villain, someone peddling napalm and other such things to nasty governments and/or insurgents. But the way he announces, "I'm Dickie Roper!" when he arrives at the hotel in Switzerland is laugh-out-loud funny. He becomes very serious and dark rather quickly, but that moment is going to stick with me.

My fundamental problem with this so far is that I'm somehow supposed to believe . . . at least, I think I'm supposed to believe? . . . that Pine fell for this mistress lady in short order. He'd been the night manager for some time, it seems, and she'd been in the Egyptian hotel for a while, too, but it was only when she decided to hit on him . . . And then they had, like, one night together and it was immediate love? Maybe the timeline has been compressed, or maybe I'm not actually meant to believe it was love so much as Pine feeling bad for having compromised her and eventually caused her death, but the way it's done plays false in some basic way. As a motivator for everything that is surely set to come, I find this particular device weak.

Still, it's an interesting story so far, and beautifully shot. I'll watch more.

Meanwhile, if you like The Night Manager, or Le Carré in general, I hope you'll consider giving my novel The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller a read. It's in the same vein and available on Amazon (as linked) and a variety of other outlets (linked by my publisher here).

Books: Peter on Blog Tour

I'm going on tour this month with my novel The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller, and I hope you'll travel with me to a few of the stops. Today's in particular is a great one. It's a Q&A about me and the book, and I had a lot of fun answering the questions. Bonus: a photo of my reclusive writing partner!

Peter on sale through Monday

My latest novel The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller is only 99 cents through Leap Day! If you haven't bought it yet, now is the time. Pick it up on Amazon, or check the publisher's site for links to all other formats.

Books: Happy Birthday to Peter!

My novel The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller is now available! If you pre-ordered, you should now be able to download the book to your device. If you haven't bought it yet, you can find buying options on PepperWords and also on my publisher's site.

For those of you who don't know what the book is about, well, it's set in 1960's London and follows a British spy as he tries to figure out the truth about his lover Charles who has been accused of treason. Sort of in the vein of John Le Carré, if you like that kind of thing.

On PepperWords, you'll find a sidebar with a collection of blog articles about Peter if you want to learn more. There are also book club discussion questions since a couple of people have expressed interest in selecting Peter for their reading groups.

It would mean a lot to me, too, if you'd write a review once you've read the book. Reviews really are the life's blood of a book (and author). I know time is a precious commodity, and that by even choosing to read my book you're gifting me with valuable hours. I certainly appreciate it.

Thank you for being readers! xoxoxo