Author: Rick Mc

Career gymnastics coach who loves the outdoors, and the internet.

ANTHRACITE: limited series TV

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

Not recommended.

Weird. Some sort of horror from France.

Well … there is humour, mainly around quirky Ida — some sort of online detective hacker. She’s terminally ill so doesn’t much worry about anything she does.

The plot is confusing.

Opening Shot: “1994.” The camera pushes in on a house on a lake. SWAT teams arrive in rafts and put up their weapons.

The Gist: The SWAT teams are there to invade the house, in the French Alps village of Levionna, which is the headquarters of a cult led by Caleb Johansson (Stefano Cassetti). Johansson ends up being the only survivor after a mass suicide …

Decider

30 years later the village economy is dominated by a mysterious company, apparently an anthracite (coal) mine.

A journalist looking into the past cult deaths is kidnapped.

His daughter — Ida — arrives to rescue her Dad.

After another seeming cult murder, Jaro Gatsi is blamed by the townspeople. He’s an ex-con who was hired to work at the ski resort.

There’s Jaro’s friend. Who’s got relationship problems.

Next — a troubled police detective, who seems to be the only cop actually trying to solve this thing.

An evil nurse in an insane asylum.

Too many fights. Gunshots. A car chase. …

The whole thing is pretty dumb. Who approved this script?

On the upside, it’s original and not often boring.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The #1 Lawyer by Patterson & Nancy Allen

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

He’s America’s Best Lawyer Until He’s Its #1 Murder Suspect

Can this actually be James Patterson?

It reads to me more like John Grisham.

Excellent.

Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi’s #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity.

Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career.  …

Perhaps this 2024 novel had a LOT of influence from co-author Nancy Allen.

She practiced law in the Ozarks for fifteen years as Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Prosecutor. She served on the faculty at Missouri State University for sixteen years, teaching law classes.

All the Light We Cannot See – book & TV

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

All the Light We Cannot See (2014) is a war novel by American author Anthony Doerr.

… set during World War II. It revolves around the characters Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl who takes refuge in her great-uncle’s house in Saint-Malo after Paris is invaded by Nazi Germany, and Werner Pfennig, a bright German boy who is accepted into a military school because of his skills in radio technology.

It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Overall, I was disappointed.

Too long. Poor storytelling. It rambled too much.

There were dozens of scenes that could have been left out — leaving the core story stronger.

WHY have 4 diamonds? That added nothing but unnecessary pages.

I’m astonished that the Pulitzer judges were impressed.

The mini-series — 4 episodes — is MUCH BETTER.

Don’t listen to the critics who gave it only 27% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I commend the screen writers for improving so much of the messy book.

Werner Pfennig is a much stronger character on screen.

Hugh Laurie is excellent as the World War I veteran suffering from PTSD.

Marie-Laure is played by Aria Mia Loberti who is legally blind. She responded on a whim to an All The Light We Cannot See open global casting search posted online. An amateur. Well cast.

I’d agree with critics that the NAZIs are cliche in the TV series . No nuance.

That was my biggest complaint with the mini-series.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Fletch Won by Gregory Mcdonald

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

Fletch Won (1985) is a mystery/comedy novel written by American Gregory Mcdonald.

It is the eighth book to star the character Fletch, but is a prequel set before the events of first seven books in the series.  …

 Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher is moved off of obituaries and wedding announcements at the News Tribune and is assigned his first journalistic interview, only to have the subject turn up dead in the newspaper‘s parking lot. He investigates, beginning his dual profession of journalist and investigator.

Amusing. But I don’t think I’ll continue with any of the other Fletch books.

The book series was twice adapted for film:

Chevy seems the perfect fool to play this role.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Juror #3 by Patterson & Nancy Allen

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

I’ve really enjoyed the James Patterson books with co-author Nancy Allen.

The difference is Nancy Allen.

In this book, there are two separate trials.

Ruby Bozarth, a newcomer to Rosedale, Mississippi, is also fresh to the State Bar — and to the docket of Circuit Judge Baylor, who taps Ruby as defense counsel.

The murder of a woman from one of the town’s oldest families has Rosedale’s upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby’s inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction.

Ruby’s client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick

Ruby never belonged to the country club set, but once she nearly married into it. As news breaks of a second murder, Ruby’s ex-fiancé shows up on her doorstep — a Southern gentleman in need of a savior. As lurid, intertwining investigations unfold, no one in Rosedale can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women impaneled on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.

Amazon

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Pilot Of The Airwaves (1979)

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

Blast from the past.

Charlie Dore is my age.

An English singer-songwriter.

Pilot of the Airwaves went on to become an enduring radio favourite, reaching No. 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, earning Dore the Record World New Female Artist of the Year, an ASCAP award and charting in Canada, Australia, and Europe.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED by Mick Herron

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Mick Herron is the genius behind the Slough House series.

This Is What Happened (2018) is a standalone novel. Quite different than the Slough House books.

I enjoyed it for being so different.

In London, Harvey Wells, an MI5 agent, recruits lonely 26-year-old mail room employee Maggie Barnes to spy on her firm.

What at first appears to be a tale of spycraft and intrigue turns out to be something entirely different.

Very well written. I recommend the book.

The Holdovers

On By Rick McIn moviesLeave a comment

Paul Giamatti is always good.

Reviews were great.

92% Rotten Tomatoes

Sideways director Alexander Payne reunites with Giamatti.

The Holdovers is a 2023 American Christmas comedy-drama film set in 1970.

I wouldn’t say this film is as good as Sideways, but it has something of similar feel.

A cantankerous, unpopular teacher, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti); a bright, abrasive student, Angus (Dominic Sessa); and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s head cook and a recently bereaved mother, find themselves forced to spend the winter holiday together in an otherwise empty New England elite academy …

… it’s about finding family where you least expect it.

Da’vine Joy Randolph won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress.

That’s a surprise to me. She doesn’t have nearly the same screen time as the other two stars.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes

On By Rick McIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes is an excellent book. A super popular best seller.

The premise sounded unlikely to me.

Sam’s day takes an unexpected turn after she picks up the wrong bag in the changing room of her local gym. The bag, a genuine Marc Jacobs unlike Sam’s designer knock-off, belongs to Nisha, an American in London and pampered second wife of billionaire businessman Carl. Sam, who works for a printing firm and who is the sole breadwinner in her family, has meetings straight after her gym visit and so has no choice but to wear Nisha’s red crocodile-skin Christian Louboutin heels. The shoes seem to have a hypnotising effect on clients and lead her to land a series of new contracts.

Nisha, meanwhile, declines to wear the tatty flats she finds in Sam’s bag, and leaves the gym in flip-flops and a robe. When she arrives at her hotel for a lunch date with her husband, she finds two men at the door of her room who inform her she is not welcome. Carl, it transpires, has called time on their marriage, cancelled her bank cards and begun a romantic relationship with his assistant. –

Guardian Review

Weirdly, it works. The oddball plot somehow believable.

A feel good book.

Moyes became a full-time novelist in 2002. She had many novels rejected before finally making the jump to NY Times Bestseller lists.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I liked her historical fiction, The Giver of Stars, even more.

Oppenheimer – Book and Movie

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

 “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”.

Bhagavad Gita

Initially, I wasn’t all that interested in either the long non-fiction book, nor the film.

BUT finally got around to both.

The movie is better. Not perfect, but a fantastic job telling a difficult story.

I streamed it on Prime over 3 nights as it is LONG.

 Cillian Murphy would seem to be the best possible actor to play the brilliant, complicated J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Robert Downey Jr. is excellent.

Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, as well.

Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr is perfect. He has the gravitas to bring depth to Oppenheimer’s hero.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I read American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005) by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

Surprisingly, I was quite engaged in his early years. The beginnings of the theoretical Physics that would lead to the nuclear bomb.

Once it got to his downfall due to his security hearing in the McCarthy era. The efforts by Lewis Strauss and the FBI to undermine Oppenheimer — I got restless.

Always conflicted, I wished Oppenheimer had simply walked away from the controversy.

I also read The Oppenheimer Alternative by Robert J. Sawyer, the author being a friend of my brother.

It’s an interesting alternative history of the Manhattan Project historical figures.