CLUELESS. (1995) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

CLUELESS. (1995) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY AMY HECKERLING. LOOSELY BASED ON JANE AUSTEN’S NOVEL, ‘EMMA.’

STARRING ALICIA SILVERSTONE, STACEY DASH, BRITTANY MURPHY, PAUL RUDD, DAN HEDAYA, WALLACE SHAWN AND TWINK CAPLAN.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Daddy: ‘What did you do in school today, honey?’

Cher: ‘Well, I broke in my purple clogs.’

I have a bit of a girl crush on Alicia Silverstone, so I tend to think well of every film she makes. She’s just so watchable, with that fabulous mop of blonde hair and the wonderfully expressive mouth/face. In CLUELESS, she’s also very likeable, and not at all the raging bitch she could so easily be, with her glorious looks and charismatic personality. Well, I said I had a girl crush, lol.

She still looks amazing at forty-five, hardly much different to the girl who got famous in THE CRUSH (1993) with Cary Elwes, and also by starring in a couple of iconic videos for the rock band Aerosmith, alongside lead singer Steve Tyler’s daughter, the no less stunning Liv Tyler.

I’ve always found Liv Tyler, of LORD OF THE RINGS fame, to be rather blank-faced and kind of flat when it comes to performing, though, in contrast to Alicia Silverstone’s infinitely watchable and animated personas. No offence meant, Livvy love…!

Anyway, in CLUELESS, the romantic high school comedy with its own cult following, spin-off television series and series of Young Adult books, Alicia Silverstone plays the likeable but ultimately ‘clueless’ Cher Horowitz.

Cher is a rich, popular and beautiful student, who attends Bronson Alcott High School in Beverley Hills while living with her father Melvin, a temperamental rich lawyer. Cher’s mum died years ago from a liposuction treatment that went tits-up, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Cher is well liked at school, despite her obvious advantages, which should really make her the butt of terrible jealousy. Her best friend is Dionne, who is dating Murray, who says things like, ‘Woman, lend me some money!’

Cher and Dionne live for fashion, and for going to the mall and shopping till they drop, to the point where Cher’s socially conscious ex-stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd) teases her about it. He says Cher is shallow and superficial and only cares about clothes and what she looks like on the outside, and this really rankles with Cher.

She wants to feel like there’s more to her than just being a clothes horse, and anyway, she’s given away tons of expensive Italian clothes to their European maid, Lucy, so what is Josh even talking about, anyway, the sap?

A matchmaking exercise on Cher’s part to bring together two rather goofy teachers, Mr. Hall (played by Wallace Shawn, who was Vizzini in THE PRINCESS BRIDE) and Ms. Geist, goes extremely well and Cher is pleased with the nice happy feelings it gives her, even though she only did it in the first place out of self-interest, namely, in order to get one of her poor grades ‘re-negotiated.’

Still, that nice, do-good-for-others feeling sticks with her and, when an utterly ‘clueless’ new girl joins the school- Tai Frasier, played by the late Brittany Murphy- Cher decides that it would be an act of charity on her part to take the gammy ugly duckling under her wing and turn her into a swan. Or a clone of herself and Dionne and the other cool girls at Bronson Alcott High School, more like.

The project has mixed results. Cher goes on to fancy a guy who turns out to be gay, then the guy she has earmarked for Tai only has eyes for her, Cher. Cher fails her driving test and, in an unrelated incident, gets mugged at knife-point, while she’s wearing an Alaia dress, if you can believe her bad luck and the terrible timing. To be mugged when you’re wearing Alaia? Unthinkable…

Then she finally realises that the man of her own dreams has been right in front of her all along, only now, someone else has expressed an interest in snagging this particular guy’s attention… the newly popular and fabulised Tai Frasier, who owes both her newfound popularity and her equally newborn fabulousness to Cher. Oh, the delicious irony of it all! Who will win the love of this guy? Cher… or her creation, Tai…?

There’s not much else to say about the movie, except that it was loosely based on Jane Austen’s light comedy EMMA, and several of the characters in CLUELESS correspond with characters in the novel.

Alicia Silverstone looks incredible through the film and is a great little comic actress too. I love her in straight or even nasty roles, for example, she played a very dangerous liar in THE CRUSH, but she has a gift for comedy too, and a delightfully expressive and mobile mouth and face to help her with that. Talk about blessed.

If you want to join the Alicia Silverstone Fan Club, just bung me a few quid here at my home address and I’ll see gets it, honest I will. We’re actually dead good mates on social media, me and her. At least, I think it’s her, could be one of those fan accounts, but anyway, watch the film if you haven’t already seen it.

It’s a good laugh, very of its time- the baggy pants, skateboarding ‘Nineties- and you might even pick up a few fashion tips, lol. Or find out how to get your teacher to change a grade you’re not happy with. I mean, you don’t want to be clueless, do you…?

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

Believe In This — Fourteen Lines

Bob Kaufman (1925 – 1986) “when i die, i won’t stay dead.” Bob Kaufman Jail Poems (An Excerpt) by Bob Kaufman 1 I am sitting in a cell with a view of evil parallels, Waiting thunder to splinter me into a thousand me’s. It is not enough to be in one cage […]
Believe In This — Fourteen Lines

THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW. (2022) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

**THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW. (2022)**
**A NETFLIX COMEDY SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©**
**DIRECTED BY MICHAEL LEHMANN.**
**STARRING KRISTEN BELL, TOM RILEY, MICHAEL EALY, MARY HOLLAND, CAMERON BRITTON, SHELLEY HENNIG AND GLENN CLOSE.**

***‘Bingo…!’***

This is a black comedy series in eight less-than-thirty-minutes episodes that would be easy enough to binge-watch in one night. Well, that’s how I did it, anyway, last night, as a matter of fact. It’s a send-up of all those crime thriller books and films that have names like *GONE GIRL* and *THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN.*

I’ve found the trend a bit tiresome at times, as every second crime book seems to have the words ‘the girl’ or ‘the woman’ in the title. I’ve noticed a similar trend in literary fiction for having ‘the so-and-so’s daughter’ for a title. Apothecary’s daughter, abortionist’s daughter, and we’re still only on the A’s here, lol. The world of books sure could use a shot of originality.

Anyway, this parody series features Kristen Bell, who played Princess Anna in the smash-hit kids’ animated film *FROZEN* (2013), as Anna, the rather kooky American heroine. Anna lives alone in a fabulous big house on a secluded, exclusive street rather like Wisteria Lane from the drama series *DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES.* Only rich people live there, and you probably have to be vetted by the neighbourhood welcome committee before you ever get permission to buy a house there.

Anna’s marriage to Douglas, an FBI profiler specialising in serial killers, broke up after their eight-year-old daughter Elizabeth dies in hilarious fashion. Well, this is a dark comedy series, after all, and a piss-take of the current annoying trends in crime thriller writing. Anna is an artist, but she hasn’t painted since Elizabeth’s death.

She spends her long, lonely boring days drinking huge full glasses of red wine, popping the pills her therapist gives her, which incidentally cause her to hallucinate, and staring out the window at her neighbours’ comings and goings. She reads books with titles like *THE WOMAN ACROSS THE LAKE* and THE GIRL ON THE CRUISE. She desperately needs to get a life, but she obviously hasn’t reached that place yet.

One day, a handsome British widower called Neil moves in right across the street with his daughter Emma, who’s about the same age as Elizabeth would have been. Anna immediately falls for Neil and starts bringing him and Emma casseroles- apparently, that’s a recurring trope in these crime thrillers- and encouraging Emma with her drawing.

She’s absolutely horrified to discover, after all the casseroles and meaningful looks, that Neil has a beautiful, but bitchy, young air hostess girlfriend called Lisa. Even more horrifying is the night that a sloshed Anna looks across the street and sees Lisa dying from a cut throat in Neil’s house.

She calls the police, who find no sign of a dead body or even a struggle. What they do find, however, is a drunken Anna who seems to be incapable from telling fact from fiction, imagination from reality and alcohol-and-pills-induced hallucinations from What Really Happened. No-one believes Anna’s story. Even Anna herself doubts it at times. The race is on for the grieving mother to find the truth before… well, before the series ends, I suppose.

For a parody or a spoof of something, it’s not exactly a laugh a minute, like, say, *BLAZING SADDLES* or *YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN*, but there *are* a few good laughs in it. The self-help books of the day, for example, and cannibalistic serial killers *(Massacre Mike is genuinely funny)*. People’s ridiculous online profiles **and the lengths folks’ll go to to look like they’re carefree and having a great old time,** and the very amusing all-over-the-house sex montage between Anna and beefcake Sexy Rexy. I also loved the bitchy, social-climbing Chinese neighbour Carol and Glenn Close’s very classy cameo at the end.

I would never watch this series again though, as one viewing really shows you everything you’ll ever need to know about it. I even feel guilty about spending an entire Friday night on it, as it’s really only chewing gum for the eyes without any particular intellectual merit to it but, what the hell, we’ve all been through a global pandemic together and we deserve some brain-switched-off downtime. That’s my excuse, anyway. *What’s yours…?*

BOOKS I’M THINKING OF WRITING IN THE FUTURE:

THE WOMAN WHO WAS THERE ONE MINUTE AND GONE THE NEXT.

THE WOMAN’S DAUGHTER, WHO WAS ALSO SOMEONE’S SISTER.

THE WOMAN AND THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN MEET THE WOMAN WHO WAS THERE ONE MINUTE AND GONE THE NEXT.

YOU TOO CAN BE A SERIAL KILLER.

THE SERIAL KILLER’S DAUGHTER.

THE ALCOHOLIC’S DAUGHTER.

YOU TOO CAN BE AN ALCOHOLIC SERIAL KILLER.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW WHO USED TO BE THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN BUT IS NOW GONE.

THE WOMAN WHO LIVED IN THE HOUSE WITH THE WINDOWS.

THE WOMAN WHO LIVED IN THE HOUSE WITH THE WINDOWS BUT NO DOOR.

THE ALCOHOLIC WOMAN WITH THE DAUGHTER IN THE HOUSE.

THE ALCOHOLIC WOMAN WITH THE SERIAL KILLER DAUGHTER WHO WAS ALSO A WOMAN BUT NOT AN ALCOHOLIC ONE.

YOU TOO CAN LIVE IN A HOUSE WITH WINDOWS.

Let me know if you can come up with any more…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL. (2015) BOOK REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

**THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL BY PETER JAMES. PUBLISHED IN 2015 BY MACMILLAN.**
**BOOK REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©**

***They said the dead can’t hurt you. They were wrong…***

***Evil isn’t born, it’s built…***

This book had such an American feel to it that I was shocked to find it was written by an English author called Peter James, best known for penning crime thrillers and police procedurals featuring his well-loved fictional character, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.

*THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL*, a haunted house book, is one of his stand-alone books. He’s obviously a big horror fan and a fan of horror movies in particular. He kills off an entire family, *BURNT OFFERINGS*-style, within the first few pages of the book, and before they even get a chance to move into the titular Cold Hill House, a run-down but still impressive Georgian mansion in the Sussex countryside.

*BURNT OFFERINGS*, as some of you will know, is a fantastic and really scary horror film from 1975, featuring Bette Davis, Oliver Reed and horror queen Karen Black. It scared me when I first saw it in 2014, and it’s scared me all the times I’ve watched it since. It’s scaring me now, just writing about it here! If you haven’t seen it, you really should try to find it and watch it. It was on YouTube, last time I checked.

Anyway, the real beginning of the book happens when the Harcourt family move into Cold Hill House, in the modern era of mobile phones, FaceTime and laptops in every home. Ollie is the dad, a web designer who works from home, and he’s really looking forward to the challenge of living in the countryside after being stuck in the city, Brighton and Hove to be precise.

Ollie doesn’t even mind that the house is what the estate agents euphemistically call a real fixer-upper, which in this case translates to a real fally-downy, and he’ll be lucky if the place doesn’t turn into a proper cash-guzzler. The 1986 film *THE MONEY PIT*, starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, is referenced in the book, and I’m sure Ollie can relate.

Ollie’s missus is Caro, a solicitor who’s going to commute to her office in Brighton every day now, and Jade is their teenage daughter, who cares about all the things you’d expect a teenage girl to care about: phoning her best friends from her old school whom she misses terribly, keeping in touch with a boy she likes, and pestering her father for ponies and puppies, now that they’re living in the countryside and have all the space in the world for four-legged friends.

The ghosts in the house make themselves known pretty damn quickly. I’ve read an awful lot of haunted house books over the years and, though I enjoyed this one very much, there wasn’t really a whole lot in it that was new and startling.

A ghostly old lady in an old-fashioned gown is seen gliding around the place by various members of the household, including a friend of Jade’s who sees the malevolent old woman standing behind Jade when they’re on FaceTime together.

The ghost can cause the temperatures to drop suddenly, or to make someone feel like there’s someone standing right behind them, when there’s really no-one there. Shadows abound in the house, there’s a strange man in Jade’s bedroom who looks like her father but isn’t, parts of the house are sopping wet one minute and dry the next, **causing the family to have to sleep on couches in the living-room at times.** **Ollie feels the energy and vitality being drained out of him, something that happened in *BURNT OFFERINGS* as well.**

There are some rather strange people floating around the village as well and there’s a distinct possibility that some of them may be late. As in, a late parrot. Deceased. Dead. Snuffed it. Clogs popped and buckets kicked good-style. You can only imagine what effect this has on an increasingly frazzled Ollie, who tries to shoulder the entire burden of the ghosts by himself in order to protect his wife and child, whom he loves dearly.

The rather grisly history of the house affords Ollie and Caro a partial explanation for the spectral goings-on, but unfortunately no comfort. When they turn to members of the clergy for this comfort and even some encouragement and help, the house reacts violently and makes its views known. And houses really shouldn’t have views on things, should they? They should mind their own business and leaves the opinions to their occupants. *(I’m going to be haunted now for saying that, lol, aren’t I…?)*

The ghosts have a disastrous effect on Ollie’s web design business too, for which they would have had to learn computer basics such as sending emails and rudimentary mobile phone use in order to be able to send out text messages. I found this to be funny, but also a bridge too far. When a poltergeist starts telling you its evil plans for you via computer or mobile phone, I think it’s time to throw in the towel and give up the ghost, if you’ll excuse the pun.

I think the author had also read/watched Shirley Jackson’s *THE HAUNTING (OF HILL HOUSE*), the book and the film, and seen *THE CHANGELING* starring George C. Scott and been influenced by it, and maybe by any other films featuring little hidden or bricked-up rooms within the haunted house itself.

You know that thing where you stand outside your haunted house and you look up at the front of it and count the windows while mentally matching them up to the rooms you know they’re in? Then you discover that there’s an extra, unmatched window, or a little window up there near the top of the house that can’t be accounted for in your calculations?

Then you run upstairs with a mallet and start breaking down walls and you discover a hidden room, and it turns out that the ghosts were either trying to alert you to the presence of this room all along, because it holds the key to the entire haunting, or keep you away from it for the same reason? You do? You’re familiar with this trope? I won’t bother going into any more detail, so…!

The book is quite similar to one I read before Christmas, a haunted house book simply called *HAUNTED*, which was written by Bentley Little, but, as I said earlier, it’s quite hard to find new stuff to put into ghost stories or haunted house tales.

There are only so many tropes to go round, so that sooner or later you’ll almost certainly have to repeat yourself or even other writers. It’s not what you put in the book that matters, though, as much as how you handle it, and Peter James handles old material pretty serviceably in *THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL.*

Good luck to Ols, Caro and Jade Harcourt, the protagonists, anyway, in attempting to evade the grisly fates of their predecessors. If *BURNT OFFERINGS* has taught us anything, it’s that some houses really, truly don’t want to give up their occupants. Well, why would they, when living humans can give so much… *energy…* to a place…? Enjoy the book, but it might cost you a night or two of comfortable sleep…

**AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.**

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
**Her debut romantic fiction novel, *‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’* is out now from Poolbeg Books:**
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Stops-Sandra-Harris-ebook/dp/B089DJMH64

THE MIST. (2017) THE TV SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

**THE MIST: THE TELEVISION SERIES BASED ON STEPHEN KING’S NOVELLA OF THE SAME NAME. (2017) WRITTEN BY CHRISTIAN TORPE.**
**STARRING MORGAN SPECTOR, ALYSSA SUTHERLAND, GUS BIRNEY, LUKE COSGROVE, RUSSELL POSNER, DARREN PETTIE, DANICA CURCIC, OKEZIE MORRO AND FRANCES CONROY.**
**REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©**

I loved this mini-series, despite the fact that it’s been described by Chris Scott of the Observer as ‘relentlessly bleak, mean, and downright sadistic at nearly every turn.’ It is pretty grim, but I still loved it, though it could have done with some fat-trimming at times.

Released a full decade after Frank Darabont’s film adaptation of *THE MIST*, Stephen King’s famous novella, it tells the story of a mysterious mist that comes one day without any explanation to the fictional (I think?) town of Bridgeville in Stephen King’s beloved Maine.

The Copeland family is the main on-screen family in the series. Kevin, the dad, is famous for writing one well-known children’s picture book about owls, if you please. Now he thinks he’s da bomb, lol. Hoot, hoot…! It’s his tall, lanky wife, Eve, a high school teacher whom everyone in Bridgeville refers to as the town slut, who wears the trousers in that house, and make no mistake about it.

Eve is beyond furious with the curly-haired Kevin when he unwisely allows their teenage daughter Alex to attend a party, at which she is supposedly date-raped by Jay Heisel, the handsome quarterback of the high school footy team and son of the town’s sheriff.

I say ‘supposedly,’ because there’s a question mark throughout the show as to whether or not Jay really ‘did it.’ He certainly denies it vehemently, but then, he would, wouldn’t he…? Alex’s best pal, the wimpy little goth boy, Adrian, comforts her while steadfastly maintaining that it was definitely Jay who committed the rape.

When the mist comes, Eve and Alex become trapped in the local mall with Jay and a load of other townspeople *(Alex shell-shocks her mum by becoming friendly and even romantic with Jay, her alleged rapist)*, while Kevin the dad and Adrian the goth boy end up hopping between the police station and the hospital in their efforts to get back to the two women.

Kevin and Adrian pick up a couple of waifs and strays on their travels, namely, Mia, a good-looking but intense drug addict with a murky past, and Bryan Hunt, an amnesiac soldier who comes running into town at the start of the first episode *(ten episodes in all)* **to warn everyone about the encroaching mist.** **He doesn’t have a clue how he knows that the mist is evil, except that he’s aware it killed his poor doggy.**

**Meanwhile, police chief Connor Heisel, Jay’s dad, is stuck in the church, mediating between the dodgy Fr. Romanov and Nathalie Raven, an old hippy lady whose hubby Benedict was killed by the mist.**

Fr. Romanov thinks the mist is caused by the ‘traditional’ God we read about in the Bible, whilst crazy old Nathalie thinks it’s the doing of an angry Mother Nature, hell-bent on reclaiming some of her planet for herself. **She refers to the current apocalyptic situation rather ominously as ‘the Black Spring.’**

They decide to have a sort of highly risky ‘face-off’ between their respective ‘gods.’ They could each stand to learn some harsh lessons. Fr. Romanov, that you don’t send a boy to do your dirty work for you, and Mrs. Raven, that you really shouldn’t believe your own hype.

The Mist will separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys. Or will it only make things more unclear…? The mist, which seems to personalise and tailor a person’s end to the life they lived and the actions they performed in life, is hardly to be trusted, after all.

(The mist in the 2007 film was filled with horrible monsters, stomach-churning gigantic insects and tentacled beasts. The mist here seems to be more sophisticated, comprising metaphors and appropriate individual torments!)

My favourite part of this extremely violent mini-series was the bit in the mall where everyone has to sort of club together to form a society in order to survive. They have rules and regulations, enforced by Gus Bradley, the mall director *(I call him Paul Blart, Mall Cop!)*, such as if you endanger your fellow mall-dwellers, you’ll be booted out of the mall and expected to take your chances in the mist.

Eve Copeland kindly tells everyone about the ‘nine meals from anarchy’ theory, which only puts the willies up the survivors even more. Some of them might be secretly hoarding food, which is strictly against the rules of this new mall society.

As their position in the mall becomes ever more hopeless, with grub running short, tempers even shorter and no sign either of help coming or the insidious mist dissipating and going away, anarchy in fact looms ever closer.

If the series had gone on for any longer, the mall-dwellers would have been drawing lots as to whom they would have to cannibalise first. Interesting the way, the longer these things go on, the more it’s every man for himself and the less people give a shit about others.

It’s probably an ingrained thing that we can’t help, but it’s kind of grim nonetheless, isn’t it? Even the most complex of societies will break down in a crisis such as this one. And the presence of the crisis, and the mist, seems to give people permission to do things they wouldn’t dream of doing in peacetime, wicked, murderous shameful things. I hope what happens in the mist stays in the mist…

I love the suggestion that the army might somehow be involved with the mist, in a bad way, and I even love the ‘draw your own conclusions’ ending and the way things look open to a sequel at the end. I’m just sad that there probably won’t ever be a sequel to the series, as viewing figures apparently weren’t impressive enough beyond the pilot episode.

Great viewing, anyway, if a little depressing, with little or no levity to lighten the gloom. The series also explores the theme of homophobia, with the character of Adrian, the little goth boy, experiencing severe abuse for his sexuality, both from his father and from his fellow high school student, Tyler. Good work in highlighting this kind of abuse. Good work overall. Over and out.

A telephone rings somewhere.

‘Good morning, this is the Mist speaking, how may I help you today?’

‘Um, hi, I’m Sandra Harris, I’m just phoning to book a Mist-related death, please?’

‘Certainly, Ms. Harris. May I ask if you’ve lived a good life and tried to help others wherever you could?’

‘Oh yes, absolutely, your Worship!’

‘Very good. Have you ever caused harm to anyone through your writings?’

‘Not that I know of, your Eminence.’

‘Very good, very good. Any weaknesses?’

‘Only bad boys and chocolate, if it please your Honour.’

‘Excellent. I’ll schedule you in to be battered to death by giant rubber penises and drowned in a hail of miniature Snickers Bars.’

‘Could I have it the other way around, please, your Grace? Miniature rubber penises and giant Snickers Bars?’

‘You’ll have to pay extra.’

‘That’s okay, I don’t mind. Can I keep any leftover bars?’

A sigh. ‘If you must, though most people don’t. It’s not like you’ll be alive to enjoy them.Can I interest you in a theme tune while you die? Thus Spoke Zarathustra, perhaps, or the music from the ROCKY movies?’

‘Nah, I’m good, thanks, your Highness. Just the standard death is all. ‘Bye then.’

‘Good day, thank you for calling the Mist, your one-stop-shop for all Apocalyptic deaths.’

Dial tone, then silence.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

**BOOK CLUB. (2018) WRITTEN BY BILL HOLDERMAN AND ERIN SIMMS. DIRECTED BY BILL HOLDERMAN.**
**STARRING DIANE KEATON, JANE FONDA, CANDICE BERGEN AND MARY STEENBURGEN.**
**REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©**

***‘The next chapter is always the best.’***

***‘I want to have sex…!’***

Wow. If you like films about elderly ladies sitting around talking about how they haven’t had sex in years and years and years, then, boy, do I have a film for you, lol. Four women have been friends and have attended a monthly book club for a staggering forty years, bonding over the books and developing really close friendships.

All the cliches about women’s book clubs are here, and are all also completely true. Drinking copious amounts of wine and snacking at the meetings, held in each other’s houses on a rotating basis. Minimal chatting about the book, as they are mostly using the opportunity to bitch about their husbands, living and deceased, and complain about the lack of sex in their lives or, if they’re still lucky enough to be having it, the poor quality of said nookie.

Diane Keaton plays Diane, recently widowed and with two grown-up daughters *(one is played by a well-preserved Alicia Silverstone)*, who treat her like she has one foot in the grave, and is too senile to be let out on her own, which is ridiculous. Andy Garcia plays the millionaire pilot who’s trying to tempt her into a relationship, if her two daughters can ease up on the helicopter parenting for a minute.

Jane Fonda, still looking ridiculously sexy, plays Vivian, a successful, hotel-owning businesswoman who still has plenty of sex but who fears real love and commitment. If *BOOK CLUB* is *SEX AND THE CITY* meets *THE GOLDEN GIRLS*, which is what it feels like, then Vivian is the Samantha character and the Blanche character respectively. Don Johnson of *MIAMI VICE* fame plays the love of her life who can’t seem to get her to admit that she has feelings of similar depth for him as he undoubtedly has for her.

Candice Bergen is Federal Court Judge Sharon, who’s been divorced from Ed Begley Jr.’s character for eighteen years. Sharon hasn’t had sex since they split up, whereas ex-hubby Tom has a hot new blonde *young* girlfriend called Cheryl, to whom he’s engaged. The nerve of him. After all those years. After all she’s done for him…

Sharon decides to find love on a dating website. The first bloke lining up to be a hot lunch when she bangs the dinner gong is Richard Dreyfuss as George *(Geddit??? See what I did there???)*, followed by Wallace Shawn from *THE PRINCESS BRIDE* as the diminutive Derek. Dating websites can be a bit hit-and-miss. Do they have what it takes to re-animate Sharon’s *‘lethargic pussy…?’* Hey, I’m only repeating what the vet in the movie said, lol.

Mary Steenburgen as Carol is happily married for donkey’s years to Craig T. Nelson’s Bruce. *(COACH, POLTERGEISTS 1&2, STIR CRAZY, etc.)* The recently retired Coach- I mean, Bruce- hasn’t wanted to have sex in ages, though, and Carol is really feeling the pinch.

Which do you think will work better to liven things up in the bedroom, slipping Viagra into Bruce’s drink without his knowledge or consent, or conducting a frank and honest conversation about where they’re at in their lives now that Bruce has retired and is, quite literally, feeling redundant in his own life…? I think you can probably guess the answer to that one, folks.

By the way, I’m not forgetting to mention that E.L. James’s erotic trilogy *FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, FIFTY SHADES DARKER* and *FIFTY SHADES FREED* is the reason that all four women suddenly start questioning their stagnant, unfulfilling or non-existent sex lives and whether or not they’ve been settling for much less than they deserve in the bedroom.

When Vivian brings along the books to their monthly club, they snigger and titter and protest a bit, but quickly they become immersed in the story of the sexual awakening of college student Anastasia Steele at the confident and masterful hands of billionaire Christian Grey, and it helps them to realise that, unless they put in a bit of effort themselves, their own lady-parts might become mere *‘caves of forgotten dreams,’* as one of the four ladies so succinctly puts it at one of their meetings.

E.L. James herself puts in a cameo appearance at one point, alongside her real-life husband Niall Leonard. The physical books can be seen in the film, with the familiar attractive covers, but actual references to their contents are light enough, hence the film’s rather surprising 12’s rating.

Older women will probably love the film and think it speaks to them. There’s an all-star cast that viewers will enjoy, especially as the female leads in particular all still look exceptionally well for their ages. Mary Steenburgen’s black hair and red dress, when she’s dancing on stage for her fund-raiser, makes her look like a splendidly joyful Kate Bush, my heroine.

Sadly, the film will probably just reinforce men’s notions that all women of any age ever want or need to be happy and fulfilled is a jolly good seeing-to, and that older women in particular, when they become too baggy and saggy to attract bees to their honey, are gagging for it all the time.

Oh, and any older women will be desperately grateful for a shag, if you’ll excuse my French. Bit unflattering, that notion that women can’t live happily without regular cock- excuse my French again- and that all women are just slaves to the Almighty Penis, but it’s hardly a new idea, I suppose.

No wonder so many blokes have inflated notions of their own importance. *I have a willy, therefore I am a Master of the Universe.* Sigh. Watch out for the sequel, anyway, which is meant to be coming out this year, God-and-Covid willing. That’s literally all I can say about this movie, lol. There is no more to add. Stay safe and keep warm, and ta-ra for a bit.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

OLD. (2021) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

**OLD. (2021) DIRECTED, WRITTEN AND CO-PRODUCED BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN.**
**BASED ON THE GRAPHIC NOVEL, SANDCASTLE, BY PIERRE OSCAR LEVY AND FREDERIK PEETERS.**
**STARRING VICKY KRIEPS, GAEL GARCIA BERNAL, RUFUS SEWELL, ABBEY LEE, KEN LEUNG, NIKKI AMUKA-BIRD AND AARON PIERRE.**
**REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©**

This is a strange one. I got super-excited when I saw the cover on the DVD box, which featured an anonymous someone with half normal body parts and half sort of skeletonized limbs, to indicate a process of extreme ageing, hence the title.

I was also excited by the fact that the director, M. Night Shyamalan, is famed for the plot twists in his movies, for example, as in *THE VILLAGE* (2004), and I was hugely looking forward to the twist in this one. I kind of guessed it halfway through, though, with not a little help from the director himself, which was surprising.

Then the film started ending, and I kept waiting for the final plot twist that would justify my supreme faith in the director. Sadly, that didn’t come and I was left feeling a bit flat, but *OLD* is still a really entertaining and enjoyable- if confusing- horror film, even if M. Night Shyamalan himself denies that he’s a ‘horror’ film-maker.

Horror is the destination, he says, whereas he prefers *his* characters to come *through* the experience and out the other side, as it were. Yes, I *did* watch the thirty-minute extra feature, lol. It shows him saying the above thing about his not being a horror director, and then everything else is about how much he loves his three beautiful, talented daughters, at least two of whom worked on the film with him, one directing and one writing and performing the theme song. Fair enough, guy loves his family. I was glad the extra feature wasn’t any longer, though, as there’s only so much of that kind of thing you can stomach.

The plot sees three families coming to a fabulous island for a vacation, and then being offered the chance by the ‘resort manager’ to take a ‘day trip’ to a supposedly gorgeous stretch of private beach which they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. I’ve put in the quotation marks because nothing here is ‘as it seems,’ heh-heh-heh.

M. Night Shyamalan himself plays the tour bus driver who drives the group of ten people to this peach of a beach, and then drives off again after leaving them an unusually large amount of food. The beach sure is isolated. They reach it by walking through some eerie, lonely caves, then, once they’re ensconced on said beach, it very much looks like they won’t be able to leave it again…

Not only this, but they very quickly discover that the beach has an horrific secret that will mess not only with their minds but also with their physical bodies. You might be able to guess what happens from the title, but I won’t beat you over the head with it. It reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s excellent novella-turned-film, *THINNER.* **As a body horror- even if ‘Night,’ as everyone calls him, doesn’t like to call it horror!- the film is pretty damn chilling and effective.**

Particularly striking bits, for me, included Prisca Cappa’s stomach tumour, Kara’s ‘baby,’ a child born to another child, and what happens to the stunning blonde Mrs. Paranoid English Surgeon when her calcium deficiency gets terrifyingly out of hand. That poor, poor woman. I also really liked her husband, Mr. Paranoid English Surgeon, played by Rufus Sewell, having his mental breakdown on the same beach that will claim the lives of most of them before the story ends.

Ah, come on, guys. How is that a spoiler? What kind of an enchanted beach would it be that didn’t kill anyone, ever? Some magic beach that’d be. Cool your jets, lol, and enjoy the movie. It’s a weird one, but still well worth at least one watch. And don’t, whatever you do, call it a ‘horror’ to your mates, because, well, you know. ‘Night’ doesn’t dig it…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The Death of a Writer

BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog

I’ve been reading my dearest friend’s journals. Spiral-bound notebooks, cloth-covered hardbacks, loose-leaf paper in three-ring binders. Sorting out teenage angst and adult story notes, false starts and full pages. Some of the words are casual, some inspiring, some sad.

I’m also digging through her computer. Looking at old story outlines and half-drafts of essays. Working on breaking into her phone.

I’m not snooping.

I’m her executor.

My friend wasn’t especially organized, but two other close friends and I found what we could after her death, tried to piece together what was worth keeping, what would be a beautiful memory and what was garbage. It was good for the three of us to read her old journals. We threw away the teenage angst and kept some of her adult musings. We pulled some of her unfinished writing from her old laptop and put it in a Dropbox so we could all…

View original post 790 more words

	firstruleoffilmclub on What is your career plan?
	I.V. Greco on What is your career plan?
	firstruleoffilmclub on PLANET OF THE APES. (1968) REV…
	firstruleoffilmclub on PLANET OF THE APES. (1968) REV…
	Mark Orr on PLANET OF THE APES. (1968) REV…

	firstruleoffilmclub on What is your career plan?
	I.V. Greco on What is your career plan?
	firstruleoffilmclub on PLANET OF THE APES. (1968) REV…
	firstruleoffilmclub on PLANET OF THE APES. (1968) REV…
	Mark Orr on PLANET OF THE APES. (1968) REV…

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

Fun reviews of films of all genres

Month: February 2022

CLUELESS. (1995) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Believe In This — Fourteen Lines

THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW. (2022) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL. (2015) BOOK REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

THE MIST. (2017) THE TV SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

BOOK CLUB. (2018) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

OLD. (2021) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

The Death of a Writer

THE INVISIBLE MAN. (2020) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©