Hot Rod – Film Review

Posted on January 11, 2023 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Akiva Schaffer

Writer: Pam Brady

Starring: Andy Samberg, Isla Fisher, Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Sissy Spacek, and Ian McShane

Rating: ★★★★

Hot Rod is an incredibly underrated comedy that was released back in 2007. It features a script from Pam Brady (who used to work on South Park) and features all three members of The Lonely Island comedy group both in front and behind the camera. Akiva Schaffer directs, while Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg star as half-brothers.

The film follows stuntman Rod (Andy Samberg), who spends his time trying to honour his dad by attempting to follow in his footsteps and perform stunts, except he fails pretty much every time. When Rod isn’t failing at being a stuntman, he’s literally fighting his stepdad Frank (played by Ian McShane, who pretty much steals every scene he’s in), in search of his approval. They have full-on battles in the basement, while Rod’s mum (Sissy Spacek) just goes on about her day upstairs ignoring it. Rod is desperate for Frank’s respect and believes that if he beats him in a fight then he’ll gain it.

The plot really gets going when Rod learns that Frank is dying and needs a heart transplant, which means that Rod will never be able to fight him in a true fight and gain his respect. Out of pure desperation to fight him, Rod starts work to raise the money to perform an insane stunt, jumping a motorcycle over fifteen buses, and hoping that he will sell enough money through the stunt to pay for Frank’s transplant and then beat him in a fight to gain his respect.

This isn’t going to be a film for everyone. The comedy is weird and a little on the absurd side. The plot is completely dumb, but in a good way. The characters are silly and goofy. This is going to be something you’re either going to love or hate. If you like something a little different, then give it a go. It has jokes that go on so long they stop being funny, and then continue until they’re funny again, crazy stunts that look painful, and awkward moments that make you want to stop watching. It also has a lot of heart and the characters are all really well-written and performed. Andy Samberg is charming and instantly likable and every scene he shares with Ian McShane, where they’re constantly having digs at each other, are just brilliant.

When Hot Rod first came out, it didn’t perform well, financially or critically. In the years since, it’s found its audience and is becoming a cult-classic, which it completely deserves. A hidden and underrated gem of a comedy that’s aged incredibly well in the fifteen years since it was first released. If you’re a fan of weird comedy, then it’s definitely worth a go.  

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Beastars – Volume Five – Manga Review

Posted on January 10, 2023 by ashleymanningwriter
Beastars Vol 5: Volume 5: Amazon.co.uk: Itagaki, Paru: 9781974708024: Books

The vast majority of volume five of Beastars is set outside of Cherryton Academy. After Haru is kidnapped while preparing for the Meteor Festival, Legoshi sets out to find and rescue her. It turns out that a gang of lions, known as the Shishigumi, have kidnapped Haru in order to eat her. To save her, Legoshi goes back to the black market and stumbles his way into finding information about Haru’s whereabouts.

After the last volume, which was pretty slow, this one is full-on action from the first page and that continues right through to the cliff-hanger which promises to be just as exciting. Even with all of the action there’s still plenty of time to develop characters, and some nice world building. The Mayor is introduced, a lion who had a lot of surgery completed (including having his fangs replaced with fake teeth) in order to come across as likable and non-threatening to the herbivore animals. He’s been trying hard to bring equality and peace to the city and the Shishigumi are a threat to that image he’s cultivated. Even so, he’s a slimy politician and his character adds just another interesting layer to the world of Beastars.

When I first started reading the first volume, I wasn’t that taken with the art style. I thought it was a little rough around the edges, but I’ve really grown to love it over the course of the first five volumes. It’s completely unique and more importantly it’s perfect for the type of story that Paru Itagaki is telling through the series. It’s gritty and not always clean, which matches the characters and world they inhabit. That being said, this volume has the first full on fight and it was a little hard to follow what was going on. It’s far from the best fight I’ve read in a manga.

As always, as soon as I finished the volume I wanted to pick up the next one straight away. Beastars has quickly become one of my favourite series and I can’t wait to see what happens next. It side-steps so many of the usual pitfalls in manga, and has one of the most vibrant and interesting worlds I’ve ever come across. The characters are fully realised, complex and completely authentic. It’s definitely worth checking out, even if you’re not a manga fan. It’s something completely different.

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Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

Posted on January 9, 2023 by ashleymanningwriter

I always find it interesting to read writers (or rather artists in general) autobiographies and thoughts on their own craft, so when I saw that Haruki Murakami’s Novelist as a Vocation was getting an English translation I knew I had to read it. The book is a series of essays that Murakami wrote about his thoughts on writers and novels. Some of them were serialised in a magazine in Japan, and the collection was released in 2015 in Japanese, before getting an English translation in 2022.

Whether you’re a writer or just a big read that’s interested in the writing process, this is definitely worth reading. It’s insightful, and written in a really conversational way. Even if the book isn’t an autobiography throughout the essays it feels like you know Murakami, even just a little bit. It’s like listening to him in person talking about his style and thoughts on writing.

I really enjoyed reading the way he approaches writing and it’s very different to other books I’ve read on the subject. He seems to take a much more relaxed way to prepare for a novel, letting it grow inside of his mind until the compulsion to write it unbearable and then he goes on a very strict routine in order to get the work done, writing the same amount of words a day until the book is done no matter how long that takes.

It’s also very inspiring to see how he came to be a writer, not only was he nearing thirty the first time he thought about writing a novel, when he finished his first draft he didn’t like it. The idea that getting the story finished, even if it’s no good, because it can always be improved is a great motivation to actually sit down and start writing.

Inside these pages isn’t the secret to writing a novel. It’s not a how-to guide. It’s simply Murakami’s reflection on his career from literary prizes to his daily routine. He openly admits this isn’t the only right way to write. It’s very interesting to read and I found it very motivating. After reading an essay I would be immediately filled with creative energy and want to start writing my own stories. It definitely made me want to read more of Murakami’s work.

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I’ve Finally Finished Reading Demon Slayer

Posted on January 8, 2023 by ashleymanningwriter

It took me a long time to actually get around to reading Demon Slayer, even though I kept on hearing such great things about it. If you’re not familiar, then the story follows Tanjiro, who becomes a demon slayer after his family is brutally killed by a demon. Tanjiro and his younger sister Nezuko survive the attack, although Nezuko is turned into a demon in the process. Tanjiro joins the Demon Slayer Corps, going out on missions, while at the same time searches for a way to turn Nezuko back into a human.

For me, this was the perfect set up for a manga series and I was hooked from the first few chapters. The art all the way through is fantastic, and I really liked most of the characters. Tanjiro quickly shows that he has a lot of promise at being a demon slayer and he meets other demon slayers who help him along the way. Inosuke was my favourite character, he was raised by boars and wears a boar mask most of the time to hide his face. His instant reactions normally turn violent and he’s really funny.

The art style is great all the way through and the character designs are really well done. Sadly, some of the action is very manic and it’s not always clear what’s going on in the fights. I was a little lost at points and just waiting for it to slow down again. The first half of the manga is almost perfect. It’s pure Shonen fun, that’s completely entertaining. The second half is a little weaker.

I do think about half way through the Entertainment District arc the pacing becomes an issue. It feels like there’s not enough time between battles, and then the battles take too long. Saying that though, the final battle arc, which takes almost a quarter of the entire series, is epic and the final showdown with the big bad demon, Muzan, is brilliant. The ending is good, but it doesn’t quite match the brilliance of the first half.

Overall, I would recommend Demon Slayer if you haven’t read it already. It’s really fun. I do think there are better Shonen series out there, but it’s still really solid.

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The Pale Blue Eye – Film Review

Posted on January 7, 2023 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Scott Cooper

Writer: Scott Cooper

Starring: Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall

Scott Cooper’s adaptation of Louis Bayard’s 2003 novel The Pale Blue Eye has been released on Netflix after a very limited cinema release late last year. Featuring a stellar cast the film is a murder mystery set in during the 1830s in an American Military Academy. While the film is fiction it also features a the writer Edgar Allen Poe as a main character, who did actually spend some time in the military when he was quite young, lying about his age in order to serve.

The film revolves around a murder mystery, where a cadet at a military academy is found dead by an apparent suicide, and then after his body is discovered, someone carves out his heart. To investigate the strange death, detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) is brought to the academy. He enlists another cadet, Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling), to help with the investigation and the pair start to investigate the death, believing it to be linked to the occult.

The opening of the film wastes no time setting up the mystery. Landor is introduced and instantly summoned to the academy to start the investigation. There’s a brief summary of his backstory so you have an idea of who he is, and then he’s off investigating the crime, immediately noticing things that others have missed. He also gets some hints from Poe, and decides to hire him as his assistant to help him with the investigation.  

The cast is absolutely brilliant. Any film with Christian Bale is normally worth taking a look at. Then joining Bale, is Gillian Anderson, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall. It’s just simply a brilliant ensemble cast. A cast that’s too good for the film that they’re starring in. The entire cast are good in their roles, especially Bale. Landor is a character, struggling with the loss of his wife who recently died, and his daughter who has been missing for two years. Harry Melling is also good as Edgar Allen Poe, he plays him as a quirky outcast who’s haunted by the ghost of his mother and sees the world through poetry.  

This is an incredibly slow film, and you definitely feel it in the first half. Once the mystery is set up it takes a long time for it to feel like progress is being made. The runtime is a little over two hours, which is just way too long for the story that’s being told. There’s a point around an hour in, when you realise that you’re not even halfway through, that the film starts to get a little boring. It does then pick up pretty quicky and with half an hour to go it feels like things are being wrapped up before a big twist is thrown in, which comes out of nowhere and kicks everything up a gear. The final sequence is the best bit of the entire film.

The Pale Blue Eye is fine. It’s not brilliant, and it’s not awful. It definitely doesn’t live up to how good the cast is, but it’s still entertaining. There are definitely worth ways to spend some time.

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