BOOK: Bring Down the Stars (2018)

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Bring Down the Stars Year: 2018 Author: Emma Scott Length: 285 pages I'm not sure where I picked up this book on Kindle, but it finally took me two years to finish it (I'm excruciatingly slow at reading eBooks). To expand my horizons, I thought reading a romance novel would be good for me. Bring Down the Stars feels like a classic partly due to its heavy resemblance to Cyrano de Bergerac. Its tropes feel solidly planted in the genre, even to the point of being almost timeless. Still, the characters are a little frustrating. When I finally sat down to focus on reading this book, it hooked me pretty well. The writing is beautifully poetic—which is most often seen from the male point of view (POV). The female POV was a good counterpoint to give the reader both sides of the story while also making the miscommunication between these star-crossed lovers a buildup to either passionate love or a complete destruction of the friendship....
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BOOK: Caging Skies (2004)

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Caging SkiesYear: 2004Author: Christine LeunensLength: 628 minutes / 10.47 hours When I saw Jojo Rabbit (2019) nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, I decided to give Caging Skies a read to see how close the adaptation came. After finishing this book, I can see why Taika Waititi ended his movie at the half-way point of the plot. This is mostly because this book only has half a plot. I can forgive a bit of blind enthusiasm of Austrian children who thought the Nazis were great, but I can’t forgive a teenager that gaslights (and, let’s be honest, rapes) a captive girl and tries to come off as the victim. While taking a much more serious tone than the one presented in Jojo Rabbit, Caging Skies does a reasonably good job exploring themes of war, disability, and the sacrifices it takes to do what is right. Unfortunately, a lot of the lessons presented by the main character’s parents are entirely lost by the half-way...
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MOVIE: 1917 (2019)

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1917Year: 2019Rating: RLength: 119 minutes / 1.98 hours While there have been movies filmed to look like they’re one long take (the Best Picture winner, Birdman (2015) comes to mind) and movies that revolve around key moments of retreat during war (Dunkirk (2017) comes to mind), never before have the two been so masterfully combined. 1917 (2019) is a rare piece of cinema that tackles the less-popular World War I as its subject matter, but doing so in a way that’s personal, gruesome, and tense. Those viewers who might be put off by the gore of this film might come to realize that cinema has been censoring the ugly side of war for far too long. None of the violence seems out of place in 1917. Its moments of horror highlight the ugliness of war that results in constant and ever-present death. Fortunately, there are enough moments of peace and rebuttal between these intense sequences to let the audience catch their breath....
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