Movie Review – The Game – a psychological thriller if there ever was one

Movie Review

The Game

I am writing this literally minutes after finishing this film, so be prepared for a post-movie spiel of confusion, amazement and pure appreciation for the amount of work that went into this movie.

First off, let me introduce it!

Successful San Francisco tycoon and control freak Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) approaches his forty-eighth birthday with some trepidation. For it was at this age that his father fell from his mansion roof and died. Nicholas receives an introduction to Consumer Recreation Services from his younger brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), and is informed that he is now playing 'The Game'. Nicholas soon finds himself losing control and threatened with the loss of not just his company and fortune but also his life.

Amazon UK

(Whenever I try to get a US Amazon link for a film, it starts trying to inform me about region codes and whatnot, so I figured I'll just let you look it up yourself from the UK link.)

My Review

Whenever I watch or read a psychological thriller, or a mystery, I am always amazed at how the writer managed to make everything work. There are so many little details, and somehow they all make sense in the end, winding together. It's truly a wonder.

If you're like me, maybe you thought of a specific mind game when you read the title of the movie. If so, you lost, sorry. Don't worry, I did too! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, maybe do a little Googling.

So, Nicholas is rich, powerful, and a control freak. Stereotypical rich guy. His younger brother, Conrad, is the type of guy who you are never quite sure if they are on drugs or not. When he hands Nicholas his birthday present Nicholas certainly questions whether he has taken anything. 

Nicholas' birthday present is his entrance to The Game. With no information about what this entails, and no one willing to tell him anything, his curiosity (and mine) is piqued. After going through hours of psychological analysis, and both mental and physical examinations, The Game begins.

If there was ever a film I would call 'psychological' it's this one. The Game makes Nicholas a paranoid mess, and I wasn't much better. I was leaning forward in my seat at times, wishing I could tell Nicholas not to trust that person, or not to go down there. They always seem to be watching, and their goal isn't clear. Do they simply want to play a game? Or is the purpose of The Game much more sinister? This is the sort of film that has you flipping back and forth between explanations, trying to understand how that thing just happened, or how that makes sense. Even after finishing it, my mind is still reeling.

The wonderful thing about this film, is that it didn't just make Nicholas paranoid – it made me paranoid for him. I felt like anything could happen at any moment, like Nicholas simply wasn't safe at any times and that he needed to be more careful than he was being. I really got into this movie, and that was why I liked it so much.

Sometimes, when I find a movie like this, the kind when you have to have seen the whole film to understand it, I get a great desire to get people I know to watch it with me, just so I can see the confusion on their face as I grin with my superior knowledge. I don't know if that says something about me. If it does, it's probably not good.

Okay, I'm done!

There are probably a lot of psychological thrillers that are much better than this one, but I haven't come across them yet. I am the type of person who doesn't believe something until they see it (I know, these types of people are annoying. Sorry.) and until I see a better psychological thriller, this one is at the top of my list! (On the Movie List, though, it's at number 50. Yay, 50 movies on my list!)

Did you even read that post? Do you know what the Movie List is?

Probably not. No one reads this far anyway.

Bye!

Short Story – Metal Crown

 

Now I've got started again with my Saturday posts, I realised that I actually have created a nightmare posting schedule. And my intense need for things to be in the right order means that for this week, I need a short story. I am starting to love Title Generators.

THE STORY

When I was little, I spent a lot of time outside. I would run about in a garden of overgrown grass, weeds and rubbish, pretending I was battling dragons with a stick that I had found. The stick was my staff, and, with my invisible army behind me, I would fight the dragons that wanted to tear down the kingdom I ruled over.

I grew older, and the thought of fighting dragons lost it's charm. Still, as a ruler, you cannot escape your duties. The longer I ignored them, the more my kingdom fell. The dragons infiltrated my home, the roaring arguments sending me running to the garden. Whereas I had once fought, my army was no more, and while the dragons used to be only imaginary, they had become real, disguising themselves in those I loved.

I would sit in the garden, holding the stick that was once my mighty weapon. What had been a staff was now barely a sword, and to kill a dragon with a sword, you had to get a lot closer to it and the risk was much greater.

Sometimes, although I was much too old for make-believe, I would pretend that the dragons had caused the peeling wallpaper, that their careless steps had worn down the furniture and that the swishing of their tails had knocked the cupboard doors loose of the hinges. I pretended that the smell of rotting food was because the dragons didn't like to eat things fresh, and that the reason I didn't like leaving my room was because the dragons were dangerous.

After all, dragons are dangerous, and you wouldn't want to fight them without an army or a staff.

My kingdom crumbled under my reign, and more than once I found myself wondering whether, if I had been brave enough to stand up to the dragons, to fight them away from my kingdom and to keep them out, I would be a good and wise ruler, rather than a failed king.

But then again, I was not the king of this kingdom. I was the prince, I wasn't the one to rule, but the one to inherit. I may have been fighting the dragons, but I should've had the king by my side, leading the army, not hiding in the castle and letting me risk my life and the lives of my invisible men.

As the prince, I was a traitor to ride away from the kingdom the first chance I got. Stealing away in the dead of night, my steed of steel, not flesh, and my bag tossed on the backseat, rather than tied carefully to a saddle. As a prince, I was banished from the kingdom when my treachery was discovered, and all of my invisible men, the army that had once been so loyal to me, was abandoned within the castle grounds. Why drag them along with me when it would only bring them to ruin as well?

There is always a time in everyone's lives, that the inevitable happens. As a prince, it is supposed to be a big event. The kingdom mourns and the prince is celebrated as everything is passed over to him. He must try to live up to the reign of the one before him, to prove himself as a leader to the kingdom.

I had no ceremony, and there was no kingdom to mourn the losses. As I walked into my kingdom for the first time since I ran from it, I saw not the shining grandeur of a castle, but the crumbling walls and scattered rubbish that was the only proof there had been anyone inhabiting the castle.

I grabbed a bag and started to pick up the rubbish. I did not inherit a flourishing kingdom, for all the inhabitants were gone. After all this time, the dragons were gone too, and the silence was deafening as I walked through the ruins of my childhood.

I accidentally kicked a can, and it rolled across the floor to join a pile of them. They were everywhere, filling any surface available. I did not inherit gold, but a Metal Crown.

La fin.

I don't know French, I googled that.

Apparently, anytime I write a story based on a randomly generated title, they have intense metaphorical themes. The other being The Wall and the Flower (read it, it's very good, if I do say so myself!)

Also, my stories all seem to be very emotionally intense. I apparently do not like writing characters that have a good time.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!

Bye!

A Review – The Cornish House by Liz Fenwick

 

The Cornish House

by Liz Fenwick

A Review

This is quite a last minute post. Most of my posts are scheduled for at least a week, maybe more, before they go out. The date that this one's going out? I wrote it yesterday.

As if I don't have enough books, I picked this one up in a charity shop. I didn't really pay much attention to what it was actually about, by reading the blurb before buying it, I just thought it had a pretty cover and the house on it is practically my dream house. So I bought it and it somehow jumped to the top of my very long to-read list, pushing back so many other books that have been waiting so very long to be read.

I'm on a bit of a time limit as I'm writing this post, as I have nearly 40 minutes before I have to be somewhere, and I'm hoping to get it done before I have to go.

Let me introduce the book, and then we'll get into the review!

When artist Maddie inherits a house in Cornwall shortly after the death of her husband, she hopes it will be the fresh start she and her step-daughter desperately need. Trevenen is beautiful but neglected, and as Maddie discovers the stories of generations of women who've lived there before, she begins to feel her life is somehow intertwined within its walls.

But Maddie's dream of a calm life in the countryside is far from the reality she faces - and as she pulls at the seams of Trevenen's past, the house reveals secrets that have lain hidden for generations.

(I decided to start using universal links, so here's one! It'll take you to a page where you can choose what store you would like to buy from!)

Click here to buy a copy!

My review!

I bought this book on a Saturday, started reading it on Sunday, and had finished it by 7am Tuesday morning. This is the kind of book that you don't want to put down, because you fall in love with the world in the story.

As she's dealing with the death of her husband, and struggling to put up with the snarky remarks of a stepdaughter who hates her, Maddie learns that she has inherited a house in Cornwall. With the hope that a fresh start in a new area will heal not only Maddie's and Hannah's broken hearts, but also their relationship, Maddie packs up their house in London and makes the move.

The house, as picture-perfect as it may be, is certainly in a state of disrepair. The heating doesn't work, there's no internet connection, the list goes on. Although, the money has run out and Maddie simply can't afford to fix everything properly.

The community is like one that most people think you only read about in books, but actually exists – where everyone knows everyone and there are no secrets, as everyone is a gossip and they all love a bit of juicy news.

I really felt for Maddie. She's trying to cope with so much and Hannah doesn't make it easy on her. I simply could not see why Hannah thought Maddie was so wicked, for all Maddie ever did was be nice to her and try to provide her with whatever she wanted. It's understandable that Hannah would be distraught at the death of her father, but the way she treated Maddie was disgusting. There were times that I really liked Hannah, especially nearer the end, or when she was with Old Tom, but at other times I despised her. This may be because this book gives both points of view, Maddie's and Hannah's, and perhaps if it was simply from Hannah's point of view I would like her more, but knowing what I did about Maddie and how much she was struggling, and what a lovely person she was, I found it difficult to like Hannah too much.

There are always some staples in a good community – there has to be a dashingly handsome man that every woman secretly thinks about, and a loving, yet loud, woman with no boundaries, who quickly becomes the best friend that the main character didn't ask for. These are Mark and Tamsin. I absolutely adored both of them, for although Tamsin often poked her nose in where it wasn't wanted, she was absolutely the kind of friend that Maddie needed, someone who always had her back and, although she liked chatting, would keep a secret if she knew you didn't want anyone to know. Mark, as well, was incredibly kind and grew close to Maddie. The friends that Maddie makes are the best kind that she could ever hope for, and I loved watching their friendships grow.

I absolutely loved the aspect of this novel wherein both Maddie and Hannah are digging into the past, trying to find out about those who had lived at the house before them. Maddie's search for the truth about her real parents, whom she never knew, and Hannah's desperate bid for something vaguely interesting to do in this strange house, led to some interesting discoveries that I, too, was all too excited to find out about.

This book was one that I loved from start to finish. The people in this novel are the kind that you want to be real, so that you can be friends with them, and it will definitely make you want to visit Cornwall. I woke up at 6am on the last day of reading this and I was completely ready to go back to sleep until it wasn't such a ridiculously early hour until I remembered the last portion of this book was waiting for me. I had finished reading it by 7.

This book has a bit of everything – sadness, pain and heartbreak, as well as happiness, love and hope.

And end review!

My time limit didn't work too well, as I decided to make coffee half way through writing this. I have four minutes left. I better make this ending short!

Really, though, you should check out this book! If it's not your style, I'm sure you know someone who would love it!

Okay, three minutes. I'm going to finish here.

Bye!