NOVEL REVIEW: Pet Sematary By Stephen King

"Sometimes dead is better." - Stephen King, Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary may be one of the most horrifying novels written by Stephen King, and it's not because of the serial killer baby or the demon in the woods. To be fair, "horrifying" isn't the right word describe Pet Sematary. The novel touches on mostly life, death, loss, pain and a lot of deeper subjects. King of course still touches on those things in other novels but Pet Sematary uses those as its central themes. I'd say Pet Sematary is more "disturbing" than "horrifying" mainly because everything that happens in the novel (the death of a pet, family, friends, etc) are things that nearly everyone has actually experienced once, so it is a book that can be very hard to get through. I'll probably be taking specific moments and quotes from the novel itself and more or less giving my own thoughts on it throughout this post.

Stephen King focuses heavily on loss and acceptance and eventually recovery. There's a really great quote here about the subject matter itself. The main character Louis' daughter Ellie had recently lost her pet cat and Jud, Louis' neighbour and all-around nice guy says, “Maybe she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.” I thought this was a really good quote because there is a lot to be said about getting over a loved one's death. King focuses on the idea that it's unhealthy to be in constant denial and depression and you should rather focus on the happy memories you had with the person (or pet) who passed. The idea of remembering those who died positively as a healthy way of getting over their death is very prominent in book, along with actually ACCEPTING that they're dead, which segues into what I consider to be the central point of the novel: Accepting a loved one's death is so very important.

The premise of the novel is that there is an ancient Indian burial ground that could resurrect any dead living things, but the resurrected people or animals will never return quite the same: they will tend to me more violent and there is a "dead" aura about them that causes them to be out of place. The Pet Sematary in the novel (and yes the cemetery is meant to be spelled wrong; the cemetery in the novel was made by kids and they spelled cemetery wrong) is a place where kids bury their dead pets. The sematary represents accepting death and moving on healthily while the burial grounds represents the idea of unhealthy denial of death. The fact that the resurrected animals and people are very unnatural is another way to show that denial is wrong and shouldn't essentially try to mess with the course of nature even if you could.

The book is a very depressing one because, as it is the case with all King books, deal with some major life issue, in this case, Death. I'm not sure why but this novel hit really hard with me. I haven't really lost anybody close to me yet so the book really instilled a deep, cold fear in me that I could lose someone I deeply care about and that I might not be able to handle it very well. However, it is also possible that I already had that fear and left it unaddressed, which the book just pulled forward.

Even though the book is really depressing and one of King's darkest ones, it actually does provide some really great life lessons about death, preserving the memory of your loved ones, and eventual acceptance. I noticed that this book, even though it is horror fiction, it's also quite philosophical; the book does deal with a lot of deep topics and I honestly do believe that this is one of Stephen King's greatest works.

For my next review, I will be reviewing a movie about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. I consider the movie (directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Liam Neeson) to be one of the greatest movies of all time. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

DOCTOR WHO REVIEW: The Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston (2005)

Billie Piper as Rose Tyler (Left) with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor (Right)

Just this once... Everybody lives!!!

Brief Background

Doctor Who is a British science fiction TV show that revolves around the character of the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Galifrey and his spaceship the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) and his travels through space and time with a variety of companions. The show has cycled through thirteen different incarnations of the Doctor so far, using the Doctors ability to regenerate into a different form as a reason to cast new actors every few years. Doctor Who has gained widespread popularity and a massive list of fans from actor Tom Hanks to Queen Elizabeth II herself.

The "Classic" Era of the show first aired in 1964 with William Hartnell as the First Doctor and continued until 1989, when the show ended due to generally poor ratings. After a 1996 TV Movie with Paul McGann as the Eighth incarnation of the character, the show was revived again in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston in the lead role and Russell T. Davis as the Showrunner. Fans typically call the Classic Era "Classic Who" and the Revived Era "New Who", and these are the terms I will be using from now on.

Now, I will be dividing each of these reviews into four sections: The Doctor, The Companion(s), Other Characters (generally villains and supporting cast), and The Stories. The last section won't be an in-depth analysis on each of the stories but I will highlight few particular stories that I liked, and I will also touch on overarching story arcs as well in this section. This review will likely be shorter because Christopher Eccleston only did one season (he left the show after disputes with the head at BBC regarding work conditions and has distanced himself away from the show for the most part).

Eccleston, due to his short stay on the show, has only one main companion, Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper) compared to the other Doctors but often has other side characters (such as Captain Jack Harkness) travel alongside him. Eccleston plays a very serious, dark Doctor who is more brash and possibly ruthless than most of his other incarnations; the Doctor we meet is a very recent veteran of the Time War and sole survivor who was forced to kill all of his kind to end a bloody war, and as a result shows hints of suffering from PTSD throughout his episodes, and as a result is much darker.

Eccleston is also very underrated and due to his short tenure is often passed over by much of the fans in favour of David Tennent and Matt Smith, who are more "fun" and apparently charismatic in comparison. I personally rank Eccleston as my favourite Doctor mainly because he is an underdog who seems to be nobody's favourite and I personally prefer darker characters. 

The Doctor - Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)

The Ninth Doctor is, simply put, a veteran. The Doctor has recently fought in the Time War against the Daleks, during which he was forced to kill all of the Daleks and his people the Time Lords to end the war for good. As a result, he is very dark, hardened, and often a quite ruthless warrior. Despite all of this, the Doctor still does not forget his creed of kindness and standing up for the weak; he fights to help for what is right and still often shows compassion. Eccleston's Doctor is one that has PTSD, and Eccleston's brilliant acting genuinely shows the pain and anguish he still experiences, having ended the Time War literally few moments before.

Despite all of his darker moments, Eccleston's Doctor is still genuinely light-hearted and fun. He makes jokes, runs around having a great time with Rose, and most importantly of all, DANCES. Yes, the Doctor dancing is quite "important" (sort of). He can push aside his hatred and pain to have genuine heartfelt moments with the other characters. Christopher Eccleston just mixes the darker and lighter sides of the Doctor extremely well just effectively enough that you can very well believe that Eccleston has actually been through the Time War himself. 

I will be talking more about his acting highlights in the stories section.

The Companion - Rose Tyler (Billie Piper)

Billie Piper is a great actor and Rose was a good companion to start the New Who series off with. She's personally not my favourite because she doesn't really contribute much to most of the stories apart from being a good contrast to the Doctor; she is more light-hearted compared to the darker Doctor. She never contributes heavily to the stories, although when she does she is the one that brings out the most human sides of the Doctor and remind him of the good person/alien he really is. Her character's standout episodes are "Father's Day" and "Dalek", where you can really see the best of Rose's humanity and the best of Billie Piper's acting. Although Rose is still great in this season, her real standout comes in the Tennant Era, where she turns into a much more full-fledged and interesting character.

Other Characters

Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) is a recurring Doctor Who character; he is flirtatious, charming, handsome, charismatic, bisexual, and overall a really likeable character. He never hesitates to flirt with anyone, which is used to great comic effect (as just saying his name is apparently enough for him to win over anyone). He is a time-travelling con man and works in the show as the more conventional charming action hero in comparison to the more methodical Doctor, and will continue to do so. As a matter of fact, his character was so popular he got a spin-off series called Torchwood.

Rose's mother Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri) and Rose's boyfriend Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) are not massively important characters in season 1 (although Mickey will eventually become more important in the Tennant Era). They're mostly comedic characters that generally serve as a point of conflict for Rose: whether she will choose the safety and comfort of her family and loved ones or a great time of adventure with the Doctor. They don't particularly do much in this season and are rather annoying, but they grow more in the Tennant seasons, especially Mickey.

The Daleks (voiced by Nicholas Briggs) are the arch-nemesis of the Doctor and are violent, merciless race of warriors whose goals are the conquest of the universe and the EXTERMINATION of all inferior species. The Daleks first canonically appeared in the First Doctor story "The Daleks", and appear for the first time in New Who in the season 1 episode "Dalek". The Daleks were originally believed to have been all destroyed in the Time War, but for some reasons (that I still can't quite understand) have managed to survive. The Daleks have had their emotions removed for tactical purposes (no emotions make them better warriors), but there have been the odd cases where a Dalek has the ability to feel emotions, a plot device that is utilized with great effectiveness in humanizing the villains. Despite their rather silly appearances (at first) the Daleks remain a very real and dangerous threat to the Doctor over the years and they have understandably become fan favourites. I personally love the Daleks mainly because the voice acting by Briggs is genuinely fantastic and I just love the idea of their characters and what they've done with them on the show. 

The Stories

Overall, all of the episodes in this season were outstanding, and unlike the other ones, I genuinely couldn't find any bad one. My favourite story had to be the two-parter "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances", written by later showrunner Steven Moffat. This was easily my favourite because it had a very horror feel to it (Steven Moffat in general is amazing at writing these short, horror stories as seen in the Tennant Era), and I'm a horror fan. It felt very much like a zombie apocalypse movie (the gas-mask aliens moved like zombies) and the line "Are you my mommy?" was just extremely unsettling. It also introduced Captain Jack Harkness for the first time in all his awesomeness and in general had a great script and overall fantastic acting from everybody, especially Eccleston. and I believe that the Doctor dancing was a very pivotal moment for the Ninth Doctor finally actively showing his more human side.

My second and third favourite episodes were "Dalek" and "Father's Day", because these two episodes were particularly standout ones in character for both Rose and the Doctor. In "Dalek", Rose seems to be the sole person who feels any amount of compassion for a lost and rather damaged Dalek (who believes himself to be the last of his kind), and the Dalek itself finds that it has ALSO gained compassion because of the DNA imprint from Rose, and on a bittersweet note self-destructs, unable to cope with the emotions it feels and the fact that he is all alone. The Doctor also has great character moment when he finds the Dalek incapacitated and at his mercy. Gloating over the fact that he has the upper hand, the Doctor's much darker, merciless side unleashes and he tortures the Dalek, mockingly screaming "EXTERMINATE!" as he inflicts the pain to the Dalek. This I think was the moment I truly fell in love with Eccleston's Doctor; the Doctor's dark side truly emerges during this episode and all the pain and anger he had bottled up inside him bursts out and that was one of my favourite scenes from all of Doctor Who. 

Another amazing episode is "Father's Day", a story that is no doubt a Rose Episode. The story revolves around Rose interacting with her mother and father and causes a massive paradox by saving her father from dying in a car accident. This is a great episode because of how genuinely touching all the moments were between Rose and her father Pete. It was especially touching how Rose eventually had to let her father go and allow him to die and Pete's acceptance of this inevitability. I always LOVE character-centered stories, and "Father's Day" delivered it and more. Billie Piper's best acting was in this episode and it was overall one of the best episodes not only in first season but perhaps in Doctor Who.

The final two-parter "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways" were both good, especially the second part. I was quite sad at the end of the episode because I knew this was Eccleston's only season and his regeneration was quite emotional for me (although David Tennant still did an amazing job as the Doctor). I do think that the show could've been so much better if Eccleston had done three seasons and I really would have liked to see him interact with new companions (someone like Donna could've been a great match for Eccleston). I found it very interesting that despite his relatively short period active, Eccleston was so very positive going into his regeneration, almost as if he was glad to be out of the body that has caused so many deaths in the Time War (note that at this point Eccleston WAS the incarnation that ended the Time War - John Hurt's War Doctor was not developed yet) and was just accepting of the regeneration, which sort of made the process harder for me.

Overall Thoughts

I think that this season is one of the best season (if not the best) in New Who. Yes, there is a bias because Christopher Eccleston IS my favourite Doctor, but what can you say? The season had all amazing episodes (not a bad one among them), a great Doctor, an enjoyable companion, great villains, and an extraordinary cast of side characters. It's a shame that Christopher Eccleston never did more seasons or even specials because I don't know many people who'll say Christopher Eccleston is their favourite Doctor and I think he's so criminally underrated; he's almost always high on everyone's list, but the top spot seems to quite consistently go to David Tennant (understandable), Peter Capaldi (understandable), Tom Baker (also very understandable), and for some reason I really cannot comprehend, Matt Smith (no offence to Smith, he was a great actor but I just don't see the appeal of his Doctor). I think that if Eccleston did more seasons and interacted with more Who villains (ex. The Master, Sontarrans, Cybermen) and companions, he would most definitely be number one on many more peoples' list and I really do think that his short tenure hurt his popularity. Regardless, Christopher Eccleston will always hold a special place as my first ever Doctor, and I imagine that he will always be my favourite Doctor.

For my next review, I will be returning to Mr. Stephen King once again and will be reviewing his novel Pet Sematary. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

FILM REVIEW: The Invisible Man (1933)

''I failed. I meddled in things that man must leave alone..." - Jack Griffin, The Invisible Man

H.G. (Herbert George) Wells is considered to be one of the most prolific science-fiction writers of all time next to the likes to Jules Verne (whose novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea I reviewed before here: https://studiesofflicksnnovels.blogspot.com/2019/07/novel-review-twenty-thousand-leagues.html). Some of his most famous works are The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898). H.G. Wells' concepts have influenced the sci-fi genre vastly, and has even contributed to horror through the character of Griffin, better known as the Invisible Man. The Invisible Man was originally released as a novel in 1897 and was adapted into a film of the same name by Universal Pictures in 1933, with the character joining the cast of Universal Classic Monsters alongside Count Dracula and the Frankenstein's Monster. The film was directed by James Whale of Boris Karloff's 1931 Frankenstein and stars Claude Rains as the title character.

The story of the Invisible Man is quite simple: Scientist Dr. Jack Griffin (simply known as Griffin in the novel) discovers how to become invisible. It's eventually discovered however that monocane, one of the main ingredients of the drug (as it bleaches organisms), has the side effect of inducing insanity in whomever ingests it. Driven mad by the effects of the drug, Griffin plans to use his newfound invisibility to commit crimes as he desires and in general cause chaos. He is eventually caught and shot. As he lays dying in hospital, Griffin regains his sanity as he turns visible again and tells his lover Flora that he ''meddled in things that man must leave alone..." before dying. 

The first thing I'm going to discuss regarding this film is the OUTSTANDING special effects. In 1933, the movie industry still wasn't all that well-developed due to the relatively recent introduction of films (or "moving pictures") to society and technology being not all developed. Despite the challenges presented, the special effect of the floating clothes, weapons, things being knocked down, etc. were so flawlessly done that I frankly think it's just as good as any CGI special effects they could've pulled off in the 21st Century. I'm 100% certain but I'm fairly sure they used wires (for the scene where the Invisible Man is running around nude) and some sort of combining of two different shots when he is wearing clothes. The special effects seriously work brilliantly and are so well timed with the other actors' movements and reactions that it's seriously believable that there could've been an actual invisible man. The special effects ALONE are worth watching the movie for if you're even mildly interested in it because it is seriously mind-blowing.

The plot overall was very well-paced and interesting. The movie is only about an hour and ten minutes (or 71 minutes) so the pacing was pretty fast-paced all the way through and all of the scenes were very well done. Not a single scene felt like a filler to pad time or anything and they all had some purpose in either character development or the plot. The story was fairly simple and nothing in it was very difficult to understand and there were some plot twists in it that were actually very well executed and managed to surprise me a couple of times.

The acting is another point of interest I'm going to focus on. Overall, the acting was very solid. There were few actors here and there who seemed like overacting and kind of annoyed me (although that just could've been what constituted good acting back then), but the main cast gave a very solid performance. Claude Rains gave a phenomenal performance as Griffin, which was very impressive considering he had nothing but his voice to work with the movie until right at the end. As the Invisible Man, he really gave off the impression of being a complete madman; his voice had the right amount of raspiness that really gave off the impression of a maniac. Claude Rains' evil laugh was absolutely genius and was actually quite terrifying; Mark Hamill apparently took inspiration from Rains when doing his voice for the role of the Joker, and I think it was a VERY smart idea. Rains could also portray a sympathetic character very well. Despite being a madman because of the drug for most of the movie, in his dying moments his sanity returns, and as Griffin talks about how he never should have tried to become invisible, I could definitely feel the pain and regret in his voice as he realizes that everything he did was evil, and it really made me sympathize with a character who was largely really loathsome for most of the movie.

Overall, The Invisible Man was an outstanding movie. Despite being an older movie with a much lower production value and resources, it's actually better than most recent films. It's got a great plot, great pacing, sensational special effects, and a really great cast. I think the fact that this movie was barely over an hour actually helped in its favour. It could cut right to the chase and make the viewer solve the mystery of the invisible man with the characters; it also meant that there was no need for "filler scenes", meaning that the film never dragged or got boring and pointless in places just to pad the runtime. From start to finish basically everything was plot relevant and the few scenes that weren't were there to build the mood and the tense atmosphere, which worked amazingly well for the movie. This film, in my humble opinion, is way better than most movies you'd find in theatres nowadays mainly because of how straightforward and concise it all is.

For my next review, I'm actually going to change it up a bit and do a review of a TV show. Specifically Doctor Who. I've been really getting into the show recently and I want to essentially once in a while, as a special Doctor Who Review, review an incarnation of the Doctor (both Classic and Revived Era are fair game). In these reviews I'm going cover the overall characterization of the Doctor, their companion(s), villains, and overall story arc. These reviews are going to be a "once-in-a-while" special, so they won't be too frequent. 

For my first ever Doctor Who Review next week, I shall be reviewing the first Doctor of "New Who" and my personal favourite, the Ninth Doctor, portrayed by Christopher Eccleston. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

FILM REVIEW: Jojo Rabbit (2019)

"Dancing is for people who are free." - Rosie, Jojo Rabbit

Who would have ever thought you could actually make Adolf Hitler somewhat likeable? Now let's get something straight: I'm NOT praising Hitler. No, I'm praising Taika Waititi's writing and playing of the fictional character Imaginary Friend Adolf Hitler in his 2019 film, Jojo Rabbit, directed by Polynesian Director/Actor Taika Waititi, who is perhaps best known as the director of Marvel's 2017 film Thor: Ragnarok, as well as playing the rock creature Korg in the film and once again in Avengers: Endgame. Jojo Rabbit won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Scarlett Johansson, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Picture. Based on a 2008 novel Caging Skies by New Zealander-Belgian novelist Christine Leunens, he film is about Jojo Betzler, a young boy who has been indoctrinated quite deeply into Nazi ideology growing and learning to see the truth through his interactions with a Jewish girl living in his house. Jojo is supported by his mother Rosie, his best friend Yorkie, his "mentor" figure Captain Klenzendorf, and most of all, his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler, who is a more buffoonish but likeable version of Hitler that Jojo uses as a support system.

I really liked this film overall because of how satirical, yet still quite historical. Taika Waititi captured pretty well what it must've been like in Nazi Germany towards the end of World War II; people were brainwashed into believing that the Nazis were still winning, despite there being people who knew they had basically lost the war. This brainwashed aspect of Nazi Germany is shown very well in the film as most people are almost blissfully unaware that the Nazis are horribly losing the war; the only people who do know this (such as Capt. Klenzendorf) are forced to pretend as if everything's going great, even though when we know it isn't. The Nazi hatred of Jewish people and the propaganda they use to make young children think that the Jews are some demonic, monstrous creatures are also well done, especially the part about them "hypnotizing" you into believing that they weren't evil, which I believe was an actual propaganda tool.

I really liked the fact that not everyone in the film was a devoted Nazi and that there were other people (apart from Jojo) who were questioning the war and even Nazi ideologies. Captain Klenzendorf (AKA Captain K) says in his first scene "And even though it would appear our country’s on the back foot and that there really isn’t much hope us of winning this war, apparently we’re doing just fine.". Jojo's mother Rosie is also definitely aware of the war situation and her line "Things are changing. The Allies have taken Italy. France will be next and the war will soon be over... It’s war I hate. It’s pointless and stupid and the sooner we have peace the better." shows that she also has not been indoctrinated by the Nazi propaganda. Having characters that are not 100% devoted Nazis make the movie more realistic in my opinion because I'm sure that there were many Germans who simply never agreed with Hitler's ideologies.
Finally, Jojo's best friend Yorkie is also someone who is questioning the Nazi antisemitic ideologies. During a conversation with Jojo, Yorkie talks about a group of Jewish people he saw captured, and he says of them "Personally I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. They weren’t at all scary and seemed kind of normal. But don’t tell anyone I said that." It was interesting to see the contrast between the "die-hard" Nazis and the skeptical Nazis. Yorkie does fall for some of the Nazi propaganda, but at the same time he also seems to be a regular person. I think that Yorkie probably would've represented a lot of the German population at the time; they were regular people who were questioning some of the things that the Nazis were telling them, but didn't DARE speak out against them because of their devotion to war. War bring together the citizens of a country in a frightening unity. As George Orwell best put it in 1984, "War is Peace".
The ending battle was really well done and it seriously showed how desperate the Nazis were getting and how devastating the war really was. A large amount of the Germans fighting against the Americans were civilians, and there were even many children involved, with many used as suicide bombers. Although the entire movie did a great job showing the bleak reality of Nazi Germany, it was the ending battle that highlighted the real dark side of reality well. It was the part where the kids were just blindly running into fight that hit the hardest because they were very likely heavily brainwashed to just become soldier and that was really dark for me and I think that the scene was filmed and directed superbly.

Of course, I can't review Jojo Rabbit without talking about Jojo's imaginary friend Adolf Hitler played by Taika Waititi (for convenience sake I'm going to refer to him as HitlerWaititi). I just want to point out how AMAZING Taika was in this movie. He made the character he played a very likeable one (at least at the start) and worked really well as a parallel character to Jojo's growth as a character. Taika plays a very buffoonish and friendly version of Hitler, who has essentially been over-glorified in Jojo's mind.
At the beginning of the movie, Jojo is a pretty insecure boy who really lack confidence about a lot of things. So HitlerWaititi is there as a father figure (as Jojo's father is absent) and friend to Jojo. This Hitler is very likeable; he is nothing but supportive to Jojo and constantly encourages him to be more brave, but also lets him know that there's nothing really wrong him being himself, telling Jojo "Be the rabbit. The humble bunny can outwit all his enemies and that is why he is a hero." These early scenes are really interesting because this is the point where Jojo is pretty much fully brainwashed. meaning that his views of Hitler is a very much a fantastical one. This Hitler showers Jojo with essentially unconditional love and acceptance, something that the insecure Jojo desperately needs, which is why he is on screen very often.
Throughout the course of the movie, as Jojo meets Elsa (his sister's childhood friend and a Jew) and gets to interact with her and even fall for her, Hitler's presence becomes more and more scarce. As Jojo gains Elsa as someone new to trust even more, Hitler's presence is no longer needed as much. When Hitler DOES appear, it is in the moments where Jojo's faith to the Nazis are questioned, and HitlerWaititi is there to "keep him in line". As Jojo learns more about the reality of the Nazi party, Hitler's antisemitism takes more centre stage and his conversations with Jojo turns more into "You need to kill her" type conversations rather then encouraging pep talks like before.
By the end of the movie, Hitler has become a full-on monster. Jojo has recently learnt of Hitler's suicide and has broken free of the Nazi brainwashing, even admitting to Elsa that he's in love with her. Hitler now is openly spewing slurs against Elsa, referring to her as "that thing" and a "disgusting Jewy cow". He also amusingly has a bullet wound on his head and directly belittles Jojo into trusting him. Jojo has now also become a very confident, independent boy who has grown through his experiences, meaning that he no longer needs to have Hitler around as a support system. HitlerWaititi in contrast therefore has become an snivelling coward who is desperately trying to seem powerful and is begging for Jojo's admiration and attention. Jojo permanently banishes Hitler with a beautiful "Fuck off" (This is a real quote from the film).
It was really clever idea to use Hitler as a parallel to Jojo's growth as a character. You can really see how Hitler changes as a support system as Jojo grows as a character. Hitler's on-screen presence noticeably begins to decrease as Jojo learns more and is eventually phased out of Jojo's life forever. You can really tell Taika had a lot of fun with the character (clearly satirizing the crap out of Hitler to mock him as best as possible) and I honestly think he deserved an Oscar nomination for the role. You can really see the REAL Hitler's dark sides poke out here and there in the middle of the light-hearted ones and it was simply fantastically acted.

Of course, while Jojo and HitlerWaititi are really the "central" characters of the film, the thing that made this film even more great are the supporting cast, namely Jojo's mother Rosie, Jojo's best friend Yorkie, the Jewish girl Elsa, and Jojo's mentor-like figure Captain Klenzendorf (Captain K) and Captain K's "friend" Freddy Finkel. I love each of these character because they each represent different aspects of people living in and fighting against Nazi Germany in their own clear ways. While I'd love to go into them in detail, I don't want to spoil any of the major plot developments (which I'll probably end up doing if I go too far into this) so I'll leave it to you to figure it out yourself since it's honestly not the most subtle thing in the universe. For example, Elsa clearly represents the repressed Jewish people hidden by a non-brainwashed German, Jojo's mother Rosie, and later Jojo. Overall, all of the supporting characters (although Rosie and Elsa technically are main characters) really embellished the movie in their own little ways and made the experience more realistic for me.

Jojo Rabbit was probably one of my favourite films of 2019 and maybe ever. It portrayed Nazi Germany and the people inside very well. The film had all the diverse types of people in Nazi Germany; the repressed hidden minorities, the rebellious people, the Nazi fanatics, the questioning citizens, and even the brainwashed child soldiers. It was an emotional ride as well. It was no doubt a comedy, but there were some REALLY dark and depressing moments that could make someone tear up. I don't understand how Scarlett Johansson didn't get the Oscar as much as I won't ever understand how Taron Egerton wasn't even nominated for Best Actor or Rocketman nominated for Best Picture. The acting was overall pretty flawless. Everybody performed well, most impressively 11 or 12-year-old Roman Griffin Davis, who played Jojo and Archie Yates who played Yorkie. Those two kids were honestly REALLY great; Roman was really good at portraying deep emotions that I never could've achieved NOW, much less at TEN and Archie had really hilarious line delivery. So overall, if you like comedies that satirize historical events and characters, Jojo Rabbit is THE movie for you: I can't really think of faults to it and the movie was seriously great, and if it had won Best Picture, it would've 100% deserved it.

So for my next review, since I've reviewed a pretty recent film, I'm going to go a little back in time to the 1930s (1933 to be exact) to a film based on a novel by the sci-fi writer and eugenics supporter Herbert George Wells. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

FILM REVIEW: Parasite (기생충) - Dir. Bong Joon-ho

Director Bong Joon-ho with Parasite's Academy Awards

As I am writing this, the 92nd Academy Awards are still fresh in my mind. Some Academy Awards, such as Joaquin Phoenix's well-deserved Best Actor award for his performance in Joker were. for me very much expected. One film I really didn't expect to win many Oscars was the South Korean film Parasite, or 기생충 (Pronounced Gi-saeng-chung). Sweeping through the categories of Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature Film, Best Director, and Best Picture, Parasite and its Director Bong Joon-ho made history; not only did Parasite have the most wins that night, but they also became the first Korean film to be nominated for and win an Oscar, and also became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture. While to a degree I expected Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film, I did not expect the film to win Best Director and certainly not Best Picture. As a Korean myself, I was overjoyed that Parasite did so well and I do hope that this will allow Korean films to come into the light more and be recognized for their talent.

Alongside his film, Director Bong has become a very popular figure in the film industry, loved by many for his eccentric sense of humour, humbleness when receiving his awards (he was especially well-loved for acknowledging all of the other directors during his Best Direct acceptance speech, putting fellow nominee Martin Scorsese on a pedestal), and his genius directing skills. While Director Bong has only received full international acclamation recently, it is important to note that he is by no means an unknown in the film industry. He is well-known in Korea for his films Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), and the 2013 English film Snowpiercer. I have seen the three films myself and I can attest to Director Bong's genius skills in film-making as I recall thoroughly enjoying all three of them, especially Snowpiercer.

It's interesting to note that Snowpiercer, a film I really liked, and Parasite are quite similar in terms of theme. They both revolve around the themes of appearance VS reality and social inequality, and it's brilliant how Bong used two films that are fundamentally about different things to deliver a similar message and theme. In Parasite, it is very clear that social inequality is an obvious theme. The film refers to a number of times the extravagant lifestyle that the Park family live in comparison to the Kim family, who has to struggle just to survive on a daily basis. The film even goes further and ingeniously uses levels to highlight the wealthy disparity: while the wealthy Parks live literally on a higher ground from everyone else, the poor Kims live in a sub-basement, with the window as their only view to the outside world, symbolizing that while the Kims do not live in complete poverty, they may as well be.

The title of the film "parasite" is also a very clever way to describe the two major families in the story. The Kim family are the most obvious 'parasites', lying their way into the Park household and leeching off of their wealth. The Park family are also parasites in a sense to the Kim family and perhaps even to each other. The Parks rely quite heavily on the Kims to live their every day lives to the point that none of them can function without the other. The father and mother of the Kim family, Ki-taek the chauffeur and Chung-sook the housekeeper, are two people the Park family relies very heavily on; the mother of the Park family Yeon-gyo is almost useless in the household, being incapable of doing the simplest tasks such as using the dishwasher. She heavily relies on both Mr. and Mrs. Kim for shopping and the housework, and the father Dong-ik, while not completely reliant on their employees like his wife, still uses his authority over them.

The main theme in Parasite is clearly social inequality and social divide. The movie shows this social divide very well foremost in the use of levels like I mentioned above, but they also show it in the form of the employees of the Park family; the Kim family, former housekeeper Gook Moon-gwang, and former chauffeur Mr. Yoon are all treated as expendables and not as real human beings. While I won't go into the specific details, there's a scene towards the end which shows very clearly that the Park family (ESPECIALLY Mr. Park) clearly treats not only their employees, but people of lower class then them as just expendable parts rather than real human beings. There is very much a sense of detachment that the wealthy Park family has from the poorer Kim family and others around them; a main example of this is the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Park fetishize the concept of being poor and therefore "dirty" and imagines themselves as of being lower class to "get themselves going". This really shows how detached the Park family is from the rest of society as they are so completely unaware (or even uncaring) of the less-wealthy's misfortunes and struggles that they can use something that's a bitter reality for many people as a strange fetish to the point that it's revolting. The class division in the film and the detachment from reality that the Park family has is so strikingly well-presented, from major things like the characters' actions down to the tiny things like the crazy expensive sirloin they use to make the instant noodles ram-don (짜파구리, or Cha-pa-gu-ri in Korean) or the VOSS water that they exclusively drink.

Parasite overall has amazing scenes, plot, acting, characters, dialogue, and cinematography. Bong Joon-ho was fantastic as the director and the film really deserved every single Academy Award it got. The film I think did so well because the theme of the disturbingly large divide between the rich and poor is a concept that is so universal that it is adaptable to pretty much every country in the world. The entire cast really performed outstandingly, and it really was a well-made film overall. I think that Parasite is the beginning of a new era in film where Korean movies will begin to become more and more recognized on the international stage of films, and I really hope to see more Korean movies nominated for Academy Awards. I also don't think this will be the last time we see Bong Joon-ho on the stage either... 

For my next review, I will be reviewing a satirical comedy on Nazi Germany made by a Polynesian Jewish film director who plays Hitler in the film. The film won the Oscar for Best Adopted Screenplay and was nominated for five others. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

NOVEL REVIEW: The Library Policeman by Stephen King (From his collection Four Past Midnight)

So we're once again back to Stephen King, the genius maniac masquerading as an author. I recently got for Christmas one of his novella collections called Four Past Midnight. The four novellas are: The Langoliers, Secret Window, Secret Garden, The Library Policeman, and The Sun Dog. This time, I'm going to be reviewing my favourite novella out of the four, The Library Policeman. I really liked this story because it reminded me very strongly of IT, one of my favourite King novels; just like how IT is about overcoming your fears to defeat a greater evil, The Library Policeman is about confronting and overcoming a childhood trauma to defeat the greater evil, and the two main antagonists of the novel, Pennywise the Clown in IT and Ardelia Lortz in The Library Policeman, are also very similar types of Lovecraftian horrors, Pennywise and Ardelia both feeding off of fear from the children.

The overall theme of the story was great, and I really liked the idea of the "Library Policeman" being used as a monstrous villain and a personification of Sam Peebles' (the protagonist) childhood rapist coming back to haunt him. I'm not sure if the library policeman is a concept unique to the United States since I've never heard of it here in Canada, but it's really interesting how King used something from one's childhood memories that might have been just a little scary and turn it into a stuff of NIGHTMARES. I don't even know what about the Library Policeman scared me so much, but it terrified the hell out of me. It felt so real and the fact that it kept triggering something in Sam that he didn't know how to deal with.

Sam was terrified of this library policeman for some strange reason, and he didn't know why. The reader follows through Sam's journey of discovering himself and coming to terms with his childhood trauma, where we eventually learn that he was raped in front of the library by a man who called himself the library policeman. Sam had been repressing this memory in fear that the rapist would return for him if he ever let anyone knew, and the repressed trauma eventually took the form of the library policeman, who was the exact, terror-inducing incarnation of Sam's rapist. 

Ardelia Lortz, the main antagonist is a creature akin to Pennywise the Clown. Her MO is that during story time at the library when it was just her and the kids, she would put them into a trance of some sort, terrify them, and drink their tears/fears in form of tears, which was what she used to sustain herself. Even in her sweet, human form she's pretty terrifying. As a young woman she can seduce anyone she wants to essentially do her bidding; as an old woman, she's supposed to be this kind, friendly woman, but is so oddly terrifying in everything she says and does. One of the things that King knows how to do best is writing compelling characters, SPECIFICALLY terrifying villains. It was a pretty cool concept and she bears a striking resemblance to IT: they both are shape-shifting demons posing as a friendly figure to children so that they could feed off of childrens' tears; they even share the same silver eyes and the characteristic of using puppets to do their bidding! Combining this with the the sorrow-feeding Outsider (from The Outsider) and Dandelo the emotion-feeder (from The Dark Tower series), it seems as though Stephen King was really keen on these types of Lovecraftian monsters.

The most scary part of the novel was definitely right at the end when Sam is confronting his childhood traumatic memory of being raped. King describes the scene in such horrific and graphic detail and yet keeps it as suspenseful as possible so when the rape is described, you do a big double take of horror. When he comes to face with the trauma and announces out loud that he WAS raped, he is able to confront the monster in the form of his rapist and defeat it, which I think is a really good message by King for victims of abuse: you shouldn't be suppressing your trauma, but be confronting it, and that's how you can start the healing process. I went into this story expecting a really good horror story; I got exactly that, but I also got a story that is essentially the MeToo movement before MeToo was even a thing. Stephen King is so great at weaving the theme of the MeToo movement into the story in a way that you don't even realize it's actually about confronting and defeating your rapist until you think about the story after it's over. It is absolutely brilliant/

I know I usually do a summery and a rating out of five here, but I don't think I'll be doing that anymore. I don't want my number rating to affect someone's views on a novel or a film, and honestly it is getting hard to give ratings lower than four out of five since all the stuff I'm reviewing are usually stuff that I really like. But overall, The Library Policeman is a great story. It's reminiscent of IT and The Outsider, and the overall theme of overcoming your childhood trauma and facing your fears is a really great message. Stephen King is VERY good at making his novels revolve around very real-life themes such as childhood fears or the death of a loved one, and these stories I think can really help people actually deal with these issues because of the focus King puts on these themes. 

My next two reviews are two films that are the recipients of Academy Awards in 2020. The first film is a Korean one which has received FOUR Academy Awards (including Best Picture). The second one is a film set in Nazi Germany and is the recipient of Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award. I think you can guess which movies they are, so keep your eyes peeled for them! As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

VALJEAN OR JAVERT: Who is the Hero? The Murky Morality of Les Misérables

I may have tackled something too complex for me... we'll see how it goes.

Les Misérables is an 1862 novel written by Victor Hugo and it was later adapted into a musical theatre production in 1980 by Claude-Michel Schönberg which was then adapted into a 2012 film directed by Tom Hooper. Les Misérables chronicles the life of Jean Valjean, a man arrested for stealing bread whose life was turned around by the kind and loving Bishop Myriel who sets Valjean on a path of redemption through his interactions with the cold, law-abiding Inspector Javert, the tragic yet strong Fantine and her daughter Cosette (who he eventually adopts after Fantine's death), the romantic young revolutionary Marius Pontmercy, among many others. While the story clearly focuses on Valjean as the "hero" of the story and Javert as the "villain", the reality is not as black and white as many might believe. What if Javert was the real hero of the story, chasing Valjean, a dangerous criminal?

The one misconception I want to address is this: "Because Valjean is the 'protagonist', or the 'hero' of the story, Javert has to be the 'antagonist', or the 'villain' of the story". This is a common misconception; you cannot equalize "protagonist" and "hero", and you cannot equalize "antagonist" and "villain". A PROTAGONIST is defined as "the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text" while a HERO is defined as "a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities". On the other hand, an ANTAGONIST is defined as "a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary" and a VILLAIN as "a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot". From these definitions, you can clearly see that a protagonist is not always a hero and an antagonist is therefore not always the villain.

So in Les Mis, because the story focuses on Valjean, we can say that he is the protagonist and that Javert, his adversary, is the antagonist. But when it comes to the hero and the villain, it is not as simple and clear-cut as you may think. While Valjean is definitely a heroic character (he is selfless, brave, and forgiving), he also portrays villainous characteristics; after all, it is his stealing of the silver goods from Bishop Myriel that sets him on the right path, and Valjean is a criminal. On the other hand, Javert is also undoubtedly a heroic character: he is simply a lawman diligently doing his duty to the country by persevering after the dangerous convict Valjean. Despite this, Javert's unwavering devotion to the law blinds him to see the world as either black or white; in Javert's mind, one is either good or evil and no one is morally middle (although Javert is very much a "morally middle" character). Javert's villainous characteristics show however, during the Les Amis de l'ABC's (the student revolutionary group with Marius) rebellion; Javert actively attempts to thwart the revolt and purposefully lead the students to their deaths by posing as a Les Amis spy and feeding them false information, and his clear blindness of (or perhaps a refusal to accept) the corrupt and faulty monarchy and the fanatical devotion to the government and the law leads him to make the choice to lead students to their deaths.

Interestingly, his disdain for the rebellion is actually understandable if we look at Javert's early life. Javert was born in 1780 and dies in 1832. This means that Javert would have been around 9 years old when the French Revolution began (1789) and puts him in his early to mid twenties (about 23 years old) when the Napoleonic Wars began in 1803, meaning that he would most likely have fought in those wars. This puts Javert in an interesting situation: from what we know of his character, it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume he was a militaryman for almost all of his life, and as a child, he firsthand witnessed the horrors that revolution could bring and the radical changes that took place in government (the Revolution began in the rule of the monarch and eventually reverted back to a monarchy).
     If we are to make the educated guess that Javert has always been a firm believer (almost to the degree of being a fanatic) in the government and the law, it is not difficult to believe that Javert saw monarchy as the most ideal form of government (after all, the revolution did fail to bring a significant change in government as it basically reverted to a monarchy). And because Javert finds no fault in the law, and by extension, the government, it is entirely logical that he wouldn't have supported the movement of the Les Amis as even if he saw issues within the government, he would have known the atrocities associated with rebellions (which would have put him off of the idea completely, experiencing all of that as a child) and would have eventually seen resistance against the monarchy as being futile, and he was technically right as the Les Amis' rebellion ended up failing quite horribly.
     While all of this is more or less speculation on my part, if one were to try and explain Javert's fanaticism to the law to the point of becoming blind by his faith towards it, it would be possible to explain his character as a result of being shown the atrocities of (and eventually the failures of) revolutions at the very young and impressionable age of 9 or 10, which than paints a picture of Javert as someone who is merely trying to keep the peace because he has (or at least believes he has) learnt the lesson. And you have to admit that growing up during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars COULD NOT have been a very pleasant experience for Javert
     Additionally, Valjean was already 20 by the time the French Revolution took place (born in 1769) and began his prison sentence in 1796 and got out in 1815, meaning that he was significantly old enough by his arrest to know that there were serious issues with the monarchy, a wisdom and knowledge that the younger Javert did not have (but Javert WAS apparently a prison guard at age 16).

So there are two big ways to view the morality of Les Mis:

1. Jean Valjean is reformed man trying to do good in the world while Javert is the soulless devotee to a corrupt government whose goal is to rid the world of any good and ensure that the tyrannical regime stays.
2. Inspector Javert is a just lawman doing his duty to capture Jean Valjean, a dangerous criminal, and put him behind bars because he is a danger to society.

It's a conundrum, isn't it? You can't definitively say that neither Valjean or Javert is good or bad. They're both heroes of their own story, and the villains of the others'; because the story is told generally from Valjean's POV, Javert is portrayed as being more villainous than he actually is.
Here, I have a third option that I really think summarizes the situation of morality in Les Mis perfectly:

Neither Javert nor Valjean is the hero or the villain: They are morally grey characters struggling to survive with what they are given and try to do what they believe to be the right thing.

So, is there a hero and a villain in Les Mis? If so, who are they? 
     I believe that the answer is YES. There actually are three characters who can be summed up as the true hero and the villains of this story: Bishop Myriel and the Thénardiers.
     Bishop Myriel is truly a faultless character: he is selfless and noble through and through. He is a man who lives with the philosophy of kindness and love. He helps Valjean when he is in need without question and without caring Valjean's criminal status (I'm not quite sure if he knew Valjean was a criminal or not but even if he did know, he wouldn't have cared). Furthermore, when Valjean runs off in the night with his precious silver and is arrested the next day, the Bishop lies to the soldiers that the silver was a gift to Valjean from himself and actually chastises Valjean for forgetting to take the silver candlesticks with him. After the police leave, the Bishop tells Valjean to use the silver to become an honest man. Although the Bishop does not appear in the story afterwards, his kindness and love towards Valjean is the turning point of his character: Valjean cannot comprehend the compassion he had been given because he was hardened into a man knowing nothing but hate during his (arguably too long) time in prison. He begins to realize how horrible he was, betraying the trust of the one person who had been kind to him, and feels shame. It is at this point that Valjean vows to become a man of light, doing nothing but good, and the entirety of Valjean's character for the rest of the story is the result of Bishop Myriel's love and compassion.
     Next are the villains of Les Mis, the Thénardiers. I genuinely cannot think of a SINGLE redeeming qualities of these characters. They do nothing but cheat and swindle and rob people out of their money, and their first song in the musical, "Master of the House" is solely dedicated to their crimes and the glee they get from it. They are abusive to young Cosette, cheats Fantine out of money (lies to her they need money for a sick Cosette), and after they lose their inn, they essentially become con artists and cheap pickpockets. One of the worst things their characters ever do in the musical is this particular line they sing during "One Day More": "Watch 'em run amuck, catch 'em as they fall, never know your luck when there's a free for all. Here a little 'dip', there a little 'touch', most of them are goners so they won't miss much!". It is meant to be seen as being more comedic than anything, but I just found the idea of these two not caring about the lives of schoolboys who are essentially fighting for a better life for all (something that's going to positively affect the Thénardiers). It gets even worse as in the novel, they steal from the corpses of killed students. I cannot stress enough how much I HATE these two. As a small consolation, Madame Thénardier dies in prison after being arrested by Javert (go Javert!), but Monsieur Thénardier scams some money from Marius and goes to America to be a slave trader. Apparently Monsieur Thénardier is protected from karmic punishment, although I guess having punishment come to Madame Thénardier in the novel is at least better than both of them surviving and still running cons in the musical.

Although Hugo liked making his characters morally grey, it seems like there were at least three who were indisputably good or evil.

Well, that was a long rant. I honestly really love Les Misérables as a story, and it's probably because I'm crazy for history and this has some historical elements in it. But I really loved the fact that Victor Hugo managed to make nearly every character be morally grey and not explicitly good or evil (even Marius is like this as he is actually a Bonapartist in the novel) which makes reading about their actions just so much more interesting because having a morally grey character means that it is much more . Even though I haven't actually read the novel yet, I'm in love with the musical itself and all of these songs (and I'm going to go watch it live for the first time this June!) and I think it's just written beautifully. Victor Hugo's creative genius also must be given praise to: he writes his character so well that I was so deeply invested in their well-beings even in their much more stripped-down musical counterparts (Javert in particular is my favourite because he shows some great character conflicts). I seriously love Les Misérables and I truly recommend everyone to at least give some of the songs a listen or watch the full 10th Anniversary performance with the Dream Cast, you won't regret it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG-gojr493E.

My next post will be a review of a Stephen King book/novella (I'm not quite sure what to call it), from his collection, Four Past Midnight. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur