Movie Monday: Kingsman: The Secret Service

I wasn't impressed by the ads for Kingsman: The Secret Service, but I couldn't resist going to a promo screening at the Alamo Drafthouse.  I'm so happy that I can't resist the lure of free things, because I loved this movie.

It is pretty much an in-name-only adaptation of Mark Millar's comic, which is good, because Millar is terrible in oh so many ways.  There's some lingering crassness that suggest the origins, but I can ignore those few bits I didn't like in favor of an exuberantly fun and stylish film.

With great musical cues

The cast is fantastic.  Colin Firth (Harry/Galahad) does not look like an action hero, which is of course part of Kingsman's humor.  His quiet dignity and subtle expressions breathe life into his gentleman spy.  Newcomers Taron Egerton (Eggsy) and Sophie Cookson (Roxy) are charismatic and hold their own against more experienced actors.  Mark Strong (Merlin) finally gets to play a good guy.  I'm not so sure how I feel about Samuel L. Jackson's (Valentine) choice of using a lisp, but liked that it isn't mined for humor in movie aside from an ironic line about how he finds the English difficult to understand.

How does Eggsy afford a Jeremy Scott jacket? I dunno.

Kingsman focuses on Eggsy, a young man who has never been able to escape where he came from, partly because he needs to be there to protect his mom and sister from his abusive stepfather.  But after a joyride (full of amazing car stunts), he finds himself calling in a favor from an old friend of his dad's - and then he finds himself competing against a bunch of blue bloods for a spot on a very secret service.  Meanwhile, an evil plot is brewing and the snobs vs. slobs war is turning genocidal.

By the climax, Kingsman is an exuberant ride with beautifully surreal imagery to make spy canons such as The Prisoner just as proud as James Bond.  It's a spoof that understands what made the goofy spy films of the sixties so much fun - and it's not just the gadgets.  (Although they do help.)  You've got to have a stomach for violence to watch this one, but if you do, it's quite rewarding.

Kingsman opens everywhere February 13th.

Review: Bon Appétempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!)

By Amelia Morris
Available now from Grand Central Publishing (Hachette)
Review copy

I avoid memoirs as a rule of thumb, but I was intrigued by BON APPETEMPT because it promised cooking misadventures and author Amelia Morris's "ill-fated twenty-something job at the School of Rock in Los Angeles."  I think I shall continue avoiding memoirs, because they make me feel like I'm judging someone's life in a bad way.

If you came for the School of Rock story, it lasts about a chapter and can be summed up thusly: Aging musicians rarely show up to work on time, bum money from people, and eventually Morris was fired for someone with the administrative and accounting experience to keep people in line.  Fascinating.  As for the cooking, Morris doesn't reach that life interest until halfway through the memoir.  I can't even imaging that fans of her book-turned-blog Bon Appétempt are that interested in a litany of jobs she worked for a bit in her twenties while she and her boyfriend to find something steady to make ends meet.

It doesn't help that BON APPETEMPT is so very dry.  Morris is find at expressing when she's angry at someone, like her mother and grandmother for not immediately supporting her impending marriage.  She's less good at other emotions, which lends little vibrancy to the central relationship of the memoir, that of her and her husband.  She's led a fairly normal life, which doesn't give the memoir much color, and doesn't have the voice or perspective to make that life compelling. 

The recipes are awesome, and their connection to the chapters goes stronger and better integrated as BON APPETEMPT goes on.  However, she sometimes doesn't even say if a recipe turned out well.  Why describe how you made something if you're not going to include the best part, the delightful food porn of flavors and texture and deliciousness that made this recipe a must have in your life story?  Maybe I should just look it up on the blog?

This one if for die-hard fans of Amelia Morris's blog.  For everyone else, just check it out from the library and photocopy the recipes that appeal to you.  I do like the book trailer (shot and edited by her husband Matt), and it makes me wish I liked the book more:

Review: Beastkeeper

By Cat Hellisen
Available now from Henry Holt & Co. (Macmillan)
Review copy

I was instantly drawn to BEASTKEEPER by the beautiful cover.  The stark silhouettes were foreboding, but the peachy glow invited me in.  This short modern fable is a multi-generational "Beauty and the Beast" that explores the consequences of the revenge and just how difficult it is to achieve unconditional love.

The beginning of the story starts when Sarah's mom leaves.  Her mom has never liked the winter, and leaves her husband and daughter when the winter catches up with her for the last time.  Her father sinks into depression, leaving Sarah to explore the tiny patch of "woods" by their house and meet a strange boy.  When he realizes he can no longer parent Sarah himself, he takes her to live with her grandmother, deep in an actual, wild wood.

I loved Sarah's optimism, the sort of faith that only a younger child has that they can make things right if they cross their t's, dot their i's, and just try hard enough.  She also has a young, happy child's ease of bestowing trust, even though lately her life has gone quite awry.  And I loved that it wasn't enough.  Decades of hatred are not undone simply, nor painlessly.

Everything in BEASTKEEPER ties together rather neatly, each layer of the story unfolding to explain how disparate things slot together in unexpected ways.  It's a tightly structured novel, which helps it get away with the fairytale logic that fuels the plot.  Cat Hellisen's writing is lush but not purple, perfect for a harsh fairytale atmosphere.

It did not take me long to devour BEASTKEEPER; this is a true bite-sized delight for the adult reader.  It's the perfect length for the middle grade audience, particularly those who are looking for another darker book to read after finishing CORALINE.

Review: This Side of Home

By Renée Watson
Available now from Bloomsbury Children's
Review copy

Renée Watson's debut novel THIS SIDE OF HOME is the story of Maya's senior year at high school.  It starts with a big change, when her best friend is evicted from the house across the street and has to move across town.  The new family that moves in is white, just like most of the families moving into the historically black neighborhood.

Maya is passionate about her town, about the history of her neighborhood and school and the people who have lived there.  She's angered by the gentrification, by the opportunities given to business owners moving that were denied to the black people who already live there and tried to get loans and backers.  She's angered that when her school tries to present a better side to the press, something she supports as student council president, the principal forces them to tone down the blackness and present a multicultural lens that focuses on making sure the white students don't feel left out.

Maya is also confused.  She and her twin sister, Nikki, and her best friend, Essence, have always planned to go to a historically black college.  But now Nikki is friends with the new girl and looking at different schools.  Essence isn't looking at college at all, but beauty school.  And Maya finds herself falling for the boy across the street, instead of the nice boy she's been dating for ages.  Can she stand up for her culture if she's dating a white boy?

I loved THIS SIDE OF HOME.  Gentrification is a pressing issue in many cities, and Watson presents it in an understandable way.  Like Nikki, many people appreciate new shops and restaurants and other nice things moving into a neighborhood.  Like Maya, many people dislike it because they see the people who get forced out of their homes because they can no longer afford them.  Like Essence, some are too busy figuring out how to make ends meet to care about the bigger picture.  Watson presents a variety of voices and a variety of perceptions.  Maya tries to do the right thing, but THIS SIDE OF HOME makes it clear that she isn't always right.

THIS SIDE OF HOME is a great novel for readers who like narrators with a strong voice and contemporaries that treat romance and friendship with equal importance.  It's a multifaceted look at a community through the eyes of a teenage girl on the verge of a bright future.  And I can only assume that Watson has a bright future as an author ahead of her.

An Appetite for Violets Giveaway

Today I am giving away a copy of AN APPETITE FOR VIOLETS, the debut novel by Martine Bailey.

One special feature of this novel is that it contains a variety of 18th century recipes that were researched and transcribed by Martine.  Sounds delicious, no?

“That’s how it is for us servants. No one pays you much heed; mostly you're invisible as furniture. Yet you overhear a conversation here, and add a little gossip there. Then you find something, something you should not have found.”Irrepressible Biddy Leigh, under-cook at forbidding Mawton Hall, only wants to marry her childhood sweetheart and set up her own tavern. But when her elderly master marries young Lady Carinna, Biddy is unwittingly swept up in a world of scheming, secrets, and lies. Forced to accompany her new mistress to Italy, she documents her adventures and culinary discoveries in an old household book of recipes, The Cook’s Jewel. Biddy grows intrigued by her fellow travelers, but her secretive and unconventional mistress is the most intriguing of all.

In London, Biddy finds herself attracted to her mistress’s younger brother. In France, she discovers her mistress’s dark secret. At last in Italy, Biddy becomes embroiled in a murderous conspiracy, knowing the secrets she holds could be a key to a better life, or her downfall.

Inspired by eighteenth-century household books of recipes and set at the time of the invention of the first restaurants, An Appetite for Violets is a literary feast for lovers of historical fiction. Martine Bailey's novel opens a window into the fascinating lives of servants, while also delivering a suspenseful tale of obsession and betrayal.

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