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Showing posts from 2018

The Beguiled; Beauty & McBurney.

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Last night I watched The Beguiled  and why wouldn't I? A cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning AND Colin Farrell, not to mention that this movie ship is steered by Sofia Coppola. This movie has got to be one of the best mixed ingredients since the Victoria Sponge cake was invented! The movie is an adaptation of the novel, with the same title, written by Thomas Cullinan. The story follows a union soldier who is found wounded in the woods by a young girl who resides, with a handful of others, at a girls school during the time of the Civil War. When the soldier is bought to the school and his life saved, the story takes on this tension filled plot balancing on desire and survival. This is a subtle movie, in the best kind of way, with the beautiful scenery of this isolated mansion in Virginia, surrounded by huge trees and Spanish moss, nature truly adds to the inclosure of the atmosphere of this movie. Also, to say there is sexual tension in the film is a

Do Androids Vs Blade Runner.

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep  was written by Philip K Dick, one of the kings of Sci-Fi and till this day, due to cinema and pop culture, some would argue that his most famous and talked about works include  Man in the High Castle  and  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.  Now, I will warn you before you go too deep into this review, it is going to be a hard struggle for me to be both bias and unbiased since the two I am talking about today are in my top ten for both movie and books; but I WILL TRY, I will try and not be too kissy about them both.  So the book,  Do Androids , was first published in 1968, giving it that deep, almost political insight that we say was ahead of his time in the same sort of way that we say it about Orwell and Huxley. In fact, Dick is quite renowned for his comments on society, military and politics and the clever way he hid them within the genre of Science Fiction; although hidden may not be the right word, since the underlying atmosph

Welcome to the West.

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Recently I have been working on different stories and screenplays, as I do, and have weirdly found this new passion for Westerns. Yes, Westerns. More modern Westerns however, there's a few classics I know, but it's more the ones that have come out in the past sort of ten-ish years that have shown me that my mind is far more open to movies then I thought, which is saying something considering I've seen more than one Larry Clark movie. So, since I have found some new movies that I have been trying to recommend to rolling eyes and John Wayne impressionists, I thought I'd put a few of them here, just for you guys. I have no current intention for Western puns in this piece as of yet, but at this point in the article, I can make no promises. (It would've been good comical tactic to put one there wouldn't it?). First of all, is kind of an obvious one; I'm not sure how clear I have made it on Velvet but I ADORE Quentin Tarantino, like if that man made a mo

The Greatest Showman; Kinda Great.

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Recently I went out and bought a copy of The Greatest Showman; it wasn't my intention, but when I walked into the store they were playing the soundtrack and as emotional as I already know I am, I felt myself begin to tear up in the store (I know, I know, it's getting worse) and so THEN I decided it was about time I saw what all the fuss was about. The Greatest Showman is a film that has always appealed to me, and surprisingly I missed it's cinema run, I'm a sucker for a musical and love anything to do with circus'. Also, with Hugh Jackman at the forefront, it left little to not be excited about. However, yes however; on first viewing I thought it was enjoyable, it was exactly what I expected from it and weirdly that made me feel a little let down. It is fun and it's sweet, but I honestly believe if it wasn't a musical, if it didn't have those songs at the heart of it, it wouldn't be that good. It would be a little flat, a little predictable.

Inhumane: Welcome Back to The Female Werewolf!

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What is better than a new horror feature about a female werewolf? Not much, I had a think about it and yeah, not much. Lucky for us there are still creatives who understand this NEED for movies with plots such as this one and Eric Winkler is one of them; a fairly new on the market writer who has bought us not only a new horror movie but has done so with the sharp bite of woman empowerment. Inhumane is, as said, a female led werewolf movie in which our main character Lisa has something horrific happen...hold on, let me have the brains behind the movie tell you a little what it’s about, that’s right Velvet-ians, I got to speak to the man himself; Where did the idea for Inhumane come from and made you want to write it? ERIC:  My original thought was "I want to write a movie with a really badass woman as the lead character." Basically, I thought it'd be cool if we had her be a superhero, but her superpower is that she's a werewolf. Well, originally I couldn

Many A Star Wars Story!

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Since I am still jumping up and down in pure excitement at the Solo: A Star Wars Story  teaser release, I thought this next piece would be super fun to do! In the past year or so we have seen a rise in YA authors bringing out books on characters in the Marvel and DC Universe and they are definitely getting some huge review, with fans loving books like  Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo, a Wonder Woman novel and more. BUT, there are a large collection of Star Wars  novels from even more loved authors, so I thought to myself ; WE NEED A LIST! So to fill that millennium falcon sized space inside you that's looking to be stuffed with Star Wars geek-ness and goodness; here's some books available now to help pass the time till the Solo release! Claudia Gray Claudia Gray is an author, best known in the YA/Book community for the Firebird Trilogy; A Thousand Pieces of You, Ten Thousand Skies Above You and A Million Worlds With You. Claudia has written a few Star Wars bo