Working the Weekend with Luke-The Force Awakens Trailer, 22 Jump Street, Sharp Objects
Welcome to the November 30th edition of Working the Weekend with Luke. Before I go on, I just want to take a moment to remember my dad today on what would have been his 72nd birthday. Love and miss you every single day Pop. If you’d like to take a look at the September 21st edition that I wrote called At The Movies With Pop, click HERE.
So how was your Thanksgiving break? I really don’t get into this particular holiday that much and I did not have my daughters this year, and I just took some time to relax. Don’t get me wrong, I did get out a little bit as I had a 1st birthday to attend, immediately followed by a funeral, so yesterday was a mixed bag, but otherwise, I spent most of my time at home. I watched some football, a few random flicks on TV, but also took the time to read a book, watch a newer movie, and catch the trailer that everyone has been waiting for………
STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS
When I heard that the trailer for the new Star Wars movie was coming out over the holiday, I told myself not to get too excited about it. The movie itself doesn’t come out for another year and I’d get to it at some point. But as soon as I turned on my computer the other day, there was the headline “NEW STAR WARS TRAILER IS OUT!” And I couldn’t help myself. So I watched this one:
As excited as I was to see some familiar faces (Chewbacca, Han Solo), this one was a little underwhelming to me. Granted, it is only a teaser and I’m not the biggest fan of these three minute trailers that you sometime see that shows you nearly everything in the film, but even for a teaser, I wanted a little more. I’ve been a little skeptical of the whole thing anyway, so I wanted something to get me a little more amped up, which I ended up getting from this:
Now I won’t sit here and over-analyze this trailer like thousands and thousands of people are doing even as we speak, so I’m just going to say that I’m officially excited for Episode VII. But I suppose I was excited for The Phantom Menace as well, and we all know how that turned out. But just knowing that the storyline will involve the cast from the original trilogy, at least for one film, I’m a bit more optimistic of the final result. And I know it’s a small change, but the new lightsaber looks pretty badass.
22 JUMP STREET
I finally got around to watching 22 Jump Street and they can just keep making as many of these as they want in my opinion. The chemistry between Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum is just fantastic and unlike some of the other recent comedy sequels, this movie was just as good as the first one. There’s more great stuff from Nick Offerman and involves a little more Ice Cube, which is just awesome. And don’t forget about the Richard Grieco sighting as well. He looks just awful by the way, but that’s beside the point. Plans are already in motion for 23 Jump Street, even though Channing Tatum isn’t quite sold on it just yet. Personally, I hope they go ahead and make this into a trilogy, but if they decide not to, at least we’ve got the end credits from this one to keep us guessing…..and laughing.
SHARP OBJECTS
After enjoying Gone Girl as much as I did, I decided to go back and read some of Gillian Flynn’s earlier work, and I started with her debut novel, Sharp Objects.
At 254 pages, it’s a pretty quick read that I finished in one sitting, and while it is a decent book, I found it to be a little long-winded and a little too predictable. The narration is done by Camille Preaker, a newspaper writer in Chicago that is forced by her boss to return to her small hometown in Missouri to cover the story of a missing girl and to see if it connects to a previous murder. She’s coming off of a recent stay in a psych ward, has a little bit of a drinking problem, and has not been home in eight years. She has a distant relationship with her mother and barely knows her thirteen-year-old half-sister, who has become a very manipulative young girl. These relationships, along with one she develops with the lead detective, play out over the course of the novel until the climax, which really seemed rushed to me. I go through 200+ pages of buildup and then all of a sudden, the book is over. Having read this book after reading Gone Girl, you can really see how much Gillian Flynn has learned since this debut. She knows how to create great characters and is very good at having the reader love them or hate them and she does a great job at that in this book as well, but I feel that some of the story gets lost as she gets a little too descriptive about nonessential things. But overall, I did enjoy it and I’ll look forward to reading Dark Places next.
So that will do it for this week. I hope everyone transitions back to work nicely tomorrow and make sure to keep checking back for more updates and fan votes from Binge Sports, and of course, for the Bingecast and all the daily columns from the rest of the crew. Until next time, you can give me your comments on today’s items below, or as always, you can follow me and tweet @THElukenorris.
And as always, here’s your weekly fix (and it’s a Thanksgiving clip) of Beverly Hills, 90210.