Tag: romance

Book Review: Natalie Murray’s Emmie and the Tudor King

“The reign of terror continued for nearly two decades, earning the Tudor king his famous epithet ‘Nicholas the Ironheart’.” Excerpt From Emmie and the Tudor King, Literary Crush Publishing, Copyright 2019 by Natalie Murray.

In a small town in Western Mass resides Emmie, a sensitive and inquisitive 17-year-old with lofty ambitions. The Laura Ingalls-esque young woman lives with her hardworking mother, Carol, who has taken her from London to San Diego to New England to chase after the unrequited love of her now ex-husband. Carol’s heartache and yearning for more is the aura she carries with her, a yearning that also resides in our hero. Emmie has her eyes set on an art school in London, and spends her time curating the piece of jewelry that she believes will be her ticket out of Hatfield. Continue reading “Book Review: Natalie Murray’s Emmie and the Tudor King“

Single Of The Week: RoMaNcE by ShitKid

This week’s Single Of The Week comes from Sweden’s ShitKid. We have one of the most wonderfully weird videos I’ve seen in a while, accompanied by some catchy as fuck LoFi garage punk. Lyrically they’ve produced some of the best late adolescent angst since the heyday of The Donnas! (Please come back, Donnas!) 

ShitKid’s sophmore album, [DETENTION] can be found in all the usual places, including Bandcamp. They are also hitting the road later this year supporting The Melvins & Redd Kross, so make sure you know where your ear plugs are. Those tourdates can be found here!

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Film Review: The Longest Ride

A Nicholas Sparks adaptation done right, with all the flaws and annoyances of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation.

A city girl. A cowboy. Country love ensues.
A city girl. A cowboy. Country love ensues.

The newest adaptation of a sappy romantic Nicholas Sparks novel, The Longest Ride, is exactly that — sappy and romantic, and formulaic with a preposterous twist added in for preposterous effect. The story about a young beautiful art lover (Britt Robertson, Dan in Real Life) who falls in love with a young beautiful bull rider (Scott Eastwood, Fury) is the surface romance, featuring lines like “I can’t just quit. It’s all I know”, etc. The more dramatic underlying romance is the story told by an injured old man (Alan Alda, M.A.S.H.), about his courtship and marriage to the love of his life (Oona Chaplin, Game of Thrones) and the sacrifices they made for each other. Combine the two together in a layered emotional cheese fest and you have the makings of a classic Sparks story which the movie studio can use to excitedly make a film trailer that states “Two Stories Separated by Time / Connected by Fate.” (see trailer below)

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Film Review: The Best of Me

The Best of Me offers the near-worst in its genre.

Eye candy, yes. Chemistry, no. James Marsden look-alike, absolutely not.
Eye candy, yes. Chemistry, no. James Marsden look-alike, absolutely not.

Take a close look at the picture above.  Does Mr. Shirtless look anything like a high school version of James Marsden?  If you answered ‘yes’, then this movie is absolutely the movie for you.  If you answered ‘no’, then you’re completely normal and will understand what I say when I say that the part of young Dawson was completely miscast.  This was the biggest failure of The Best of Me, but there were other failures as well, including a overly complicated third act.  Based on the book by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember), The Best of Me is obviously catering to the same audiences that have contributed a whopping ton of money to previous Sparks adaptations.  But this movie fails as an inspiring story and fails to provide compelling characters.  I haven’t read the book so I can’t say for sure whether or not it was the source material’s fault.  But either way, its unpredictability and distractions ruin the chance for emotional connectivity.

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