Movie Review: The Bookshop


The movie “The Bookshop” is the very definition of a low budget art movie. Its about a woman named Florence Green in a small town somewhere in the hills of England, where it is always dark and cloudy. This woman wants to open up a bookstore where there has never been a bookstore, and most of the population does not even read. There are numerous messages here, but the most important one I gleaned from this film is that no matter where you are in the world there are evil people who derive pleasure from hurting someone else or trying to destroy their dreams. This is more difficult to watch in the case of this story about an extremely likable main character played by Emily Mortimer, who just wants to sell books and be happy. She befriends an older wealthy man in the town who loves to read played by Bill Nighy who tries to help her when her business runs into problems because of the people trying to ruin her book shop.

The issue I had with this movie was that it was too slow and boring in too many places. I found the external shots of the outdoor scenes rather depressing because it always seemed like it was dark and about to rain. I did not really understand the point of the ending and in the end, this movie was perhaps trying to be too artsy for me to recommend. This might be a movie for some people, especially those who love books, but not for me.

Movie Review: The Nun


For those of us who have the impossible ambition of breaking into the business of screenwriting, movies as bad as “The Nun” are especially infuriating. This could be the first bad horror movie that I have ever seen, where even the moments of horror are boring. The movie is about an evil Nun who inhabits a giant old convent and the haunts the minds of many other unfortunate characters in this very bad story. Who cares? We have seen this before. Just because a story involves exorcism and a religious theme does not mean its going to work as a horror movie.

One can only guess the number of religious and exorcism movies that have been released since “The Exorcist”, easily the most terrifying movie ever made – released in 1973. The number of movies that have tried to capitalize on The Exorcist is too high, but for me the best of these is “The Omen”, that was released in 1976 starring Gregory Peck. An honorable mention is the 2009 movie “Drag me to Hell” which is a very well done horror movie and about as good as The Omen.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this mess is a very low 31% – I would have given this film a 5% rating. Very simply, this movie sucks and should have gone directly to DVD. Do yourself a huge favor and miss this mess.

Movie Review: Peppermint


For those of us who have the impossible ambition of breaking into the business of screenwriting, movies as bad as “The Nun” are especially infuriating. This could be the first bad horror movie that I have ever seen, where even the moments of horror are boring. The movie is about an evil Nun who inhabits a giant old convent and the haunts the minds of many other unfortunate characters in this very bad story. Who cares? We have seen this before. Just because a story involves exorcism and a religious theme does not mean its going to work as a horror movie.

One can only guess the number of religious and exorcism movies that have been released since “The Exorcist”, easily the most terrifying movie ever made – released in 1973. The number of movies that have tried to capitalize on The Exorcist is too high, but for me the best of these is “The Omen”, that was released in 1976 starring Gregory Peck. An honorable mention is the 2009 movie “Drag me to Hell” which is a very well done horror movie and about as good as The Omen.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this mess is a very low 31% – I would have given this film a 5% rating. Very simply, this movie sucks and should have gone directly to DVD. Do yourself and miss this mess.