RMB: Records, Movies, Books

MOVIES

22 Jump Street 

The boys are back for their second undercover assignment in the 22 Jump Street division. They have finished taking down a high school drugs ring and are graduating high school and moving on to college. Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) have been assigned to take down a drugs operation at a university and the two of them make just as much of a mess as they did the first time around. This film is hilarious and arguably even funnier than the original, with its fresh line-up of jokes. The audience may be anticipating a remake of the original and could be quick to criticise the new film, however, you will be satisfied with the sequel if you watch with an open mind because this is a movie that contains plenty of comedy and all of the humour that we experienced the first time around. The story allows the viewer to see Schmidt and Jenko slowly grow and mature after their first undercover experience as we join them on their journey to becoming successful law enforcement officers and squash the assumption that success came to them the first time around due to sheer luck. This film is definitely worth a view as it does its successful prequel justice. 

David Melbourne

X-Men: Days Of Future Past 

The mutants gather again to fight their worst enemy: humans. Director, Bryan Singer, brings back the original characters from the first X-Men trilogy to join forces with their younger selves and save a doomed future. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent back to the 70s to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing anti-mutant industrialist, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage). By averting this, his mutant killing Sentinel robots would not be put in action by the government, and an apocalyptic present world would be.

Now ranked as one of the highest-grossing franchises, X-Men is back on its track. X-Men: Days of Future Past is filled with suspense and awe. For a few moments, the plot becomes mixed with the past sequels, and you are no longer sure of what has happened and what has not. Characters that were once dead, come alive, and the endings that we had come to understand, have gone.However, the feelings towards all the well loved characters are still there. Viewers are filled with anxiety as the story follows Wolverine, whose mission seems to be a failure. Ironically, he plays an emotional character, whose role is to bring back hope to the present day. Epic battles, inspiring talks and humorous scenes are all combined in this movie. Don’t forget to watch the post-credit scene, where you will once again be left in complete confusion and eager for the next sequel to come out. 

Elissa Huang 

Pompeii

Pompeii is the newest rendition of a movie that conveys the events that took place in 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the city of Pompeii. This version incorporates a story of a slave named Milo (Kit Harrington) who is sent into the arena to fight as a gladiator until he may one day win his freedom. Harington is a particularly good fit for the lead character because his role as a gladiator is not so different from his success as John Snow in the popular HBO Series, Game of Thrones. He commands his role and does an incredible job in every aspect of his character, whether it was presentation of dialogue, intensity throughout combat scenes, or his ability to successfully step into the shoes of a gritty gladiator fighting for his freedom. Throughout the movie, Milo continues to overcome the odds set against him by the malicious senator (Kiefer Sutherland) and all those who represent the oppression of Rome. Director, Paul W. S. Anderson, did an outstanding job creating an interesting plot with relevant dialogue, while successfully creating intense battle scenes that left the audience on the edge of their seats. Each combat scene was extremely well-choreographed, and the special effects were admirable. Overall, Pompeii delivers a decent plot line with a great action-violence component that made it a fun movie to watch. This film is a must-see for anyone with an interest in Ancient Rome. 

What follows in these 26 true tales, however, is not a call to arms by broads abroad, but
more of a “traveller’s soliloquy to prove my independence” as women of the world. Neha Mehta compares India’s lack of personal space with Bangkok; American- born Edna Zhou distinguishes ethnicity from nationality in the P.R.C.; and, in one of the more potentially divisive essays, privileged expat wife, India Harris, owns up to being the face of Filipina maid abuse. Romantic interludes are balanced out with relationship issues: Jocelyn Eikenburg brings her new Chinese father-in-law along on a Huangshan honeymoon; and Kaitlin Solimine lets slip a love story during hard-seat travel through China, admitting “I’m too preoccupied with my own narrative of romantic tragedy.” Shannon Young does a fine job as editor, weaving fun travel jaunts with intensely personal domestic revelations to keep the pace lively and, dare I say, feminine. 

Tom Carter 

Robert Galbraith

Little, Brown and Co

The first Galbraith book in the current crime series, The Cuckoo’s Calling,
was a number one New York Times best seller, and this second instalment, The Silkworm, is set to follow suit.

Robert Galbraith is, of course, multi-billion dollar author and writer of the world-famous Harry Potter series, JK Rowling. Initially, when the first Galbraith book was published, it received a few enthusiastic reviews and had sales at around the 1500 mark before the public was inadvertently made aware, via Twitter, that Robert Galbraith was in actual fact a pseudonym for Rowling. Overnight, the crime fiction book became an international best-seller as readers familiarised themselves with Rowling’s new protagonist, PI Cormoran Strike, a character – not too dissimilar to Harry Potter with his strong moral integrity paired with physical and emotional vulnerability – and prepared themselves for a new chapter in their literary lives.

PI Cormoran Strike and his assistant, Robin Ellacott, return in this book to investigate the disappearance of novelist Owen Quine, who had just completed a manuscript featuring poison- pen portrayals of almost everyone he knew. After searching for the author, the detective pair eventually discovers the body of a murdered Quine, under very strange circumstances. The plot thickens...

The twists and turns in this crime novel may leave you feeling a bit giddy, but they certainly won’t want to make you put down the book.

Andy Harrop