
Baudelaire's Media Aesthetics: The Gaze of the Flaneur and 19th-Century Media
Book
Baudelaire's Media Aesthetics situates Charles Baudelaire in the midst of 19th-century media...
Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination
Book
Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination examines the future-oriented visions of black...

Shakespeare in Company
Book
This book is about two very different kinds of company. On the one hand it concerns Shakespeare's...
The Sporting World of Lewis Carroll
Book
Charles Dodgson (or Lewis Carroll as he was usually known) lived through a period of rapid change....

Ready Player One
Book
Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. It's the year 2044, and the real...
Sci-Fi Utopia

This is Brazil: Home-Style Recipes and Street Food
Fernanda de Paula and Shelley Hepworth
Book
A celebration of the joyful soul of Brazil though its evocative, vibrant cuisine, as seen in the...

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade #1)
Book
The Traitor Baru Cormorant is an epic geopolitical fantasy about one woman's mission to tear down an...

Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Ready Player One (2018) in Movies
Jul 8, 2019
When the creator of the Oasis, James Holiday (Mark Rylance) passes away, he leaves a Willy Wonka like challenge in the Oasis, where whoever is the first to find Holiday’s “Easter egg,” will inherit control of the Oasis and the fortune that comes with it. Naturally, we go on a “Goonies” like adventure where we follow the hunt for the egg through our hero Wade Watts/Parzival (Tye Sheridan) and his crew of friends Aech (Lena Waithe) and Art3mis (Olivia Cooke). They hope to keep the Oasis free for everyone and make it so no one will have to slave away working to pay off debt in the Oasis. Meanwhile, the wicked corporation, led by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) that will do anything to win control of the Oasis as a way to make money and enslave people. Got that? Good. Because the film pretty much explains this in the first fifteen minutes or so. After that, the film becomes a fast paced adventure race to find each of the three key’s needed to find Holiday’s egg and win the challenge.
Since the majority of the film takes place in the Oasis, we find ourselves mostly watching animation and voice acting. The cast does an excellent job delivering their lines combined with top tier animation. These two things are melded so well, at times you barley even realize you are watching animation. Additionally, the Oasis is packed full with visual pop culture references and gags. Whether its video game or comic characters, a reference to a scene from a movie, soundtrack, or even certain famous sound cues, you will find yourself constantly looking at everything on screen and smiling with amusement. Even if you do not know the references very well, the film moves at a fast enough pace through each part of the adventure, you never feel alienated or as if you are out of the loop.
For those who are wondering, then film differs greatly from the hit 2011 novel by the same name, in that it is able to create a version of this story that is entirely its own. Thus it leaves the “book is better” conversations to the side. Instead, the book could be seen as a complement to the movie, for those looking for more depth in character, the real world of 2045 and the Oasis. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the changes from the book in the film, and yet, I want to re-read the novel to get more out of this rich environment.
In the end, I’d have to say that Ready Player One is worth the full price of admission. There is something for everyone to enjoy in this fun, fast paced, action film.

Auburn (57 KP) rated Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy, #1) in Books
Apr 10, 2019
If you are looking for a happily ever after story this is not that. But if you want a compelling read that is so unforgiving in its darkness that you cannot help but fall in love with it then this is the book for you.

Lee KM Pallatina (951 KP) rated Bo Selecta in TV
Jul 8, 2019
First episode date: 6 September 2002
Final episode date: 18 December 2009
Program creator: Leigh Francis
Network: Channel 4
Spin-off: A Bear's Tail
Bo Selecta! is a British 'adult' television sketch show written and performed by Leigh Francis (avid merrion/keith lemon) that lampoons popular culture and is known for its often surreal, abstract toilet humour.
No. of series: 5
No. of episodes: 45
Original release: 6 September 2002 – 18 December 2009
Executive producer(s): Spencer Millman &
Keith Lemon