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Lyricist. Writer. Activist.
What a life this man has had! He had a hard start, living in one of the least affluent areas of Birmingham (UK), and running away with his mother to escape a violent father. The 1980s saw race riots, miners strikes and demonstrations against police brutality. Zephaniah and his dub poetry were at the forefront. By the 1990s he was a household name, and not just at home in the UK - he travelled and performed around the world.
I really admire this man. He hasn't had an easy life: he was in borstal as a teen, lived a life of crime for a while and decided for himself that he didn't want to live his life as a criminal where he would most certainly end up dead. HE turned his life around. He stands by his beliefs as well. A brilliant, self taught man, who sets a sterling example for all.
  
Biggles: The Camels Are Coming
Biggles: The Camels Are Coming
Captain WE Johns | 1992 | Children
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Technically, I'm too old for these books.

Thankfully, Amazon doesn't know (or care).

I've just re-read this for the first time in something like 30 odd years, and it's amazing how well it actually holds together all those years later.

Like 'Biggles Learns To Fly' (which I also re-read recently), this is more a collection of short stories with little in the real way of any over-arching plot: vignettes which, if the author is to be believed (and I've no reason not to) are all based on true stories that either happened to him or that he heard about during his earliest flying days in the latter stages of World War One.

While the character of Biggles may not be as popular or as well-known today as during the years in which the stories were written (the 1930 through to the 1990s), there's a reason why they have endured as long as they have ...
  
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Gruff Rhys recommended Eureka by Jim O'Rourke in Music (curated)

 
Eureka by Jim O'Rourke
Eureka by Jim O'Rourke
1999 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"The Nicolas Roeg aspect of Jim O'Rourke's records is interesting, each following a Roeg title. But maybe this record is also a portal to an era of American acoustic music that Domino were licensing in the late-1990s that I would have listened to. I think maybe this is an overlooked record which sounded maybe more unique at the time - the production is so good I think it has influenced a lot of other records since then. And that great Ivor Cutler cover! It's a really great record as it combines experimentation and pop music to varying degrees. Very dark lyrics. Would I like to collaborate with Jim O'Rourke? No. In a way, I've no interest in collaborating with anyone. I'm not desperate in that sense and I enjoy being a fan of people's music. Somehow by accident or through visiting a studio socially or something, I end up working with people but I don't really crave to work with people... it could be a bit creepy
."

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Erika (17788 KP) rated 3 Ninjas Kick Back (1994) in Movies

Sep 18, 2019 (Updated Sep 18, 2019)  
3 Ninjas Kick Back (1994)
3 Ninjas Kick Back (1994)
1994 | Action, Comedy, Family
3 Ninjas Kick Back is the second in the '3 Ninjas' series; the first and this one were some of my favorite movies growing up. I'm into martial arts films, and these were perfect for me. I read the novelization of this film until it fell apart, and I still have it today. They did change the actor for Rocky, and this kid wasn't as crush-worthy as the first one. The three brothers aren't allowed to go on a trip to Japan with their grandfather because they have to play in a baseball tournament. They end up following, of course, to find a cave of gold. My favorite scenes are always the booby-trapping scenes, where they hi-jinx these wannabe, early 1990s losers. It's still super amusing. They do end up making it back for the baseball game, making everything work out in the end.

Of course, now it's completely dated, but I still watch it.
  
Only You Can Save Mankind (Johnny Maxwell #1)
Only You Can Save Mankind (Johnny Maxwell #1)
Terry Pratchett | 1992 | Children, Fiction & Poetry
8
9.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
"After all, joysticks don't have 'Don't Fire' buttons on them ..."
Only You Can Save Mankind!
Why me?
If not you, who else?

I first read this not long after it was published, back in the early-to-mid 1990s, at which time I was exactly it's target audience being in my mid teens myself.

By that point, I had already discovered Terry Pratchett's wonderful Discworld novels, but hadn't read many - any? - of his non-Discworld books.

That changed when I read this, which would go on to become the first in his so-called Johnny Maxwell series (comprising this, Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb).

Reading this now (in the early 2020s), it still holds up remarkably well, even if it is noticeable how much society has changed: mobile phones weren't really a thing back in the 90s, personal computers were relatively new, the Gulf War was still ongoing ...
  
Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary (1997)
Hands on a Hardbody: The Documentary (1997)
1997 | Comedy, Documentary
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I really like documentaries a lot; maybe more than film. I love this documentary called Hands on a Hard Body. It was made in the 1990s, I think. It’s about this annual event that takes place in Texas — it’s kind of like an endurance test of how long you can keep your hand on a truck. And if you are the last man standing, you get the truck. Literally, you just stand, day and night with your hand on a truck, and there’s like 15 or 20 people all standing there. And it’s such a well-done documentary. They feature each person before the program starts; the director comes in and he asks them questions like, “Why do you want to do this? Why do you want your truck?” and it’s just a real, unique look into people’s lives. It’s really powerful and it’s really moving and it’s kind of funny and odd and bizarre. It goes on for, I think, over 72 hours, and it’s really sad as you see this people dropping out. It says a lot about human endurance."

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Nosferatu (Eine Symphonie Des Grauens) (1922)
Nosferatu (Eine Symphonie Des Grauens) (1922)
1922 | Horror, International
Hugely influential unauthorised adaptation of Dracula. Young estate agent's helper Hutter trots off to Transylvania to oversee the sale of a house to the reclusive (and rather repulsive) Count Orlok; Orlok takes a fancy to Hutter's wife; bad things ensue.

Basically just handles the first half of the book, and bolts a different ending on, but you can still see why the Stoker estate sued. Nevertheless, the presentation of Dracula/Orlok as a near-feral atavism is striking (and also much closer to the book than most films get); the film was designed by practising occultists which may explain the carefully composed visual sense of it (also the use of genuine magical script in some of the scenes). Very creepy and effective, though you have to take the age of the thing into account, not to mention the performance styles. Which soundtrack you listen to may also make a big difference (I recommend James Bernard's Hammer-style offering from the late 1990s). One of the great foundational horror films.
  
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David McK (3165 KP) rated Prey (2022) in Movies

Aug 14, 2022  
Prey (2022)
Prey (2022)
2022 | Sci-Fi
6
7.6 (9 Ratings)
Movie Rating
If it bleeds, we can kill it
1990s 'Predator 2' has a famous tease - other than the HR Gieger Alien skull on the wall of the spaceship - that the Predators have been visiting Earth for centuries.

Despite that, this is the first one that actually takes that tease and runs with it, set roughly 300 years ago when a Comanche warrior finds themselves in a battle of survival against the titular Predator.

It's also been getting rave reviews, with many calling it the best Predator movie since the original and some even going as far as saying it is better than that 1987 film.

Which makes it somewhat surprising that this was only released via streaming, not even getting a theatrical release.

Having now seeing it, and perhaps having too high expectations as a result of those reviews, I can really only say that I found it to be overhyped - enjoyable enough, yes, but also (very) slow getting started, and with it - in my opinion - definitely missing something by being released only via streaming.
  
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Rufus Wainwright recommended Racional Vols 1&1 by Tim Maia in Music (curated)

 
Racional Vols 1&1 by Tim Maia
Racional Vols 1&1 by Tim Maia
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"This was after a trip to Brazil when I went down there with my mum and my sister and we did some shows. It was an intense moment in my life because Kate had been diagnosed with cancer and her health was pretty precarious. We saw there was a fairly decent run for the next couple of months – the treatment was kind of working and she was feeling relatively okay – so I booked some gigs in Brazil. We proceeded to have one of the most beautiful, decadent, life-affirming trips I ever took in my life, and it was during that little working vacation that I discovered Tim Maia's music, and I've been a fan ever since. He sadly passed away in the 1990s. I love that he represents a real amalgam of so many cultures, as a lot of great Brazilian artists do: African, Spanish, Portuguese, he's just this melting pot of great culture and music and also tremendously individual at the same time. He is certainly well known in large sections of the world, but is a bit of a kept secret in the West."

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Shut Up Little Man! (2011)
Shut Up Little Man! (2011)
2011 | Comedy, Documentary, Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"You know, I really get into… I can just throw it out there, because it was a great… it really was really good, but Shut Up, Little Man. It’s a documentary. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s about these two guys that move into an apartment in San Francisco. And their next-door neighbors are the worst neighbors you can possibly imagine. It’s these two older gay gentlemen that have the worst relationship that anyone could ever have. And they spend all hours of the day just screaming at each other. And so these two guys started recording these arguments. I remember in the 1990s, back before the Internet, if you wanted these odd, like, socially passed-around… Remember like Faces of Death? You could get a VHS copy of it? And so this was… You could go to certain independent record stores and they’d have a small collection of these bootlegged cassette tapes of their arguments. And I remember when we were doing Empire Records was the first time I heard these. And it’s the story of the guys that recorded… They track down the two guys that recorded all these things that were passed around through our generation. It’s a pretty amazing documentary. It’s pretty good."

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