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My Name is Leon
My Name is Leon
Kit De Waal | 2017 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
7
8.0 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Easy to fall in love with characters Emotive read Heartwarming in places Brilliant nod to 80s life including the Black Riots (0 more)
A tad predictable in places (0 more)
Emotive flashback to the care system in the 80s
Contains spoilers, click to show
I couldn't actually put this book down. I fell in love with the protagonist character Leon from page one.
You begin to really imagine how he feels living in a neglected home, being passed around and watching everyone he cares about leave him.
One of the most heartwrenching bits of the book is where is baby brother whom he cared and doted on is adopted without him.
He then finds a supportive foster family but once again cruel fate intervenes and she is taken into hospital.
He is such a lost little boy, the pain he is feeling literally radiates from the pages. The use of emotive language is stunning.
There were times I was close to tears and I had to keep reading to find out if he got the happy ending he so deserved.
The author sets the scene so beautifully and I really did get taken back to the 80s from the talk of toys, TV and the Royal Wedding.
A surprise from the book was the coverage of the Black Riots and you do really feel for all those involved and also the confusion and fear that rippled through different communities I felt the author portrayed this really well.
If I really had to find a negative it would be that at times it was a tad predictable, but it didn't really ruin my experience reading this book.
I did consume this in a couple of days and it was very powerful it was one of the most emotive books I have read in a while.
I thoroughly recommend it, but best get the tissues on hand.
  
Ready Player One (2018)
Ready Player One (2018)
2018 | Sci-Fi
The graphics, the storyline, the action, the realism of what the future could hold for society. (0 more)
A Gamers Dream Come True
Contains spoilers, click to show
The movie is in a distant future where GAMING is the way of life. Which, lets be honest, isnt really that far off for us, anyhow...We find out that within this world that there is this great inventor who has hidden 3 magical keys within the game, and in order to find the keys players must crack the clues to figure out where the keys are or how to obtain them. For those of us who grew up in a time where games where just taking off and that grew up in the 80s there is alot of nostalgia within the movie. Anything from the Delorean from the Back to the Future movies, to Bigfoot the monster truck, to songs that make us remmeber when life seemes much more simple, and fun. In the end our heros must face the evil corporation trying to take over and must save the world from said Corporation. All in all this is a must see for gamera and 80s geeks alike.
  
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Ross (3284 KP) rated One Word Kill in Books

Dec 4, 2019  
One Word Kill
One Word Kill
Mark Lawrence | 2019 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
7
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Nothing original but a good read
Mark Lawrence has stepped out of the fantasy bubble into this loosely sci-fi trilogy set in the 1980s. 15 year old Nick is diagnosed with cancer and while undergoing chemotherapy starts to have strange visions and deja vu. A mysterious figure seems to be stalking him and his D&D friends, and he ends up planning a siege to help this person from the future.
The story is very short (a little over 200 pages on kindle), but is quite heavy on the 80s references and D&D gameplay. The story itself is nothing new but with a little more head-scratching time travel/parallel universe pseudo-science crammed in. The twists throughout the story are fairly predictable and cliched.
The dialogue also doesn't feel like authentic 80s teenager speech to me, a few too many Americanisms ("hey" instead of "hi", "do it, already" etc).
A reasonably enjoyable short book, but a little Stranger Things bandwagon-jumping to me. I'm not sure whether the other two books carry on the story or how, so I will be interested to see where they go from here.
  
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Andy Gill recommended Wanderlust by Wild Beasts in Music (curated)

 
Wanderlust by Wild Beasts
Wanderlust by Wild Beasts
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Sometimes I nose around on the internet, seeing what people are talking about. I'll download a track from iTunes just to check things out. 'Wanderlust' is one of the things I listened to. I think it's just fantastic. I love the way it's just got that one drumbeat, I think it's a drum machine, I'm not sure, and that's all it does. [Hayden Thorpe] has got a fantastic voice. It's got these sort of crappy-sounding keyboards, organs. Some of that album [Present Tense], I've been listening to it over the last few months, sometimes it's so overly pretty it puts you off a bit. They're obviously in love with 80s synth sounds, a lot of people are these days, and sometimes the arrangements on some of the songs just feel very 80s and slightly too ornate and slightly too pretty. But on 'Wanderlust' I think they completely nailed it and it's really just one part. It doesn't go through lots of different sections, the way the vocals and the music develop. It's a great song, very poppy, very pretty, driving and it makes its point."

Source
  
Maniac Cop (1988)
Maniac Cop (1988)
1988 | Action, Horror
Maniac Cop - one of the many 80s slashers that came about after the success of the original Halloween a decade before, and one that is actually pretty solid.

For a start, it has a decent cast including the always reliable Tom Atkins, a post Evil Dead II Bruce Campbell, final girl Laurene Landon, and even a small role for Robert Roundtree of Shaft fame.
It was written by B-movie legend Larry Cohen and directed by genre veteran William Lustig - all in all a pretty strong cast and crew, who all managed to turn this would be low budget trashy horror into a cult classic.

The Maniac Cop himself, played by Robert Z'Dar, cuts an imposing figure. The choice not to show his face for the majority of the run time lends him a creepy edge. He also has an uncomfortably massive chin... Throw in a load of blood flying about the place, some unsettling music score, and a pretty fun car chase near the climax, and it's easy to see why Maniac Cop is pretty beloved by horror fans.

80s horror is just the best.
  
The music is classic! One of the best soundtracks for that era music that I've ever heard. If you like music from the 80s you'll absolutely fall in love with this soundtrack. (0 more)
No recent music and some of the songs from the movie are not included in the soundtrack. (0 more)
Great soundtrack for throwback jams
Overall, I gave it a 9/10 because the soundtrack wasn't complete and while it's awesome music it is also music I've heard plenty of times. It has the jams that make you want to groove.
  
Ready Player One (2018)
Ready Player One (2018)
2018 | Sci-Fi
80s nostalgia (1 more)
Special fx
Not as good as the book (0 more)
Not as good as the book
Ready player one was decent, but the book was so much better. If I keep writing, this will end up as a comparison of what the book was that the movie wasn't. I don't want to do that. It was good and enjoyable but you may feel its somewhat lacking. Possibly due to the epic storyline thats crammed into a 2 hour movie. Still i would recommend you see it. Just read the book after. ?
  
Bumblebee (2018)
Bumblebee (2018)
2018 | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Lots of fun!
I was a fan of the first Transformers movie, but they got a little too over the top after a while. This one brought the fun back. Interesting characters, cool effects and a decent storyline. I didn't even mind John Cena in this one(not a big fan). Everything played out well and I really enjoyed it being set in the 80s. The action was intense and not overdone like some of the other transformers movies. I highly recommend this one for the whole family. Worth a watch!
  
The Lost Boys (1987)
The Lost Boys (1987)
1987 | Comedy, Horror
Very very 80s vampire comedy-horror; one of those films which feels like a music video with the actual song edited out. Family relocates to sleepy coastal town, discovers that dark forces are at work.

Not really what you'd actually call scary, but attractive to look at and genuinely funny in places. Cleverer than you expect; there's a nicely subtle gag about the teenage characters thinking the world revolves about them, when it's really the adults who are in charge and know what's going down. Good soundtrack, too. Entertaining stuff.