Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (741)

Content

Sarah (7800 KP) rated Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1999) in Movies

Jan 29, 2019

Great music, shame about the rest

I loved Joseph when I was a child, and I haven’t seen the stage show since I was in primary school either, so I had to watch this when I saw it had been added to Netflix.

I spent the entire of this film trying to figure out if this was a stage show they’d recorded and made look like a film, or if they’d intentionally made it as a film like this. Looking it up afterwards, I’ve discovered this was a direct to video film and boy can you tell. For a purposely made film, the production values in this are really cheesy and cheap, and the costumes are pretty bad even with it being the late 90s. I also can’t stand the narrator in this, I just found her very irritating - the last scene especially. Donny Osmond is alright but his hair looks so fake I couldn’t help laughing every time there was a close up. The highlight of the cast by far is Richard Attenborough, it’s just a shame he isn't in it very much.

What saves this is the all round entertainment factor and the soundtrack. You can’t question the Lloyd Webber music, it’s truly fantastic and so varied (from country to Elvis rock) and catchy. I just wished the rest of the film lived up to this - they really should have just filmed a stage version.

Kudos

AT (1676 KP) Jan 29, 2019

Ugh, that's too bad! It's always such a disappointment when they take a great thing and mess it up like that.

Kudos

David McK (3801 KP) rated Waylander in Books

Jan 19, 2019 (Updated Dec 31, 2019)

Waylander

David Gemmell | 2012 | Fiction & Poetry

9.0

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

“There is evil in all of us, and it is the mark of a man how he defies the evil within.”

The third of David Gemmell's Drenai books, this is also chronologically the first, set (as it is) centuries before the events of Legend.

I think I first read this in the mid-to-late 90s, not that long after discovering Gemmell as an author.

As an early work by Gemmell, this also has several of what-would-become-known-as his trademark: the main character of Waylander himself, for instance (who he would return to twice more in Waylander II and Hero in the Shadows) is not a clean-cut hero (perhaps more of an anti-hero), only rescuing the priest Dardalian (who would go on to have a VERY important impact on the history of the Drenai) at the very start of the novel as the renegades who are torturing that priest have also stolen Waylander's horse.

Full of powerful imagery (Waylander standing alone against the robbers in the dusk with the sun setting behind him for one, not that long after this rescue) and Gemmell's contemplation on the Source, Waylander would become - I feel - second only to Druss amongst his most popular creations.

That's not to say this is perfect: like Legend, the romance between Waylander and Danyal does seemingly come out of nowhere, although Gemmell is (was) getting better at organically growing those relationships compared to his first work.

Kudos

Allison Knapp (118 KP) rated Public Secrets in Books

Jan 22, 2019

Public Secrets

Nora Roberts | 1990 | Fiction & Poetry

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Well written and complex characters (7 more)

Covers a broad range of social topics such as addiction, domestic violence, and homosexuality in a way which is both well written and accurate with the times

Strong character dynamics

Not nearly as cheesy as the romance novels of which she is known for writing

At times creepy or psychologically disturbing in a way which makes you care even more about the life of the main character

Strong ensemble cast

Great nostalgic look at music and cinema from the 60s up through the 90s

Excellent and unpredictable plot twists

Murder Mystery set in the world of the Music Industry

The illegitimate daughter of a young rock star witnesses the accidental murder of her baby brother when she is still very young, and due to a case of isolated amnesia, cannot identify the murderer. As she grows up under the public eye, amidst the tragedy and its effects on her family, struggling to let go of her nightmares of that fateful night while struggling to find her own identity aside from the shadow of her father and the legendary status of her family, she faces many struggles and challenges just to prove an identity of her own. Yet as she grows up into a mature young woman, she learns that there are some tragedies from her past which were worth suffering through if she were to finally help bring justice for her brother and their family.