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Long Reining with Double Dan: Safe, Controlled Ground Techniques for Building Partnership, Achieving Softness, and Overcoming Training and Behavioral Issues
Dan James and Dan Steers
Book
Are you ready to build a stronger partnership with your horse? Hoping to achieve a remarkable...
Island Tribe 2
Games and Entertainment
App
Get ready for new adventures in the second part of the Island Tribe iPhone series! Be one of the...
Dreams of Exile: Robert Louis Stevenson : A Biography
Book
Variously seen as a writer of adventure stories for the young, a skilled essayist, a poet, a frail...
Mariposas Nocturnas: Moths of Central and South America, a Study in Beauty and Diversity
Emmet Gowin and Terry Tempest Williams
Book
A stunning portrait of the nocturnal moths of Central and South America by famed American...
Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar
7.8
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Tabletop Game
Welcome to Fireball Island! You may have heard stories. You may have visited when you were younger....
Boardgames ChildhoodGamesRestored
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated The Wife (2017) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021 (Updated Sep 28, 2021)
Glenn Close … #robbed.
I missed “The Wife” when it came out in September, but finally caught it a few weeks ago. (Been a busy time at work so have a bit of a backlog of reviews!).
The Plot.
Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) is the doting wife of internationally renowned writer Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). As we start the film, Joe has just received a call from Stockholm. No, it’s not an “amusing story about a goat” (for any MM2 fans out there). It’s notification that he is to receive the Nobel prize for literature. As Joan listens to the news on the extension, there is something in her eyes that betrays mixed emotions.
They travel to Sweden (on Concorde, obviously) with their son Max (Max Irons) – a writer at the start of his career. Max and Joe have a strained relationship.
Also in Stockholm is Nathanial Bone (Christian Slater) – the bane of Joe’s life, since he seems insistent on writing the biography of the great man. As Nathanial picks through the history of the couple, things start to unravel in unexpected ways.
What a performance!
The heart of this film, and the main reason for watching what is really a bit of a pot-boiler, is the performance by Glenn Close. It’s a remarkable demonstration of the acting craft and 110% Oscar worthy.
Don’t get me wrong…. as I watched the Oscars live in the wee-hours of Monday morning I let out a WHOOP of joy when our own national treasure Olivia Colman picked up the award. But I have to say that I think Glenn Close was rather robbed. Close can act brilliantly without saying a single word. In fact most of her best scenes are reaction shots to what she is listening to.
In comparison I found Jonathan Pryce to be a soupçon over-the-top as the feted writer, and I didn’t find the portrayal of Bone by Slater to be terribly convincing. So it’s a very mixed acting bag in my view.
Utterly gorgeous in a way that only Swedish women can be is Karin Franz Körlof as the personal photographer Linnea. She can also act!
A perfectly pleasant movie
Directed by Swedish director Björn Runge and with a screenplay by Jane Anderson, it’s a perfectly pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. The story is intriguing enough to keep your interest, although it plays its hand so early that the simmering suspense element ebbs out of the film. A final “Sixth Sense” style of reveal might have been much more effective.
But this is above all a film to relish the performance of Close: the facial acting during the speech at the awards ceremony is something that should be studied at acting schools for years to come.
The Plot.
Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) is the doting wife of internationally renowned writer Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). As we start the film, Joe has just received a call from Stockholm. No, it’s not an “amusing story about a goat” (for any MM2 fans out there). It’s notification that he is to receive the Nobel prize for literature. As Joan listens to the news on the extension, there is something in her eyes that betrays mixed emotions.
They travel to Sweden (on Concorde, obviously) with their son Max (Max Irons) – a writer at the start of his career. Max and Joe have a strained relationship.
Also in Stockholm is Nathanial Bone (Christian Slater) – the bane of Joe’s life, since he seems insistent on writing the biography of the great man. As Nathanial picks through the history of the couple, things start to unravel in unexpected ways.
What a performance!
The heart of this film, and the main reason for watching what is really a bit of a pot-boiler, is the performance by Glenn Close. It’s a remarkable demonstration of the acting craft and 110% Oscar worthy.
Don’t get me wrong…. as I watched the Oscars live in the wee-hours of Monday morning I let out a WHOOP of joy when our own national treasure Olivia Colman picked up the award. But I have to say that I think Glenn Close was rather robbed. Close can act brilliantly without saying a single word. In fact most of her best scenes are reaction shots to what she is listening to.
In comparison I found Jonathan Pryce to be a soupçon over-the-top as the feted writer, and I didn’t find the portrayal of Bone by Slater to be terribly convincing. So it’s a very mixed acting bag in my view.
Utterly gorgeous in a way that only Swedish women can be is Karin Franz Körlof as the personal photographer Linnea. She can also act!
A perfectly pleasant movie
Directed by Swedish director Björn Runge and with a screenplay by Jane Anderson, it’s a perfectly pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. The story is intriguing enough to keep your interest, although it plays its hand so early that the simmering suspense element ebbs out of the film. A final “Sixth Sense” style of reveal might have been much more effective.
But this is above all a film to relish the performance of Close: the facial acting during the speech at the awards ceremony is something that should be studied at acting schools for years to come.
Another book in my permaculture research, this in-depth guide is definitely going on my To-Buy list. (I always check these out from the library before spending money on personal copies.)
There is SO MUCH information in this book. Unlike some of the other books, there's no big spreads of full-color, glossy photos (which can be useful, I'm not digging on those); The Food Forest Handbook is mostly text with a few black-and-white photos tucked in. There are spreadsheets and diagrams and lists, sidebars of useful information, how-to walkthroughs and case studies of specific plants. I'm not sure how they packed so much into a little over 200 pages, but this book is a treasure trove of permaculture strategies.
The book starts with a chapter on why permaculture is important; they explore past examples of permaculture, some present food forests, and why it could be useful to us going forward. The second chapter gets into designing a food forest to fit your needs - scoping out your site, determining what resources you have, all of the planning aspects. Then we have a short chapter on putting all that knowledge together and going "from concept sketch to detailed designs" - how to refine your research and plans into something you can work off of. Chapter 4 is about selecting the specific plants; going from "okay here I want a fruit tree and a nitrogen fixer" to "a peach and comfrey." Plant varietals are discussed here, as well as the different needs of tree guilds.
The rest of the book gets into maintenance, harvesting, and propagating the food forest, and the last chapter is on a tour of established food forests in various climates, to see what's possible.
This is definitely a book I want on my resource shelf; it can get a little dry at points, but there is so much knowledge here. One thing I really liked was the diagram of tree shapes - if one tree says it has a conical shape when full grown, and one has a pyramid shape, there's a diagram that shows what exactly the difference is.
Overall an excellent, information-packed book, if a little difficult to read straight through.You can read all my book reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
There is SO MUCH information in this book. Unlike some of the other books, there's no big spreads of full-color, glossy photos (which can be useful, I'm not digging on those); The Food Forest Handbook is mostly text with a few black-and-white photos tucked in. There are spreadsheets and diagrams and lists, sidebars of useful information, how-to walkthroughs and case studies of specific plants. I'm not sure how they packed so much into a little over 200 pages, but this book is a treasure trove of permaculture strategies.
The book starts with a chapter on why permaculture is important; they explore past examples of permaculture, some present food forests, and why it could be useful to us going forward. The second chapter gets into designing a food forest to fit your needs - scoping out your site, determining what resources you have, all of the planning aspects. Then we have a short chapter on putting all that knowledge together and going "from concept sketch to detailed designs" - how to refine your research and plans into something you can work off of. Chapter 4 is about selecting the specific plants; going from "okay here I want a fruit tree and a nitrogen fixer" to "a peach and comfrey." Plant varietals are discussed here, as well as the different needs of tree guilds.
The rest of the book gets into maintenance, harvesting, and propagating the food forest, and the last chapter is on a tour of established food forests in various climates, to see what's possible.
This is definitely a book I want on my resource shelf; it can get a little dry at points, but there is so much knowledge here. One thing I really liked was the diagram of tree shapes - if one tree says it has a conical shape when full grown, and one has a pyramid shape, there's a diagram that shows what exactly the difference is.
Overall an excellent, information-packed book, if a little difficult to read straight through.You can read all my book reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
ClareR (5726 KP) rated The Inheritance Games in Books
Sep 8, 2020
I have read and enjoyed countless YA books, and The Inheritance Games was no exception. It’s touted as a rags-to-riches, Cinderella type story, and there is most certainly a fairytale feel to this. I like fairytales. They’re a gateway drug in to fantasy as a child, I think. Or at least they were for me.
Avery Grambs wants more from her life than living hand to mouth, as she seems to be doing with her sister. Her mother has died, she has no contact with her father. She decides that the best way to change her life is to get a good education at a very good college, with the help of a scholarship. Indeed, she does seem to be very clever.
And then a young man comes to her school, and tells her that she has inherited some of the fortune of Tobias Hawthorne - a man she has never met and knows nothing about. In order to keep her inheritance and deprive the rest of the Hawthornes from getting their hands on the money, Avery has to live for a year in the Hawthorne mansion. Sounds easy, but it’s not. It’s a sprawling, maze-like place, with secret corridors and countless rooms. And the Hawthorne grandsons, on the whole, don’t seem to be hugely keen on her living with them, and neither does their mother.
No-one, including Avery, can understand why she should inherit the Hawthorne fortune. Tobias Hawthorne has one last Rick up his sleeve - a treasure hunt of sorts, that he set before his death for his grandsons and Avery. Just the thing to bring them together - or is it?
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Yes, it’s a bit far-fetched, but who hasn’t wanted to become the equivalent of a billionaire? To never need to worry about money? To have the house version of the Tardis?! This last bit, actually, would totally do it for me - as long as I could cleaners!
I think this will be the first in a trilogy, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be reading the next one. YA isn’t just for the kids, you know!
Many thanks to the Pigeonhole for making sure I read another one of my NetGalley books, and the publisher for an ebook copy.
Avery Grambs wants more from her life than living hand to mouth, as she seems to be doing with her sister. Her mother has died, she has no contact with her father. She decides that the best way to change her life is to get a good education at a very good college, with the help of a scholarship. Indeed, she does seem to be very clever.
And then a young man comes to her school, and tells her that she has inherited some of the fortune of Tobias Hawthorne - a man she has never met and knows nothing about. In order to keep her inheritance and deprive the rest of the Hawthornes from getting their hands on the money, Avery has to live for a year in the Hawthorne mansion. Sounds easy, but it’s not. It’s a sprawling, maze-like place, with secret corridors and countless rooms. And the Hawthorne grandsons, on the whole, don’t seem to be hugely keen on her living with them, and neither does their mother.
No-one, including Avery, can understand why she should inherit the Hawthorne fortune. Tobias Hawthorne has one last Rick up his sleeve - a treasure hunt of sorts, that he set before his death for his grandsons and Avery. Just the thing to bring them together - or is it?
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Yes, it’s a bit far-fetched, but who hasn’t wanted to become the equivalent of a billionaire? To never need to worry about money? To have the house version of the Tardis?! This last bit, actually, would totally do it for me - as long as I could cleaners!
I think this will be the first in a trilogy, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be reading the next one. YA isn’t just for the kids, you know!
Many thanks to the Pigeonhole for making sure I read another one of my NetGalley books, and the publisher for an ebook copy.
Mothergamer (1546 KP) rated the PC version of Fable III in Video Games
Apr 3, 2019
I finished my first play through of Fable 3. I did pick the hero role my first time through. You can choose to play an evil tyrant also. I loved hearing John Cleese as the voice of your trusty butler Jasper, along with other recognizable voices throughout the game such as Simon Pegg and Ben Kingsley. The first half of the game follows the template of exploration, quests, and combat as you recruit followers and gather an army as either a prince or princess of Albion. While some of the quests are courier (package delivery) quests, there are quests that are creative with things like donning a chicken costume, performing in a play, or wearing a disguise.
Once you have your army, the revolution can begin and Fable 3 becomes a tactician strategy game where the tough decisions you make actually have an impact in the story. Interaction with others is one on one now making it easier to recruit followers or woo a spouse. Another thing that I loved is the solution to the clunky menu system. That is gone and you now have the sanctuary where you can organize weapons, costumes, and your full magic arsenal. There is also an offline and online co-op feature that works really well so you can play with others and pool together treasure, resources, and rewards from adventuring together.
That isn't to say that there aren't any problems. There are a few. At times, there are loading time issues with the load screen as you enter a new area. There are also little graphic errors here and there where you're holding an npc's hand for a quest and as you are running, it looks like they're not holding hands with you, or they end up stopping and standing there so you have to come back to get them. Even with the world map and fast travel, there still seems to be a loading issue.
However, you forget all that as you play Fable 3 immersed in fun quests, planning a revolution, and deciding if you will be a hero or a villain. Who knew revolution could be so much fun?
Once you have your army, the revolution can begin and Fable 3 becomes a tactician strategy game where the tough decisions you make actually have an impact in the story. Interaction with others is one on one now making it easier to recruit followers or woo a spouse. Another thing that I loved is the solution to the clunky menu system. That is gone and you now have the sanctuary where you can organize weapons, costumes, and your full magic arsenal. There is also an offline and online co-op feature that works really well so you can play with others and pool together treasure, resources, and rewards from adventuring together.
That isn't to say that there aren't any problems. There are a few. At times, there are loading time issues with the load screen as you enter a new area. There are also little graphic errors here and there where you're holding an npc's hand for a quest and as you are running, it looks like they're not holding hands with you, or they end up stopping and standing there so you have to come back to get them. Even with the world map and fast travel, there still seems to be a loading issue.
However, you forget all that as you play Fable 3 immersed in fun quests, planning a revolution, and deciding if you will be a hero or a villain. Who knew revolution could be so much fun?
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Tomb Raider (2018) in Movies
Oct 25, 2019 (Updated Nov 5, 2019)
Amazingly average, wholly unessecary
Here we have a reboot of a mildly popular film franchise, based on a video game that is a reboot of a hugely beloved game series.
To sum up Tomb Raider in brief - if you are a fan of the original games, and don't really like the direction the recent games have taken, there is probably nothing here that will interest you.
If you are a fan of the recent game series, then you are probably better off just playing those instead of watching the movie adaption.
The film itself isn't terrible by any means, it's just completely bland and forgettable.
The plot is a run of the mill treasure hunting escapade, which we have seen countless times before, and done much better, with irrelevant side plots that bog down an already boring plot.
The action is so so, with some nice stunt work scattered here and there.
Alicia Vikander seems bored herself - I think as a movie, Tomb Raider is (very slightly) more credible than than the early 2000 efforts, but I do think the character of Lara Croft benefits from Angelina Jolie's charm.
It's like the writers couldn't decide whether to adapt the inexperienced and fighting-to-survive Lara Croft from the reboot series, or the more confident, one-liner Lara Croft from the original series, resulting in a flat adaption of either one.
All of the other characters involved are just as flat, so much so that I genuinely can't remember any of their names, or even who played them, with the exception of Dominic West - that dude is just in everything.
The script doesn't help matters one bit, threatening to put you to sleep at any given moment, and riddled with unintentionally funny Hollywood rubbish.
In summary, Tomb Raider can join the ever growing festering pile of dissapointment that are video game movies. (Except you Detective Pikachu, we love you <3)
To sum up Tomb Raider in brief - if you are a fan of the original games, and don't really like the direction the recent games have taken, there is probably nothing here that will interest you.
If you are a fan of the recent game series, then you are probably better off just playing those instead of watching the movie adaption.
The film itself isn't terrible by any means, it's just completely bland and forgettable.
The plot is a run of the mill treasure hunting escapade, which we have seen countless times before, and done much better, with irrelevant side plots that bog down an already boring plot.
The action is so so, with some nice stunt work scattered here and there.
Alicia Vikander seems bored herself - I think as a movie, Tomb Raider is (very slightly) more credible than than the early 2000 efforts, but I do think the character of Lara Croft benefits from Angelina Jolie's charm.
It's like the writers couldn't decide whether to adapt the inexperienced and fighting-to-survive Lara Croft from the reboot series, or the more confident, one-liner Lara Croft from the original series, resulting in a flat adaption of either one.
All of the other characters involved are just as flat, so much so that I genuinely can't remember any of their names, or even who played them, with the exception of Dominic West - that dude is just in everything.
The script doesn't help matters one bit, threatening to put you to sleep at any given moment, and riddled with unintentionally funny Hollywood rubbish.
In summary, Tomb Raider can join the ever growing festering pile of dissapointment that are video game movies. (Except you Detective Pikachu, we love you <3)