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Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era

Julia Phillips Cohen

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Book

The Ottoman-Jewish story has long been told as a romance between Jews and the empire. The prevailing...

Plant Life: A Brief History

Frederick B. Essig

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Book

Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution, described the evolutionary origin of...

Ocean Paddler Magazine

Sports and Magazines & Newspapers

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App

Introducing the new ‘Paddle Press Media’ iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch App – the home of Ocean...

Lee (2222 KP) rated Paddington 2 (2017) in Movies

Nov 13, 2017

Paddington 2 (2017)

2017 | Animation, Comedy, Family

8.2

(39 Ratings)

Movie Rating

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The Perfect Family Movie

I'm always wary heading into the cinema to see a 'family' movie, especially those featuring a CGI main character interacting with live human actors. Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Smurfs, The Scooby Doo movie - they've all done a pretty good job of destroying the genre, along with countless others. Even the better films struggle to engage the interest of kids and adults alike. But Paddington is just different. The sequel greatly improves on an already enjoyable first movie, and to be honest it's pretty difficult for me to write anything negative about it at all.

The story is a simple one. Paddington wants to buy a very special present for his Aunt Lucy's 100th birthday, and sets his sights on buying her a lovely pop-up book of London landmarks, London being the one place she always wanted to visit. The book is quite expensive though, so Paddington sets about earning the money himself. Unfortunately things go very wrong, with Paddington ending up jailed for a crime he did not commit.

An all-star cast play a huge variety of strange and wonderful characters, but the best of them all is the villain of the story. Hugh Grant gets to ham things hilariously up as Phoenix Buchanan, an actor longing for the limelight once more, reduced instead to starring in dog food commercials. Visual gags are carefully staged, then perfectly executed and the whole movie provides the ideal mix of laughs, peril, warmth and charm. The perfect family movie!

Kudos

Urban Botanics: An Indoor Plant Guide for Modern Gardeners

Emma Sibley and Maaike Koster

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Book

This collection of stunning illustrations accompanied by thoughtful information is an essential...

KyleQ (267 KP) rated Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) in Movies

Jul 19, 2020

A pretty meh reboot.

H20 finds Jamie Lee Curtis returning to the role of Laurie Strode. For 20 years she's been in hiding from Michael Myers, she's been staying at a college campus with her son John (Josh Hartnett), but Michael is hunting them down.

H20's plot is less weird than the last couple of outings in the franchise, but it still feels a bit silly. The movie opens up showing Michael Myers doing some investigation to find out where Laurie disappeared to, which it just so happens that the nurse from the original movie had in her house. It was kind of a dumb start, and it never fully recovers from it.
There were 3 different masks used, resulting in obvious differences from shot to shot. One mask was particularly terrible, it looked like a clown mask.
The movie does benefit from a decent supporting cast including the likes of Michelle Williams, LL Cool J, Adam Arkin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and even Janet Leigh.
Tonally, H20 is somewhat cheesy, it shouldn't be taken too seriously, though who would at this point in the series?

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later will entertain fans of the series and horror fans alike. But don't expect it to be anything especially good.