Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security
Book
A mesmerizing mix of Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and Philip K. Dick, Chameleo is a true...
The Sharpest Needle
Book
Ready to mingle with the stars? Hollywood's A-list takes centre stage once again in this stylish,...
Indie Saint: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Words of Power #1)
Book
Jane's young. She's broke. Oh, and she just discovered she has supernatural powers so bizarre they...
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Games
App
Gameplay The Binding of Isaac is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with heavy Rogue-like...
Knaves Over Queens
George R.R. Martin, Emma Newman, Paul Cornell, Charles Stross, Marko Kloos, Mark Lawrence, Peter Newman, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Peadar Ó Guilín, Kevin Andrew Murphy and Caroline Spector
Book
The return of the famous shared-world superhero books created and edited by George R. R. Martin,...
The After Wife
Book
L.A. is no place for widows. This is what forty-four-year-old Hannah Bernal quickly discovers after...
Volo's Guide to Monsters (Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition)
Tabletop Game
Immerse yourself in monster lore in this supplement for the world’s greatest roleplaying game ...
Kim Pook (101 KP) rated Choose Or Die (2022) in Movies
Jun 3, 2022
Fast forward to 3 months later, a computer programmer and his friend find a copy of a game called curs<r (the game played at the start of the movie) which offers a huge cash prize if won. They agree to meet up in a coffee shop to play the game.
When the guy is a no-show kayla decides to play the game by herself, quickly learning the type of game this is as it forces her to choose or die, each choice with real life consequences. After playing, kayla destroys the games tape, but it is soon evident that no matter what she does she must complete the game or risk dying.
The movie had an interesting concept but it was just too bizarre and it got stranger the more the movie went on, to the point where I lost interest fairly quickly, though I did like the little nods to the 80s such as the 80s style music and 8 bit video games, but sadly not these or even Robert Englund could save this movie.
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Lesson of the Evil (2012) in Movies
Nov 15, 2021
Takashi Miike's 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵 - which, yes, is every bit as messy and overstuffed as that sounds; though I fear that if this were leaner you could miss out on the finer details like the weird German folklore stuff or the fleshy gun with the talking eyeball. The third act here is better than anything in even 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰, probably the greatest thing Miike has ever done - just as demented, tasteless, and perfectly staged as reported plus it lasts around a solid, uninterrupted 45 minutes. Simultaneously fun and hard to watch in the sense that you can't believe that not only are they actually going for this, but they're going for it *hard* (given the director, I'd expect no less). I'm confident in saying this has the most straight-up brutal use of the shotgun in film history that I've seen. Hideaki Ito is flawless as this fucked-up closet psychopath who just bleeds raw antihero charisma, this kind of character can tire so easily but him and Miike sell it in full - partly because (and this is one of the things I love most about Miike) there's zero pretension to be found here. The precise type of ethically repugnantly, formally playful, feverish trashy thrills you'd expect out of this are exactly what you get - no clichéd moral handwringing or bullshit pulled punches you see in a lot of Western cinema for this genre. This is the real shit, another bonafide cult classic from one of the masters. Plus it's generally bizarre as hell, too.
ClareR (5726 KP) rated The Glutton in Books
Dec 20, 2023
The Glutton by A. K. Blakemore is based on the real life story of Tarare, a man born into poverty but happy with that life. That is until his mother meets the man who changes her life, presumably for the better - and changes Tarare’s life for the worst.
He’s known as the man who ate a golden fork (that eventually kills him), live animals, offal, a baby - but still people want to watch him put away vast amounts of food (and non-food!). And if it means he’s fed, Tarare sees it as a way of satiating the ever-present hunger. The draw of the circus freak is overwhelming for the French public.
Tarare is a simple man who is taken advantage of at every turn. I felt so sorry for him. He has the disadvantage of not only being very unusual, but also uneducated and poor. He has to fight to survive, both as a soldier and as a civilian, and he’s seen as a joke by the more well-off.
For such a grotesque subject matter, the writing really is rather beautiful. Descriptions of Tarare’s childhood and the place that he grew up were sensitively done - you could see the love of his local area and the love he felt for his mother. Even in the most disgusting sections of the book, there was a kind of beauty.
A deliciously bizarre, beautifully written book. I loved it.