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Leigh J (71 KP) rated The Lost Boys (1987) in Movies
Nov 8, 2019
Best Movie Ever
Contains spoilers, click to show
Michael and Sam are Brothers who are moving, with their Mom Lucy, to Santa Carla following a Divorce. Santa Carla just happens to be the murder capital of the world. When they get to Santa Carla, they are met with an eccentric Grandpa and, shock horror!, no TV! Faced with the absolute atrocity that is no MTV, they decide to explore the nightlife of their new town and upon doing this, meet the beautiful and mysterious Star. Michael is instantly besotted and chases after her, leaving Sam at a local Comic Shop... and at the mercy of an intense duo called the Frog Brothers, who give Sam a comic called "Vampires Everywhere" and allude to the fact that he might want to read it to survive which Sam laughs off.
Upon chasing Star, Michael quickly finds out that she is part of a Gang of enigmatic young guys, their leader being the antagonistic David. Desperate to get closer to Star and gain some new friends, Michael goes along to their lair and is coaxed into drinking some "Wine" by the young men. Soon enough, Michael begins changing and finding out more about who David, Star and the gang really are... and who he really is now. Sam is also noticing changes in Michael, and suspects that Lucy's new flame, Max, is also involved with what is happening to Michael. But, after a terrifying reveal and a body count happening at a Bonfire, are Sam and Michael too late to save themselves? Does Max really have a tie to these mysterious Boys? Could they all hold the key as to why Santa Carla is the murder capital of the world?
I remember watching The Lost Boys as a kid and falling head over heels in love with everything about it; the way it looks, the music, The Lost Boys themselves (who became my style icons from then on!), the epic story... everything! It's such a great Movie, mixing Horror and Comedy perfectly and throwing in the most chaotic and horrific Vampire reveal I've ever seen (favourite scene, of course!). It's quite simply a joy to watch... I'm on my 500th watch already! LOVE it!
Upon chasing Star, Michael quickly finds out that she is part of a Gang of enigmatic young guys, their leader being the antagonistic David. Desperate to get closer to Star and gain some new friends, Michael goes along to their lair and is coaxed into drinking some "Wine" by the young men. Soon enough, Michael begins changing and finding out more about who David, Star and the gang really are... and who he really is now. Sam is also noticing changes in Michael, and suspects that Lucy's new flame, Max, is also involved with what is happening to Michael. But, after a terrifying reveal and a body count happening at a Bonfire, are Sam and Michael too late to save themselves? Does Max really have a tie to these mysterious Boys? Could they all hold the key as to why Santa Carla is the murder capital of the world?
I remember watching The Lost Boys as a kid and falling head over heels in love with everything about it; the way it looks, the music, The Lost Boys themselves (who became my style icons from then on!), the epic story... everything! It's such a great Movie, mixing Horror and Comedy perfectly and throwing in the most chaotic and horrific Vampire reveal I've ever seen (favourite scene, of course!). It's quite simply a joy to watch... I'm on my 500th watch already! LOVE it!
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2357 KP) rated Battered in Books
Feb 14, 2020
Murder Hits Close to Home
Alene Baron runs Whipped and Sipped with her best friend, Ruthie Rosin. Together, the two have turned the café and coffee shop into a healthy choice with a loyal clientele. They serve only the best coffee, and most of their items are vegan, even the sweet treats, that is popular in their neighborhood in Chicago. Alene lives a few blocks away from the café in a condo she shares with her father and her three children. Her world is a little chaotic, but it gets more so when she finds one of her neighbors dead one afternoon. It is clear that he was murdered, and soon Alene is casting everyone in the role of killer. Since she knows everyone who might be a suspect, can she figure out what really happened?
This book has a couple of twists on culinary cozies that I enjoyed, the healthy food that is served and the large city setting. Author G. P. Gottlieb still manages to keep this book feeling cozy despite that setting, and I enjoyed spending time in a bigger city. There are a lot of characters, and their relationships are complicated. There is a list of characters before the book starts, but it didn’t take too long for the character’s personalities to come through and it became easy to keep them straight. There are some prickly characters in the book, and it was actually easy to root for one of them to be the killer. We get a bit of a backstory dump early on, which makes it a little slow to get going. We do need some of this information as the plot unfolds. Once the murder happens, we’ve got several good clues and red herrings. I thought I figured things out early, but I was surprised by the climax. There are a total of thiry recipes in this book, with them leaning toward the healthier side of things thanks to the vegan theme of the café. This book features a slightly different take on the culinary cozy mystery, one I ultimately enjoyed.
This book has a couple of twists on culinary cozies that I enjoyed, the healthy food that is served and the large city setting. Author G. P. Gottlieb still manages to keep this book feeling cozy despite that setting, and I enjoyed spending time in a bigger city. There are a lot of characters, and their relationships are complicated. There is a list of characters before the book starts, but it didn’t take too long for the character’s personalities to come through and it became easy to keep them straight. There are some prickly characters in the book, and it was actually easy to root for one of them to be the killer. We get a bit of a backstory dump early on, which makes it a little slow to get going. We do need some of this information as the plot unfolds. Once the murder happens, we’ve got several good clues and red herrings. I thought I figured things out early, but I was surprised by the climax. There are a total of thiry recipes in this book, with them leaning toward the healthier side of things thanks to the vegan theme of the café. This book features a slightly different take on the culinary cozy mystery, one I ultimately enjoyed.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
8.2
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Bridges Not Walls by Billy Bragg
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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated How to Find a Princess in Books
Jul 15, 2021
A repetitive and lackluster romance
Makeda Hicks loses her job and her girlfriend in the same day. Reeling, she's forced to move back with her grandmother and help out at her bed and breakfast. Being back with Grandmore means hearing more about when Grandmore supposedly had a passionate affair with the Prince of Ibarania--leading to Makeda's mother. Makeda has no patience for this story, as her mother's obsession with being a Princess dominated Makeda's entire childhood. When it never panned out, she disconnected from life (and Makeda), receding into alcoholism and forcing Makeda to grow up fast. When Beznaria Chetchevaliere, an investigator for the World Federation of Monarchies shows up at the B&B, claiming to be looking for Ibarania's missing heir, Makeda wants nothing to do with it. But the beautiful and chaotic investigator is surprisingly persuasive. Can she convince Makeda to go with her--and is Makeda indeed the heir to Ibarania?
"No adventures, no drama, and always there to lend a helping hand, even when her hands were full, that was Makeda."
This was one of my #Pride reads for June, and it sounded so cute. There were definitely funny and enjoyable moments, and I'm always glad to see queer romances in the world, but overall, this one didn't really work for me. I am a sucker for a good Hallmark movie, but even I couldn't get into this crazy idea--an unhinged royal investigator, a reluctant heir... and eventually a lot of fakedating and a cargo ship. It was all too much.
It's hard to believe the instachemistry between Bez and Makeda, especially as we do not get a lot of backstory on the two women. Makeda's "will I go with Bez or won't I" takes an inordinately long time--it was incredibly frustrating. Just decide already! Things are repeated over and over, making the story feel inordinately long. Being unable to get into the characters or their romance, it was just hard to really love this one. The pacing and timing always seemed off. I wound up skimming the last half just to find out what would happen, otherwise it would have been a DNF. 2 stars.
"No adventures, no drama, and always there to lend a helping hand, even when her hands were full, that was Makeda."
This was one of my #Pride reads for June, and it sounded so cute. There were definitely funny and enjoyable moments, and I'm always glad to see queer romances in the world, but overall, this one didn't really work for me. I am a sucker for a good Hallmark movie, but even I couldn't get into this crazy idea--an unhinged royal investigator, a reluctant heir... and eventually a lot of fakedating and a cargo ship. It was all too much.
It's hard to believe the instachemistry between Bez and Makeda, especially as we do not get a lot of backstory on the two women. Makeda's "will I go with Bez or won't I" takes an inordinately long time--it was incredibly frustrating. Just decide already! Things are repeated over and over, making the story feel inordinately long. Being unable to get into the characters or their romance, it was just hard to really love this one. The pacing and timing always seemed off. I wound up skimming the last half just to find out what would happen, otherwise it would have been a DNF. 2 stars.
Dawn Rising
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Magical 2.5D Classical PC Element Masterpiece of the Year The journey of the magical MMORPG begins ~...
Wrigglezeus (511 KP) rated the Xbox One version of Fallout 76 in Video Games
May 4, 2020
Fantastic story adding to the lore (2 more)
Brilliant environments
Wastelanders Update
Broken gameplay mechanics (5 more)
Randomly kicked out or servers
Combat
Bullet weight
Other players
Pay for private worlds
Lackluster
As a lover of all Fallout, there isn’t much I can forgive with this game. Deep within the lore of Fallout you play a vault dweller leaving the vault 25 years after the bombs fell. Hence forth you are the first to venture out and hear from holotapes and letters, and thanks to the new Wastelands update, from characters as well telling their stories before and after the bombs fell.
However, whilst a fantastic lore, world story telling and brilliant story plot can be a saving grace, it’s the lack of gameplay performance that is its biggest downfall. The enemy spawn rate is chaotic, and I have often found myself walking down a barren wasteland to instantaneously become surrounded on all sides from enemies who have suddenly appeared in front of me. This has lead to my near death on several occasions. Furthermore in some dungeon, as other players fast travelled nearby I have found myself often fighting an infinite amount of enemies within one area. It’s not disappointing, it becomes frustrating.
Let’s talk about other players, as I found to my disappointed hunting and gathering throughout the world only to find out a story location has already been raided and looted, meaning those precious chems and materials required have disappeared as you’ve struggled through the enemies spawned as you enter the location. I still believe that Fallout should, and should always remain, a single player game. Now Bethesda have sorted a solution for this issue, after spending so much for a game we are then asked to pay a subscription to allow the use of private worlds, a pay wall behind a pay wall. Something that would’ve saved them face had it been offered to the public.
It’s due to this, that whilst the world is great, with much to do and the story is gripping. Excluding the other players, it’s the gameplay mechanics that brings the whole experience down. However the addition of the wastelanders update has brought to the game what it was severely lacking.
However, whilst a fantastic lore, world story telling and brilliant story plot can be a saving grace, it’s the lack of gameplay performance that is its biggest downfall. The enemy spawn rate is chaotic, and I have often found myself walking down a barren wasteland to instantaneously become surrounded on all sides from enemies who have suddenly appeared in front of me. This has lead to my near death on several occasions. Furthermore in some dungeon, as other players fast travelled nearby I have found myself often fighting an infinite amount of enemies within one area. It’s not disappointing, it becomes frustrating.
Let’s talk about other players, as I found to my disappointed hunting and gathering throughout the world only to find out a story location has already been raided and looted, meaning those precious chems and materials required have disappeared as you’ve struggled through the enemies spawned as you enter the location. I still believe that Fallout should, and should always remain, a single player game. Now Bethesda have sorted a solution for this issue, after spending so much for a game we are then asked to pay a subscription to allow the use of private worlds, a pay wall behind a pay wall. Something that would’ve saved them face had it been offered to the public.
It’s due to this, that whilst the world is great, with much to do and the story is gripping. Excluding the other players, it’s the gameplay mechanics that brings the whole experience down. However the addition of the wastelanders update has brought to the game what it was severely lacking.
Frax HD - The First Realtime Immersive Fractals
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Cry Cry Cry by Wolf Parade
5.0
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RəX Regent (349 KP) rated Night of the Living Dead (1968) in Movies
Feb 19, 2019
Iconic, influential and ground-breaking. All words to describe George A. Romero’s inaugural zombie horror, but what sets this apart from its contemporaries and the endless variations in the genre in which this Indie movie helped spawn?
Well to begin with, this is far from a simple zombie thriller. The real villains here are the collection of damaged human characters who all find themselves trapped together in an old farmhouse, barricaded within its fragile wooden walls, fighting not only the onslaught of zombie without, but the angst and fear from within.
At times they work together but unlike most films like this, the group rarely work at all, with conflicted views on how to survive, blinding them to the fact that if they only worked together they may just do so.
Instead, they all end up dead, with our leading man, a strong, smart black character, which at the time was a bold choice, being murdered by the redneck police posse, who mistake him for a zombie. But the metaphor, though hard to ignore, of a black man being gunned down without the white men bothering to ensure that he was zombie, may just be a coincidence, but the irony that he, Ben (Duane Jones) manages to survive until the end only be to gunned down in the final moments, is a tragedy that sums up this film’s tone.
With a killer child, a nude female zombie, a dysfunctional couple and the first named victim displaying a complacent contempt for God and the church, this group are real, though the acting standards are variable, the writing and direction are constantly very good, with a sense or gritty realism permeating throughout. Maintained by good pacing and gruesome cannibalistic action, this raised the bar of the genre, both now and then.
Even the zombies get a reasonable, yet none definitive explanation, as told through the radio and TV news. Radiation bringing the dead back to life, well, it may be the trope of 1960’s sci fi but it was well explained and the news reports were well composed, feeling more realistic than most movie news broadcasts.
Romero may have gone on to milk this franchise for all it is worth in the decades since but this opening low budget gem is a real piece of work; A complex moral drama set on one chaotic night in which the dead become living again.
Well to begin with, this is far from a simple zombie thriller. The real villains here are the collection of damaged human characters who all find themselves trapped together in an old farmhouse, barricaded within its fragile wooden walls, fighting not only the onslaught of zombie without, but the angst and fear from within.
At times they work together but unlike most films like this, the group rarely work at all, with conflicted views on how to survive, blinding them to the fact that if they only worked together they may just do so.
Instead, they all end up dead, with our leading man, a strong, smart black character, which at the time was a bold choice, being murdered by the redneck police posse, who mistake him for a zombie. But the metaphor, though hard to ignore, of a black man being gunned down without the white men bothering to ensure that he was zombie, may just be a coincidence, but the irony that he, Ben (Duane Jones) manages to survive until the end only be to gunned down in the final moments, is a tragedy that sums up this film’s tone.
With a killer child, a nude female zombie, a dysfunctional couple and the first named victim displaying a complacent contempt for God and the church, this group are real, though the acting standards are variable, the writing and direction are constantly very good, with a sense or gritty realism permeating throughout. Maintained by good pacing and gruesome cannibalistic action, this raised the bar of the genre, both now and then.
Even the zombies get a reasonable, yet none definitive explanation, as told through the radio and TV news. Radiation bringing the dead back to life, well, it may be the trope of 1960’s sci fi but it was well explained and the news reports were well composed, feeling more realistic than most movie news broadcasts.
Romero may have gone on to milk this franchise for all it is worth in the decades since but this opening low budget gem is a real piece of work; A complex moral drama set on one chaotic night in which the dead become living again.