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Kevin Phillipson (10021 KP) rated Only Fools and Horses in TV
Mar 19, 2020
Del boy (2 more)
Rodney
Uncle Albert
Classic British comedy one of Best comedy's ever made del boy and Rodney Trotter are pure classic characters who live in a council flat hoping one day to be millionaires while selling dodgy goods David Jason is perfect as del boy and Nicolas Lyndhurst as as not so bright plonker brother rodney I could watch this show all day and still laugh at the funny bits
Sonofdel (6291 KP) rated Del Boy: You Know It Makes Sense in Books
Jul 4, 2019
Hilarious and Entertaining
For anyone like me who loved and continues to love Only Fools and Horses then this is a must. Its basically a help manual written by Del Boy about how to succeed in Business (i know its ironic :)). It contains lots of references to things that happened in the entire series, but it also contains a lot more. It tells what hapened after Only Fools and Horses. From Damian running the business (TITCo) to Rodney having a nervous breakdown, its all included and makes for a very funny read.
Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated American Made (2017) in Movies
Sep 25, 2019
Barry Seal is officially a pilot for TWA. Unofficially he also smuggles a few cigars around. Until the CIA catch him in the act. Now he's unofficially smuggling more than cigars, and not just for the CIA.
The adverts for this made it look like quite a good film, and I honestly couldn't believe that this actually happened. Well, I sort of can, but still.
I'm not a massive fan of Tom Cruise, I think possibly because all of his films I've seen don't give him much variation from who he is, but this one was different. It kind of made me feel he was the Del Boy of America. Always looking for a quick buck and a little bit bumbling. Even if it was on a much bigger scale. I don't quite think that Del Boy would have done well with cartels.
As is the way in Hollywood the story has been tweaked to suit the cinematic needs. Since writing the paragraph above I have read a bit more about Barry Seal and it seems the films as made him a bit more shiny for the purposes of marketing. And by that I mean that it sounds as if he wasn't quite as innocent at the beginning as the film makes it appear. But, that just from reading a few articles, I'll let you come to your own conclusions.
An enjoyable films though, that kind of made you root for the "bad guy".
The adverts for this made it look like quite a good film, and I honestly couldn't believe that this actually happened. Well, I sort of can, but still.
I'm not a massive fan of Tom Cruise, I think possibly because all of his films I've seen don't give him much variation from who he is, but this one was different. It kind of made me feel he was the Del Boy of America. Always looking for a quick buck and a little bit bumbling. Even if it was on a much bigger scale. I don't quite think that Del Boy would have done well with cartels.
As is the way in Hollywood the story has been tweaked to suit the cinematic needs. Since writing the paragraph above I have read a bit more about Barry Seal and it seems the films as made him a bit more shiny for the purposes of marketing. And by that I mean that it sounds as if he wasn't quite as innocent at the beginning as the film makes it appear. But, that just from reading a few articles, I'll let you come to your own conclusions.
An enjoyable films though, that kind of made you root for the "bad guy".
Hazel (2934 KP) rated Life of Crime in Books
Feb 4, 2018
I loved it
What a saga!
What a story!
Fantastic characters, cracking and clever plot, excellent twists, perfect pace ... this had it in bucket loads and had me totally absorbed from the start.
The story follows the life of Jason Rampling and the various capers and general dodgy dealings he uses and gets involved in in order to get away from his and his daughter's crappy life living with his alcoholic mother on a dire council estate.
Jason is an Arthur Daley or Del Boy kind of a character - you could call him a bit of a rogue - but I really warmed to him; yes he's not the kind of man I would want my daughter to bring home but there was something about him that I was drawn to and although I certainly didn't agree with everything he did, I did find myself having some sympathy for him despite the scrapes he got into being mostly of his own doing. Melissa, another of the main characters, is another story ... oh my goodness, she is one character that had me going round in circles ... do I like her or don't I? and don't even get me started on Tracey!!!! There are several other characters that I could mention but I would be going on for ages such is the ability of the author to bring these people to life and make them feel authentic and memorable.
This is a compelling and gripping take on the consequences of living a life of crime and I would most definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys a cracking read with not too much violence.
My thanks must go to the publisher, HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction, via Netgalley for my copy in return for an unbiased review.
What a story!
Fantastic characters, cracking and clever plot, excellent twists, perfect pace ... this had it in bucket loads and had me totally absorbed from the start.
The story follows the life of Jason Rampling and the various capers and general dodgy dealings he uses and gets involved in in order to get away from his and his daughter's crappy life living with his alcoholic mother on a dire council estate.
Jason is an Arthur Daley or Del Boy kind of a character - you could call him a bit of a rogue - but I really warmed to him; yes he's not the kind of man I would want my daughter to bring home but there was something about him that I was drawn to and although I certainly didn't agree with everything he did, I did find myself having some sympathy for him despite the scrapes he got into being mostly of his own doing. Melissa, another of the main characters, is another story ... oh my goodness, she is one character that had me going round in circles ... do I like her or don't I? and don't even get me started on Tracey!!!! There are several other characters that I could mention but I would be going on for ages such is the ability of the author to bring these people to life and make them feel authentic and memorable.
This is a compelling and gripping take on the consequences of living a life of crime and I would most definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys a cracking read with not too much violence.
My thanks must go to the publisher, HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction, via Netgalley for my copy in return for an unbiased review.
Lee (2222 KP) rated Bad Boys for Life (2020) in Movies
Jan 20, 2020
The first Bad Boys movie came out in 1995, with the second arriving in 2003. So, 17 years on and these Miami bad boys are sure to be showing signs of age, following a career of fast cars and extreme action. Thankfully, Bad Boys for Life acknowledges that fact, even if we do get to hear the phrase "we're getting too old for this shit", or variations of, on many occasions throughout. Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) is becoming a grandfather, keen to move on from being a bad boy in order to try and become a "good man" instead. Meanwhile, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) isn't quite there just yet, continuing to try and live his shallow bad boy life at full throttle, dying his greying goatee beard in denial. When Mike becomes the target for a badass Mexican drug-lord (Kate del Castillo) and her ruthless son, his past comes back to haunt him and both boys have no choice but to get back together in order to take down the bad guys one last time.
OK, full disclaimer - I haven't seen Bad Boys and I haven't seen Bad Boys II. I probably wouldn't have been concerned about seeing this third installment either if I'm honest, but I found myself with a couple of hours to kill in London over the weekend, with Bad Boys for Life being literally the only movie that I hadn't seen which was showing at a convenient time. General opinion online so far seems to be that this is a fairly decent entry into the franchise though, and not necessarily something where you needed to have seen the previous movies in order to enjoy, so I decided to give it a shot. Consequently, there may be things about this movie that fans of the series will be happy to see or that they will be disappointed to see, but which I can't really comment on. I was heading into this like it was a standalone movie.
So, with Burnett trying to adjust to a life of relaxation at home, getting under his wife's feet in the process, it's up to Lowrey to tackle the assassin threat. However, due to him being one of their targets, he's forced to join the AMMO squad as a consultant. AMMO are Miami PD's elite team, utilising technology to track and monitor high-profile criminals, and the majority of the team are all considerably younger than Lowrey too. To them, Lowrey is just the old man that would rather shoot first and ask questions later, and it's not long before a frustrated Lowrey is disobeying orders, taking charge and introducing the team to some of his Bad Boy ways.
As far as buddy cop action movies go, Bad Boys for Life was an absolute blast. I've seen reviewers negatively describe the impact that Michael Bay had on the last Bad Boys movie with his over the top action mayhem style of film making. However, this time around, new co-directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi are in charge (although Bay does have a small cameo in the movie!) and while the action is still frenetic at times, it's also a lot more coherent too. The pacing in Bad Boys for Life felt spot on and with a good mix of humour, some decent villains and some fast paced inventive action that you can actually follow, it all makes for an enjoyable ride.
OK, full disclaimer - I haven't seen Bad Boys and I haven't seen Bad Boys II. I probably wouldn't have been concerned about seeing this third installment either if I'm honest, but I found myself with a couple of hours to kill in London over the weekend, with Bad Boys for Life being literally the only movie that I hadn't seen which was showing at a convenient time. General opinion online so far seems to be that this is a fairly decent entry into the franchise though, and not necessarily something where you needed to have seen the previous movies in order to enjoy, so I decided to give it a shot. Consequently, there may be things about this movie that fans of the series will be happy to see or that they will be disappointed to see, but which I can't really comment on. I was heading into this like it was a standalone movie.
So, with Burnett trying to adjust to a life of relaxation at home, getting under his wife's feet in the process, it's up to Lowrey to tackle the assassin threat. However, due to him being one of their targets, he's forced to join the AMMO squad as a consultant. AMMO are Miami PD's elite team, utilising technology to track and monitor high-profile criminals, and the majority of the team are all considerably younger than Lowrey too. To them, Lowrey is just the old man that would rather shoot first and ask questions later, and it's not long before a frustrated Lowrey is disobeying orders, taking charge and introducing the team to some of his Bad Boy ways.
As far as buddy cop action movies go, Bad Boys for Life was an absolute blast. I've seen reviewers negatively describe the impact that Michael Bay had on the last Bad Boys movie with his over the top action mayhem style of film making. However, this time around, new co-directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi are in charge (although Bay does have a small cameo in the movie!) and while the action is still frenetic at times, it's also a lot more coherent too. The pacing in Bad Boys for Life felt spot on and with a good mix of humour, some decent villains and some fast paced inventive action that you can actually follow, it all makes for an enjoyable ride.
Hadley (567 KP) rated The Hollow Ones: the Blackwood Tapes Vol. 1 in Books
Sep 9, 2020
Paranormal and occult (1 more)
Great story
A filler character with potential (1 more)
Overly used details
[This is the ARC version - - - John Silence was renamed Hugo Blackwood in the final version]
I've grown up watching a lot of Guillermo Del Toro's movies. One of my favorites that he was the screenwriter for is Hellboy. Yet, I spent almost four months at the beginning of this year playing the video game Death Stranding, which features Del Toro as a main character. I bring the former and latter up because they rank very high on some of my favorite things list, and I believe that The Hollow Ones is one of the best books I have read in a long time. This is one of those few rare books which I wish I could live in as a lover of the paranormal/occult.
Odessa Hardwicke - - - an FBI greenhorn - - - is ordering dinner with her partner, Walt Leppo, when they get a phone call that someone is on a shooting rampage from an airplane. (Hardwicke looks up to Leppo as a father figure, and he sees her as a daughter) We learn that the two have been on a corruption case involving a politician's former deputy chief of staff- - - they suddenly realize that the airplane may be tied to this man, and he may also be the one going on the killing spree. The pair speed off to the deputy chief's home in fear that he may be going to kill his recently divorced wife, who was waiting to receive not only their huge house, but a nice lump sum of money.
When Hardwicke and Leppo get to the house, after stopping the deputy chief, Hardwicke suddenly finds herself holding a gun on her partner while he tries to murder a little girl. She has only two choices to make: a) kill her partner, and face the backlash of shooting an agent in the line-of-duty or b) let him kill the girl and possibly herself- - - Hardwicke chooses to shoot and kill Leppo. Immediately after this, she sees something like a heatwave leave Leppo's body and disappear. When other agents arrive to the crime scene, Hardwicke keeps this information to herself, wanting to know instead why her partner suddenly turned into a murderer. Pending an investigation, Hardwicke is put on desk duty, including errands that the Bureau doesn't want to deal with. Enter Agent Earl Solomon.
On order by the FBI, Hardwicke is sent to clean out an office used by a retired agent that was hospitalized for a stroke. She takes his things to the hospital (not knowing what to do with them), and while discussing her plight with him and revealing that she had seen a sort of heat vapor leave Leppo's body, Solomon quickly tells her to write a letter to a man named John Silence, and place it in a nearly invisible mailbox in the Wallstreet area of New York.
From this point on, the book really begins to take off, and the fact that the authors brought in the religion of Palo (the Mayombe branch) is fascinating for anyone interested in the occult. The buildup of the story is really enjoyable, too, especially when Hardwicke decides to write and deliver the letter.
Readers also get to see Solomon's story from years before when he was one of the first African Americans to be recruited into the FBI. We see Solomon being sent to Mississippi in 1962, where a number of lynchings of African Americans have occurred, but the FBI hasn't been called in until the last murder: a lynching of a white man. Solomon can't help but question if he was only brought on this case because he is African American. Ignoring the bigotry, Solomon does his job, and comes across a young boy who is possessed by some sort of demon. The boy tells Solomon to bring him Silence, a man who Solomon has never heard of.
John Silence is also an interesting character; a nearly 500-year-old occult detective. We also get to see flashbacks of his life in the 1500's, learning about his occupation as a barrister, and his first encounter with the paranormal- - - something that has plagued him since- - - as well as his teacher in the occult. In the chapters of today, Silence is a mysterious figure, and carries himself much like a modern day Sherlock Holmes. Even by the end of the book, readers are still left with questions over what Silence has been through in the last 500 years. He, having only met Solomon 58 years prior- - - the two have a huge history together. Proven by the fact of how many 'cases' Solomon has hidden in his private records room that the two have embarked on together.
The Hollow Ones is a very enjoyable book, but I could only give it 3 out of 5 stars. The rating is because the authors- - - Del Toro and Hogan- - - used so many details, like the make and model of a passing vehicle, that it would interrupt the flow of the story, being bogged down by it. One other problem that I had was with the character Laurena; she was a 'filler character' (a character that is brought in just to make something happen in the story), but she was written to be Hardwicke's best friend. This was highly unbelievable with the two times she showed up in the story.
I really, really hope that Del Toro and Hogan decide to make this a series, and that the rest of the books show us Solomon's and Silence's journeys together! I highly recommend this book to people who love the paranormal/occult crime books.
I've grown up watching a lot of Guillermo Del Toro's movies. One of my favorites that he was the screenwriter for is Hellboy. Yet, I spent almost four months at the beginning of this year playing the video game Death Stranding, which features Del Toro as a main character. I bring the former and latter up because they rank very high on some of my favorite things list, and I believe that The Hollow Ones is one of the best books I have read in a long time. This is one of those few rare books which I wish I could live in as a lover of the paranormal/occult.
Odessa Hardwicke - - - an FBI greenhorn - - - is ordering dinner with her partner, Walt Leppo, when they get a phone call that someone is on a shooting rampage from an airplane. (Hardwicke looks up to Leppo as a father figure, and he sees her as a daughter) We learn that the two have been on a corruption case involving a politician's former deputy chief of staff- - - they suddenly realize that the airplane may be tied to this man, and he may also be the one going on the killing spree. The pair speed off to the deputy chief's home in fear that he may be going to kill his recently divorced wife, who was waiting to receive not only their huge house, but a nice lump sum of money.
When Hardwicke and Leppo get to the house, after stopping the deputy chief, Hardwicke suddenly finds herself holding a gun on her partner while he tries to murder a little girl. She has only two choices to make: a) kill her partner, and face the backlash of shooting an agent in the line-of-duty or b) let him kill the girl and possibly herself- - - Hardwicke chooses to shoot and kill Leppo. Immediately after this, she sees something like a heatwave leave Leppo's body and disappear. When other agents arrive to the crime scene, Hardwicke keeps this information to herself, wanting to know instead why her partner suddenly turned into a murderer. Pending an investigation, Hardwicke is put on desk duty, including errands that the Bureau doesn't want to deal with. Enter Agent Earl Solomon.
On order by the FBI, Hardwicke is sent to clean out an office used by a retired agent that was hospitalized for a stroke. She takes his things to the hospital (not knowing what to do with them), and while discussing her plight with him and revealing that she had seen a sort of heat vapor leave Leppo's body, Solomon quickly tells her to write a letter to a man named John Silence, and place it in a nearly invisible mailbox in the Wallstreet area of New York.
From this point on, the book really begins to take off, and the fact that the authors brought in the religion of Palo (the Mayombe branch) is fascinating for anyone interested in the occult. The buildup of the story is really enjoyable, too, especially when Hardwicke decides to write and deliver the letter.
Readers also get to see Solomon's story from years before when he was one of the first African Americans to be recruited into the FBI. We see Solomon being sent to Mississippi in 1962, where a number of lynchings of African Americans have occurred, but the FBI hasn't been called in until the last murder: a lynching of a white man. Solomon can't help but question if he was only brought on this case because he is African American. Ignoring the bigotry, Solomon does his job, and comes across a young boy who is possessed by some sort of demon. The boy tells Solomon to bring him Silence, a man who Solomon has never heard of.
John Silence is also an interesting character; a nearly 500-year-old occult detective. We also get to see flashbacks of his life in the 1500's, learning about his occupation as a barrister, and his first encounter with the paranormal- - - something that has plagued him since- - - as well as his teacher in the occult. In the chapters of today, Silence is a mysterious figure, and carries himself much like a modern day Sherlock Holmes. Even by the end of the book, readers are still left with questions over what Silence has been through in the last 500 years. He, having only met Solomon 58 years prior- - - the two have a huge history together. Proven by the fact of how many 'cases' Solomon has hidden in his private records room that the two have embarked on together.
The Hollow Ones is a very enjoyable book, but I could only give it 3 out of 5 stars. The rating is because the authors- - - Del Toro and Hogan- - - used so many details, like the make and model of a passing vehicle, that it would interrupt the flow of the story, being bogged down by it. One other problem that I had was with the character Laurena; she was a 'filler character' (a character that is brought in just to make something happen in the story), but she was written to be Hardwicke's best friend. This was highly unbelievable with the two times she showed up in the story.
I really, really hope that Del Toro and Hogan decide to make this a series, and that the rest of the books show us Solomon's and Silence's journeys together! I highly recommend this book to people who love the paranormal/occult crime books.
Sarah (7798 KP) rated The Witches (2020) in Movies
Mar 6, 2021
Not a patch on the original
The Witches is a 2020 retelling of the Roald Dahl children’s story, from director Robert Zemeckis. Remakes and reboots have been commonplace in the movies for quite some time, so it’s no surprise that The Witches has been given a Hollywood makeover, especially as it has been 30 years since the original film adaptation was released in 1990. I will readily admit that the original film is a childhood favourite, so this remake has very big shows to fill.
This time round, the story has been transported to late 1960s Alabama. It follows a unnamed boy (named in the credits as simply ‘Hero Boy’), played by Jahzir Bruno, and his grandma (Octavia Spencer) as they encounter a witch in their home town, prompting her to whisk him away to a seaside resort. Unbeknownst to them, this seaside resort is also where the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) is due to unveil her dastardly plans to transform the world’s children. In his bids to thwart the witches plans, Hero Boy bumps into some familiar names, greedy English boy Bruno Jenkins (Codie-Lei Eastick) and put-upon hotel manager Mr Stringer (Stanley Tucci).
I was very sceptical about this in general, and while I think my scepticism was most definitely warranted, I was at least pleasantly surprised that moving the action from England to 60s America worked. It gives the film a different vibe with a new setting (with some very good costume and set design too), yet still keeping the same base story. However I’m afraid that’s the only good change that they’ve made in this entire remake. The 60s setting works, but the hotel itself lacks the beauty and grandeur of the hotel in the original. Gone are the imposing shots of a beautiful old hotel set on top of a cliff with its gorgeous landscapes (which incidentally is a real life hotel called The Headland which is on my travel wish list), and instead replaced with something that looks good on the surface, but is sadly lacking in realism and has obviously been entirely computer generated.
And this is the major problem with The Witches (2020), it’s over reliance and overuse of CGI. Everything in this, from the mice to the hotel exteriors to the witches true appearance, are all computer generated, and not particularly well at that. The mice look pretty bad and unrealistic, but the worst of all is what they’ve done to the witches. The changes themselves may have worked had this used practical effects, but sadly the CGI only serves to highlight how ridiculous the changes are. From the missing two fingers on each hand to the elongated mouths with demon like tongues, the witches to begin with seem creepy but after this initial shock, you see how absurd and laughable they really are.
Unfortunately even the performances can’t save this adaptation. Octavia Spencer is as reliable as always and Jazhir Bruno and Codie-Lei Eastick are quite adorable, but the rest of the fairly decent cast are sadly misplaced. The usually loveable Stanley Tucci is given absolutely nothing to work with, not even giving him a chance to try and match up to Rowan Atkinson’s original Mr Stringer, and Chris Rock is sadly out of place as the voice of older Hero Mouse. However the worst offender here is Anne Hathaway. Admittedly she isn’t helped much by the poor transformations to the witches appearance, but all the CGI in the world couldn’t fix her questionable Eastern European accent and hammy performance. The fact that Angelica Huston put in a more sinister and believable performance with 90s facial prosthetics and practical effects is a credit to her and only highlights how bad a choice Hathaway was for this role.
While parts of this remake aren’t entirely condemnable, as some aspects do stick closer to Dahl’s original source material, overall it is a far inferior adaptation that loses everything that made the 1990 film such a classic. Gone are the sinister witches and the dark stories of missing children (the girl stuck in the picture is an image that has always stuck with me), instead replaced with a far too lighthearted story with an over reliance on CGI. The most worrying thing of all is that even Robert Zemeckis and Guillermo Del Toro being involved couldn’t save this.
This time round, the story has been transported to late 1960s Alabama. It follows a unnamed boy (named in the credits as simply ‘Hero Boy’), played by Jahzir Bruno, and his grandma (Octavia Spencer) as they encounter a witch in their home town, prompting her to whisk him away to a seaside resort. Unbeknownst to them, this seaside resort is also where the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) is due to unveil her dastardly plans to transform the world’s children. In his bids to thwart the witches plans, Hero Boy bumps into some familiar names, greedy English boy Bruno Jenkins (Codie-Lei Eastick) and put-upon hotel manager Mr Stringer (Stanley Tucci).
I was very sceptical about this in general, and while I think my scepticism was most definitely warranted, I was at least pleasantly surprised that moving the action from England to 60s America worked. It gives the film a different vibe with a new setting (with some very good costume and set design too), yet still keeping the same base story. However I’m afraid that’s the only good change that they’ve made in this entire remake. The 60s setting works, but the hotel itself lacks the beauty and grandeur of the hotel in the original. Gone are the imposing shots of a beautiful old hotel set on top of a cliff with its gorgeous landscapes (which incidentally is a real life hotel called The Headland which is on my travel wish list), and instead replaced with something that looks good on the surface, but is sadly lacking in realism and has obviously been entirely computer generated.
And this is the major problem with The Witches (2020), it’s over reliance and overuse of CGI. Everything in this, from the mice to the hotel exteriors to the witches true appearance, are all computer generated, and not particularly well at that. The mice look pretty bad and unrealistic, but the worst of all is what they’ve done to the witches. The changes themselves may have worked had this used practical effects, but sadly the CGI only serves to highlight how ridiculous the changes are. From the missing two fingers on each hand to the elongated mouths with demon like tongues, the witches to begin with seem creepy but after this initial shock, you see how absurd and laughable they really are.
Unfortunately even the performances can’t save this adaptation. Octavia Spencer is as reliable as always and Jazhir Bruno and Codie-Lei Eastick are quite adorable, but the rest of the fairly decent cast are sadly misplaced. The usually loveable Stanley Tucci is given absolutely nothing to work with, not even giving him a chance to try and match up to Rowan Atkinson’s original Mr Stringer, and Chris Rock is sadly out of place as the voice of older Hero Mouse. However the worst offender here is Anne Hathaway. Admittedly she isn’t helped much by the poor transformations to the witches appearance, but all the CGI in the world couldn’t fix her questionable Eastern European accent and hammy performance. The fact that Angelica Huston put in a more sinister and believable performance with 90s facial prosthetics and practical effects is a credit to her and only highlights how bad a choice Hathaway was for this role.
While parts of this remake aren’t entirely condemnable, as some aspects do stick closer to Dahl’s original source material, overall it is a far inferior adaptation that loses everything that made the 1990 film such a classic. Gone are the sinister witches and the dark stories of missing children (the girl stuck in the picture is an image that has always stuck with me), instead replaced with a far too lighthearted story with an over reliance on CGI. The most worrying thing of all is that even Robert Zemeckis and Guillermo Del Toro being involved couldn’t save this.