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SpeakEasy Russian ~ Offline Phrasebook and Flashcards with Native Speaker Voice and Phonetics
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With over 1,200 spoken and phonetically written words and expressions, this phrasebook is designed...
SpeakEasy French ~ Offline Phrasebook and Flashcards with Native Speaker Voice and Phonetics
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With 800 spoken and phonetically written words and expressions, this phrasebook is designed to do...
SpeakEasy German ~ Offline Phrasebook and Flashcards with Native Speaker Voice and Phonetics
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With over 900 spoken and phonetically written words and expressions, this phrasebook is designed to...
Virtual Families for iPad
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Happy Holidays from the LDW Team! The full, original version of Virtual Families from your desktop...
Gymnastics Superstar
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~~> All your hard work has finally paid off - you’ve made it to the Olympics! Now’s your chance...
Indian Railway IRCTC Train PNR & Running Status
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“Hotfoot” is a best rated travel app that gets train running status, PNR status, Live train...
Explore Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
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**2016 Parents' Choice - Gold Award** "The app is a charming and effective way to teach a wide...
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated The Circle (2017) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Social Media involvement in political manipulation? Don’t be ridiculous!
Set in the near future “The Circle” tells a horror story of the social media age involving an omnipotent American corporate, pitched somewhere between being Facebook-like and Google-like (note, lawyers, I just said “like”!) Emma Watson (“Beauty and the Beast“) plays young intern Mae who, partly through the aid of family friend Annie (Karen Gillan, “Guardians of the Galaxy“, “Doctor Who”) but mostly through her own aptitude, lands a foothold job in customer services for the company. With the lush corporate campus fast becoming home, Mae is quickly singled out as having “executive potential” by the charismatic CEO Bailey (Tom Hanks, “Bridge of Spies“) and his more taciturn sidekick Stenton (US comedian Patton Oswalt).
Progressively brainwashed into believing the company’s intrusive snooping (a favourite motto is “Secrets are Lies”) is all for ‘the greater good’, Mae champions the cause until a tragedy rocks her world and her company beliefs to the core.
Whenever I watch a film I tend to form my own opinion first before checking out what the ‘general public’ on IMDB think. In this case, I must confess to being a bit surprised at our divergence of views: a lot of people clearly hated this movie whereas I confess that I found it very entertaining. Certainly with the alleged role of Russia in influencing elections around the world via social media, the film is most certainly topical! Many reviewers seemed quite upset that Watson’s character is such a ‘doormat’, in that her views are so easily manipulated by the corporate machine. But not every woman – as indeed every man – can or should be a Joan of Arc style role model in every film: why should they be?
I actually found her indoctrination into “the Circle way” as quite convincing, especially a creepy scene where two corporate lackies (Cho Smith and Amir Talai) say that they’re not checking up on Mae’s social life, but…. Watson enjoys extending her post-Potter repertoire well, but the talented John Boyega (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens“) is completely wasted in his role as Ty; the Wozniak-like genious behind The Circle’s technology. The script gives him very little to do other than stand around and look grumpy.
A wasted John Boyega with Emma Watson.
The film is sad in being the last movie appearance of the great Bill Paxton (“Apollo 13”) who plays Mae’s sick father and who died of complications following heart surgery two months before the film’s release (the film is dedicated “For Bill”). Tragically, Mae’s mother in the film, actress Glenn Headly (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) also died suddenly at the age of 62, also due to heart problems, a couple of months after the film’s release. It’s surprising the film doesn’t have a “curse of The Circle” tag on it.
The film was directed by James Ponsoldt, who also wrote the screenplay with novel-writer Dave Eggers (“Away We Go”). I particularly liked the on-screen use of captioning (posts) which was reminiscent to me of last year’s “Nerve“, a B-movie film I rated highly that also had a string social media theme.
While the ending of the film is a bit twee – a movie definition of “being hoisted by your own petard” – it’s overall a thought provoking piece sufficiently close to the truth as to where society is going to raise the hairs on your neck.
Progressively brainwashed into believing the company’s intrusive snooping (a favourite motto is “Secrets are Lies”) is all for ‘the greater good’, Mae champions the cause until a tragedy rocks her world and her company beliefs to the core.
Whenever I watch a film I tend to form my own opinion first before checking out what the ‘general public’ on IMDB think. In this case, I must confess to being a bit surprised at our divergence of views: a lot of people clearly hated this movie whereas I confess that I found it very entertaining. Certainly with the alleged role of Russia in influencing elections around the world via social media, the film is most certainly topical! Many reviewers seemed quite upset that Watson’s character is such a ‘doormat’, in that her views are so easily manipulated by the corporate machine. But not every woman – as indeed every man – can or should be a Joan of Arc style role model in every film: why should they be?
I actually found her indoctrination into “the Circle way” as quite convincing, especially a creepy scene where two corporate lackies (Cho Smith and Amir Talai) say that they’re not checking up on Mae’s social life, but…. Watson enjoys extending her post-Potter repertoire well, but the talented John Boyega (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens“) is completely wasted in his role as Ty; the Wozniak-like genious behind The Circle’s technology. The script gives him very little to do other than stand around and look grumpy.
A wasted John Boyega with Emma Watson.
The film is sad in being the last movie appearance of the great Bill Paxton (“Apollo 13”) who plays Mae’s sick father and who died of complications following heart surgery two months before the film’s release (the film is dedicated “For Bill”). Tragically, Mae’s mother in the film, actress Glenn Headly (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) also died suddenly at the age of 62, also due to heart problems, a couple of months after the film’s release. It’s surprising the film doesn’t have a “curse of The Circle” tag on it.
The film was directed by James Ponsoldt, who also wrote the screenplay with novel-writer Dave Eggers (“Away We Go”). I particularly liked the on-screen use of captioning (posts) which was reminiscent to me of last year’s “Nerve“, a B-movie film I rated highly that also had a string social media theme.
While the ending of the film is a bit twee – a movie definition of “being hoisted by your own petard” – it’s overall a thought provoking piece sufficiently close to the truth as to where society is going to raise the hairs on your neck.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Passengers (2016) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Guilt trip.
“Passengers” is not a film that you can really talk about in much depth without straying into spoiler territory, so I will break my normal tradition of my reviews being entirely “Spoiler Free” and add a further discussion (but below the Fad Rating, so you are safe ‘til there).
The backdrop for “Passengers” is the spaceship “Avalon”, on a 120 year trip taking Earth colonists to the new world of “Homestead 2”. Following an ‘incident’ the story finds two individuals – Jim Preston, played by Chris “Jurassic World” Pratt, and Jennifer “Joy” Lawrence – as the only passengers awake on the automated ship among 5000+ other slumbering souls. It rather goes without saying that with two attractive and bankable Hollywood stars and nothing else to do, the two ‘get it on’. With things on the ship going from bad to worse, the two must work as a team to try to save the ship, crew and fellow passengers from disaster.
As a fan of sci-fi, I’ll start with a positive that the Avalon is a gloriously rendered spacecraft, and many of the scenes of space walking present beautiful cinematography (by Rodrigo Prieto of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Argo”). Many of the other special effects in the film – led by special effects supervisor Daniel Sudick, of the Marvel franchise – are spectacularly good, especially one which demonstrates why the lifeguards closed the pool on the International Space Station!
The overall premise of the film is also original and well-conceived, setting up the backdrop for some serious post-watch ethical debate (see spoiler section).
Where the wheels came off for me though is with the script by Jon Spaihts (“Prometheus”, “Doctor Strange”). Some of the dialogue is just appallingly trite, and some of the supposed capabilities of our hero, Preston, are laughable. For example, he possesses an uncanny ability as “an engineer” to open a cabinet of electronics, scan the circuits and say “Nope – that all looks fine”: the next time my washing machine controller packs in, he’s going to be on my speed-dial for sure! And (cue trite line – “every component on the ship has a spare”) Preston immediately finds the required part (curiously, it’s right next to the failing component and not in Bay 67 on cargo deck 327!) and knows how to plug and play it as required.
Chris Pratt; Jennifer Lawrence
Pratt and Lawrence, with Pratt about to debug my washing machine controller just by looking at it.
But, for me, there was one particularly dire point in the script where Spaihts obviously forgets which film he’s writing the scene for and ‘goes superhero’: oh, hang on, Preston doesn’t HAVE any superhero powers! For me, any goodwill the story had built up through to that point get vented into space.
The director is Morten Tyldum, whose “Headhunters” I really enjoyed but who is probably more famous for “The Imitation Game”. Not overawed by the production’s scale, he does a great job of getting good performances out of the rather wooden action hunk that is Chris Pratt and the reliable Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence who (apart from one dramatic and emotional scene) the script doesn’t really stretch. Michael Sheen is also a great watch as the witty and dry android bar-tender.
In summary, this was a nice premise with great special effects and gorgeous production design, but frustratingly let down with a weak screenplay. With a better script and another 10% of tweaking, this could have been a real sci-fi classic.
The backdrop for “Passengers” is the spaceship “Avalon”, on a 120 year trip taking Earth colonists to the new world of “Homestead 2”. Following an ‘incident’ the story finds two individuals – Jim Preston, played by Chris “Jurassic World” Pratt, and Jennifer “Joy” Lawrence – as the only passengers awake on the automated ship among 5000+ other slumbering souls. It rather goes without saying that with two attractive and bankable Hollywood stars and nothing else to do, the two ‘get it on’. With things on the ship going from bad to worse, the two must work as a team to try to save the ship, crew and fellow passengers from disaster.
As a fan of sci-fi, I’ll start with a positive that the Avalon is a gloriously rendered spacecraft, and many of the scenes of space walking present beautiful cinematography (by Rodrigo Prieto of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Argo”). Many of the other special effects in the film – led by special effects supervisor Daniel Sudick, of the Marvel franchise – are spectacularly good, especially one which demonstrates why the lifeguards closed the pool on the International Space Station!
The overall premise of the film is also original and well-conceived, setting up the backdrop for some serious post-watch ethical debate (see spoiler section).
Where the wheels came off for me though is with the script by Jon Spaihts (“Prometheus”, “Doctor Strange”). Some of the dialogue is just appallingly trite, and some of the supposed capabilities of our hero, Preston, are laughable. For example, he possesses an uncanny ability as “an engineer” to open a cabinet of electronics, scan the circuits and say “Nope – that all looks fine”: the next time my washing machine controller packs in, he’s going to be on my speed-dial for sure! And (cue trite line – “every component on the ship has a spare”) Preston immediately finds the required part (curiously, it’s right next to the failing component and not in Bay 67 on cargo deck 327!) and knows how to plug and play it as required.
Chris Pratt; Jennifer Lawrence
Pratt and Lawrence, with Pratt about to debug my washing machine controller just by looking at it.
But, for me, there was one particularly dire point in the script where Spaihts obviously forgets which film he’s writing the scene for and ‘goes superhero’: oh, hang on, Preston doesn’t HAVE any superhero powers! For me, any goodwill the story had built up through to that point get vented into space.
The director is Morten Tyldum, whose “Headhunters” I really enjoyed but who is probably more famous for “The Imitation Game”. Not overawed by the production’s scale, he does a great job of getting good performances out of the rather wooden action hunk that is Chris Pratt and the reliable Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence who (apart from one dramatic and emotional scene) the script doesn’t really stretch. Michael Sheen is also a great watch as the witty and dry android bar-tender.
In summary, this was a nice premise with great special effects and gorgeous production design, but frustratingly let down with a weak screenplay. With a better script and another 10% of tweaking, this could have been a real sci-fi classic.
Laura Doe (1350 KP) rated Life, Death and Biscuits in Books
Apr 4, 2022
This book was an interesting look at the life of a critical care nurse during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was both heartbreaking and heartwarming in places and it was interesting to learn what exactly a critical care nurse is tasked with daily.
However, this has not been my favourite medical memoir, having read Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt just before starting this book. While I liked that the emails that Anthea originally sent out were included, they became very repetitive and I started to become a little bit bored of reading about the same things. I understood that when they were sent out, they were a week or so apart from each other so it may have been necessary for the repetition, but I just don’t think that it worked well within a book.
I also started to get annoyed at the way that Anthea referred to young doctors and belittled them (they were so young they still had acne or a doctor fainted within 2 hours of starting work on the Covid ICU) and how she repeatedly told the reader that the nurses that were sent to help weren’t trained enough and weren’t giving the best care to their patients. It was like she forgot that these nurses had been pulled out of their specialties and thrown into a place where they had to learn new skills, I would bet that Anthea couldn’t work in the areas that these nurses came from to the same standard as them either.
I also got frustrated and felt that she was trying to make us feel sorry for the nurses who were fed three times a day during the start of the pandemic and were forever being gifted snacks, gift bags and hampers and how later on during the second wave she said that they did their job without the discounts, without the free coffee and without a pay rise. While these nurses really did go through hell and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, the hospital nurses received a lot more than other nurses (especially community nurses), support workers and care home staff who worked tirelessly through the pandemic caring for those who weren’t in the hospitals. The only difference being that they didn’t have the luxury that Anthea and her team had of the food and endless “PPE hugs” whilst still working in the strangest times. Another sentence that stuck out to me was “only nurses talk of food while the aroma of faeces fills the air”, which is not true at all. Anyone who works within the health and social care sector and deals with the personal care of people have the same sense of humour and the same outlooks as many nurses but often get forgotten about.
While this book was interesting to begin, I found from about 40% through I was starting to get very annoyed by the repetition and the self-congratulatory writing that I wasn’t sure if I could finish the book. I think the book could have been much shorter than it was, but I also think that anyone who worked from home or was furloughed during the pandemic should read this to understand how hard it was to work on the front lines while most were enjoying the glorious weather and all of the lockdown activities that went on.
However, this has not been my favourite medical memoir, having read Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt just before starting this book. While I liked that the emails that Anthea originally sent out were included, they became very repetitive and I started to become a little bit bored of reading about the same things. I understood that when they were sent out, they were a week or so apart from each other so it may have been necessary for the repetition, but I just don’t think that it worked well within a book.
I also started to get annoyed at the way that Anthea referred to young doctors and belittled them (they were so young they still had acne or a doctor fainted within 2 hours of starting work on the Covid ICU) and how she repeatedly told the reader that the nurses that were sent to help weren’t trained enough and weren’t giving the best care to their patients. It was like she forgot that these nurses had been pulled out of their specialties and thrown into a place where they had to learn new skills, I would bet that Anthea couldn’t work in the areas that these nurses came from to the same standard as them either.
I also got frustrated and felt that she was trying to make us feel sorry for the nurses who were fed three times a day during the start of the pandemic and were forever being gifted snacks, gift bags and hampers and how later on during the second wave she said that they did their job without the discounts, without the free coffee and without a pay rise. While these nurses really did go through hell and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, the hospital nurses received a lot more than other nurses (especially community nurses), support workers and care home staff who worked tirelessly through the pandemic caring for those who weren’t in the hospitals. The only difference being that they didn’t have the luxury that Anthea and her team had of the food and endless “PPE hugs” whilst still working in the strangest times. Another sentence that stuck out to me was “only nurses talk of food while the aroma of faeces fills the air”, which is not true at all. Anyone who works within the health and social care sector and deals with the personal care of people have the same sense of humour and the same outlooks as many nurses but often get forgotten about.
While this book was interesting to begin, I found from about 40% through I was starting to get very annoyed by the repetition and the self-congratulatory writing that I wasn’t sure if I could finish the book. I think the book could have been much shorter than it was, but I also think that anyone who worked from home or was furloughed during the pandemic should read this to understand how hard it was to work on the front lines while most were enjoying the glorious weather and all of the lockdown activities that went on.