
Peter Marino: Art Architecture
Book
A profile of architect Peter Marino's extensive, collaborative process of commissioning art for...

Awix (3310 KP) rated Jason and the Argonauts (1963) in Movies
Oct 5, 2019 (Updated Oct 5, 2019)
The script is, to be honest, all over the place: it's episodic, the writers seem to have been making it up as they went (the most memorable character wanders out of the movie half way through), and Jason doesn't actually complete the mission he sets himself at the start (maybe they were hoping for a sequel). However, for a bad movie this has some of the most wonderful special effects ever put on celluloid, namely Ray Harryhausen's brilliant hand-crafted animation. Any amount of stodgy non-acting and dubious costume design would be a small price to pay for sequences like the ones with the bronze titan Talos, the Hydra, or the mob of skeletons at the end (the skeleton battle is such a breathtaking achievement it should really be playing on loop in art galleries around the world). They don't make them like this any more. Even the bad bits are kind of bad in a good way.

The Chocolate Raccoon Rigmarole
Book
In this eighteenth mystery in the national bestselling Chocoholic series, a gang of crooks with a...

Kayak Session Magazine
Sports and Magazines & Newspapers
App
The International Whitewater Magazine. The biggest whitewater kayaking magazine in the world. If a...

Dead like you (Roy Grace book 6)
Book
The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she...

Drawn and Buttered
Book
Drawn and Buttered is the third book in a wonderfully satisfying cozy mystery series set at the Lazy...

Deadly Depths
Book
A notable archaeologist, close to finding a priceless artifact, meets his untimely demise— Matthew...
Crime Mystery Thriller

Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Pacific Vortex! (Dirk Pitt #1) in Books
Nov 21, 2019
Although released later in the series, Pacific Vortex! is very much a prequel to the main Dirk Pitt series and was the first of the Pitt novels Cussler wrote. As such it is a little different to the rest. Pitt comes across as more of a generic action hero type. The plot is far more straightforward with very little in the way of twists and suprise reveals that became the hallmark of the best of Cussler's novels. The standard hero trope is also enforced by the love interest and the megalomaniac villain in his lair.
However this is still a good read, with good ideas and it's interesting to see some of the building blocks that made up the Pitt franchise, particularly those that surfaced here but were then discarded for the later works. As a story it's not bad with enough going on the engage the reader's interest and obviously it lays the seeds of the later appearance of his children.
Not an essential read by any means, but one that will entertain

The Smith of Smiths: Being the Life, Wit and Humour of Sydney Smith
Book
Queen Victoria was amused! It may seem unlikely but the preface to this famous biography is given...

The Great Train Robbery: Crime of the Century: The Definitive Account
Nick Russell-Pavier and Stewart Richards
Book
Definitive account of the famous 1963 Great Train Robbery - and its aftermath. In the early hours of...
Andy K (10823 KP) Oct 5, 2019