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Retribution (Dark Hunters #19)
Retribution (Dark Hunters #19)
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Contains spoilers, click to show
Harm no human...

A hired gunslinger, William Jessup Brady lived his life with one foot in the grave. He believed that every life had a price. Until the day when he finally found a reason to live. In one single act of brutal betrayal, he lost everything, including his life. Brought back by a Greek goddess to be one of her Dark-Hunters, he gave his immortal soul for vengeance and swore he'd spend eternity protecting the humans he'd once considered prey.

Orphaned as a toddler, Abigail Yager was taken in by a family of vampires and raised on one belief - Dark-Hunters are the evil who prey on both their people and mankind, and they must all be destroyed. While protecting her adoptive race, she has spent her life eliminating the Dark-Hunters and training for the day when she meeting the man who killed her family: Jess Brady.

A gun in the hand is worth two in the holster....

Jess has been charged with finding and terminating the creature who's assassinating Dark-Hunters. The last thing he expects to find is a human face behind the killings, but when that face bears a striking resemblance to the one who murdered him centuries ago, he knows something evil is going on. He also knows he's not the one who killed her parents. But Abigail refuses to believe the truth and is determined to see him dead once and for all.

Brought together by an angry god and chased by ancient enemies out to kill them both, they must find a way to overcome their mutual hatred or watch as one of the darkest of powers rises and kills both the races they've sworn to protect.

I love this series to be honest there's not a Kenyon book I don't enjoy! Loved learning about Jess and Abigail the story was so involved not sure I'd enjoy the plagues though!
I enjoy the relationships in this book as we don't normally get so many Dark Hunters in one place!
The bonus chapter was even more special showing a very rare occasion of Artemis doing something nice for Ash! Oh and Simi no book is complete without Simi and her BBQ sauce.
  
Repo Men (2010)
Repo Men (2010)
2010 | Action, Sci-Fi
7
6.8 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating
What does it mean to be both alive and dead?

Based on the novel “The Repossession Mambo” by Eric Garcia, Repo Men is a dark sci-fi action film from director Miguel Sapochnik. It is an oddly sadistic film that begins as a fantastic black comedy/drama, loses its way in the second act with well-shot but mindless action and predictable plot elements, yet still finds its way back before the credits roll.
Remy and Jake, played by Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, are both Repo Men for The Union, an alarming combination of loan shark and artificial organ manufacturer. Those unfortunate patients that fall too far behind on their payments have their artificial parts removed and reclaimed, often accompanied by grisly special effects. Through an accident at a routine repossession, Remy ends up needing a new heart. In the process of trying to pay for it, he realizes that he can no longer find the moral ambivalence necessary to take the life of a stranger in order to earn the money to save his own. This film is definitely not for the squeamish, and many scenes were not unlike watching a surgery in progress.

This film will certainly attract more than a nod from those clamoring for universal healthcare in the United States, as well as those railing against corporate greed at the expense of human life. The Union is everything we love to hate in a corporation. Nothing, from duping emotionally compromised patients, to putting profits above all else, to even killing people, is out of bounds for this corporation. It’s uncommon to see corporate evil of this magnitude in a film, and with Liev Schreiber manning the helm, this evil is personified and delivered with such panache that he becomes an enjoyable caricature to watch.

This movie would be nothing without Remy’s path from classic amoral psychopath to redeemed soul, but the journey at times becomes muddy and obscure. Law plays the part somewhat stiffly, but still manages to shine in his interactions with Whitaker and Schreiber. Whitaker, however, is fantastic as Remy’s uncompromisingly unsympathetic partner Jake, who holds on tightly to what he knows and believes, however unprincipled. By the film’s end, Whitaker’s performance as the frustrated partner becomes even more impressive when compared to Law’s movement from perpetrator to victim to agent of retribution.

For years, Remy had no moral compunction against repossessing organs, nearly always from those who will die without them. But when his heart is removed, he suddenly empathizes with the victims of his profession. An odd paradox: that becoming less human can impart more humanity. Remy is both more genuinely alive after receiving his artificial heart, and more certain he will be dead when he can no longer pay. This is the crux of the film, and on this basis a clever story is told about the intersection of making a living, being alive, and the entanglements they create.
  
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Morgan Spurlock recommended Scanners (1981) in Movies (curated)

 
Scanners (1981)
Scanners (1981)
1981 | Horror, Sci-Fi

"My fifth film — it’s the movie that literally got me wanting to make movies to begin with — is the David Cronenberg film Scanners. When I was a kid, I was a little weird kid, and I loved horror films, I loved gore films. When Michael Ironside made that guy’s head explode in that movie, I was like, “Whatever this is, I want to do this!” I was ten, eleven years old, and my parents would take me to see these. Like, I saw The Exorcist in movie theaters; I saw The Evil Dead in a movie theater. I went to see all this crazy, freaky s*** that you would never take a little kid to see today. But I saw Jaws in a movie theater. Like, I wanted to see all these scary movies, and my parents were like, “Absolutely. Let’s go.” And so here I was, as a teenager, learning how to make my own blood, and my own scars and wounds. I wanted to be Rick Baker or Tom Savini. When I was a kid, that’s who I looked up to. When I saw An American Werewolf in London, it was phenomenal, to see all those makeup special effects they were doing. And then when I went to high school and learned you could actually go to college to study film and learn how to make movies, I was like, “I’m in. That’s exactly what I want to do.”"

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I haven't seen the anime of this yet, and I'm not sure which was released first. I'm definitely interested in seeing the show now though, and am certainly going to read the rest of the manga volumes (if I can find/afford them all!).

As usual, I will try not to ruin the plot for anyone who wants to read it. I'll just say that Ichigo can see ghosts, and one day comes across a soul reaper - who accidentally gives her powers away and is stuck in a temporary human body. Together, they work as soul reapers to rid the world of "evil" hollows - which takes them through some pretty sad memories.

The writing is great - I found this so so comedic, and just enjoyable to read all the way through. I read all 500+ pages in one afternoon!

There's also some.seriously sad stuff in there - dead family members make guest appearances, and I actually found some of the scenes so touching and painful. The entire volume was just written so fantastically.

The art is amazing, too - I especially liked the odd blank page with just a small illustration that peppered the book. It was artistic, yet still presented the story well.

This is probably gonna be a favourite of mine for a long time. I cannot wait to read on - the end of the third volume in this collection is very intriguing! 5/5 stars.