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Dean (6927 KP) rated Morbius (2022) in Movies

Apr 7, 2022  
Morbius (2022)
Morbius (2022)
2022 | Action, Sci-Fi
Jared Leto (0 more)
Blurry Cgi scenes (1 more)
Not much action
Ooh Bats
Pretty standard, run of the mill action film. Falling well short of the majority of Marvel films. It's short, doesn't have a great deal of action scenes. When they pop up it's with a lot of blurry Cgi at speed. You just don't really care about any of the characters to be honest. Jared Leto brings a bit of quality to the film. Otherwise it feels like a mix of bits of other films. Not one that will last long in your memory.
  
Napoleon (2023)
Napoleon (2023)
2023 | History
6
7.3 (6 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The Corsican Ogre.

As the English called him.

I found this to be a bit on the long side, concentrating too much on the tumultuous relationship between Napoleon and Josephine and not enough in the events of the period - 15 years (in film) go past in the blink of an eye, with no mention at all made of Napoleon's Italian campaign, and with the invasion of Russia taking all of 10 minutes or so; Waterloo expanded to maybe 15 (or so it feels). Not enough time spent on them, anyway, I felt.
  
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Daniel Rossen recommended track Myrrhman by Talk Talk in Laughing Stock by Talk Talk in Music (curated)

 
Laughing Stock by Talk Talk
Laughing Stock by Talk Talk
1991 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Myrrhman by Talk Talk

(0 Ratings)

Track

"This is from Laughing Stock, I wanted to choose something from this, Sprit of Eden or Mark Hollis’s solo record, which I love. Chris Taylor loves those records and when we were doing Shields I got really obsessed with them. I didn’t hear Talk Talk until after we made Veckatimest, maybe it was because ‘80s reference points weren’t fashionable when I was growing up. There’s something in the silence and space in this music that feels like it’s not made by a person, it feels like the record made itself. I guess that was their process, players would come in and do whatever they wanted them to do and then they took a piece of it and arranged things around it. I’ve always wished I could have been in the room when these records were made, just to see what kind of conversations were happening, if it was actually just a brutal process that they really didn’t enjoy to go through making them. There’s certain chord progressions on Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden where you feel you just couldn’t write them, they sound like they emerged from nature, grew out of themselves and are eating themselves at the same time. With ‘Myrrhman’ especially there’s this weird turning chord progression that starts in the middle of the song, it never releases and it doesn’t let go, it’s moving around itself and imploding, with that quality of using space and silence as an instrument. “It feels like something that no one person could play, it’s like a mystery. The more you make music you try to channel whatever that mystery is, where you don’t know where something came from or how it happened, it’s something that’s totally human but comes from nowhere and you don’t know why and these records do that so well. The more we do this the more I realise that whilst making music and listening to music isn’t the same thing, it’s not really that different. Learning to be good at making music involves wanting to hear what’s going on as if you’re a passive listener, rather than ‘I want to do this and I want you to like it.’ It’s not about trying to make someone like what you’re doing, it’s channelling whatever that Gestalt thinking is that allows these things to happen. This was a real touchstone going into Shields, not so much for Painted Ruins, but it’s still something I always want to get back to, because it’s a trance-like state that feels like it came from no one, it just came out of the ether."

Source
  
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LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Predator: Hunting Grounds in Video Games

May 9, 2020 (Updated May 9, 2020)  
Predator: Hunting Grounds
Predator: Hunting Grounds
2020 | Action, Horror, Shooter
It's hard to rate Predator: Hunting Grounds properly. It's the kind of game that is ripe for updating on a regular basis, and it feels like there is still a lot to come (at least I hope there is!)

One of the main concerns is how long it will hold my attention for - as it stands, I'm still having fun with it, but it's hard to gauge how long that will last.
You get two choices - either you work as part of a 4-person fireteam, tasked with various objectives throughout a thick jungle setting, fighting AI controlled guerilla soldiers along the way, and trying to avoid the Predator hunting you down.
The other choice is of course, playing as The Predator, your objective being to hunt do the fireteam using the tools at your disposal. Thermal vision, flying discs, spear like weapons - lots of gadgets from the films are here to use.

As a fireteam member, 9 times out of 10, the match will end pretty quickly in my experience, with the either the Predator slaughtering the whole team within minutes, or the team shooting down the Predator. I've had a handful of games where the objectives have been completed and everyone has escaped. As the Predator, (still learning the ropes) I seem to get destroyed pretty quickly, whether info in for close range combat, or stick to the trees and try to fight long range - the game feels severely unbalanced, against both sides somehow. It's something that needs tweaking.
Graphics wise, it's not too bad. I'm seeing a lot of complaints about how it looks like a PS2 game, and that simply not true. The environments are colourful and the character models are what you would expect from a multiplayer PS4 game.
The only issue I've found along this subject is a fair few bugs littered throughout when it comes to said character models.

If you're a fan of the films, especially the first film, then you will undeniably get a huge kick out of Hunting Grounds. Going against the Predator can be genuinely tense, especially if you catch a glimpse of it jumping through the trees. It feels authentic at the very least, and the gameplay does have a visceral and frantic feel to it.

I really hope that more is added though. I'd love to see some content related to the sequels in the future, and some more variety added to gameplay. It's fun, but it feels like it could be so much more.
  
Girl Last Seen
Girl Last Seen
Nina Laurin | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller
4
6.3 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
I like to listen to audiobooks while I game, which means I ended up reading Girl Last Seen by chance. It is the first book I’ve read by Nina Laurin and may very well be the last – harsh, I know. When I choose to read a thriller, suspense, or mystery book, I expect… well, the elements of those genres. Girl Last Seen was devoid of any excitement whatsoever and a bit too stereotypical for my taste.

Time and time again, I’ve made it clear that I hate slow plots. I want to feel urgency in a book, especially if it deals with a kidnapped child. In Girl Last Seen, the characters were underwhelming. It becomes obvious early on that things are going to go exactly the way the reader feels they are: girl disappears, guy everyone knows is at fault, oh dear god how can it possibly be. The main character is more unlikable than her own despicable mother, considering she’s drug addicted. There’s even a sex scene that’s a bit on the descriptive side thrown in for what feels like the hell of it. And that annoys me.

Fortunately, the narrator is an excellent choice and I would gladly listen to more books read by her.
  
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Film and stuff (30 KP) rated Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) in Movies

May 15, 2019 (Updated May 15, 2019)  
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
2015 | Action, Sci-Fi
Set up for the future films (0 more)
Feels disjointed and has clear studio intervention issues. (0 more)
A great second Avengers outing
Starring: Robert Downey JR, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Rennee, James Spader, Samuel L Jackson and Paul Bettany.

Directed by: Joss Whedon.

Plot - Tony Stark creates an AI that turns psychopathic and is determined to destroy the world. The Avengers must stop the AI known as Ultron.

With spectacular visuals and an amusing villain this is on the surface of things, exactly what you would want a sequel to the excellent Avengers Assemble to be. The way in which the Avengers are reintroduced is quit simply one of the coolest things I've seen for a while.
The issue is that it treads over a great deal of previous material and doesn't feel as original and fresh as the previous.
Surprisingly something that is handled brilliantly is the volume of characters that are in this. Something that many have tried and failed. Huge kudos for this Mr Whedon.
With a great deal more humour, a romance that feels slightly forced and amazing action sequences I would rate this marginally below Avengers Assemble. That being said, I enjoyed it immensely and would definitely recommend seeing it.