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Hellfire (Beyond Human #1)
Hellfire (Beyond Human #1)
Michelle Schad | 2021 | LGBTQ+, Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
At times intense, dark and painful.

My heart goes out to Hadi, our main character. He's a good guy with a special gift that could (and does!) cause him a lot of problems. He's already been through an awful experience and as the story unfolds things brighten up for him only to take a turn for the worse. He tries to help others and is generally really nice.
    James 'Falcon' is pretty decent too. He's a doer, cares deeply for his people (family/friends/Gen - his dog) and doesn't let things hold him back. A proper top bloke.
    Of the other characters......I'd say that 'Duck' (gotta love code names) is an ass-hat, definitely a bloke that deserves a good crack in the chin, minimum!!

Hellfire isn't for the faint hearted or sensitive folk....It's for an adult audience, with themes of death, drug use and pain. My heart started cracking throughout and the ending made sure I couldn't put it back together.

I'm so happy it's the start of a series!!
  
Nosferatu (Eine Symphonie Des Grauens) (1922)
Nosferatu (Eine Symphonie Des Grauens) (1922)
1922 | Horror, International

"I’ve seen the Herzog one a good many times too, but the Murnau film… Murnau is neck to neck with Bergman as my favorite director. He’s responsible for some of the best images in cinema of all time, from Nosferatu to Faust to Sunset. His work was so influential that filmmakers generations later can be referencing Murnau without knowing it. But Nosferatu is an interesting movie. It was produced by Albin Grau, an occultist who started an independent film studio to make occult-themed movies. Nosferatu was his first endeavor. And he hired the screenwriter, and he hired Murnau, and he was the production designer and did a lot of concept art. Very much part of the authorship of this film. And Max Schreck, as much as he is a folk vampire and a reinterpretation of Stoker’s literary gothic vampire, he’s also influenced by Albin Grau’s early 20th-century occultist views on vampirism. But in many ways — there’s horror movies before it, obviously — Nosferatu invents horror movies. The editing of the parallel story together in some ways invents cinema."

Source
  
Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest by Bill Callahan
Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest by Bill Callahan
2019 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I was aware of Bill Callahan through Smog and that, but I think these latest records that he's done are amazing. They're quite abstract in a way, it's really quite something, the lyrics are really good but the music is also really imaginative and the song structures are quite weird. He definitely doesn't stick to the pop song structure that I was talking about earlier on, but it is melodic, it's not atonal or anything. His records have a natural, very close sound, but it isn't straight folk or anything like that, the instruments are acoustic but then he goes off into these different realms. I think the latest record, that I'm just trying to get my head around at the moment, continues that. He's really thought of it as an album, it's a double and it's split up into four sides, and I know that when he was letting people know about it they released a side at a time, so it's conceived as those four or five songs sitting together as a suite. It's the best record I've heard in ages."

Source
  
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
1999 | Action, Drama, Mystery
Romantic thriller remake. A daring robbery from a New York museum leads the police and an insurance investigator to suspect insanely wealthy and clever tycoon Thomas Crown, but can the investigator keep her mind on the job when the sparks start a-fizzing between her and the suspect?

The world is made up of people who prefer the Steve McQueen version and those who like this one (and I suppose there are conceivably a few folk who've seen neither): I am in the Brosnan camp, although this film does kind of miss the point that Crown only steals for the fun of it in the original (Brosnan's character clearly appreciates art). Much more of a romantic drama than an actual thriller, but well played and engaging, and the set pieces, when they eventually come, are clever and well-staged. As a chance for Brosnan (then at the apogee of his Bond success) to show his range, it's a qualified success (Crown is another suave, high-living thrill seeker with possible commitment issues), but as a piece of entertainment it does the job.