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Donald Fagen recommended The Third Man (1949) in Movies (curated)

 
The Third Man (1949)
The Third Man (1949)
1949 | Thriller
8.0 (9 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I’ve seen this picture a zillion times but always find something new to wonder about. Graham Greene, Carol Reed, Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Nazis, gangsters, Hitchcockian surrealism, innovative cinematography, a moody babe, Vienna, a zither for ear candy: it’s all here."

Source
  
A Love To Remember
A Love To Remember
Sarah Hadley Brook | 2018 | Erotica, LGBTQ+, Romance
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
so desperately wanted to hear from Sam!
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this book.

Graham takes his dad to the cabin in the woods, because he cannot be on his own anymore. Ravaged by Alzheimer's, his father needs calm, and peace. But Graham can no longer look after his dad and work, so he hires an in-home nurse, Sam. Sam and Graham have met before, after a brief hook-up. Sam wants more, but Graham has to take a step back, and make Sam realise, what's slowly killing his father could very well kill him too.

It's only short, this one, some 85 pages, but Brook manages to get a lot in those 85 pages!

We get the intensity of that initial hook-up. We get all of Graham's fears for his dad. We get all of Graham's emotions trying to keep Sam at arms length, while fighting to pull him close. We get all of GRAHAM.

What we don't get is Sam. Any Sam, at all. And that's the only reason I'm giving it 4 stars, because it is single person point of view. Had Sam had a say, this could well have been a 5 star read, it really could!

It's not overly complicated, just two men falling in love while one tries really hard not to. There is no major breakup/make up, no nutty exes. It has some sexy time, and some emotional times, especially when Graham is fighting with himself to look after dad but having to admit that he really can't.

It really is a lovely, if short, read. Passed an hour, while watching the rain, on a Sunday afternoon.

4 solid stars

**same worded review will appear elsewhere**
  
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Lenard (726 KP) rated The Post (2017) in Movies

Jan 16, 2018  
The Post (2017)
The Post (2017)
2017 | Biography, Drama, Thriller
Acting (3 more)
Directing
Production Design
Editing
Costumes (0 more)
Burying the Lead
Meryl Streep is an American institution. Yet again, she proves that she is not finished finding new dimensions to her characters. In "The Post," she plays pioneering publisher Katherine Graham from The Washington Post. The film itself somehow manages to bury the lead in its own story. In an early scene, Streep playing Graham is at a meeting of the Board Of Directors voting whether The Post should go public. Graham never utters a word. Her advisor/attorney makes every statement for her. This is an indictment of the times, referred to later when Ben Bradlee makes an off-the-cuff remark about why her husband was given the paper in the first place. It is also a subtle clue about the quiet authority Katherine actually had, pulling all the strings though she had no voice in her own company. A later scene in which she retires to the drawing room with the other women while the men talk politics is another sign on the backward thinking times of not-so-long-age. It is here that the obstensible plot starts. Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara pulls Katherine away from the other women to reveal a story that is about to appear in the New York Times. A classified Pentagon report was leaked that detailed how the American government knew the conflict in Vietnam was unwinnable, kept the war going as a facade, and had been lying to its constituents. Nixon and Attorney General Mitchell threatened the free press with injunctions, restraining orders, and incarceration. In the resulting Supreme Court case, Justice Black found that the press is responsible to protect the governed and not the governors. Buried within is the story of the inequality of men and women and the small strides women made to exist in this patriarchal society.
  
LET ME JUST TELL YOU. I have been an avid fan of Gilmore Girls for as long as I can remember. I have watched the entire series from start to finish at least 3 times now. And this book. THIS BOOK. I feel MORE connected to the show than I have ever before. I feel more connected to the characters. I feel just... satisfied. But at the same time I need to know more.
I laughed. I cried. I felt inspired. If you are even the slightest fan of Gilmore Girls or Lauren Graham in general, READ. THIS. BOOK. It is vital.

<img src="https://media.giphy.com/media/l2YWllJgWdaurVQoU/giphy.gif">;
  
All Your Perfects
All Your Perfects
Colleen Hoover | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry, Romance
8
7.8 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is the first book in my #atozchallenge! I'm challenging myself to read a book from my shelves that starts with each letter of the alphabet. Let's clear those shelves and delve into that backlist!

Quinn and Graham had the perfect romance and marriage. But now, that marriage is on the rocks and all those perfect memories threatened as their union is about to implode. If they can't talk to each other and work things out, they're done. Can they get past their problems and find that perfection again?

Wow, I picked a doozy for the first book in my challenge! This book was almost physically hard to read at times! It's a brutal look at a struggling marriage, as Quinn and Graham--once a perfect couple--can barely look at or talk to one another. Told in a then and now format from Quinn's perspective, we see how the two fell head over heels in love. And, conversely, we see how they fell apart. It's an emotional and tense read that's often bitterly sad and heartbreaking. Hoover makes you feel as if you're in the book, part of the characters' dissolving marriage.

This one hit home, as Quinn and Graham battle with infertility, something I know quite well. If you've struggled with this, this will be a hard read--yet you'll be able to find many parallels with the couple. It's not necessarily a happy book, yet it's romantic and sweet too. It presents a very realistic portrayal of marriage and one of the best portraits of a (straight) couple grappling with infertility that I've ever read.

This isn't an easy book to read, but it's really quite good. It packs a sucker punch, but in a good way. You'll find yourself lost in Quinn and Graham's world--I certainly recommend this fierce, touching look at love, marriage, and how far we will go for the ones we care about. 4+ stars.
  
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Lee (2222 KP) rated The Post (2017) in Movies

Jan 26, 2018  
The Post (2017)
The Post (2017)
2017 | Biography, Drama, Thriller
Meryl Streep (0 more)
The first half of the movie (0 more)
I saw The Post earlier this week and it's taken me quite a while to think about how to review it. To be honest, it didn't really do much for me at all. It's clearly a very important part of recent history, an interesting story with huge relevance in these current times, but the first half was just so dull!

Tom Hanks is obviously brilliant, playing Ben Bradlee, editor of The Washington Post. But it's Meryl Streep that really shines here as Katharine Graham, the country's first female newspaper publisher and Bens boss. Following her journey through the male led news industry as she gradually finds the strength and confidence she needs.

The second half ramps up the tension somewhat and is a great improvement over the first half. Unfortunately for me though it just wasn't enough to leave any kind of lasting impression.
  
The Post (2017)
The Post (2017)
2017 | Biography, Drama, Thriller
Landing the Hindenburg in a Thunderstorm.
What a combination: Streep, Hanks, Spielberg, Kaminski behind the camera, Williams behind the notes. What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing as it turns out. After, for me, the disappointment of “The BFG” here is Spielberg on firm ground and at the height of his game.
It’s 1971 and the New York Times is in trouble for publishing what became known as “The Pentagon Papers”: a damning account of multiple administration’s dodgy dealings around the Vietnam War, put together by Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood, “Star Trek: Into Darkness“) and meant for “posterity” – not for publication! Watching from the sidelines with frustration at their competitor’s scoop are the Washington Post’s editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks, “Bridge of Spies“, “Inferno“) and the new owner Kay Graham (Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins“, “Suffragette“). With immaculate timing, Graham is taking the paper public, so needs the newspaper embroiled in any sort of scandal like a hole in the head. But with the US First Amendment under pressure, will Graham and Bradlee put their business and their freedom at risk by publishing and being damned?

Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and Graham (Meryl Streep) in the Washington Post’s newsroom.
Both of the leads play characters that are quite strikingly out of character from their normal roles.
In a seamingly endless run of ‘kick-ass’ women in the movie driving seat, here I expected Streep to be in full “Iron Lady” mode, but in fact she starts the film as quite the opposite: nervous, timid, vascillating. For although the story is about “The Washington Post” and “The Pentagon Papers”, the real story is about Graham herself (Liz Hannah’s script is actually based on Graham’s autobiography). In many ways it’s about a woman, in a male world, overcoming her fear and finding her own voice. As has been demonstrated in many recent films (“Hidden Figures” for example) the working world for woman has changed so markedly since the 60’s and 70’s that it’s almost impossible to relate to these chavenistic attitudes. Graham is repeatedly downtrodden as “not good enough” by her underlings within earshot, and then thanks them “for their frankness”. When the women folk retire at dinner, to let the men-folk talk politics, Graham meekly goes with them. Even her father, for God’s sake, left the newspaper not to her but to her (now late) husband! It’s no surprise then that she is coming from a pretty low base of self-confidence, and her journey in the film – as expertly played by Streep – is an extraordinarily rousing one.

The real deal: Ben Bradlee and Kay Graham.
Hanks, normally the guy you’d most like to invite round for dinner (@tomhanks if you happen to be reading this sir, that’s a genuine invitation… we make a mean lasagne here!) also plays somewhat outside of his normal character here. As Bradlee, he is snappy, brusque and businesslike. Although I don’t think he could ever quite match the irascibility of the character’s portrayal by Jason Robards in the classic “All the President’s Men” – who could? – its a character with real screen presence.

The similarities with Alan J Pakula’s 1976 classic Watergate movie – one of my personal favourites – don’t stop there. The same sets that were once populated by Redford and Hoffman are gloriously reproduced with Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski delivering great tracking shots through the newsroom. (Watch out for Sacha Spielberg – daughter of Stephen and Kate Capshaw – who also turns up there delivering a package).

The scoop revealed: Odenkirk, Hanks and David Cross get the low-down.
The supporting cast includes Sarah Paulson (so memorable in “The Trial of O.J. Simpson”) as Bradlee’s wife Tony, Bradley Whitford (“The West Wing”, “Get Out“) and Tracy Letts (“The Big Short“) as two of Graham’s board advisors and Jesse Plemons (“The Program“, “Bridge of Spies“) as the lead legal advisor. Particularly impressive though is Bob Odenkirk (“Breaking Bad”) as Ben Bagdikian, Bradlee’s lead investigative reporter on the case: all stress, loose change and paranoia in his dealings with the leaky Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys).

Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) ordering a drink for himself and his travelling companion.
In a memorable piece of casting Richard Nixon is played by…. Richard Nixon. Although a silluohetted Curzon Dobell stalks the Oval office, the ex-president’s original phone recordings are played on the soundtrack. (There, I knew those recordings would be useful for something… thank heavens he kept them all!)

The film also demonstrates in fascinating style the newsprint business of yesteryear. When I click a button on my PC and a beautifully laser-printed page streams out of my Epson printer, it still seems like witchcraft to me! But it is extraordinary to think that newspapers in those days were put together by typesetters manually building up the pages from embossed metal letters laboriously slotted into a frame. Brilliantly evocative.

Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) takes a risk.
If Spielberg has a fault, it is one of sentimentality – something that is pointed out in Susan Lacy’s superb HBO documentary on Spielberg (something I have yet to write a review on, but if you like Spielberg you should definitely seek out). Here he falls into that trap again, with an unnecessary bedroom scene between Graham and her daughter tipping the screenplay into mawkishness. It’s unnecessary since we don’t need the points raised rammed down our throats again. It’s something repeated in a rather bizarre final scene with Graham walking down the steps of the supreme court with admiring woman – only woman – watching her. These irritations tarnish for me what could have been a top-rated film.

But the movie is an impressive watch and older viewers, and anyone interested in American political history will, I think, love it. The film, especially with its nice epilogue, did make me immediately want to come home and put “All the President’s Men” on again… which is never a bad thing. Highly recommended.
  
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Hazel (2934 KP) rated Ghost Virus in Books

Nov 11, 2018  
Ghost Virus
Ghost Virus
Graham Masterton | 2018 | Crime, Horror, Thriller
7
8.8 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Strangely entertaining
This book is like Marmite®, you are either going to love it or hate it ... well I can't stand Marmite® but I really quite enjoyed this book ... I found it rather entertaining in a strange sort of way although I must admit that it did get a little OTT which had me giggling to myself and shaking my head at times BUT it did make me tell loads of people about it and isn't that the point?

Well written, good pace, great characters and a very unique story line makes this a pretty good read but it does contain a lot of violence, gore and graphic descriptions of death so be warned ... it is not for the fainthearted so if you don't like that type of thing, I would give this a wide berth if I was you.

Over the years, I have read a lot of Graham Masterton's books and I have never been disappointed and even though this probably isn't one of his best, I will carry on reading his stories and will continue to be entertained that I have no doubt.

Thank you to the publisher, Head of Zeus, via NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest and unbiased review.
  
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MelanieTheresa (997 KP) rated Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist in TV

Mar 10, 2020 (Updated Mar 10, 2020)  
Zoey&#039;s Extraordinary Playlist
Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
2020 | Comedy, Musical
9
8.6 (5 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Surprisingly delightful!
Though I have loved musical TV shows in the past (Glee, Smash, etc.), I was very iffy about this show when I first heard about it, was still iffy as I was getting ready to record the first episode on my DVR. I've now watched 5 episodes, and I'm so glad I gave it a chance. It's completely different from everything else I'm currently watching - refreshingly so.

However, this is no lighthearted comedic musical show. No, this show hits you right in the heart with some absolutely gut-wrenching emotional numbers. They deal with some very heavy subject matter (suicide, debilitating neurological disease, depression) in a beautiful way, and I have found myself tearing up more than once in the first 5 episodes. The first time Zoey's dad sings to her? BAWLING. 😭

The beauty of this show, though, is in the switch from emotional/sad to happy/fun and back again. You know the songs. The humor is spot-on and will make you literally laugh out loud at times. The actors are all terrific, particularly Lauren Graham and Peter Gallagher - and I'll admit I don't think I knew that either one of them could sing prior to this. Jane Levy is adorable and the perfect actress for this role. Alex Newell, as Zoey's trans neighbor, Mo, is simultaneously hilarious and inspiring.

I truly hope NBC renews this show. I'm in for the long haul. 🎵
  
Fae: The Wild Hunt (The Ryvern Wyrd Saga #1)
Fae: The Wild Hunt (The Ryvern Wyrd Saga #1)
Graham Austin-King | 2014 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
36 of 250
Kindle
Fae: The Wild Hunt ( The Riven Wyrde saga book 1)
By Graham Austin-King

Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments

Sometimes the faerie tales are a warning. Sometimes they are true.

The Fae were banished so long ago they have become a myth, but the ancient barriers are failing. They are returning, and vengeance is within their grasp.

Klöss wants nothing more than to pass the trials and join the ranks of the Bjornmen raiders, following in the footsteps of his forefathers. But times are changing in the Barren Isles. Coastal plunder is making way for outright conquest, and the threat of war is looming.

Found abandoned in the forest, Devin leads a simple life. But fate, it seems, has other plans.
As his sleepy village transforms in the face of foreign invaders, whispered rumours tell of creatures in the moonlight, shadowy figures with eyes of amber flame. The Fae were banished so long ago they have become a myth, but the ancient barriers are failing. They are returning, and vengeance is within their grasp.

As the first battles rage, only one man seems to know the truth about the Fae, but can Devin or Klöss convince anyone before it is too late?
It was ok a lot of character and world building with action towards the end. Some interesting characters I did get a little bit bored in some parts but I can see what is trying to be achieved so worth sticking with at the moment.