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Whatchareadin (174 KP) rated Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls #1) in Books

May 10, 2018

Learning about the history of other cultures has always been something I've been interested in. All of our ancestors came to the United States in various ways. They all had to struggle to find their own ways in this world. Pearl and May are no exception.

Living in Shanghai, China in the '30's Pearl and May were considered beautiful girls. Their pictures were on calendars and other forms of advertising for the city. Their father owned a rickshaw company and they spent many nights out in Shanghai. Then one day it all came to a screeching halt. The girls learn that their father had gambled all their money away and now they were to have arranged marriages and a new life in America. The girls were not too happy about this and avoided the situation at all costs. Including the costs of life, freedom and the opportunity to have children.

Through all of the struggles to get from China to America, Pearl and May stood together always. They suffered through everything together.

I'm not sure that I could ever survive the things that they had to endure, with or without my sister. And I never knew of the different struggles that Chinese-American's had to suffer once they were in this country. For this reason, it made the book much more interesting. The writing was smooth and easy to read and comprehend. I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by Lisa See.

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Awix (3310 KP) rated Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) in Movies

Feb 11, 2018 (Updated Feb 11, 2018)

For pity's sake, enough

In which the world is menaced by a shambling undead menace that simply will not stop - I'm not describing the plot, but the fact that they keep making Pirates of the Caribbean films a decade after they were actually cool or funny.

The plot is basically the same as in all the others: Johnny Depp and some blandly attractive young people are chased about by a scenery-chewing bad guy, requiring a convoluted quest to find some plot device or other. The action regularly grinds to a halt so Depp can do his impression of Keith Richards in a comedy sketch. By the end of the film it turns out that all the other characters are related to each other, somehow. Just when you thought it was safe to relax they wheel on Orlando Bloom. Actually piracy is kept to a minimum, as is the Caribbean.

I suppose this would be quite diverting if you hadn't seen any of the other movies in the franchise, but then I imagine you would struggle to follow much of what's going on. There is a sequence with zombie sharks which I suppose is not too badly done. Overall, though, this feels like a shameless attempt to perpetuate this series long after the makers' wells of creativity and enthusiasm have dried up. If there is a sixth film, I imagine it will be entitled 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Just Here for the Cheque'.

Kudos

Finite-Elemente-Methode

Wilfried Gawehn

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Oie Finite-Element-Methode hat sich in den letzten 2 Jahrzehnten zu einem der wichtigsten...

The Day the King Defaulted: Financial Lessons from the Stop of the Exchequer in 1672

Moshe Arye Milevsky

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

This book studies King Charles II's decision to stop all payments from his royal exchequer, a sordid...

Behind Her Eyes

Sarah Pinborough

8.9 (18 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Don't Trust This Book Don't Trust These People Don't Trust Yourself And whatever you do, DON'T give...

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Molly's Game (2017) in Movies

Sep 20, 2020

Objectively horrendous but a ton of fun, pretty much what one of those later MCU entries *should* feel like. A lot of fast-talking verbiage and flashiness which every single one of these stylish, ADHD biopics (which, for the record I enjoy incomparably more than the unbearable, cursory ones that get nominated for Oscars) stole from 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘭𝘧 𝘰𝘧 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 - which I was convinced I'd never get tired of but I confess is actually starting to get pretty rote here. Like okay do we really need to halt the already legendarily messy and borderline unfollowable plotline so you can describe what the sticker on the fucking cheese platter says? It's also one of those movies where the acting is nice but nobody actually plays a real human (for better [Chastain, Cera, Strong, Costner] or worse [poor Elba]). The dialogue is, as you can imagine, unadulterated Sorkin which leads to some very amusing cringe without the filter this time around. I like it, pretty much a collection of rousing scenes that look and play nice but don't fit together too well (at all) on the whole. Best part is easily those iconic Chastain outfits. A much better poker movie than it is a true story movie, and a lot of the banter is stilted - but worth it entirely for the title character calling Michael Cera (playing a power-hungry real life Tobey Maguire) a "green-screened little shit".