All One Breath
Book
This book was shortlisted for the 2014 T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Collection....
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
8.6
Rate It
Book
Patrick Suskind's Perfume is a classic novel of death and sensuality in Paris 'In eighteenth-century...
The Poison Belt: Being an Account of Another Adventure of Prof. George E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Prof. Summerlee, and Mr. E.D. Malone, the Discoverers of the Lost World
Arthur Conan Doyle and Joshua Glenn
Book
What would you do if you alone had discovered that the entire planet was about to be engulfed in a...
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Book
*** Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize 2014 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 *** 'The...
What Lot's Wife Saw
Ioanna Bourazopoulou and Yiannis Panas
Book
It's been twenty-five years since the Overflow flooded Southern Europe, drowning Rome, Vienna and...
Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism
Book
Out of early twentieth-century Russia came the world's first significant effort to build a modern...
Can the Gods Cry?
Book
With one exception, these short stories were written for this collection, and they tentatively look...
Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated I Am Mother (2019) in Movies
Jul 7, 2020
A robot named "Mother" grows a human embryo and cares for her over several years when after an extinction event, an automated bunker activates to repopulate humanity. Mother teaches a teenage girl named "Daughter" complex moral and ethical lessons advising her that she needs practice being a good parent. Daughter captures a mouse but Mother disposes of it and explains that surface contamination with the outside world makes contact potentially lethal. Their bond is tested when Daughter becomes increasingly curious about the outside world and opens the bunker's airlock to let in a wounded woman begging for help and claims all is not as Mother claims.
This movie was awesome, classic sci-fi but with great acting and special effects. I like how suspenseful it was and how it told such a compelling story. It had me paying attention to every detail and trying to predict how it was going to unravel plot wise and though some parts I could see coming, it threw a couple of curve balls here and there. There wasn't a lot to complain about other than some people saying it revealed too much a little too soon and that it was a slow paced film. I just really like the way it played out, with one of those classic, sci-fi, artificial intelligence concepts. I give this movie a 8/10. And I also give it my "Must See Seal of Approval".
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated The Old Guard (2020) in Movies
Jul 22, 2020
And this one, THE OLD GUARD, is a fun enough and well worth checking out.
Starring Charlize Theron and based on a limited-run comics series from 2017, THE OLD GUARD tells the tale of a group if immortals (beings who cannot die) who bond together to serve the greater good of humanity.
While the plot is rather "by-the-book": young, hip, ego-maniacal mega-industrialist uses nefarious methods to capture the immortals to use for his own (money making) purposes, the star power of Theron holds this piece together in interesting ways.
Make no mistake - this is Theron's film (as the oldest of the immortals) and she is terrific. She demands attention anytime she is on the screen and when she shares the scene with strong actors like Chewitel Ejiofor(12 YEARS A SLAVE) and young Kiki Lane (IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK), it makes for an interesting film, indeed. Unfortunately, the rest of the Immortals (Luca Marinelli, Marwan Kenzari and - especially - Matthias Schoenaerts) are rather bland and the "big bad" (played by Dudley Dursley himself, Harry Melling) and his generic henchmen just aren't interesting enough.
The Direction, by Gina-Prince Bythewood, and the fight choreography is professional, but nothing special, which adds to the "meh" I was feeling whenever Theron was not on the screen.
But there is enough going right in this film that in this day where there is a dearth of new entertainment available, THE OLD GUARD fills the void quite well.
Letter Grade: B
7 Stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)