Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post
Dec 5, 2020 (Updated Dec 5, 2020)
Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post
Aug 1, 2020
Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)
Book
In Act Your Age, Eve Brown the flightiest Brown sister crashes into the life of an uptight B&B owner...
Brave New World: Inside Pochettino's Spurs
Book
The exclusive behind-the-scenes story of the Mauricio Pochettino revolution at Spurs, told in his...
sports
Trail Running Magazine: run off the beaten track
Magazines & Newspapers and Health & Fitness
App
Trail Running is the UK's first and best magazine devoted completely to the exciting, adventurous...
Her World Việt Nam
Lifestyle and Magazines & Newspapers
App
Her World là tạp chí phụ nữ bán chạy nhất của Singapore. Đến nay Her World đã...
ClareR (5849 KP) rated One Ordinary Day at a Time in Books
Aug 21, 2023
Jodie has been in numerous foster placements as a child and a disastrous adult relationship. The only good things to have come out of it are her son Zak, and her drive to succeed and get into Cambridge University. But Jodie is living in one room with Zak and working at Prince Burger whilst she finishes her college course - and life is hard.
She meets Simon Sparks at Prince Burger and once she finds out that he has been to Cambridge, she’s determined to convince him to tutor her for her entrance interview. But Simon has a lot of secrets and has endured hardships and abuse of his own.
The narrators on the audiobook really brought this to life for me. Jodie’s narrator (Ayesha Kala) was spot on, but I did struggle a little with Simon’s narrator (Victor Oshin), and found that I had to speed the narration up more on his chapters. I do realise that he was probably trying to show how disconnected from real life Simon was, but it did annoy me 🤷🏼♀️. I liked that the narrative swapped between Jodie and Simon, so I often saw the same things from both of their viewpoints.
This is a really heartwarming story of overcoming adversity and working hard to get what you want out of life. A story of what being a good friend is all about.
Emanuela Orlandi and Ettore Majorana: Two Italian Mysteries Resolved?
Book
Discover the captivating true stories of Emanuela Orlandi and Ettore Majorana in this compelling...
Ten Junk Miles
1.0
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Podcast
A lighthearted conversation by trail, road, and ultra runners about their lives as runners and the...
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Irresistible (2020) in Movies
Jun 23, 2020
Steve Carell stars as Gary Zimmer; a senior advisor to the Clinton’s who is still smarting over the recent election particularly his insistence that the “Rust Belt” was firmly in their hands and therefore opted not to devote a significant amount of time campaigning there which in turn was a key reason for their defeat.
An online video from a small farming community in Wisconsin catches Gary’s eye as it shows a former Marine farmer named Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) challenging the local mayor at a town hall over immigration related issues and other hot topics.
Convinced that he can bring Jack over to the Democratic Party and use him as a starting point to restore the party in Wisconsin; Gary heads to the small town to make his pitch.
He quickly finds himself out of his element as the small-town community with friendly townsfolk to watch out for one another is very different than what he is used to. Gary eventually convinces Jack to run for Mayor and his involvement soon attracts the big money from the opposing side that seem to be rattled by what appears to be an insignificant small-town campaign.
Gary soon realizes that his nemesis Faith (Rose Byrne) who is his opposite for the Republican Party.
Gary and Faith have a clear history with one another and there is clearly plenty of animosity between them as each one is determined to succeed and broke their success in the face of the other.
As the campaign unfolds viewers are given a very direct look at how the political machine works from polling, demographics, special interests, fund raising, campaigning, muckraking, and using the media.
While this is often presented in a humorous way; Stewart uses a lot of simple but direct approaches to the various topics as he did on The Daily Show as a basis for further discussion.
The film takes some unexpected twists as it unfolds and the conclusion helps underscore that all parties involved often have an angle that they’re trying to work. One of the biggest messages that I took from the film was that the amount of money poured into campaigns has become more about one side beating the other rather than addressing the issues and putting the best possible people forward to represent the population.
Stewart handles the very complicated topics of the film through humor but above all used generally likable characters on all sides. Nobody was truly evil and you could clearly see much of their motivations.
The closing credits contains an interview with a political expert who discusses Superpacs and their lack of oversight and how people with ulterior motives can generate large amounts of money by manipulating the system completely within the law.
From a strong cast and entertaining story. Stewart has crafted a very solid and enjoyable film that will make you think.