Books Editor (673 KP) shared own list
Sep 28, 2017
Rasputin: The Biography
Book
A hundred years after his murder, Rasputin continues to excite the popular imagination as the...
A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby
Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY and THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR...
History
A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in a Skip
Book
Unique, transgressive and as funny as its subject, A Life Discarded has all the suspense of a murder...
The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez
Book
BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. "The Vanishing Man is a riveting detective story and a brilliant...
The Sport of Kings
Book
Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
and 3 other items
Hazel (1853 KP) rated The Orphan Train in Books
Dec 17, 2018
Steve Brigman’s historical novel <i>The Orphan Train</i> takes place in the Missouri Ozarks during the late 19th and early 20th century. Large groups of orphaned children were transported from New York across to the west where other families adopted them. Ten-year-old James was one of these children and this is his story.
Initially the title implied that the story would be about the orphan train itself or at least the life of James as a child however it was his adult life that the book was focused on. The novel opened with the train journey and James meeting his new parents, Clara and Joshua Crawford but this, as well as his remaining childhood on the Crawford ranch was over in a short amount of chapters. By this point both his parents had died in accidents before James had reached the age of twenty. The story goes on to show how James improved and built on the ranch with the help of friend and employee Luke as well as Henry, an older black man who he let live on the ranch with is daughter and grandchildren – something that sparked prejudices in town.
James soon finds himself a wife and the remainder of the book recounts their life together. I admit that I was a little disappointed not to read more about James’ childhood but I began to enjoy reading about the love he had for his wife and his friendships with those living on the ranch.
One issue with this novel is that it lacks much of a climax. I was forever waiting for something bad to happen as it all seemed too good to be true and slightly predictable. That said, it was a good read and it was easy to become attached to the characters.
Nick Friesen (96 KP) rated Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) in Movies
Jul 20, 2017
Sam Claflin recommended Control (2005) in Movies (curated)
Kevin Phillipson (9946 KP) rated Black Adam (2022) in Movies
Oct 27, 2022
Nicky Wire recommended Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy in Music (curated)
Richard Hell recommended Sweet Smell of Success (1957) in Movies (curated)
David McK (3188 KP) rated Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) in Movies
Jul 2, 2023
I had no clue what to expect, and did wonder how the space-faring sheenanigans would fit into the (then) relatively grounded MCU.
Groot stole to show.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2, in 2017?
That belonged to Yondu "he may be your father, kid, but he certainly wasn't your daddy".
Both of those films largely revolved around Chris Pratt's Star-Lord and Zoe Saldana's Gamora.
Volume 3 - again helmed by James Gunn, after a period where he was in Disney's black book due to some old, now deleted, tweets - moves away from that (although it does form one of the sub-plots, following the events of Endgame), instead focusing more on Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon, exploring his (somewhat harrowing) origins as a disposable experiment by the so-called High Evolutionary.
This, IMO, is quite possibly the best Marvel movie since "No Way Home".
Kevin Wilson (179 KP) rated Black Panther (2018) in Movies
Jul 19, 2018
This could just be superhero fatigue. Or maybe it's just marvel fatigue because I'm still interesyed in what DC will offer. This just didn't feel very unique to me. Marvel seems to focus a lot on action, set pieces, CGI than its characters. The villain was boring and underdeveloped. It did have strong female characters, I'll give it that but was very underused. Black panther is well cast.
There were parts of this movie that felt very ironman and other parts that felt very James bond weirldy enough. There were times the CGI was distracting and when they tried to be too funny it didn't work. I'm talking about the car chase scene.
I knew nothing about black panther going in except was was in civil war and I'm not sure where they are going to go with the character.
I know I'm talking negatively but don't get me wrong the action was fun. The fight scenes were well choreographed, I live Martin Freeman in everything and it was interesting to see wakanda with all the technological advances. It's nots a bad movie, it was just overrated and just didn't live up to expectations. They falled flat in many areas.
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Aquaman (2018) in Movies
Feb 24, 2020
Too much GCI, the action was off at many points, the acting for the other cast was terrible/bad. I mean some of the CGI was good, the rest was terrible and Black Mantis was bad. James Wan should just really stick to horror. Cause he is excellent in that.
You can just skip this film overall.