Game Of Thrones - Season 4
TV Season Watch
Summers span decades. Winters can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne continues. ...
Game Of Thrones - Season 3
TV Season Watch
Summers span decades. Winters can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne continues. ...
Parks and Recreation - Season 5
TV Season
The fifth season of Parks and Recreation originally aired in the United States on the NBC television...
Autobiography of Mark Twain: The Complete and Authoritative Edition: Volume II
Mark Twain, Benjamin Griffin, Harriet E. Smith and Victor Fischer
Book
Mark Twain's complete, uncensored Autobiography was an instant bestseller when the first volume was...
The Navy Lark
Full Cast, Jon Pertwee, Lawrie Wyman and Leslie Phillips
Book
All thirteen episodes from Series 14 of the classic BBC radio nautical comedy - plus a bonus show,...
Orphan (2009)
Movie Watch
The tragic loss of their unborn child has devastated Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard),...
Daylight (1996)
Movie Watch
Brace yourself for nonstop action and suspense! Sylvester Stallone races against time to lead a...
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2103 KP) rated Gingerbread Cookies and Gunshots in Books
Jan 4, 2024
Even though I don’t normally read this series, I didn't have any trouble jumping into the characters here. There was enough explanation of who people were that I could follow along. The bits about those I assume are series regulars didn't mean quite as much to me, but I enjoyed meeting everyone. This is on the serious side of the cozy spectrum, and the atmosphere was carried perfectly throughout the story. Lucy did seem to jump to one conclusion, but since she was proved right with evidence later on, I can't call it a major flaw. There are two recipes at the end of this story to enjoy later. This is probably my favorite of the stories I’ve read from Leslie Meier.
NOTE: This is a novella, roughly 100 pages along.
NOTE 2: This was originally published in the anthology Gingerbread Cookie Murder.
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated The Great Race (1965) in Movies
Jul 6, 2018
Reteaming Tony Curtis (as the brave, virtuous and good "The Great Leslie") and Jack Lemmon (as the sinister, dastardly and evil "Professor Fate"), The Great Race is great fun watching these two cartoon characters spar and parry with each other throughout the course of this 2 hour and 40 minute farce.
Lemmon, in particular, relishes in dual roles as the menacing Fate, always dressed in black, twirling his mustache and coming up with scheme after scheme to derail Leslie (think the Coyote in the RoadRunner cartoons). His overacting and hammyness in the character is perfect for the tone that this film has set. And his maniacal laugh is one to remember - unless you are remembering the childlike guffaws of the other character Lemmon portrays, the doppelganger of Fate, Crown Prince Frederick. Both these characters are fun to watch and Fate, especially, plays well against his bumbling assistant and foil, "Max", played in utter buffoonishness by the great Peter Falk.
Joining Curtis for the "good guys" is Natalie Wood as Suffragette and Newspaper
Reporter Maggie DuBois (obviously tailored after real life Suffragette and Newspaper Reporter Nellie Bly). It is said that Curtis and Wood did not get along on set (they had worked together in 2 other films and grew to dislike each other), but their on-screen chemistry cannot be ignored and they are fun together. As is the great Keenan Wynn as Leslie's mechanic and friend Hezekiah Sturdy.
But it is not the characters that makes this film go it is the set pieces and frenetic pacing that Director Edwards put before us. From thrilling chase scenes to a Western barroom brawl, to a trip through a blizzard with a polar bear to the "largest pie fight ever put on screen", this film delivers the goods in a wholesome, 1960's way that makes me truly say...
"They don't make 'em like this anymore".
8 out 10 stars and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)
Train to Nowhere: One Woman's Adventures in WWII
Book
Train to Nowhere is a war memoir seen through the sardonic eyes of Anita Leslie, a funny and...