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Overlord (2018)
Overlord (2018)
2018 | Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Good gory fictional historical events that could have been shorter.
Been looking forward to this one for a while. While I enjoyed the film overall. the story took too long to develop in some spots. Characters felt a little hollow and depended on the World War II setting to get the viewer to understand them. That being said, once the story hit its mark, the action was fast and furious. Some truly amazing visual effects. Not for the weak stomached in the least. A good, gory fictional take on historical events that could have been helped with shorter run time.
  
BA
Broken Aro (The Broken Ones, #1)
Jen Wylie | 2012
1
5.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
DNF @ 32%

I struggled with this from the start. I guess i thought it would be a modern sort of kindnap-and-survive-with-a-little-help-from-your-friends, not some sort of old-fashioned fantasy. The Fae are not my favourite thing to read about--unless you're Trent Kalamack and co :D.

Add in the fact that it wasn't a smooth style but was rather stilted and very awkward reading. It was taking too long to get interesting and i just didn't even really care anymore by the 32% mark.

Not for me at all.
  
A Different Blue
A Different Blue
Amy Harmon | 2013
4
5.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
DNF @ 65%

I expected this to be a traditional romance--girl who doesn't know her past/has bad upbringing finds love with someone who makes her realise her true potential--and it might have turned out like that in the end...but it was taking so long to get there.

It seemed more about a girl growing up and wanting to find her past than a romance and i got bored. I read for the romance in books and this was very sorely lacking up to the 65% mark.

The pregnancy so early on threw a spanner in the works for me and i struggled from there.
  
Immortal in Death (In Death, #3)
Immortal in Death (In Death, #3)
J.D. Robb | 2003
6
7.5 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
I read the first two books in this series quite a while ago now and the only thing I remember is Eve and Roarke's relationship progressing quite quickly.

This has taken me a long time to finish and I think that's due to its length. I'm not the biggest fan of long books and the fact the writing in the kindle app for PC is so tiny tells me it's a long one. I've been reading it in spurts between other books but as the investigation into Pandora's death got going I decided to just concentrate on this one and finally get it finished.

So Pandora is a successful model, loved the world over for her style and flair but also loathed for being vicious and cruel. When she's murdered and the prime suspect is Mavis, Eve's long time friend, Eve is determined to help solve the mystery and get her friend off the charge of murder and find the real killer.

I loved the twists and turns in this. I, like Eve, thought that they'd found the killers at about the 66% mark but then like how did they go about proving it? And then it turns out it wasn't those people?! I was like, WHAT?!

Of course, this one also contains Eve and Roarke's wedding and the stuff that leads up to it, including dress shopping, hen and stag nights and picking flowers. Admittedly, we don't get the wedding in this as such, just Eve getting dressed and walking out to make her promise to Roarke.

Although I didn't enjoy this as much as previous books, I think that was down to me not being in the mood for a mystery/crime/romantic suspense book as well as it's long length. Nevertheless I will be reading more books in the series at a later date.
  
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Colin Newman recommended Frequencies by Lfo in Music (curated)

 
Frequencies by Lfo
Frequencies by Lfo
1991 | Techno
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"This is such an important record. It spawned a whole scene of music. You talk to any electronic musicians from the 90s onwards, and they'll say that. And they were just two boys from Leeds. I haven't seen him for a long while, but we worked with Gez, G-Man, we released his records in the 90s and I know what kind of guy he is. But I'd also spoken to Mark Bell, and Mark was very different. When I talk to Gez, I just talk to someone who's made a record, and he's just talking about his music. Mark was very clever and he was obviously the thinker of the two of them. But that combination of the two of them, those two guys: the title track with that bass, and 'Simon From Sydney', again it's a record that we've listened to a billion times. Gez used to say that they were part of a breakdancing crew, they were just mates, and they were so young when that record came out. I think they were 19, and they had a song in the top 20 and somebody on Radio 1 said their music was awful or something like that. They had everything happening at once at a very young age. I'm sure it affected them. But LFO were lads, you know. It wasn't high concept. It was dancefloor. That was what they were trying to do: to move people's butts and shake the bottom end."

Source
  
Warcraft (2016)
Warcraft (2016)
2016 | Action, Fantasy
The Visual effects and CGI used to create the Orcs was asthetically pleasing (3 more)
Some of the acting deserves some merit and aknowledgement
The story was a solid one. A story that was easy to follow and had a linear structure
A few unexpected twists created a more exciting film and kept the film on a stable track
As good as the CGI was, there were moments and characters that let it down (2 more)
The overall film felt a little too long and could have ended at a number of earlier stages in the story
As a whole, the acting of a few actors took away from the good acting of others
Another Video Game Adaptation that just misses the mark.
  
Show all 3 comments.
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Samuel Byrne (31 KP) Apr 23, 2017

I did enjoy it Richard, and yes some aspects of the VEX were really amazing, just I felt let down by certain aspects of the effects. Overall, not a bad film, it just messed up a few parts.

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Bird (1700 KP) Apr 26, 2017

@Richard Griffiths Rating Richard? :)

Swimming Lessons
Swimming Lessons
Claire Fuller | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
6
6.8 (9 Ratings)
Book Rating
Great series of letters let down by monotony
Claire Fuller's writing is poetic and haunting in this novel especially as we read a series of letters left by a wife who has been missing for 12 years.

The story surrounds Ingrid, and her horribly destructive relationship with her writer husband Gil. Her youngest daughter Flora has to come to terms with these revelations, after idolising her father for so long.

My only concern is while the back and forth narrative between Ingrid's letter and the present day is well laid out, the story itself becomes lacklustre and the epilogue is a little misleading leaving a question mark over her death. Good writing but plot could be more rich.
  
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Andy Bell recommended Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth in Music (curated)

 
Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth
Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth
1988 | Experimental
8.8 (9 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"That came out in 1988 when Ride was starting to happen. Mark and I had gone to art school, we’d met Steve, met Loz and - as a band - we got into a lot of American stuff like Dinosaur Jr., Screaming Trees and Sonic Youth. “Sonic Youth were on a real run of great albums there with EVOL and Sister but Daydream Nation was their peak and their sort of White Album for me. It changed my life and my playing with the open tunings, theguitar abuse with screwdrivers and slides, the long jams, the headspace and just the whole sprawl of it. It was like the Pete Townshend thing but taken a few steps further.”"

Source
  
Contraband (2012)
Contraband (2012)
2012 | Action, Mystery
7
6.7 (7 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Family Matters
Contraband- is a decent action heist thriller. It has a good cast. Its a intresting movie.

The plot: Ex-smuggler Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) gave up his criminal ways long ago. But, he's forced back into the game after his brother-in-law, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), botches a drug deal for a crime lord (Giovanni Ribisi), leaving Chris to settle the debt. With the help of his best friend (Ben Foster), Chris assembles a team to run to Panama to retrieve a fortune in counterfeit bills. When things go awry, Chris must call on his rusty skills to complete the task before his family pays the price.

Like i said before is good.
  
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LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Battle at Big Rock (2019) in Movies

Sep 16, 2019 (Updated Feb 22, 2020)  
Battle at Big Rock (2019)
Battle at Big Rock (2019)
2019 | Action, Adventure
Short films are always hard to properly rate, especially as Battle at Big Rock is less than 9 minutes long!
But what we get here is a quick blast of dinosaur action that takes place soon after Fallen Kingdom, and revolves around a family on a camping trip, where they get stuck in the middle of two different dinosaur species fighting.

The short has a couple of cool shots as the chaos unfolds, and is a nice little appetiser for the upcoming third film in the Jurassic World trilogy, and it directly deals with the issue of dinosaurs living amongst us.

I would have given this a 6, but the awesome end credits sequence brings it up a mark.