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Crucible (Sigma Force #14)
Crucible (Sigma Force #14)
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Entry #14 in James Rollins now long-running Sigma Force series; again a mixture of science and fiction: think Dan Brown, maybe, or even Michael Crichton.

This time around, the threat that Sigma force (and, perforce, the world) faces is one of our own making: that of Artificial Intelligence (or AI), and - more specifically - that of an 'evil' (one with no moral qualms or compunctions) AI let loose. So, think Terminator's Skynet, basically.

If you've read any of the previous entries in the series, you know pretty much what to expect ...
  
Back to the Future (1985)
Back to the Future (1985)
1985 | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi

"This one. A nostalgia that will never go away. I went back and forth between this, and BIG with Tom Hanks but I ultimately chose this film for sheer entertainment, and for how outlandish the story is, and just how much fun the whole thing is. I saw it recently again, and it just doesn’t date. Michael J Fox, who I loved already from Family Ties, was the coolest thing on two heels for me. I just wanted to be him. The DeLorean. Doc Brown. Time Travel. A bit of young love. All these things played out with such light. A true classic."

Source
  
The Elephant to Hollywood
The Elephant to Hollywood
Michael Caine | 2010 | Biography
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
A great insight (2 more)
wonderful recollections
humorous anecdotes and stories
This is Michael Caine laid bare
I have always been a fan of Michael Caine and I have seen most of his movies from Zulu to Harry Brown and a lot more. Its fascinating to read about his life and the way he spent the first ten or so years of his adult life looking for that big break in acting. Its hard to think that he was actually over 30 when he got that big break. From his upbringing right upto the present day (2010) he gives a frank and revealing insight into the life of an actor, both in front of the camera and away from it. What i also like is there is none of the 'oh look at me and see how much i earn' about this book. In parts it even contains guidance and information if you are trying to make it in the film and TV world. A great read and i did find it hard to put down.
  
Jackie Brown (1997)
Jackie Brown (1997)
1997 | Action, Drama, Mystery
A little forgotten...
It's hard to say a Tarantino film is forgotten; however, not nearly as many people still talk about Jackie Brown as most of his other work which is a shame since it still holds up as another brilliant character study of a caper gone wrong and lots of double-crossing.

Robert De Niro is funny in the film mostly because he doesn't say or do much and is pretty subdued most of the time. The standouts are Pam Grier and Robert Forster with other nods to Michael Keaton, Bridget Fonda and her feet and the always amazing Samuel L. Jackson.

If you haven't seen in a while or have never seen, please give it another look.

  
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Katie (868 KP) Aug 8, 2018

This might be my favorite Tarantino film. Pam Grier is amazing.

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Andy K (10821 KP) Aug 8, 2018

Agreed. It just seems to have gotten overshadowed by his other work.

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Adam Pally recommended Out of Sight (1998) in Movies (curated)

 
Out of Sight (1998)
Out of Sight (1998)
1998 | Action, Comedy, Drama

"That movie is the coolest Elmore Leonard adaptation that there is. It made me read a book. I went and read Get Shorty after I saw that. That never happens. Soderbergh to me in that movie is at his … I mean, because everything he does is … He may be my most favorite filmmaker, but he’s at his most commercial and Soderberghian. He had just shot The Limey, and he got that out of his system, and he was dabbling; there was that weird Jackie Brown connection. It was just awesome. It’s just so good. He’s got my favorite line in any movie, when Dennis Farina leans over to Michael Keaton, who’s wearing a tee shirt that says, “FBI” on it, and he goes, “You got one of those that says ‘undercover?'” He’s on in Out Of Sight. He should have won a million Oscars."

Source
  
Starship Troopers (1997)
Starship Troopers (1997)
1997 | Action, Sci-Fi
Do you know what? Starship Troopers is a 5 star film and there's nothing anyone can say to convince me otherwise.
It's 90s sci-fi at its absolute best.

It has a great cast - Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, Dina Meyer, Neil Patrick-Harris, Jake Busey - none of them feel replaceable.
It has special effects that genuinely still.homd up over 20 years later, and also a fuck tonne of genuinely horrific practical effects - some of the violence in Starship Troopers is next level, in true Paul Verhoeven style.
It has a corny yet airtight script, it's suitably cheesy when it wants to be, and wonderfully satirical throughout.
It's also got a top tier score courtesy of Basil Poledouris.

I saw this film when I was in my early teens, a few years after it released and it has always stuck with me since. Starship Troopers is perfection, fight me.
  
Paddington (2015)
Paddington (2015)
2015 | Comedy, Family
The timeless storybook written by Michael Bond about a loveable, well-mannered immigrant Bear who tries to adapt to the human world.

The movie opens up with an English Explorer, Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie), who ventures to the darkest Peru and encounters Paddington’s Aunt Lucy(voiced by Imelda Stauton) and Uncle Pastuzo(voiced by Michael Gambon). Instead of shooting them to take back to the Geographers’ Guild to be stuffed, he teaches them to speak English and introduces them to marmalade. He ends his adventure by telling the two bears he would always give them a home in London. Fast forward 40 years, Lucy and Pastuzo are now raising their very energetic nephew (voiced by Ben Wishaw) and teach him everything they know about London and how to make marmalade. Sadly, tragedy strikes after a devastating earthquake destroys their home. This forces Aunt Lucy to allow the young bear to stowaway on a ship bound for London to find Montgomery Clyde, the explorer, while she takes residence at a facility for retired bears.

The little bear is discovered by the Brown family while wandering Paddington Station. After reading the tag that says, “Please look after this bear,” the Browns take him home and give him the name Paddington. They also agreed to help him find the explorer that once befriended his aunt and uncle. Confused by his new unfamiliar surroundings, Paddington becomes an accident prone guest who inadvertently creates chaos and devastation where ever he goes.

Writer/Director Paul King has made an ingeniously witty, funny film that will appeal to moviegoers of all ages. A sweet and playful take on the beloved 1950s children’s book. For the most part, it does follow the storyline of the book. With the exception of the character Millicent, played by Nicole Kidman, who is a museum taxidermist. She wants nothing more than to make Paddington the newest member of the museum’s collection of stuffed exotic animals.

You can’t help but fall in love with Paddington, and it’s just as easy to love the Brown family. This is a delightfully charming film with the perfect amount of quirkiness. A story of a lost child trying to find friends and a place to belong. A wonderful movie that will melt your heart!
  
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Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Black Panther (2018) in Movies

Mar 5, 2018 (Updated Mar 5, 2018)  
Black Panther (2018)
Black Panther (2018)
2018 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Cool For Cats
Marvel's latest hotly anticipated superhero epic Black Panther, has arrived. Chadwick Boseman stars as the titular hero and gives a subdued, collected performance, which I didn't expect. The first time that we saw this character was in Civil War and while I understand he was on a revenge quest in that movie, he conveyed an sense of energy that is isn't present in Black Panther. I don't think that this was Chadwick Boseman's decision, but is instead based on what Ryan Coogler's vision of who Black Panther should be.

There are a lot of stand out performances in the film though Michael B Jordan, who is a Coogler movie staple at this point, brings us the best Marvel villain so far, or at the very least, the most believable motivation for doing villainous things that we have seen so far in the MCU. The rest of the cast bring their A game too, including Danai Guira, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Daniel Kaluuya, Forest Whittaker, Martin Freeman and Sterling K Brown.

The costume design and sets where fantastic to look at, but some of the character CGI looked a but too bouncy and unrealistic. I also felt like the movie dragged a bit in the second act. While the soundtrack started off great and added to the excitement of certain scenes in the movie's first act, by around halfway through the movie, I was sick of hearing African drums and chanting.

Overall though, this is a pretty great entry into the MCU and although it isn't Marvel's best ever, it is also definitely not their worst.
  
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Natasha Khan recommended Bad by Michael Jackson in Music (curated)

 
Bad by Michael Jackson
Bad by Michael Jackson
1987 | Pop
8.9 (7 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"My first gig I ever went to, when I was nine, was at Wembley Stadium to see the Bad tour. When he died, I was in my bedroom in Brighton and I heard it on the radio and I just spontaneously absolutely burst into tears. Michael Jackson, when I was little, was just this God-like being. You know when you're little and you're singing in the car with your mum and your brother and the sister, the world is so good, there's nothing more fun and nothing better. I don't think I've ever listened to someone singing something with that much joy, he was channelling something so fucking out there and it's like he constantly had a bolt of creativity running through his body, like the way he danced and the way he moved. A consummate dancer, referencing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and James Brown and all these people that he channelled but made completely and uniquely his own. I saw a Spike Lee documentary the other night about Bad. Someone else wrote 'Man In The Mirror' but he took and did all of his - [mimics Michael Jackson] "I'm gonna make a change" - and all of that shit. It's just like, who else would do that? Who else would wear plasters all around their jacket? Who wears white socks with loafers and manages to make it look cool? Nobody was telling him to do that. He's just this fucking eccentric one-off. When he died, I thought the climate of music will never be like that again. It was like he was a child and his brain was a playground and anything he could think of, he bloody manifested that in the world; not many people can do that. The arc of music that he lived through, his education and his training all the way through, coincided with all these revolutions in music, music videos and dance. I just think that that was a one-off thing. I'm getting philosophical now [laughs], but I was watching Brian Cox the other day and his astro-physics thing and he put 50 stones all in a row on a desert floor and he was like "each of these stones represents billions of years in the history of the universe and where it's going to go." Then he went "here's one stone" and he showed about a millimetre of that stone: "in this bit, this is where the conditions were perfectly right for mankind to exist, this is this time, we're here now". When you think about culture and popular music from the 50s through 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, it does feel like there has been a bit of a cycle, and I've been lucky that I came in at the end of that cycle. People that were born in the 50s had it amazing, because they got to see fucking David Bowie and punk music, but Michael Jackson was a guy that happened in our lifetime. I get really passionate about music, but music, for some people, it's like a religion and he was like a fucking icon."

Source
  
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
2019 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Hail To The King Baby
Godzilla: King of The Monsters is a 2019 monster movie directed by Michael Dougherty and written by Dougherty, Zach Shields, and Max Borenstein. It was produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was dedicated to the original Godzilla suit performer Haruo Nakajima and executive producer Yoshimitsu Banno. The movie stars Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe and Zhang Ziyi.


Working to track down and study Titans (giant-God like monsters) for the organization Monarch, Paleobiologist Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) and her daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) witness the birth of a giant larva monster named Mothra. The monster is hostile until Emma uses a device called "Orca", which only Titans can hear, to calm it down until eco-terrorists attack, led by Alan Jonah (Charles Dance) and kidnap both her and her daughter. Monarch scientists and soldiers approach Mark (Kyle Chandler), Emma's ex-husband, to track them down and soon they are headed towards Antarctica, where Jonah intends to free a Titan encased in ice called "Monster Zero".


This movie had classic Godzilla flick written all over it and it did not disappoint. The visual effects were awesome, from the way the monsters looked, to the blasts they utilized and even things like explosions were all top notch. The music was also outstanding, as many classic Godzilla themes made a comeback including Mothra's theme. The action sequences far exceeded those of it's predecessor Godzilla 2014, There was plenty of monster battles to make this a fan favorite for years to come. Now I do have to agree with some of the critics and say that the storyline was a little thin and predictable but that didn't stop the film from being enjoyable. And some critics complained about underdeveloped human characters, but in all honesty, the human characters are not why the fans are going to see this movie. I thought the main cast of characters had enough development, it's just that compared to a normal Godzilla film or even the last one, there were a lot of secondary characters or supporting cast. Which to me personally, made the film feel more full. This movie checked a lot of my boxes for what I've come to expect in a Godzilla/giant monster movie and made me happy when I watched it in theaters. It had its down time in certain parts and slow building scenes or moments where it seemed the audience in consensus chose to use that time to run to the restroom and back. But other than that and some predictable plot points and character actions this movie was great.