Finding Mcluhan: The Mind / the Man / the Message
Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, Tracy Whalen and Catherine G. Taylor
Book
"An exciting collection...Its authors make rich, well-researched, and consistent contributions to...
The Sleeping and the Dead
Book
Detective Peter Porteous is called to Cranwell Lake where the body of a teenager has been...
American Assassin (2017)
6.4
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Movie Watch
American Assassin tells the origin story of CIA super agent Mitch Rapp. Long before he was a...
David McK (3369 KP) rated Ambulance (2022) in Movies
Mar 16, 2024
This is, essentially, a 2 (and a bit) hour long chase movie, with cops chasing after a hijacked LA ambulance with 2 of the robbers on board - alongside a paramedic being held hostage and a shot cop bleeding out in the back - after a failed bank robbery.
It's all very American (and sun drenched) - the amount of collateral damage and shooting going on would never happen anywhere else in the world (yes, I know it's a movie) - with Jake Gyllenhall in particular putting in a pretty unhinged performance as one of the two robbers.
One of those 'watch and forget' style action movies.
Gilmore Girls - Season 1
8.2
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TV Season
The first season of Gilmore Girls introduces Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her...
Michael Kenna: Rouge
Book
More than twenty years after its initial publication, Michael Kenna's seminal collection of...
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Halloween II (1981) in Movies
Mar 5, 2021
For instance, I can admire the style that director Rick Rosenthal was going for, attempting to make his sequel feel as much like the first film as possible, the idea being that you could watch both back to back.
There a few creepy shots here and there. One that really sticks is the shot of Michael in the darkness just before the poor nurse get killed with a syringe. Another is Michael on the CCTV when he first enters the hospital. Another is when Laurie see Michael across the parking lot underneath a red light. and then there's Michael with blood running out of the eye holes in his mask, followed by him walking out of that one room completely ablaze. It's all to do with Michael then! Once again, this movie showcases how his straightforward design is striking and rightly iconic.
It's nice to see Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie, and Donald Pleasance back as Loomis. All in all, it does truly feel like a sequel, but there's something missing.
The original is one of my favourite horrors ever made, and Halloween II, despite its positives, just fails to capture the same essence. This is partly to do with the script. It feels like a lot of the actors were just told to ad lib all their lines or something. The tension building scenes go on for a little too long also, ironically voiding a few scenes of said tension. It's feels like the first film in everything but execution pretty much.
It's a heavily flawed sequel, but it's still a decent watch, and is certainly one of the better sequels in this long running series. It deserves credit for the bit near the beginning where Loomis shouts "you don't know what death is!" before the synth heavy version of the theme tune kicks in, that was badass.
Largely, however, I've found hose to be pretty forgettable: I know I saw 'Sphere' (the movie) before I first read the book, but (truth be told) I didn't really remember all that much about either.
With that in mind, and with Goodreads at-long-last implementation of the re-read feature (yay!), I decided to re-read the novel recently.
And, unfortunately, I still found it pretty forgettable.
Don't get me wrong: it's a pretty adequate sci-fi thriller (in this case about a mysterious Sphere found at the bottom of the Pacific inside a spacecraft that has lain there for hundreds of years), but it lacked - for me - the connection with the characters (none of whom I found to be all that likeable, or even interesting), the thrill-factor (if you will), or even the implied awe and majesty of the Dinosaurs in [b:Jurassic Park|6424171|Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1)|Michael Crichton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1344371661s/6424171.jpg|3376836].
In short: it's OK, but not Crichton's best.