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Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky
Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Growing up I didn't have an older brother, so all my music was formed by my mother and father. The latter would play old Irish folk songs and outlaw music by Johnny Cash and the only thing my mother would play was heavy melancholy orchestral movements like Night On Bald Mountain. What my mother would make me do is sit on the floor and tell my father to tell a story while putting on this record. This was big for me. I was probably four years old at the time. It sounded eerie, spooky and epic. My dad would make up these ghost stories but what he was really doing was recreating these children's story soundtracks that I'd listened to! I was too young to understand what he was doing at the time, but he was just making his personalised version of The Little Prince or Tales of Witches, Ghosts And Goblins. So he'd be like [eerie voice]: ""The ghosts would move up the Catskill Mountains..."" and I'd just sit there freezing in fear of these ghost stories! It was like having a musical campfire in your living room. Also, this song featured on the film Fantasia, which was my whole life up until the age of ten. It stuck with me and it was embedded in there now you're mixing visuals. I wasn't into the Mickey Mouse aspect of it, but when you watch the eerie castle and spooky ghosts, this is just feeding a young boy's imagination and this is the world he's going to confront when he grows up. These were all the ingredients going into my soup."

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ClareR (5885 KP) rated The Night Ship in Books

Dec 12, 2022  
The Night Ship
The Night Ship
Jess Kidd | 2022 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Night Ship is a wonderful story told from two different perspectives: Mayken is travelling to the Dutch East Indies on board the Batavia in 1629; in 1989, Gil is sent to live with his grandfather after he death of his mother. Gil finds out about the shipwreck of the Batavia when he meets some archaeologists, and becomes really interested in what happened.

The story switches between the two children, and I couldn’t wait to read about each perspective. Mayken is a happy, curious child, who is desperate to explore the world below decks - which due to her status, she isn’t supposed to do. So she enlists the help of a cabin boy and disguises herself. Mayken searches for a monster below decks, the Bullebak, as things start to go wrong on the ship. But it soon becomes apparent that the threat doesn’t come from a monster.

Gil doesn’t want to live with his uncommunicative, distant grandfather. He doesn’t want to fish with him either. And her certainly doesn’t want to talk about what happened with his mother. He finds solace in his friendships with an ancient tortoise called Enkidu, and Silvia Zanetti, the wife and mother of his grandfathers enemies, Frank and Roper (the latter sounds like he should be locked up, to be honest).

I absolutely loved this book. Mayken and Gil are both such tragic characters who only need someone to care for them. It’s a magical story, made more so by the imaginations of the two children. It’s a shame that the real world has to encroach on them.

Highly recommended.
  
Bad Moms (2016)
Bad Moms (2016)
2016 | Comedy
Usual chaotic comedy
As with a lot of these American comedies, it's brash, over the top and totally in your face, with a dollop of moral ethics. A mother, stretched to the limits, decides to let go of being perfect and do what she would rather do. She is judged as a result by other mothers, insecure with their own issues of attempting to reach perfection. It's a little silly, and I switched off engaging after a while.

The usual Hollywood C-rate comedy.
  
Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife
Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife
2018 | Comedy
7
6.4 (9 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Ali Wong is not for everyone. I admit that not all of her jokes landed for me. A large portion of her jokes involve her first year of being a mother and as I am a man with no children I can't entirely relate. No e the less, there were about 5 times when I laughed hard and quite a few chuckles throughout. I did enjoy it. I just wish I had been able to enjoy all of the material (admittedly more my issue than herself).
  
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Michelle (114 KP) rated Room in Books

May 22, 2018  
Room
Room
Emma Donoghue | 2011 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.6 (24 Ratings)
Book Rating
I was very impressed with this book when I read it the first time round and again when we did it with the book group. I think it is based on a true story about a boy and his mother being trapped in one room in a bunker with no means of escape or so they think at the time. with a lot of cunning and effort they eventually manage to escape the room and return to a normal lifestyle or as normal as possible.
  
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Ross (3284 KP) rated Snatched (2017) in Movies

Mar 12, 2018  
Snatched (2017)
Snatched (2017)
2017 | Comedy
The unpleasantness lasted under 90 minutes (0 more)
A film like this has to focus on the comedy and let the story unfold naturally. Here there just was not enough comedy to save it, meaning you focus on the story and realise how badly executed the mother/daughter, sister/brother relationships are.
The interaction between Amy Schumer's brother and the State Department agent he keeps phoning was mildly amusing but there was nothing in Amy Schumer's scenes worth a smile and her character was irritating and useless.