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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
2019 | Crime, Drama, Thriller
What the hell was that?
I've never watched a full Tarantino movie. They're long. They drag on. I get bored. I've heard that they're ultraviolent, which usually isn't my thing but since I'm interested in true crime and this movie is based in LA at the time of the Manson murders, when I had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon and it was on the station the tv was tuned to when I turned it on, I decided to give it a go. I missed most of the Leo parts. I think he was throwing a fit in the trailer when I flipped it on. Either that or Brad Pitt was driving down the strip and picked up a cute girl and drove her to her friend's place (you know where it was.) So, okay. Very long scenes with not much dialogue happening. Lots of establishment of mood and atmosphere. I'm pretty sure I lost three hours while Pitt walked around her friend's place. Eventually, and I dunno when, I got confused, we come to the night of the event, and I was expecting a fact-based, but a gruesome retelling of the Manson murders. Is that what I got? Hell no! What did I get? I don't have any idea. It certainly wasn't that. Seriously, it was so stupid. It was laughable if it wasn't so embarrassingly stupid. Unrealistic and stupid. Obnoxiously stupid. Why did I waste my time watching the part of this movie I watched? Those are hours I will never get back.

This kind of cinema is lost of me, guys. I'm glad you enjoy it. But I'll never watch anything like it again. It's okay, though. I'm sure Tarantino will be just fine without my money. He seems to be doing all right for himself.
  
Dead as a Duck (Washington Whodunit #7)
Dead as a Duck (Washington Whodunit #7)
Colleen J. Shogan | 2021 | Mystery
8
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Kit Marshall seems to have a knack for finding dead bodies and solving their murders.
Kit Marshall seems to have a knack for finding dead bodies and solving their murders. She came into Duck, South Carolina as part of a town hall meeting for her boss, a congresswoman who is considering a run for the senate. She fully intends to take a few much needed days with friends and family in this popular destination beach town. When the town hall gets out of hand, exposing a rift between the town mayor and his constituents and then the mayor shows up dead, her vacation is going to have to wait.

I figured out whodunnit fairly easily, though of course, I didn’t know why. By the time Kit worked her way around to it, I had forgotten that I suspected that person, and I had just gotten caught up in the story. Kit is a great protagonist with a clever inner circle. If more Washington insiders were like her and her boss, the country would be in great hands.

There are plenty of twists and subplots throughout that keep the story fresh and mystery front and center. I love when I can get lost in the minutia of small town living and let the puzzle take a back seat to a really good tale.

Though this the latest in a robust series, it is the first of it that I have read. It read well as a stand alone and managed to convince me I wanted, rather than needed, to read the series from the beginning. I am looking forward to that.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
I received an advance review copy for free through Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours, and I am leaving this review voluntarily
  
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Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post

Feb 24, 2023  
You have to check out the awesome cover for the police procedural mystery novel BRUTAL SEASON by Maryann Miller! Visit my blog for a looksee, and enter the amazing giveaway for a chance to win signed copies of all three books in the Seasons Mystery Series and a $50 Amazon gift card.

https://alltheupsandowns.blogspot.com/2023/02/cover-reveal-pre-order-book-blitz-and_01323321514.html

**ABOUT THE BOOK**
Eighteen-year-old Jamel Frederickson is shot and killed by a white, rookie Dallas police officer. His crime? Being black and mentally ill.

Following that unwarranted death, anger, and violence erupts on the streets, leading to the murders of two protestors who were marching around the downtown federal building.

Detectives Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson are thrust into the investigation of those murders, while desperately clinging to the threads of their partnership.

The shootings also raise questions about whether the alt-right white supremacists that invaded the city with their guns and inflammatory rhetoric are responsible.

Will more people get killed?

Is there more than one person out there with an agenda?

When a member of the team, Ryan O’Donnell, is shot while attempting to prevent looting, the tension in the city, and the department, ratchets up even higher. And it deeply affects Angel who’s been pretending she really isn’t falling for this white man.

Angel joins the protests to take a stand against racism in the city and within the department; an action that puts her job, her relationship with Ryan, and her fragile partnership with Sarah at risk.

For her part, Sarah comes to realize that she is not as enlightened as she thought she was, and both women just hope they can come through the personal and professional challenges and end up with something that resembles a true partnership.

While catching the killers in the process.
     
The Lady Who Cried Murder (Mac Faraday Mystery #6)
The Lady Who Cried Murder (Mac Faraday Mystery #6)
Lauren Carr | 2013 | Mystery, Thriller
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
If you are looking for murder or mystery to enjoy, Lauren Carr will not disappoint. I read almost all of her books. Her books will have you lured in for more than you are expecting. Each book or audiobook can be read as a standalone though you can read them in series. This one is about a girl who wants to be a celebrity but will see get it all and easy money. Will she get it all, or will she pay the price?

There seem to be more secrets and murders than one person can handle. We meet a mother who thinks her daughter has stood abducted. The daughter shows up at a press conference and has set up her mother. Her mother is angry and does some things and changes her will. Whatever happens to her daughter Khole?

David does not want to stand up once more, so he does the interviewer something by checking it out. But do they listen to him when he wants to make sure it is not a setup to make it a circus of the Spenser police department?

Does David find Khole killed and cut up? Who had done it and why? What is Khole's big announcement about what she would tell the interview? We seem to be working with David and Mac and Cameron and Joshua. The team appears to be paired up and works out who the killer is? Guess who gets pulled into these are their girlfriends. You will not guess who is behind all the murders. This one ended up having me guessing until the end. I still did not know who it was up to until the end.
  
TS
The Sculptor (Sam Markham, #1)
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I found Funaro quite by accident when his second book (The Impaler) was a free book on Barnes & Noble. So I actually read that first. I enjoyed it so much I had to get the first Sam Markham book. This one is about a serial killer who murders & then poses his victims to look like sculptures by Michaelangelo. I didn't like this book quite as much as The Impaler, but it was still a good, suspensful read. I think my biggest "complaint" with this book is that at times the plot would drag when Markham and Cathy would start talking about the art in great detail. Yes, it helped the story, but at times seemed heavy handed.
But with all that being said, I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the future.
  
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
2019 | Biography, Crime, Thriller
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile (2019) is extremely well acted but shockingly superficial
...Zac Efron as Bundy is superb, radiating the charm, charisma and magnetism which goes some way to explaining Bundy’s horrific, prolific litany of murders. His eyes become the window to Bundy’s black-hearted soul as they flash from smouldering sensuality to steely malevolence and back when the mask occasionally slips. He brings an exquisite, subtle physicality to the role giving Bundy mannerisms and actions which creep around the peripheral edge of your perception – in the way he holds a kitchen knife or the way his hand rests on someone’s neck in a position and for a moment longer than seems comfortable or normal – to remind us of the dark truth of the man and what he’s capable of while he beams that megawatt smile...

FULL REVIEW: http://bit.ly/CraggusExtremelyWicked
  
Halloween (2007)
Halloween (2007)
2007 | Horror
Rob Zombie was an inspired choice to helm the 2007 reboot of the series and the resulting film was very good indeed. Opting to focus more on Michael’s backstory was an intriguing change to the formula and a risky one at that.

Many fans concluded that it lessened the impact of Michael’s murders. Showing him as an abused child took away the supernatural elements that made Carpenter’s masterpiece so terrifying in 1978.

Nevertheless, I thought the idea worked well, and although Zombie’s film is a case of style over substance in some sequences, it’s a good reboot and one that manages to raise itself well above its horror stablemates at the time of release.

It also had an absolutely cracking soundtrack, but the less said about the disappointing sequel the better.

https://moviemetropolis.net/2017/10/28/halloween-movies-top-5/
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) in Movies

Mar 4, 2018 (Updated Mar 4, 2018)  
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
1949 | Classics, Comedy, Drama
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Justly acclaimed black comedy is a somewhat atypical film from Ealing Studios, better known for their affectionate depictions of post-war British life. Calculating man-on-the-make Dennis Price sets out to get on in the world by murdering the eight members of the D'Ascoyne family who stand between him and inheriting the dukedom of Chalfont.

Best known for the fact that Alec Guinness plays all the D'Ascoynes, but Dennis Price is just as good as the homicidal would-be aristocrat. The broad comedy of some of Guinness' performances, plus the staging of several of the murders, is underpinned by some much subtler and more understated humour about class and morality. One of those films you can watch several times and still find new layers to enjoy; very funny, too, though that should go without saying.
  
In cold blood is a true crime story about a family murdered in Kansas. The book shows us through the eyes of both the investigators on the case and their struggle for justice but also the criminals who justify the crime and their actions.

In cold blood opens you up to the reality of human nature. For these criminals to commit the murders of 4 people and not show any remorse is shocking. Towards the end of the book, there is a strong debate about how these criminals should be punished, life imprisonment or capital punishment which in this case was hanging. It brings up the question of morality and responsibility, of whether as humans we can play God and take a life?

Continue reading my review at: https://www.readsandrecipes.co.uk/2017/02/read-harder-5000-miles.html
  
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Jeannie (40 KP) rated You in TV

Jan 29, 2019  
You
You
2018 | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Started off well
Contains spoilers, click to show
I had high hopes for this as it started of very strong dispite my inability to over look gossip girl himself however i muddled through. Like i said first few episodes were very promising kept you in suspense however the futher in you get the more you stop guessing and start predicting. The end left me numb and the stpryline seemed flawed in the later episodes. I mean he left a jar of urine in the house of a woman he killed but somehow easily pinned the murders on his shrink who his girlfriend was cheating on him with. Also ypu hear alot a about Candance but never really know much then she shows up at the end ALIVE after the indication she was killed by Joe. Just so much wrong that the good parts cant be justified.