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Awix (3310 KP) rated Joker (2019) in Movies

Oct 4, 2019 (Updated Oct 4, 2019)  
Joker (2019)
Joker (2019)
2019 | Crime, Drama
Striking riff on some elements of the Batman mythology looks good but simultaneously feels like it's trying to do too much and struggling to justify its own existence. In an early 80s Gotham City, severely troubled clown/comedian Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is struggling to maintain his grip on reality, not to mention his own sanity. But a powerful force of nihilistic chaos is incubating within him...

A very strong performance by Joaquin Phoenix is the main reason to see this film, as he manages to be pitiable, frightening, and occasionally very funny. The sustained grimness and intensity of it is also surprising and impressive. That said, it does take rather a long time for the traditional Joker characterisation to begin to appear, and the question of whether this character can actually support a whole movie has clearly troubled the film-makers, too - hence, presumably, the attempts to make points about anti-capitalism, social unrest, and the mass media. These don't chime especially well with the period setting, which is presumably to facilitate the homages to King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, French Connection and Network which the film is filled with. One inevitably wonders what the point of the Joker is without Batman, unless it's simply to shock and provoke. This film does those things, but only up to a point and to no very obvious end. A good-looking, well-made, well-played film, but perhaps just the tiniest bit portentous.
  
With Silent Screams ( Hellequin book 3)
With Silent Screams ( Hellequin book 3)
Steve McHugh | 2021 | Horror
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
199 of 250
Kindle
With Silent Screams ( Hellequin book 3)
By Steve McHugh

Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments

His name is Nathan Garrett, but he's also known as Hellequin. And murdering one of his friends and trying to blow him up is a good way to get this centuries-old sorcerer's full attention... An old friend's dead body, a cryptic note, and an explosion that almost costs him his own life propel Nate headfirst into a mystery involving a new threat from an old foe. Now he must piece together the connections between a grisly series of tattooed murder victims, an imprisoned madman, a mysterious alchemist, and a deranged plot to usurp the throne of the hidden realm of Shadow Falls, rival to the power of Avalon.

Can Nate avert the coming slaughter, or will he become the latest to fall in this clandestine war?

With the story careening between modern-day New York and Ontario and 1977 Maine, With Silent Screams continues the gritty and action-packed mix of urban fantasy and ancient mythology that mark Steve McHugh's popular Hellequin Chronicles.


This is becoming one of my favourite series and they are getting better with every book! This is book 3 and the best one yet it’s so intricate without being overbearing. I love Nate and his many friends figures from real history and fictional. I could read these over and over. Brilliant series!
  
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Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post

Sep 11, 2022  
Sneak a peek at the self-help memoir on aging entitled CREATRIX RISING by Byline Stephanie on my blog. (I read this book last year and loved it!) Enter the giveaway for a chance to win a print copy and the audiobook - four winners!

https://alltheupsandowns.blogspot.com/2022/09/audiobook-blog-tour-and-giveaway.html

**BOOK SYNOPSIS**
Ever since Eve was banned from the garden, women have endured the oftentimes painful and inaccurate definitions foisted upon them by the patriarchy. Maiden, mother, and crone, representing the three stages assigned to a woman’s life cycle, have been the limiting categories of both ancient and modern (neo-pagan) mythology. And one label, in particular, rankles: crone. The word conjures a wizened hag—useless for the most part, marginalized by appearance and ability.

None of us has ever truly fit the old-crone image, and for today’s midlife women, a new archetype is being birthed: the Creatrix.

In Creatrix Rising, Raffelock lays out—through personal stories and essays—the highlights of the past fifty years, in which women have gone from a quiet strength to a resounding voice. She invites us along on her own transformational journey by providing probing questions for reflection so that we can flesh out and bring to life this new archetype within ourselves. If what the Dalai Lama has predicted—that women will save the world—proves true, then the Creatrix will for certain be out front, leading the pack.