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Jessica Erdas (463 KP) rated The Book Thief in Books

May 16, 2018

The Book Thief

Markus Zusak | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry

8.8

(129 Ratings)

Book Rating

It's rare to find a book that grips you by the heart and takes you on a ride. There's so much to love about this book. Zusak definitely has a way with words that draw you in and make it hard to put down. The story is about a young girl torn apart from the life she's known during the holocaust. It details the pain of nazi Germany and the trials that went with it. This is a story about death, love, friendship, books, a love of words, and a young brave girl trying to do the right thing in a world gone bad. It's told in the viewpoint of death and his encounters with the book thief. Finished this in 5 days and I'm sitting here pining for more, even though the story was brought to an acceptable conclusion. Find the time to read this, it's well worth it.

Kudos

Chris (7 KP) May 25, 2018

While I have not read the book, I did see the movie which was excellent. I highly recommend the movie as well.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Boys from Brazil (1978) in Movies

Apr 21, 2019 (Updated Apr 21, 2019)

The Boys from Brazil (1978)

1978 | Action, Drama, Mystery

7.4

(5 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Another adaptation of one of Levin's pulpy-but-effective thrillers, this one riffing on The Omen a bit (Gregory Peck, paedophobia, etc). Laurence Olivier discovers that Nazi mad scientist Gregory Peck is plotting the death of nearly a hundred 65-year-old men around the world, but why? Could the targets' identical sons have something to do with it?

The material is pure schlock, lifted by the presence of distinguished actors and fairly lavish production values. You could argue that the film also attempts to explore issues of nature and nature in a relatively more sophisticated fashion than most films about (spoiler alert) cloning, but the whole thing retains an air of feverish preposterousness throughout, to say nothing of the fact it is arguably in very dubious taste. That said, it's highly watchable from start to finish; definitely qualifies as a guilty pleasure, though.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Casablanca (1942) in Movies

Mar 12, 2018 (Updated Mar 12, 2018)

Casablanca (1942)

1942 | Drama, Romance, War

8.5

(38 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Enduringly popular wartime romantic drama is also sparklingly quotable and (not often mentioned) works as an allegory about the Second World War - Western Europe (Henreid and Bergman) would really like the help of America (Bogart) to escape from the clutches of Nazi Germany (Veidt); France (Rains) is in two minds about the whole thing.

Despite the fact this is regularly studied as an example of a perfectly-constructed story, it's probably best not to look too closely at some elements of the plot. The performances and dialogue are so winning that you give the movie a pass on this anyway. Everyone has their favourite Casablanca moment, whether it's one of the romantic bits, one of the jokes, a song, or whatever. Beyond simply being made with skill and sincerity, it's quite hard to determine what makes this film quite so special, but the fact remains that it is deservedly a legend.