Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side
Book
What is it about evil that we find so compelling? From our obsession with serial killers to violence...
Pirate (A Sam and Remi Fargo Adventure #8)
8.0
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When husband and wife treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo try something new, a relaxing vacation, a...
Sam&RemiFargo
The Family Next Door
Book
The small suburb of Pleasant Court lives up to its name. It's the kind of place where everyone knows...
The Night Stalker
Book
When an unidentified female body is discovered laid out on a slab inside an abandoned butcher's...
Jewel Cave (Circles #3)
9.0
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Through ten wonderful years Griff Diamond and Clint Bishop weathered good times and bad together....
M_M Contemporary Romance Suspense
His Demand (Dirtier Duet #1)
10.0
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Book
Gabe Maxwell is a powerhouse in the boardroom, a man with a dark past he's buried under success and...
RəX Regent (349 KP) rated The Prestige (2006) in Movies
Mar 7, 2019
"The Prestige" was produced between projects, those being numbers three and four in my all time top ten, "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight". He claimed that he was making a small movie to tide him over but ended up with an all start blockbuster, and whist touching of a subject which had been dealt with before, I don't recall it ever having being done quite like this.
And that is the magic of a top director; That is to give the audience what they want but not on their terms, not quite what they are expecting. This film follows the obsession of two 19th century magicians, one of whom, Christian Bale, arrives at the conclusion that it takes total commitment to achieve the perfect trick, whilst Hugh Jackman takes a little longer to see that obsession will lead him down the same path.
This is a dark, Gothic thriller, lifting the lid of the magic of the day, whilst in true Nolan fashion delving deeper into the psyche of the protagonists, and the destructive nature of their respective obsessive battles, and those it hurts and destroys along the way.
But more than this, the film its self is effectively a mirror of the plot, told and presented as one long trick, with deception, red herrings and ultimately, eponymous the prestige. The only real problem I have with this film is that it thinks that it has everything so well wrapped up, that we, the audience, can't see the twists coming, which I felt a little insulted by as they were almost telegraphed.
But, this was a methodically well presented film, with a clear time and excellent performances throughout. Highly recommended.
Glass Town
Book
Steven Savile is an international sensation, selling over half a million copies of his novels...
fantasy mystery
Frecklesxoxo (6 KP) rated A Place Called Here in Books
Feb 27, 2019
I am in aww I think her imagination is off the charts, who else would have come with writing about a place where missing things go, makes me wonder where all my socks go.
I love the story of Sandy finding herself in this missing place and actually finding out who she is realising she has lost a lot of her life to her obsession with finding missing things and as well as the story of Jack on a similar journey but wasting his life away obsessively searching for his brother.
I love how it all comes together.
My favourite quote is...
"I can only assume that there's only one thing more frustrating than not being able to find someone, and that's not being found. I would want someone to find me, more than anything."
A truly brilliant read.
Awix (3310 KP) rated Eddie The Eagle (2016) in Movies
Feb 17, 2018 (Updated Feb 17, 2018)
Theoretically based on a true story, but the actual facts of Michael Edwards' life are almost entirely discarded: the most interesting character in the film is his trainer (Jackman), who isn't even a real person. The film seems more concerned with endlessly banging on about how awful the upper classes are and presenting Edwards as a loveable clown; it's not as if this actually helps the film, because it's not really very funny. Deploys various sports movie clichés reasonably effectively; the fact that the climax is presented not as 'can he win?' but 'can he avoid killing himself?' is implicitly amusing, I suppose. Potentially an interesting topic for a film; not in this version, though.