The Chocolate Lady (94 KP) rated Mistress of the Ritz in Books
Oct 5, 2020
Benjamin's Passages: Dreaming, Awakening
Book
In transposing the Freudian dream work from the individual subject to the collective, Walter...
When I Was a Photographer
Felix Nadar, Eduardo Cadava and Liana Theodoratou
Book
Celebrated nineteenth-century photographer -- and writer, actor, caricaturist, inventor, and...
Aesthetics of Ugliness: A Critical Edition
Book
In this key text in the history of art and aesthetics, Karl Rosenkranz shows ugliness to be the...
Crossings
9.0
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Crossings is an unforgettable and explosive genre-bending debut--a novel in three parts, designed to...
HIstorical Fiction fiction
Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History
Book
Setting out to recover the roots of modernity in the boulevards, interiors, and arcades of the "city...
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2084 KP) rated The Paris Mistress in Books
May 16, 2024 (Updated May 16, 2024)
While I love the time period, I usually prefer to focus on what was happening in the colonies at the time. I am glad this book was set in France, however, since it allowed me to see how our war as impacting them. I really appreciated that insight. The plot is good. I was beginning to suspect where things were going, but there were so many secrets that I really wasn’t sure. Daniel and Rebecca are still a great team, and I enjoyed seeing them in action again. The characters, whether real or fictional, were just as good. If you enjoy this period of history, you need to read these books.
The Experiment of Dreams
9.0
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Benjamin Walker’s career testing experimental drugs and medicines, as well as performing bizarre...
Sci-fi Art History Travel Dreams Technology
White Houses
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"Amy Bloom brings an untold slice of history so dazzlingly and devastatingly to life, it took my...
Movie Metropolis (309 KP) rated London Has Fallen (2016) in Movies
Jun 10, 2019
Fast-forward three years and its successor, London Has Fallen, starts off a busy Spring for the film industry. With much of the original cast reprising their roles, can lightning strike again? Or is this a shameless cash in?
Gerard Butler returns as secret agent Mike Banning, with Butler also in a producing role, assigned to protect President Benjamin Asher, Aaron Eckhart also reprising his role, in London as the pair attend the funeral of the British Prime Minister. Naturally, things taken a turn for the worse and both President Asher and Banning are caught in a deadly terrorist attack on the city.
The plot is downright ridiculous with Butler looking almost Terminator-like as he dispatches hundreds of vicious terrorists on the streets of London. Even the President gets in on the action, instead of you know, fleeing for safety like the leader of one of the biggest nations on Earth would do.
With the current climate, London Has Fallen is downright woeful, playing on our fears of urban terrorism like no film before it and after the shocking attacks in Paris last year, and for those still haunted by the memories of 7/7, it is in incredibly poor taste.
The dialogue and numerous plot holes only add salt to the wounds. If this was a serious drama, looking at the appalling ripples terrorism has across the world, then the central premise could be forgiven somewhat, but it isn’t and the uses of comedy throughout are truly dreadful, not once hitting the mark.
Elsewhere, the special effects are some of the worst ever put to film. A helicopter escape across London is laughable and the use of grainy stock footage is far too obvious. It’s clear that director Babak Najafi couldn’t film certain scenes on his tiny budget, instead deciding that dated archive footage was a reasonable substitute – it isn’t.
But by far the worst part of London Has Fallen is how it wastes its talented cast. Morgan Freeman, who stars as Vice President Allan Trumble, is leagues above the standard of this atrocity, and somehow manages to provide a sense of class throughout.
The cinematography is awful, especially towards the film’s sickly sweet finale, and many in the unsuspecting audience said it looked like a third-person video game as Gerard Butler somersaults his way around a poorly-lit construction site.
Overall, London Has Fallen is an appalling excuse for a film. As well as wasting a great cast, it continuously wields one of the world’s greatest fears like a child who’s found his dad’s gun, and for me, that is unforgivable. It may cram a lot of things into 99 minutes, but not a single one is done with any passion.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2016/03/06/a-disgusting-attempt-at-film-making-london-has-fallen-review/