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Bird Box (2018)
Bird Box (2018)
2018 | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Beautiful visuals (1 more)
Good acting
If this happened for real, you'd never make it. (1 more)
More questions than answers in the end
If you take off your blindfold you will die.
Contains spoilers, click to show
Welcome to the apocalypse bitches! Whatever this asshole is it takes over your brain and makes you off yourself. I love the idea, I love the concept. There's no way you'd achieve half the stuff they manage but lets just suspend belief for a minute because it was a good film. I like how they told the story by starting at the trip and going back to the beginning until they catch you up, it keeps the story interesting and appropriately paced. Though I enjoyed it, it does leave more questions than answers. Here's just a few that bothered me;

Why don't they come inside? Do the age old vampire rules apply, I wonder.

There is no way they could have driven blind from the house to the supermarket using just GPS and parking sensors. (Not really a question, it just annoyed me)

How were the birds in the supermarket still alive? (It's clearly been weeks since someone was there) And also on this note, Why were they there? Supermarkets don't sell birds...

Where did the girl and the blond guy go? They stole the car but you never see them again - wth happened there? Are they alive, dead? What?

How did she not run into the side of the river every five minutes? She's blindfolded and has never been there before. Have you ever tried to walk from your bedroom to the bathroom in the middle of the night? It ain't easy even when you know the place.

Why is there a blind school in the middle of nowhere? It feels end of the world cultish...

A good movie, but there are many questions that never get answers that left it a little confusing. Probably would watch it again just to see if I missed anything.
  
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Lesley (60 KP) rated Lies in Books

Aug 11, 2018  
Lies
Lies
T.M. Logan | 2018 | Mystery, Thriller
10
9.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
This thriller had my heart racing, and surprised me at every turn!
I received an ARC of this novel in the mail, I was so excited! As much as I love a digital ARC, holding a real book in my hands pre-publication was next level. I was delighted. Anyhow...SOFT spoilers ahead. Not worth marking as spoilers but just a warning if you'd like to go in completely blind.

What a fun read! I was hooked within the first few pages. The premise seems so simple - Joe is driving in London traffic when his son, in the backseat, spots mommy's car across the road. They decide to surprise her and Joe sees her with another man...her best friends husband, Ben. Sounds so predictable, right? Joe decides to confront the man, since he already knows him after all, and he doesn't want to believe his wife would be unfaithful. We all want to hear the simple explanation that clears up what we genuinely hope is a misunderstanding. Unfortunately, this particular conversation becomes a physical altercation when Ben becomes aggressive, and he ends up unconscious and bleeding on the ground in the parking structure. Joe's son begins to have an asthma attack, so he leaves him there. From there - the book gets really good. What happened to Ben? Wherever he ended up, he decides that the battle against Joe has begun. As Joe slowly finds himself the main suspect in a murder investigation, even without a body, the lies of his life begin to unravel all around him. You're so busy engrossed in figuring out the mystery that you miss the obvious truth right in front of you - much like Joe. The twist blindsided me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the clever way it was written and the way it tricks and leads your mind as you read. Thank you MacMillan Publishers and St. Martins Press! I am loaning it to friends and family next to spread the word!
  
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AyL (16 KP) rated Evil Genius in TV

Jan 7, 2019  
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
2018 | Documentary
9
7.5 (24 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
An explosive documentary and must-watch for true crime lovers
Content:
A man casually walks into a bank, with a bomb strapped to his neck and demands money. He gets caught on the parking lot after leaving the bank but he never makes it into a police car. 44 minutes after the first 911 call about the robbery and the bomb, the device around the mans neck detonates and kills him, all documented by CCTV and the Police. The man is Brian Wells, a pizza delivery man from this area. The documentary investigates the events around the murder of Brian Wells in Pennsylvania in 2003, which also became known as the „Pizza-Bomber“ Case.

Review:
If you are looking for a casual show to watch while playing candy crush on your phone, this is not the documentary for you, because things become complicated quick, with loads of suspects, different crime scenes and a lot of different stories that are told.
To really enjoy this documentary, you have to give it your full focus so you catch all the minute details. It’s like working the crime scene yourself. The documentary is not for the faint hearted. It shows the original CCTV footage of Brian Wells death!

The documentary includes interviews with people that worked on the cases, suspects and the family and friend of Brian Wells, which gives it a personal touch and makes it very attractive and fascinating to watch. It creates new questions in the viewers mind: Was Brian victim or perpetrator? Was the detonation an accident, murder or even suicide? And who is Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and what does this woman have to do with all of this?

Trey Borzillieri, director and narrator of the documentary, shows his quite intense research for this documentary which ended in a deeper relationship with one of the suspects.

Evil genius is fascinating to watch, it grabs you and takes you through all Episodes, leaving you wanting more. A must watch for true crime lovers!
  
Angel (Angel, #1)
Angel (Angel, #1)
3
3.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Slow start (0 more)
I finally finished it!

This begins with Alex out on an angel kill, introducing us to what he does in life and the danger angels pose to the public. Then we meet Willow as she fixes a car in the school parking lot before a popular girl from school asks her to do a psychic reading on her and Willow reluctantly agrees. What she sees freaks her out and starts a train of events that cause her to be hunted down by every angel and member of the Church of Angels in America. Luckily she runs into Alex and together they go on a journey across the country to try and find out more about Willow's past and how to stop the angels forever.

I didn't buy this that long ago and got it cheap off a second hand site. I thought with it being a YA Paranormal book that I'd get sucked right into it but I didn't (I started it last November). It took over 100 pages for something exciting to happen and a little longer before it really got going and then I was sucked in enough to read about 50 pages at a time. It did turn into a quick read after that and I'd finished the book within three days but I wasn't really interested in the story, I just wanted to finish it.

I liked how the angels were bad in this, that is definitely new to me. They're normally the good guys come to save the world and the people who live on it, not the bad guys who are feeding off humans to survive.

I can't say I was fond of either main character and I felt their love for each other came out of nowhere. This book just didn't gel with me at all and I won't be continuing the series.
  
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Kenneth Lonergan recommended Dark Waters (2019) in Movies (curated)

 
Dark Waters (2019)
Dark Waters (2019)
2019 | Drama

"A lot of Todd Haynes’ “Dark Waters” is shot from a distance. Lots of squared-off rectangular compositions, lots of corners and windows, lots of flat tracking shots. The colors are muted, greenish-gray and black. In contrast to the imagery of other films in the good old American David vs. Goliath tradition, Todd sets his hero’s very human struggle with the giant corporation DuPont in a visual framework that always looks a lot more corporate than human. It’s a really interesting choice. The handheld camera-work and bleached deserts of “Erin Brockovich” are as far away as the lighted ceiling squares and shadowy parking garages of “All The President’s Men” — the two most-famous exemplars of this genre. Instead, “Dark Waters” looks expensive, angular, and soft-edged. Even the interpolated closeups of Mark Ruffalo as he uncovers one terrible secret after another never break or mottle the movie’s palette. If it’s not stretching the point, “Dark Waters” looks a bit like it was shot on, well, Teflon. It’s a chilly, chilling approach to a drawn-out, turbulent, often soul-crushing struggle. But it makes perfect sense, considering the size and character of the corporate culture Mark’s Robert Bilott both works in and pits himself again. He’s not building a lawsuit house by house from behind the wheel of a pickup truck; he’s a corporate lawyer pursuing a huge corporation from expensive corporate offices. And whenever the movie does linger over the human costs he’s trying to redress, the effect is as gruesome as a mutilated body on a slab in a very clean morgue. These choices are a stark reminder that ultimately, even Bilott’s spectacular, hard-won legal victory is a drop in DuPont’s bucket. And it speaks to the pervasive character of the problem (not to mention the chemicals in our drinking water) that even when the good guys gain some ground, the world Todd captures in this movie is one of cold grays, smooth edges and gleaming surfaces to which nothing ever sticks. Not yet, anyway."

Source
  
Halloween II (1981)
Halloween II (1981)
1981 | Horror
6
7.4 (23 Ratings)
Movie Rating
There's a fair amount to love about Halloween II, a sequel set on the same night as the original, immediately following that films ending.
For instance, I can admire the style that director Rick Rosenthal was going for, attempting to make his sequel feel as much like the first film as possible, the idea being that you could watch both back to back.
There a few creepy shots here and there. One that really sticks is the shot of Michael in the darkness just before the poor nurse get killed with a syringe. Another is Michael on the CCTV when he first enters the hospital. Another is when Laurie see Michael across the parking lot underneath a red light. and then there's Michael with blood running out of the eye holes in his mask, followed by him walking out of that one room completely ablaze. It's all to do with Michael then! Once again, this movie showcases how his straightforward design is striking and rightly iconic.
It's nice to see Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie, and Donald Pleasance back as Loomis. All in all, it does truly feel like a sequel, but there's something missing.

The original is one of my favourite horrors ever made, and Halloween II, despite its positives, just fails to capture the same essence. This is partly to do with the script. It feels like a lot of the actors were just told to ad lib all their lines or something. The tension building scenes go on for a little too long also, ironically voiding a few scenes of said tension. It's feels like the first film in everything but execution pretty much.

It's a heavily flawed sequel, but it's still a decent watch, and is certainly one of the better sequels in this long running series. It deserves credit for the bit near the beginning where Loomis shouts "you don't know what death is!" before the synth heavy version of the theme tune kicks in, that was badass.
  
Angel: Book 1
Angel: Book 1
L.A. Weatherly | 2013 | Children
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This review and more can be found at my blog <a href="https://aromancereadersreviews.blogspot.com/">A Romance Reader's Reviews</a>

1.5 stars

I finally finished it!

This begins with Alex out on an angel kill, introducing us to what he does in life and the danger angels pose to the public. Then we meet Willow as she fixes a car in the school parking lot before a popular girl from school asks her to do a psychic reading on her and Willow reluctantly agrees. What she sees freaks her out and starts a train of events that cause her to be hunted down by every angel and member of the Church of Angels in America. Luckily she runs into Alex and together they go on a journey across the country to try and find out more about Willow's past and how to stop the angels forever.

I didn't buy this that long ago and got it cheap off a second hand site. I thought with it being a YA Paranormal book that I'd get sucked right into it but I didn't (I started it last November). It took over 100 pages for something exciting to happen and a little longer before it really got going and then I was sucked in enough to read about 50 pages at a time. It did turn into a quick read after that and I'd finished the book within three days but I wasn't really interested in the story, I just wanted to finish it.

I liked how the angels were bad in this, that is definitely new to me. They're normally the good guys come to save the world and the people who live on it, not the bad guys who are feeding off humans to survive.

I can't say I was fond of either main character and I felt their love for each other came out of nowhere. This book just didn't gel with me at all and I won't be continuing the series.