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Jordan Binkerd (567 KP) rated The Kid Who Would Be King (2019) in Movies

Aug 15, 2019 (Updated Aug 15, 2019)  
The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
2019 | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
The script is excellent and a clever take on the classic mythology, with some good allusions to previous incarnations. (2 more)
The cast is amazing all around
The effects are stellar, with the undead warriors hitting the right balance between too scary and not threatening enough
Merlin's hand magic pulled me right out of the story and made me think "That's the stupidest thing I've seen in quite a while...." (1 more)
Pacing was a bit off; the runtime was a bit long and there was a false climax with about half an hour to go in the film.
Surprisingly good family-friendly fantasy
I'm not sure why this bombed, aside from the fact that I barely remember seeing it advertised. It's a good film, well-executed on nearly every level. It was a bit long, perhaps, dragged a bit in the middle, but otherwise the only thing I have to complain about is the hand-waving tomfoolery they gave Merlin to execute his magic - that crap looked dumb as @#$&. I've seen lots of complaining about young Merlin, but for me it was just that his magic looked dumb - he was weird, but Merlin's supposed to be like that. The acting was top-notch across the board, though Patrick Stewart and Rebecca Ferguson were under-utilized. What set it apart for me, though, was that it refused to dumb itself down for its audience as so many kids' movies do. This film references obscure versions of the legend and makes them integral to the story without feeling they have to over-explain everything. For example, Merlin ages backwards. It's not that he looks like Patrick Stewart and is in disguise as a sixteen-year-old, but that he looks like a sixteen-year-old and occasionally puts on the guise of Patrick Stewart to prove a point or gain credibility. (I think in the original take it's less that he ages backwards and more that he lives backwards, but close enough.) I'd have loved this as a kid, and one day I'm sure my kids will love it as well.
  
Inspiration Information/Wings of Love by Shuggie Otis
Inspiration Information/Wings of Love by Shuggie Otis
2013 | Pop
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Aht Uh Mi Hed by Shuggie Otis

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Track

"This was a record that Chris Taylor or Chris Bear introduced me to in college. We were eighteen or nineteen in New York, they were studying music and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing! I was trying to be serious about linguistics but I was kind of bullshitting myself. “I’d started writing songs but I was very secretive about it and didn’t take it seriously. I played them to Chris Taylor, he was probably the first person who heard anything I’d done, but I refused to admit to myself that I took it seriously in any real way. When I went to college I decided I wasn’t going to do music, because there was no reason for another white kid to play jazz guitar. I ended up finding songwriting instead and it became a different thing. “This is a reference point we’ve talked about over the years, when one of us mentions this record, everybody knows what we’re talking about, we talked about it on Painted Ruins in certain places. The whole basis of the groove is built on an organ drum machine and the sound of it is very ahead of its time. It’s very groovy but it’s not beating you over the head, it’s an emotional tune that has this subtly danceable beating heart. There’s a soulfulness and dreaminess to it, it accesses the emotional part of you with this really pointed and tight rhythmic quality. “We never wanted to approach music from a folky songwriter’s standpoint. Certain parts of our music have come out that way because of what we play, but it’s remembering what it was like as a teenager, being really into music from a players’ perspective and finding the emotional quality in that, trying to build something that’s soulful and hits you without beating you over the head. I love it when people can pull off that subtlety, where they’re barely touching the instrument but there’s this rhythmic quality to it. “’Aht Uh Mi Hed’ is a touchstone that’s stuck with us, it’s an aspect of music that we really appreciate. We don’t actively strive towards it, but it never quite leaves our minds."

Source
  
Infinity + One
Infinity + One
Amy Harmon | 2014 | Fiction & Poetry, Romance
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Oh my gosh, I absolutely loved this book! I had read Amy's 'Making Faces' and wasn't a big fan, so I was a little apprehensive when I started reading Infinity + One. Thankfully, I'm not the type to base an opinion on one experience, because I would have missed out on the awesomeness that is Bonnie and Clyde. When it started out, I was drawn in by the overwhelming emotions Bonnie felt. Though connecting the infamous Bonnie and Clyde to the current duo is made before we're even introduced to the two, I was immediately curious as to how their story would pan out compared to the 1930's couple. I didn't miss the parallel: where Bonnie and Clyde, circa 1930, had brought death and destruction, Bonnie and Clyde, circa 2014, brought kindness and love. Despite being infuriated that Bonnie refused to contact her family or the police for so long, which only made their situation worse, I started to feel sorry for her, because it seemed like everything she did only screwed things up more. I was enraptured from the beginning, both fearing and longing for the end. I took Clyde's perspective on how their road trip would turn out, especially because the "old" Bonnie and Clyde's death was so central to the story.

 **Spoiler Alert**
I'm so happy the ending was the complete opposite of what really happened 80 years ago. All the twists and turns given by the media had me confused and, for the most part, I assumed Bonnie's grandmother was throwing in a few false accusations and even setting things up to make the story more appalling, so I was truly shocked when it was revealed that Hank was behind most of the unexplained charges. My favorite part, though, was when William spoke on the television about his dream of Minnie and Fish. I literally got chills as I read that part. Honestly, if someone had told me something like that happened in reality, I'd accuse them of being a liar or a fool, but for a book (where I can suspend my beliefs), I thought it was perfect.
  
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    India's National Magazine. Frontline, the fortnightly English magazine from the stable of The...