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Dean (6927 KP) rated All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) in Movies

Jan 15, 2023

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

2022 | Drama, International, War

8

8.3

(3 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Very cinematic (1 more)

Realistic battle scenes

The German 1917

Spotted this on Netflix and saw good reviews so tried it out. Didn't realise it was a German film but the dubbed audio wasn't distracting.
It's a great film, the battle scenes are up there with @1917 (2020) and @Saving Private Ryan (1998) in terms of scope and realism. One of the best World War One films. Check it out.

Kudos

Dean (6927 KP) rated Smile (2022) in Movies

Jul 31, 2023

Smile (2022)

2022 | Horror

7

6.3

(7 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Quite eerie (0 more)

A nice surprise

When I saw the trailer I didn't have high hopes for this. It looked quite cheesy and a bit on the silly side, full of jump scares. Finally watched it and actually it was pretty good. A few jump scares but some moments that will send a tingle down your spine. Without the typical story path of most Horror films. So check it out if you put it off.

Kudos

James Dean Bradfield recommended Tolerance by The Blue Aeroplane in Music (curated)

Tolerance by The Blue Aeroplane

(0 Ratings)

Album Favorite

"It's not quite finished, and that's why it's a classic example of what they were becoming, and that's why I love it. I love coming across a record when you can hear what the band could become. Unfortunately with them, I don't think they really ever got there. For me, they could have been the British R.E.M.. I remember myself and Nick saw the band at WOMAD fest in 1986. We decided we had to go to one festival to see what everything was about - it was either '85 or '86 - and we saw James, when they'd just come out with 'Hymn From A Village', when they were a completely different band, and they were brilliant to be honest. We saw Siouxsie And The Banshees and Arrow, and I think The Housemartins were there, and we also saw The Blue Aeroplanes. They were fucking amazing; one of the best live bands I've ever seen. It was pre-Bez and they had a dancer with them onstage; he was called Wojtek [Dmochowski] and the singer was just scatting poetry over the music. For a band that made quite delicate music they were full-on, they were moving lots, it was just pure fully formed erudite freneticism. It was just lovely. We came away thinking, "Wow, we'd love to be in a fucking band who connect onstage like that, with what's in their music and really physically trying to impose yourself on an audience." I love this record because it's got a song on it called 'Arriving', which has the line: "I saw the sun shimmering on a broken breeze." Nick was obsessed with that line when he was young. There's another song called 'When The Wave Comes' which is beautiful, the actual song 'Tolerance' is just brilliant. It's not a perfect album but you can hear this promise of what this band could have been. Me and Nick went to this festival and we fucking hated the experience of going to this festival, we hated people were trying to sell us drugs, but we loved seeing The Blue Aeroplanes. It was a little Damascene moment which made us really, truly believe about how physical a gig could be. We were determined to not be a band that stood still and just looked at our feet or guitar fretboards after that; we were determined that we would move round shitloads. We walked away quite loftily saying, "We're never coming back to a festival unless we play one," which just shows how snotty and fucking deluded we were."

Source

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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2412 KP) rated City Spies in Books

Jun 7, 2020

City Spies

James Ponti | 2020 | Children, Mystery

10

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Meet the City Spies

Sara Martinez is in jail after hacking into New York’s juvenile justice system to turn in her foster parents. She gets the surprise of her life when her lawyer turns out to be a man called Mother, who reveals himself to be a British spy. He whisks Sara away to Scotland where she joins a secret team of MI6 made up of other kids like herself. Sara has joined them just weeks before their next mission – infiltrating an ecological conference to stop a group that is out to sabotage it. Will Sara be far enough along in her training to be an asset to her team? Will they succeed in their mission?

I saw this new series debut recommended by another author I love, and I’m so glad I did. This middle grade book is fast paced. We get plenty of set up, but everything is introduced as part of the story, so it never slows things down. Once the mission begins, the pace picks up even more, and I couldn’t put the book down. Some of the elements are a little over the top, but I just reminded myself this is a spy story and got right back into the book. We don’t get to know all the characters well yet, but we definitely saw some growth in Sara and a few others, and what we saw of them is great. There are some truly heartwarming moments as well as moments that made me laugh. This is a fantastic middle grade book for readers of all ages.

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Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated The Doll Funeral in Books

May 25, 2022

The Doll Funeral

Kate Hamer | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry

9

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

90 of 230
Book
The Doll Funeral
By Kate Hamer
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mick. They're not my real parents, but they tell me what to do, and what to say. I'm supposed to say that the bruises on my arms and the black eye came from falling down the stairs.

But there are things I won't say. I won't tell them I'm going to hunt for my real parents. I don't say a word about Shadow, who sits on the stairs, or the Wasp Lady I saw on the way to bed.

I did tell Mick that I saw the woman in the buttercup dress, hanging upside down from her seat belt deep in the forest at the back of our house. I told him I saw death crawl out of her. He said he'd give me a medal for lying.

I wasn't lying. I'm a hunter for lost souls and I'm going to be with my real family. And I'm not going to let Mick stop me.

I just couldn’t put this down! It was so heartbreaking from start to finish. This poor child not only has to deal with being beaten by her “father” but the neglect and not forgetting that she sees spirits is just so much to have to deal with. We follow her journey to find someone to love her and that in itself is just so sad. This was beautifully written I loved it.

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Entertainment Editor (1988 KP) shared own list

Nov 22, 2017

There are certain films that split audiences straight down the centre. Just look at @Mother! (2017) Darren Aronofsky’s Jennifer Lawrence-starring psychological horror that saw some critics awarded five-stars and others just one.

Using data from Metacritic, tech website Gizmodo has taken date from 9516 films, gathering details from 190,000 reviews by at least 842 named critics to scientifically work out the world’s most critically divisive films. So which films did you love and hate?

List

Gizmodo: Most Divisive Films According to Data

Gizmodo UK has analysed data on Metacritics to determine the most divisive films ever:

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

7.8 (62 Ratings) Rate It

Movie Watch

A woman known as the Bride awakens in a hospital, having been in a four-year coma after being shot...

Quentin Tarantino Martial Arts

Suicide Squad (2016)

6.2 (318 Ratings) Rate It

Movie Watch

A team of criminal antiheroes, composed of Deadshot, Harley Quinn, El Diablo, Captain Boomerang,...

DCEU DC

Hitchcock (2012)

7.0 (4 Ratings) Rate It

Movie

Insurgent (2015)

6.7 (18 Ratings) Rate It

Movie Watch

Now on the run from Jeanine (Kate Winslet) and the rest of the power-hungry Erudites, Tris (Shailene...

White House Down (2013)

6.9 (19 Ratings) Rate It

Movie

Capitol police officer John Cale (Channing Tatum) has just been denied his dream job of protecting...

and 42 other items

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Katelyn Petty (5 KP) rated The Magnificent Seven (2016) in Movies

Dec 30, 2017

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

2016 | Action, Drama, Western

8

7.4

(33 Ratings)

Movie Rating

All the action was the best part. (0 more)

I don't think there was anything bad. (0 more)

Very Good

This was a very good movie. I went and saw the movie when it was in theaters and I really enjoyed it. The best part about the movie the the western style action, which I really like. Even though there was a best part, I actually think that there was nothing bad about it. It's worth seeing if you like westerns.

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Dean (6927 KP) rated Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) in Movies

Apr 30, 2017

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

2016 | Action, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

9

8.3

(227 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Great Action scenes (2 more)

Awesome Sfx

Ties in well with the other films

A new lease of life for the Star Wars saga

Another great Star Wars film that links nicely with A new hope. Probably the best film I saw last year and I watched a lot of films. To me it even betters Force Awakens and feels like a new film. Whereas Force Awakens felt more like a retread of ideas from the original trilogy.