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Departures: Seven Stories from Heathrow
10.0
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Book
Seven short stories from bestselling author Tony Parsons, based on his week as Writer in Residence...
Awix (3310 KP) rated Die, Monster, Die! (1965) in Movies
Jul 5, 2020
Rather annoyingly not-quite-there horror movie based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story ('based on' in the sense of 'almost entirely different from'). Guy goes to see his girl in the remote English countryside, discovers surly locals, finds her father has been up to experiments into Things Which Man Was Not Meant To Know. Includes the obligatory badly-done Lovecraftian squid-monsters.
Interesting cast, and you can tell Karloff in particular is doing his best with the material, but there's an awful lot of wandering about with not much happening, especially for a film only about an hour and a quarter long. Obviously done on the cheap, and too invested in its standard Gothic tropes - creepy old mansion, spooky domestics, cursed family heritage, etc - to make the most of the potential in the short story it's supposed to be based on. All in all, less interesting than it has any right to be in the circumstances.
Interesting cast, and you can tell Karloff in particular is doing his best with the material, but there's an awful lot of wandering about with not much happening, especially for a film only about an hour and a quarter long. Obviously done on the cheap, and too invested in its standard Gothic tropes - creepy old mansion, spooky domestics, cursed family heritage, etc - to make the most of the potential in the short story it's supposed to be based on. All in all, less interesting than it has any right to be in the circumstances.
Three Amigos! (1986)
7.1
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Movie Watch
In 1916, a young woman from the village of Santa Poco lures three out-of-work silent film stars to...
HH
Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles
Book
The tragic and mysterious circumstances surrounding the deaths of Elizabeth Short, or the Black...
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Jonah Hex (2010) in Movies
Feb 28, 2021
A recent re-watch of Jonah Hex went something like this:
- a lot of stuff happened before that title card that it's already incoherent
- wait, Michael Fassbender is in this?
- I can't see what's happening
- ah sweet, it's the dude from Mastodon.
- wait, Will Arnett is in this?
- Megan Fox really drew the short straw on a lot of her movie projects
- is that Michael Shannon!?
- ah sweet, it's the dude from John Wick.
- wait, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in this!?
- once again, couldn't see what the fuck was happening because of the piss poor lighting, but Jonah Hex is nearly dead again, apparently.
- Ah cool, here's a mid-runtime action heavy sequence, still can't tell what's happening.
- wait....nope, it's over.
Christ, this movie is a blurry mess that's impressively hard to follow considering its short runtime. I love the Jonah Hex comics, I tend to enjoy Josh Brolin and John Malkovich, how is this such a trainwreck?
That Mastodon soundtrack is badass though.
- a lot of stuff happened before that title card that it's already incoherent
- wait, Michael Fassbender is in this?
- I can't see what's happening
- ah sweet, it's the dude from Mastodon.
- wait, Will Arnett is in this?
- Megan Fox really drew the short straw on a lot of her movie projects
- is that Michael Shannon!?
- ah sweet, it's the dude from John Wick.
- wait, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in this!?
- once again, couldn't see what the fuck was happening because of the piss poor lighting, but Jonah Hex is nearly dead again, apparently.
- Ah cool, here's a mid-runtime action heavy sequence, still can't tell what's happening.
- wait....nope, it's over.
Christ, this movie is a blurry mess that's impressively hard to follow considering its short runtime. I love the Jonah Hex comics, I tend to enjoy Josh Brolin and John Malkovich, how is this such a trainwreck?
That Mastodon soundtrack is badass though.
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Sound of Metal (2019) in Movies
Apr 13, 2021
There's not a lot I can add that hasn't already been said about Sound of Metal so I'll keep this one short.
Riz Ahmed rightly deserves his Oscar nomination for his performance. It sucks that Olivia Cooke was overlooked by The Academy for hers. The two of them together carve out a painfully real relationship and are nothing short of excellent.
The sound editing is absolutely top tier. It's method of forcing the viewer to experience a fair portion of the movie as if they were hearing impaired is hugely effective. It goes a long way in illustrating how terrifying Ruben's experience is. On the flip side, in characters such as Joe (Paul Raci), we are given another perspective, about how life still goes on, and paints a wonderfully positive picture of the deaf community. It results in a film that is both truly uplifting and absolutely devastating.
Sound of Metal is definitely a triumph that deserves all the praise it's getting.
Riz Ahmed rightly deserves his Oscar nomination for his performance. It sucks that Olivia Cooke was overlooked by The Academy for hers. The two of them together carve out a painfully real relationship and are nothing short of excellent.
The sound editing is absolutely top tier. It's method of forcing the viewer to experience a fair portion of the movie as if they were hearing impaired is hugely effective. It goes a long way in illustrating how terrifying Ruben's experience is. On the flip side, in characters such as Joe (Paul Raci), we are given another perspective, about how life still goes on, and paints a wonderfully positive picture of the deaf community. It results in a film that is both truly uplifting and absolutely devastating.
Sound of Metal is definitely a triumph that deserves all the praise it's getting.
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2200 KP) rated Nowhere to Go and All Day to Get There in Books
Jun 21, 2021
Short Trips with the Loudermilks
This is a collection of two short stories featuring retirees and full time RVers Joe and Dottie Loudermilk. In “A Mother Always Knows,” a quick trip into a convenience store results in the couple being on the scene of an armed robbery. “Better Dead Than Wed” find them getting involved in an abusive relationship during a late-night rest stop.
Both of these stories are fast reads – I finished the collection in about half an hour. But both stories are fun and held my interest the entire way through. I was caught off guard by some of the twists along the way. I laughed along the way, sometimes at Joe and Dottie’s reactions to each other and sometimes at the situations they found themselves in. The characters also appeared in two full length novels. Whether you already know them or are just meeting them here for the first time, you’ll enjoy these two quick road trips.
Both of these stories are fast reads – I finished the collection in about half an hour. But both stories are fun and held my interest the entire way through. I was caught off guard by some of the twists along the way. I laughed along the way, sometimes at Joe and Dottie’s reactions to each other and sometimes at the situations they found themselves in. The characters also appeared in two full length novels. Whether you already know them or are just meeting them here for the first time, you’ll enjoy these two quick road trips.
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2200 KP) rated Chesapeake Crimes: Invitation to Murder in Books
Oct 7, 2020
Accept this Invitation to Seventeen Murders
In the seventh short story anthology from the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, each story revolves around an invitation. Some are the obvious invitations for events, but others are a more casual invitation. Either way, they lead to danger of some kind. There’s a mother whose young son is writing a hard-boiled mystery, an escape room that ends in death, a guest who overstays her welcome, bedbugs and murder in London, and a debutant ball in early 1900’s South Carolina. The stories are as varied as their locations, and many are fun. As with every short story collection, not every story will be for every taste. Personally, I found a couple of them too dark to be enjoyable. But the majority of the seventeen stories were a delight. If you are searching for bite sized stories, you’ll be glad you picked up this collection.
Mel (490 KP) rated Lincoln in the Bardo in Books
Oct 2, 2019
Contains spoilers, click to show
When this book first came out it seemed to be publicised everywhere so when I saw it on a daily deal I picked up a copy.
I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't quite what I got. While the main thread of the story focusing on the death of Lincoln's son and the ghosts in the graveyard was interesting it felt like this was essentially a short story bulked out into a novel (given the author is far more famous for his short stories this probably isn't surprising). The use of historical quotations to tell the parts of the story taken from real life seemed more of a clever affectation than actually a useful plot device. While I finished the book and felt like I knew a little more about Lincoln the man afterwards overall I didn't think it lived up to the hype surrounding it
I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't quite what I got. While the main thread of the story focusing on the death of Lincoln's son and the ghosts in the graveyard was interesting it felt like this was essentially a short story bulked out into a novel (given the author is far more famous for his short stories this probably isn't surprising). The use of historical quotations to tell the parts of the story taken from real life seemed more of a clever affectation than actually a useful plot device. While I finished the book and felt like I knew a little more about Lincoln the man afterwards overall I didn't think it lived up to the hype surrounding it
The Bourbon Bartender: 50 Cocktails to Celebrate the American Spirit
Jane Danger and Alla Lapushchik
Book
Bourbon must be made in America and aged for at least two years in charred new American oak barrels...
food and drink