Search
Search results
Tom Turner (388 KP) rated The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in Books
Apr 30, 2021
I absolutely love this book. After reading the first two le carre novels, which were very much the author finding his feet, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is definitely the man established and in control of his literary voice.
I will admit I struggled mid way through, and without knowing why it's all happening it you could find your mind wandering due to lack of action, - there a lot of chapters that are just two people, and often the same two people, talking. However once you get to the final third all of that makes sense and it becomes a masterpiece. I'm going to take a brief break from Le Carre, but be assured - I'm going to return!!
I will admit I struggled mid way through, and without knowing why it's all happening it you could find your mind wandering due to lack of action, - there a lot of chapters that are just two people, and often the same two people, talking. However once you get to the final third all of that makes sense and it becomes a masterpiece. I'm going to take a brief break from Le Carre, but be assured - I'm going to return!!
I Sold My Soul For A Sitcom
8.0
Rate It
Book
Name – Kendyl Owens Age- 23 Occupation – Super spy/Malcolm in the Middle Fan-Club president ...
Boy From Berlin
10.0
Rate It
Book
Berlin, April 1938. One night, eight-year-old Käfer Avigdor uses his specialty toilet-paper roll...
World War 2 Children Middle Grade Hitler Historical Fiction History
Love, Lies and Spies
6.0
Rate It
Book
Juliana Telford is not your average nineteenth-century young lady. She’s much more interested in...
retelling regency
The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery, #6)
7.0
Rate It
Book
England, 1942. The Nazis relentless Blitz may have paused, but London s nightly blackouts continue....
The Cheater's Game
Book
The arrival of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in London brings trouble. When the sharpshooter who...
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Johnny English Strikes Again (2018) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
Spy spoof caper that’s only passably amusing.
It’s a HILARIOUS concept. It’s Bond but not as we know it: a suave, sophisticated, well-dressed hero but someone who’s a complete klutz when it comes to the spy business. Rowan Atkinson is perfect in the role: because when he plays his face ”straight” he IS strangely good-looking and certainly pulls off the air of confidence, intelligence and sophistication well.
So it was that 2003’s Johnny English was a refreshing novelty. Roll forwards 15 years (via 2011’s “Johnny English Reborn”) and the concoction needs… you know… actual JOKES.
For “Johnny English Strikes Again” is unfortunately a pretty lame affair.
The Plot
Johnny English (Atkinson) is retired from MI7 and living life as a Geography teacher at a public school. Aside from teaching them about sheep farming in Australia and magma, English delights in teaching his young pupils the tricks of the spy trade: “You’re looking particularly beautiful tonight”, with a twinkle and a vodka martini in hand. “You’re looking particularly beautiful tonight” repeats the class.
But the quiet life of English is about to end, since a cyber-attack has exposed all of MI7’s current agents and the Prime Minister (Emma Thompson) needs to re-hire a retired agent who is currently ‘off the grid’. But noone – friend or foe – is safe when the bumbling English and his faithful helper Bough (Ben Miller) go back into the field.
The Turns
As UK comedy professionals, Atkinson and Miller deliver their English/Bough schtick serviceably enough. The brilliant Emma Thompson though is woefully underused as a straight-woman, being asked to do little more than an exasperated Theresa May impersonation.
If you need a sexy and sophisticated femme fatale for a Bond spoof, what better than a real ex-Bond girl? So the extremely sexy and sophisticated Olga Kurylenko (Camille from “Quantum of Solace”) plays Ophelia Bhuletova, which sounds much funnier when pronounced by Atkinson. And a very good job she does too.
The Review
To emphasise the positive for a moment, the film is suitably glossy, which are table stakes for a spy caper like this or Austin Powers.
But the script by William Davies (who did the previous Johnny Englishes, but nothing much since “Reborn”) doesn’t deliver any real laugh-out-loud moments. My hopes were raised when the “pensioner interviews” happened and Charles Dance, Edward Fox and Michael Gambon turned up. Great, I thought… having the old timers play off Atkinson will be fun. But unfortunately they were nothing but cameos and (although one of the film’s comedy highlights) they came and went in the blink of an eye.
Elsewhere the film relied too much on a few running jokes: ostensibly the need for health and safety in MI7, where guns are rather frowned upon, given their potential to caused injury or worse. A ‘virtual reality’ training mission also delivers smiles but outstays its welcome.
The film is a first-time feature for TV-comedy director David Kerr.
Final thoughts
There are films which are wildly offensive. There are films that are just plain bad. This is neither: it is as Douglas Adams might have described it as “Mostly Harmless”. But to get any more than the rating I have given it, a comedy film has to make me laugh and this one failed miserably. It’s a watchable TV film for a rainy afternoon, but not worth heading out to the cinema to watch.
So it was that 2003’s Johnny English was a refreshing novelty. Roll forwards 15 years (via 2011’s “Johnny English Reborn”) and the concoction needs… you know… actual JOKES.
For “Johnny English Strikes Again” is unfortunately a pretty lame affair.
The Plot
Johnny English (Atkinson) is retired from MI7 and living life as a Geography teacher at a public school. Aside from teaching them about sheep farming in Australia and magma, English delights in teaching his young pupils the tricks of the spy trade: “You’re looking particularly beautiful tonight”, with a twinkle and a vodka martini in hand. “You’re looking particularly beautiful tonight” repeats the class.
But the quiet life of English is about to end, since a cyber-attack has exposed all of MI7’s current agents and the Prime Minister (Emma Thompson) needs to re-hire a retired agent who is currently ‘off the grid’. But noone – friend or foe – is safe when the bumbling English and his faithful helper Bough (Ben Miller) go back into the field.
The Turns
As UK comedy professionals, Atkinson and Miller deliver their English/Bough schtick serviceably enough. The brilliant Emma Thompson though is woefully underused as a straight-woman, being asked to do little more than an exasperated Theresa May impersonation.
If you need a sexy and sophisticated femme fatale for a Bond spoof, what better than a real ex-Bond girl? So the extremely sexy and sophisticated Olga Kurylenko (Camille from “Quantum of Solace”) plays Ophelia Bhuletova, which sounds much funnier when pronounced by Atkinson. And a very good job she does too.
The Review
To emphasise the positive for a moment, the film is suitably glossy, which are table stakes for a spy caper like this or Austin Powers.
But the script by William Davies (who did the previous Johnny Englishes, but nothing much since “Reborn”) doesn’t deliver any real laugh-out-loud moments. My hopes were raised when the “pensioner interviews” happened and Charles Dance, Edward Fox and Michael Gambon turned up. Great, I thought… having the old timers play off Atkinson will be fun. But unfortunately they were nothing but cameos and (although one of the film’s comedy highlights) they came and went in the blink of an eye.
Elsewhere the film relied too much on a few running jokes: ostensibly the need for health and safety in MI7, where guns are rather frowned upon, given their potential to caused injury or worse. A ‘virtual reality’ training mission also delivers smiles but outstays its welcome.
The film is a first-time feature for TV-comedy director David Kerr.
Final thoughts
There are films which are wildly offensive. There are films that are just plain bad. This is neither: it is as Douglas Adams might have described it as “Mostly Harmless”. But to get any more than the rating I have given it, a comedy film has to make me laugh and this one failed miserably. It’s a watchable TV film for a rainy afternoon, but not worth heading out to the cinema to watch.
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Machete (2010) in Movies
Jul 27, 2020
B-Movie Exploitation Film
Machete- is a intresting B-Movie Exploitation action film. I like how Machete was in Spy Kids and that film was PG and now this film is R. Just like how he want easy and really did no killing in spy kids and in this one is full blooded revenge person.
Instead, during the filming of Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse, Rodriguez shot lobby cards and sequences from parts of the original script in 2006 for a fake trailer featuring Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, and Jeff Fahey.
Jessica Alba won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress, along with her other roles in The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers and Valentine's Day.
The plot: After nearly being killed during a violent fight with a powerful drug lord, a former Mexican Federale known as Machete (Danny Trejo) roams Texas streets as a vigilante and sometime day-laborer. Hired to perform a covert hit, he is double-crossed and forced to go on the run. Machete may be down, but not out, and he carves a path of blood, bullets and broken hearts in his quest to settle the score.
The supporting cast is intresting and never thought that this people would work together. For Example Steven Seagal, Linsday Lohan, Don Johnson and Robert De Niro all working together. Never thought that any of these people would work together. Well i could see Don Johnson and Robert De Niro working together. But the rest, nope. But it did and it actually worked really well.
Its a fun action B-Movie exploitation film.
Instead, during the filming of Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse, Rodriguez shot lobby cards and sequences from parts of the original script in 2006 for a fake trailer featuring Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, and Jeff Fahey.
Jessica Alba won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress, along with her other roles in The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers and Valentine's Day.
The plot: After nearly being killed during a violent fight with a powerful drug lord, a former Mexican Federale known as Machete (Danny Trejo) roams Texas streets as a vigilante and sometime day-laborer. Hired to perform a covert hit, he is double-crossed and forced to go on the run. Machete may be down, but not out, and he carves a path of blood, bullets and broken hearts in his quest to settle the score.
The supporting cast is intresting and never thought that this people would work together. For Example Steven Seagal, Linsday Lohan, Don Johnson and Robert De Niro all working together. Never thought that any of these people would work together. Well i could see Don Johnson and Robert De Niro working together. But the rest, nope. But it did and it actually worked really well.
Its a fun action B-Movie exploitation film.
ClareR (5859 KP) rated Creation Lake in Books
Jan 20, 2025
Creation Lake was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and I can see why. I really enjoyed this story of a spy called Sadie, who infiltrates an eco-terrorist cult in France. They are led from afar by a man called Bruno, who lives in a cave, and believes that the only way to save humanity is to give up technology and return to out non-mechanised, non- fossil-fuelled past. They are extremists, but even the eco-cult reach a point where they can see that Bruno’s vision goes a bit too far.
I really enjoyed reading Bruno’s emails with Sadie (she has hacked into the email account of the eco-terrorists), got really involved with his theories, googled some and discovered that what he was saying may not have been 100% true or sane.
Sadie is an observer. She’s not your typical all action spy, but she certainly drinks quite a lot of alcohol and has to fend off a lot of unwanted male advances. But she does also use her sexuality to get what she wants.
There are some observations on the state of modern life: greedy landowners who will do anything to make money, the effects of modern life on the young (there’s a young boys story that I found particularly disturbing, and the fact that I wasn’t surprised by it, made it all the more disturbing!).
There were several laugh out loud moments in this too, and the laughs tended to come most needed.
I liked this thought-provoking, tongue-in-cheek novel, and I thought that the way that Bruno’s emails were dotted throughout the novel really worked well alongside Sadie’s investigations.
I really enjoyed reading Bruno’s emails with Sadie (she has hacked into the email account of the eco-terrorists), got really involved with his theories, googled some and discovered that what he was saying may not have been 100% true or sane.
Sadie is an observer. She’s not your typical all action spy, but she certainly drinks quite a lot of alcohol and has to fend off a lot of unwanted male advances. But she does also use her sexuality to get what she wants.
There are some observations on the state of modern life: greedy landowners who will do anything to make money, the effects of modern life on the young (there’s a young boys story that I found particularly disturbing, and the fact that I wasn’t surprised by it, made it all the more disturbing!).
There were several laugh out loud moments in this too, and the laughs tended to come most needed.
I liked this thought-provoking, tongue-in-cheek novel, and I thought that the way that Bruno’s emails were dotted throughout the novel really worked well alongside Sadie’s investigations.