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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Quatermass Conclusion (1979) in Movies

Feb 10, 2018 (Updated Feb 10, 2018)  
The Quatermass Conclusion (1979)
The Quatermass Conclusion (1979)
1979 | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
6
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
We're all doomed, I tell you, DOOMED!
Big-screen version of Nigel Kneale's ultra-depressing finale to his series of Quatermass TV shows and films. Kneale was only in his fifties when he wrote this, which is odd because it feels very much like an old man's wail of anguish when faced with a world he no longer feels he belongs to or even recognises. Set in the near future - one very much informed by the social unrest and generational tensions that were present in the UK when it was made - this is the story of a collapsing civilisation presented with a new threat: a hostile alien presence, which originally visited Earth five thousand years ago, has returned, basically intent on chowing down on young people (this was clearly an influence on the later Torchwood series Children of Earth). Ageing boffin Bernard Quatermass must find a solution, if he can.

It's not uncommon for SF to be not so much about predicting the future as complaining about the present, but what makes this version of Quatermass unusual is it's told primarily from the perspective of old people - there are a couple of younger sympathetic characters, but even they are thirty-five-going-on-sixty in their attitudes, and most of the younger people are depicted as either feckless wasters or violent psychopaths. (The generation gap is explained by alien influences being at work.)

Reasonably lavish, bearing in mind its TV origins, and quite successful on its own terms - but as its main intention seems to be to drive the viewer to despair, it's not especially easy to like.
  
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Sarah (7798 KP) rated The Chase in Apps

Sep 11, 2018  
The Chase
The Chase
Games
8
7.5 (2 Ratings)
App Rating
Fun and great for trivia
I won an IOS App Store Voucher on a Smashbomb giveaway and I purchased the ultimate version of this app using this voucher. I also bought the extra question packs to make it a little more challenging.

I’m a sucker for quizzes and trivia. I love being able to prove my knowledge on topics (or for the most part proving how bad my general knowledge is!) and I can spend hours playing standard and app trivia games. The Chase is one of the better quiz shows on tv at the moment, and my family have quite a soft spot for it. Whenever I go round to my mums, we always have to take time out to watch it and usually end up shouting at the contestants for taking the lower offer...

The app does well to recreate the show. It’s always going to be difficult to exactly copy a quiz show that’s reliant on contestants knowing the answers in some of the rounds, but the app recreates these by giving you multiple choice. Whilst this should make it slightly easier, this isn’t always the case. The chase portion of the show itself is identical to the tv version and is done very well. It’s a very fun game to play, the only downside is that if you play it quite often or a lot, it doesn’t take long for some of the questions to seem familiar and repeat themselves, and it becomes less of a test of what you know, more what you can remember when you’ve answered the question before! But this is a fairly standard problem with all sorts of trivia games.
  
Codename Villanelle (Killing Eve #1)
Codename Villanelle (Killing Eve #1)
Luke Jennings | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
8
7.6 (5 Ratings)
Book Rating
Having read this book previously, I knew that I was going to enjoy it whilst refreshing my memory to continue the series, but I forgot just how much I enjoyed it the first time around.
I love the Killing Eve TV show that is based on the books and that’s what drew me to the books in the first place, but I find that these are so much better (as is usually the way when things are adapted for TV series or films). The book goes into so much more depth about who Villanelle is and who she was before she became the lethal assassin that we now know her as.
Villanelle has quite a few flashbacks of her previous life which gives us the insight into how she came to be and how she came to choose her new name. I find it fascinating reading through her flashbacks as it shows you exactly what shaped her growing up and that becoming an assassin actually saved her from a worse fate.
We also meet Eve and follow her through a number of cases before she settles on a female assassin that is killing people who don’t seem to be connected. Towards the end of the book we meet her full team, who I think will play a prominent part in the sequel book.
I’m so glad that I decided to refresh my memory by reading this book again before starting on the second in the series. Luke Jenning’s writing flows beautifully that I couldn’t put this book down and read it in one sitting.
  
Marvel's Iron Fist  - Season 1
Marvel's Iron Fist - Season 1
2017 | Action
Rounding up the story and setting up the Defenders (3 more)
Colleen Wing was pretty awesome
Learn more about the Hand
Decent fight scenes
Pretty slow (3 more)
Missing the excitement of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage
The Meachums!
Claire Temple's character development
A decent try but not up to par
Contains spoilers, click to show
It was ok but it wasn't amazing, which is what you expect with a Marvel TV series these days. There's nothing particularly special about Iron Fist, the fight scenes are good but watching it after Daredevil makes it look a little tame.

The characters aren't as engaging as they are in Jessica Jones (and following the brilliance of Kilgrave and Wilson Fisk the bad guys aren't looking nearly as bad) but they're largely likeable. Colleen Wing is a great character and I look forward to learning more about her in the future.

Another disappointment is the way Claire Temple's character has played out. It's actually understandable given everything she's gone through in the other shows but she's the only one who's stretched across all shows so there's been an investment in her character and it's a shame that she's pretty hard-hearted, brash and aggressive in Iron First.

Anyway, for all of that the show is pretty good, they story is decent and you want to know what's going to happen next. It's also really nice to be learning more about the hand after they were introduced in Daredevil and there's even the return of Madame Gao, who's just plain awesome.

It's worth watching to swot up on everything before The Defenders turns up later this month.
  
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On Fire: a Teen Wolf Novel
On Fire: a Teen Wolf Novel
Nancy Holder | 2012 | Paranormal, Science Fiction/Fantasy
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Favorite TV show (1 more)
Great side story
A lot of typos (0 more)
Nancy Holder is known in the literary world for her novel adaptations of TV shows, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville, which has made her the go-to author for popular teen shows. With her ability to mesh together a story with what is going on within the TV show, I'm not surprised that she was picked to adapt MTV's 'Teen Wolf' into a novel. Having only read this book by her, On Fire: a Teen Wolf Novel, is definitely a successful must-read for fans of the show.

Do you need to have watched the show to understand what is going on in the novel? Yes, because the book does backtrack, but unless you've watched at least season one, you will have no idea what is going on. But if you have watched the first season, On Fire will fill in the small gaps that was left out of the TV show's story without losing the characteristics of our favorite cast members.

This is a 'young adult' book, so you can expect the usual tropes like teen drama and romance - - - if you can get past that, the story can be enjoyable. The main characters are different enough to keep interest going, there are werewolves, and some men with guns. But I do have to say that I felt Allison's character was flat and boring in 'On Fire.'

The story gets underway when the main character, Scott, finds out that his girlfriend's best friend's boyfriend, Jackson, has gone missing. Scott and his girlfriend, Allison, decide to go look for him at the last place his phone's GPS blinked at, but Scott is using this just as an excuse to hang out with his girlfriend because Jackson is a sworn enemy of his. As I have said, if you haven't at least watched season one of MTV's Teen Wolf, you'll be pretty lost in the beginning of the story because there are no introductions to these characters, since it seems Holder was writing this specifically for fans of the TV show (I am a huge fan of the series, and highly recommend it to people who love mythical creatures, such as werewolves and banshees).

On the other side of the story, viewers of the show get to see Derek Hale and Kate Argent's backstory, which Derek is a werewolf and Kate is a werewolf hunter, the two had a quick romance, but it turned out to be a lie on Kate's side. This side of the story will make fans of the show happy because the series only gave hints towards the fake romance between the two characters, while Holder shows us exactly what happened. From Derek meeting Kate when he is only 17-years-old, and she older, to her burning the Hale household to the ground with most of Derek's family inside of it--- because she hunts werewolves, of course.

Meanwhile, both Derek and Scott have been having nightmares about an Alpha wolf, that seems to either want both of them dead or to join his pack. Worse of all, Scott and Derek both end up at the forest preserve that the dreams took place in, which both feel another wolf presence while being there. Since they both sense this, they start to wonder if Jackson's disappearance is a trap set by the Alpha.

During all of this, Jackson's girlfriend, Lydia, and his best friend Danny, are also searching for Jackson or any clue as to why he suddenly disappeared, which this has nothing to do with what actually happens to Jackson in the TV series. I think the best parts of this book are the scenes without Scott and Allison, who spend the majority of the time trying to make-out while doing a half-ass job searching for the lost friend. As I said before, if you can get past the teen romance, the story is actually really good. Especially my favorite character, Stiles, who had the best description in the entire book: "Life in his[Stiles] head was accompanied by the soundtrack of a small, eternal, dull ache, but word was that would go away after a few decades."

If you have watched the show, you'll be glad to know that this book isn't just an adaptation of season two--- this one has a different story in it that wasn't in the show. Without giving too much away, we get a different glimpse of Jackson's personality and problems he has dealt with much of his life. The book isn't a necessary read for fans, but it gives us a little bit more of the Teen Wolf world to read about, such as introductions of new characters (like a high school girl named Cassie), who never made it to the TV series. While reading this book, it can tempt readers to go back or even start watching the MTV series. I warn you, though, once you start watching, you won't be able to stop. Binge fest anyone?

There were a few inconsistencies, and a whole lot of typos--- whoever the editor was, was apparently not paying attention, but the story is good and the characters are unique. I recommend this to people who have watched the series, and to those who love mythical creatures. But I do wholeheartedly recommend you watch season one before attempting to read this novel, otherwise, you will be lost!

For more paranormal and fantasy book reviews, check out my blog at GoreAndTea.com
  
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Boonie Bears: To The Rescue (2019)
Boonie Bears: To The Rescue (2019)
2019 |
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Characters – Logger Vick has been working on cutting down the trees in the forest, which has seen him become rivals with a couple of bears, his rivalry has seen him spending more time trying to allude the bears, than dealing with his actual job, when his latest equipment is take by the bears, he learns a new responsibility when he must take care of a baby who has become lost in the forest. Briar is the smarter of the two bears, he always has a plan in mind and lets Bramble learn his correct place in the couple’s plans. Bramble does focus on getting most the laughs between the bears, he is meant to be the dumber of the two which comes off clear, with how he deals with keep Lola happy. Lola is the baby that ends up under the care of the unlikely partnerships between bitter rivals.

Story – The story here follows the unlikely union of the television show character Logger Vick and the brother bears Briar and Bramble as they want to protect a little baby girl they find in the forest, who is being tracked down by criminals. If you have seen the TV show, you will enjoy seeing the unlikely union, think Bugs Bunny working with Elma Fudd. If you haven’t seen the TV show you will see how characters similar to Yogi Bear and Ranger Smith clash over certain things. Having this mixed together we do get a Monsters Inc environment, with the baby being thrown into the hands of people and animals with no idea how to raise them and them finding comical ways to make her happy. This is clearly marketed for a younger audience and you can see why they would be happy to sit and enjoy the characters adventures.

Adventure/Family – The adventure side of this film shows us just how far the unlikely group will go to save a baby, it has plenty of references to other adventure films too, while this might be one that is targeted more for the younger members of the family, parents could enjoy watching with their single figured aged children.

Settings – The film uses the settings to get an extra laugh here and there, as it shows us just how the three characters live with their own rivalry.

Animation – The animation in the film does look like it has come from a TV show, which still makes it look fantastic throughout.


Scene of the Movie – The bonding between the three.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – Being unsure what the rivalry between Logger Vick and the bears really is.

Final Thoughts – This is a fun family comedy that will keep the younger audience happy throughout the film, it does have a big heart at the centre and could be compared to Monsters Inc and Yogi Bear with ease.

Overall: Fun family animation.