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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Apocalypse in Video Games
Jun 19, 2019
As we inch closer and closer to the November release of Call of Duty: Ghosts, fans can get a taste of some more maps for Black Ops 2 through the latest DLC.
Apocalypse is the fourth and final set of map packs and is contains some very clever new and reworked offerings which should delight even the most jaded fans, some of whom complain that the DLC is often more of the same.
Like the previous map collections the players are limited to either Mosh pit or Hardcore Moshpit that puts teams of players in a series of online games where the objective is varied. There is the usual mix, Team Deathmatch, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, and Demolition modes and the mode as well as your teammates change with each map.
Accessing the new maps is easy as once you start in multiplayer mode; the option to select Apocalypse is shown on your menu. Players who have the previous map packs which are not required to play the new ones, will be able to access them in the game mode of their choice now as they would for the maps that came with the initial release of the game.
As time unfolds the map packs become part of the collection and players will simply select the online game they wish to play and if the server supports the new maps, then they will be included. However for the first few weeks of a DLC release, the option to select it is included.
The first map I played was called POD which is set in Taiwan and is focused on a failed modular community. The map is a tight area set between an ocean, mountains, and an overgrown forest which has sprawled over into the community.
As such the circular and spiral buildings are impressive though snipers will be upset that they cannot scale the buildings to setup kill zones.
The close-quarters will keep your twitch reflex on high alert and enemies can and do appear at a moments notice.
The next map is called “Takeoff” and I had a real blast playing this one, literally. It is set on a Space Shuttle launch site in the Pacific Ocean. The futuristic setting has a great mix of open areas, plenty of cover, and very detailed interiors.
I was tasked to set and diffuse bombs during my early attempts on the map and finding choke points and kill zones early allowed me to not only accomplish my tasks but to setup ambushes and traps along the most likely routes that the enemies would take.
Up next is “Frost” which is set in frozen Amsterdam and challenges players to navigate not only the frozen canals and streets of the city as well as the enemy onslaught. The central bridge of the map is always a point of contention and the ability to use the intersecting canals to get around is also a new dimension to explore.
I took a beating early in playing this map, but by my third time around I was able to rack up some kills by using the canals to get around choke points and lobbing grenades upwards to enemy groups and then emerge guns blazing in the confusion.
The map has many buildings that have a fairly generic look but the focus here is on outdoor combat in the snow rather than battling in building interiors.
The final map is entitled “DIG” and it is a reworking of Courtyard from Call of Duty: World at War: The map is set in a circular manner in an archeological site and contains plenty of open areas and scant cover. Some areas are abundant in walls, debris and other areas ideal to sneak up on an enemy but many others leave you in the open for long moments as you wait for a barrage of gunfire to take you out.
I did well on this one the first time out by locating choke points and using grenades to pin an enemy in and following up with my team as we attacked them in groups of three.
Of course no DLC would be complete without another battle with the Undead and “Origins” delivers in a big way. Set in carnage strewn World War 1 No Man’s Land of trenches, bunkers, and more, the undead are relentless.
Players must work with one another to start up some generators and survive but of course there is more to it than this. For one, the enemies are intense and seeing the zombie masses in spiked helmets and other attire from the era as well as the gigantic robot makes for a very surreal site amongst the trenches.
Origins takes players back to where the first Zombie mode began and is a prequel of a type as it explains where all of the Zombie chaos that has been a fixture of the Treyarch Call of Duty games began.
I loved getting the Zombie Blood Reward which caused the undead to see me as one of their own which was even more rewarding when I opened up amongst them in close quarters.
Even with two of the maps being reworked ones, Apocalypse feels fresher than many of the other DLC maps in that the designers have attempted to give players something new and different. There is only so much that can be down with map packs but the clever mix of locales and features as well as the best Zombie mode to date.
http://sknr.net/2013/10/16/call-of-duty-apocalypse/
Apocalypse is the fourth and final set of map packs and is contains some very clever new and reworked offerings which should delight even the most jaded fans, some of whom complain that the DLC is often more of the same.
Like the previous map collections the players are limited to either Mosh pit or Hardcore Moshpit that puts teams of players in a series of online games where the objective is varied. There is the usual mix, Team Deathmatch, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, and Demolition modes and the mode as well as your teammates change with each map.
Accessing the new maps is easy as once you start in multiplayer mode; the option to select Apocalypse is shown on your menu. Players who have the previous map packs which are not required to play the new ones, will be able to access them in the game mode of their choice now as they would for the maps that came with the initial release of the game.
As time unfolds the map packs become part of the collection and players will simply select the online game they wish to play and if the server supports the new maps, then they will be included. However for the first few weeks of a DLC release, the option to select it is included.
The first map I played was called POD which is set in Taiwan and is focused on a failed modular community. The map is a tight area set between an ocean, mountains, and an overgrown forest which has sprawled over into the community.
As such the circular and spiral buildings are impressive though snipers will be upset that they cannot scale the buildings to setup kill zones.
The close-quarters will keep your twitch reflex on high alert and enemies can and do appear at a moments notice.
The next map is called “Takeoff” and I had a real blast playing this one, literally. It is set on a Space Shuttle launch site in the Pacific Ocean. The futuristic setting has a great mix of open areas, plenty of cover, and very detailed interiors.
I was tasked to set and diffuse bombs during my early attempts on the map and finding choke points and kill zones early allowed me to not only accomplish my tasks but to setup ambushes and traps along the most likely routes that the enemies would take.
Up next is “Frost” which is set in frozen Amsterdam and challenges players to navigate not only the frozen canals and streets of the city as well as the enemy onslaught. The central bridge of the map is always a point of contention and the ability to use the intersecting canals to get around is also a new dimension to explore.
I took a beating early in playing this map, but by my third time around I was able to rack up some kills by using the canals to get around choke points and lobbing grenades upwards to enemy groups and then emerge guns blazing in the confusion.
The map has many buildings that have a fairly generic look but the focus here is on outdoor combat in the snow rather than battling in building interiors.
The final map is entitled “DIG” and it is a reworking of Courtyard from Call of Duty: World at War: The map is set in a circular manner in an archeological site and contains plenty of open areas and scant cover. Some areas are abundant in walls, debris and other areas ideal to sneak up on an enemy but many others leave you in the open for long moments as you wait for a barrage of gunfire to take you out.
I did well on this one the first time out by locating choke points and using grenades to pin an enemy in and following up with my team as we attacked them in groups of three.
Of course no DLC would be complete without another battle with the Undead and “Origins” delivers in a big way. Set in carnage strewn World War 1 No Man’s Land of trenches, bunkers, and more, the undead are relentless.
Players must work with one another to start up some generators and survive but of course there is more to it than this. For one, the enemies are intense and seeing the zombie masses in spiked helmets and other attire from the era as well as the gigantic robot makes for a very surreal site amongst the trenches.
Origins takes players back to where the first Zombie mode began and is a prequel of a type as it explains where all of the Zombie chaos that has been a fixture of the Treyarch Call of Duty games began.
I loved getting the Zombie Blood Reward which caused the undead to see me as one of their own which was even more rewarding when I opened up amongst them in close quarters.
Even with two of the maps being reworked ones, Apocalypse feels fresher than many of the other DLC maps in that the designers have attempted to give players something new and different. There is only so much that can be down with map packs but the clever mix of locales and features as well as the best Zombie mode to date.
http://sknr.net/2013/10/16/call-of-duty-apocalypse/
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated SAIBOU in Tabletop Games
Aug 29, 2019
Do you ever get that feeling where you just want to simulate the growth of a culture of cells and the affects of bacteria and viruses within those cultures? Honestly, I never do. But I was pleasantly surprised to learn that someone had designed a game to do just that. So buckle up and let’s learn about the Saibou – the cell.
SAIBOU is “a little game of cells” and that tagline is just short of perfect. I say just short because the word “cute” has been omitted. This game is stinkin CUUUTE!! “Saibou” is the Japanese word for “cell,” and in this game the players are racing to complete a culture of cells by building a 3×3 grid of chibi cell cards. Opponents will be attempting the same as well as infecting your culture with horrible hungry bacterias and viruses to eat up your cutie cells. Luckily you have defenses and cures you can apply to keep your little culture garden thriving.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a review copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know if the final components will be similar or different, or if the Kickstarter campaign will alter or add anything through stretch goals. -T
Setting up SAIBOU is a snap. Shuffle the big deck of square cards and deal out five to each player. On your turn play a card. It could be a cell, migrate, bacteria, virus, cure, or macrophage card. Cell cards are what you are trying to build in your culture and is your method of victory. Each cell card (except the wild) has colored half-circles on the edges that need to match up with neighboring cards to be valid plays.
Can’t seem to draw the perfect card you need? Play a migrate card and switch out an opponent’s card with one of yours (even if it has a token on it). Get that wild from your opponent and plop it right into your culture and watch them squirm. Feeling especially aggressive? Play a bacteria or virus card, place the corresponding token on the cell you want to infect and watch the devastation! Bacteria cards are of a specific color, or colors, that will be placed on cells of matching color. Viruses, however, are not so picky – they will go after ANY cell. “So what? Who cares if I contracted a virus?” Well, your culture cares because at the end of each player’s turn a bacteria or virus will consume the cell upon which it rests and then move on to the next surrounding cell. Bacteria move to matching colors, and viruses move to whichever card they can.
So, you’ve been infected. What now? Well, all is not lost. In the deck are several cure cards that picture medicine pills that can cure your culture of all bacteria and viruses. Would you like to prevent this from happening in the future? Play the white macrophage (looks like a beefcake cloud with Ray-Bans (not a sponsor)) card and place a white disc on any cell you would like to protect. That cell can no longer be a target of attack. Play continues in this fashion until someone has built a 3×3 grid and won the game!
Components. Per my disclaimer this game is still in prototype so I can only comment on the components provided to us. Keep in mind they may (and probably will) change or improve during the Kickstarter campaign. The game is a deck of cards and some plastic tokens. The cards are great and feature simply wonderful art. I totally dig the chibi style for this game and it was an inspired choice. Just looking at those cute cells instantly makes you want to protect them and creates a connection that pains you to lose them to a virus. A+ on art from me. The tokens, in this prototype version, leave much to be desired. The colors don’t really match the cards, but I am hopeful that will be improved upon as a result of the campaign for retail release. This didn’t cause ANY issues during game play, but upon teaching the game I had to reiterate that the card is actually a YELLOW cell that matches the yellow token. Perhaps the token will end up being orange to match the card because I think switching the card to yellow may cause issues when matching the colored edges. Unfortunately, that said, the colored discs on the edges of the cards (and also the corresponding tokens) do not really work with colorblindness, as there is no distinction other than color for these components. This may (and hopefully will) be considered for the final draft of the game. Luckily I do not suffer from colorblindness so I quite enjoy it all, but I need to be an advocate for those who do.
All in all this is such a lovely game that I am so happy we were able to play. The cute art and double-thinking adds so much to the game play that we just were eating up every time. Speaking of eating up, those bacteria and viruses are such powerful little bugs that can really muck up the best laid plans and create havoc on the table. It’s delicious! Note: we did not taste the game, so claims of deliciousness are for flavor only. Note 2: I guess I cannot use language without using words to describe food, even though this is not a game about food – but I would probably eat it because it looks so dang good. All this said, Purple Phoenix Games is super impressed by such a simple game, and we highly highly recommend any gamer type to check it out.
SAIBOU is “a little game of cells” and that tagline is just short of perfect. I say just short because the word “cute” has been omitted. This game is stinkin CUUUTE!! “Saibou” is the Japanese word for “cell,” and in this game the players are racing to complete a culture of cells by building a 3×3 grid of chibi cell cards. Opponents will be attempting the same as well as infecting your culture with horrible hungry bacterias and viruses to eat up your cutie cells. Luckily you have defenses and cures you can apply to keep your little culture garden thriving.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a review copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know if the final components will be similar or different, or if the Kickstarter campaign will alter or add anything through stretch goals. -T
Setting up SAIBOU is a snap. Shuffle the big deck of square cards and deal out five to each player. On your turn play a card. It could be a cell, migrate, bacteria, virus, cure, or macrophage card. Cell cards are what you are trying to build in your culture and is your method of victory. Each cell card (except the wild) has colored half-circles on the edges that need to match up with neighboring cards to be valid plays.
Can’t seem to draw the perfect card you need? Play a migrate card and switch out an opponent’s card with one of yours (even if it has a token on it). Get that wild from your opponent and plop it right into your culture and watch them squirm. Feeling especially aggressive? Play a bacteria or virus card, place the corresponding token on the cell you want to infect and watch the devastation! Bacteria cards are of a specific color, or colors, that will be placed on cells of matching color. Viruses, however, are not so picky – they will go after ANY cell. “So what? Who cares if I contracted a virus?” Well, your culture cares because at the end of each player’s turn a bacteria or virus will consume the cell upon which it rests and then move on to the next surrounding cell. Bacteria move to matching colors, and viruses move to whichever card they can.
So, you’ve been infected. What now? Well, all is not lost. In the deck are several cure cards that picture medicine pills that can cure your culture of all bacteria and viruses. Would you like to prevent this from happening in the future? Play the white macrophage (looks like a beefcake cloud with Ray-Bans (not a sponsor)) card and place a white disc on any cell you would like to protect. That cell can no longer be a target of attack. Play continues in this fashion until someone has built a 3×3 grid and won the game!
Components. Per my disclaimer this game is still in prototype so I can only comment on the components provided to us. Keep in mind they may (and probably will) change or improve during the Kickstarter campaign. The game is a deck of cards and some plastic tokens. The cards are great and feature simply wonderful art. I totally dig the chibi style for this game and it was an inspired choice. Just looking at those cute cells instantly makes you want to protect them and creates a connection that pains you to lose them to a virus. A+ on art from me. The tokens, in this prototype version, leave much to be desired. The colors don’t really match the cards, but I am hopeful that will be improved upon as a result of the campaign for retail release. This didn’t cause ANY issues during game play, but upon teaching the game I had to reiterate that the card is actually a YELLOW cell that matches the yellow token. Perhaps the token will end up being orange to match the card because I think switching the card to yellow may cause issues when matching the colored edges. Unfortunately, that said, the colored discs on the edges of the cards (and also the corresponding tokens) do not really work with colorblindness, as there is no distinction other than color for these components. This may (and hopefully will) be considered for the final draft of the game. Luckily I do not suffer from colorblindness so I quite enjoy it all, but I need to be an advocate for those who do.
All in all this is such a lovely game that I am so happy we were able to play. The cute art and double-thinking adds so much to the game play that we just were eating up every time. Speaking of eating up, those bacteria and viruses are such powerful little bugs that can really muck up the best laid plans and create havoc on the table. It’s delicious! Note: we did not taste the game, so claims of deliciousness are for flavor only. Note 2: I guess I cannot use language without using words to describe food, even though this is not a game about food – but I would probably eat it because it looks so dang good. All this said, Purple Phoenix Games is super impressed by such a simple game, and we highly highly recommend any gamer type to check it out.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated No Such Thing as a Free Sandwich in Tabletop Games
Sep 15, 2021
I will be the first to admit that I am no master chef. When it comes to cooking, the easier the recipe, the more likely I am to make it. That being said, as I grow older in my adult life I have started taking steps to make better (and healthier) meals, but sometimes you just have to make do with what you’ve got. So when AvianRampage Productions reached out about previewing their newest game, No Such Thing as a Free Sandwich, I found it to be hilariously right up my alley. Come check out what kinds of sandwiches you can make when you have to remind yourself that “You’ve got food at home.”
Disclaimer: We were provided with a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this preview. What you see are not finalized components or artwork, and they will change in final production. -L
No Such Thing as a Free Sandwich is a party game in which players are attempting to make the best (or worst) sandwich according to the parameters set by the current Challenge card in play. To setup for a game, shuffle the Challenge and Ingredient decks separately. Decide which side of the Challenge deck you will use – one side is black, and the reverse is white. Each side provides a different set of Challenges with which to play, and just adds some variability to the gameplay. Deal 3 Ingredient cards to each player, reveal the first Challenge card, and the game is ready to begin!
Once a Challenge card is revealed, players will look at their hand of Ingredients and place their selected Ingredients face-down in their tableau. Each Ingredient card has stats attributed to 5 different Categories: Presentation, Taste, Nutrition, Affordability, and Wow Factor. These stats, including both negative and positive numbers, are what will determine your score for the Challenge. (For example, lowest Nutrition score, greatest sum of all categories, etc.) All players must play at least 1 card each round, but can play all 3 of the cards in their hand if they so choose. Certain Ingredient cards offer special effects when played, and those powers can boost your own score, allow you to draw more Ingredients, or even pawn off an Ingredient to an opponent. Plan wisely and see what your random Ingredients can offer you each Challenge!
When all Ingredients have been selected, players simultaneously reveal their cards and tally up points. The player with the best score (best Sandwich) according to the Challenge is the winner, and takes that Challenge card for themselves. The winning player may choose to take 1 of the Ingredient cards in play into their hand, and all other Ingredient cards (regardless of if they were played or not) are re-shuffled into one deck again. The next Challenge card is revealed, all players are dealt 3 new Ingredient cards, and the next round officially begins. Players will only ever have 3 cards in their hand each round, with the previous round-winner potentially having 4 cards. The game continues in this fashion, revealing a Challenge card, playing/revealing Ingredients, and determining a round winner, until all of the Challenge cards have been played and awarded. Players then count up the Challenge cards they have won over the course of the game, and the player with the most Challenge cards is named the winner!
For being a game with a silly premise, it’s actually more engaging that you might initially think. The inclusion of 5 different categories for Ingredients is what elevates this gameplay from silly humor to actual strategy. I’m not saying this is the heaviest brain burner game you’ll ever play, but for being a light party game, you really have options each round to consider. What is the best combination of your Ingredients to meet the Challenge? Do any of your Ingredients have special effects that could enhance your round? What if you just have a bad hand and none of your Ingredients are optimal for this Challenge? You’ve just got to figure it out!
And the fact that cards are selected in secret and revealed simultaneously adds another layer as well. You can’t pick which cards to play based on what you saw an opponent play. You really have to go for the win each round since you don’t know what anybody else has in hand. The make-up of the Ingredient deck is mostly unique as well, with only a few duplicates of cards. You never really know what anyone has in hand at any point, so there’s no benefit to play it safe.
To touch on components for a minute – I mentioned that this is a prototype copy of the game, which will most likely be different in final production. That being said, this prototype is pretty good quality already. The tin that houses the game is nice and sturdy, and the cards themselves feel nice in hand and are a good size. The artwork is not yet finalized, but is mostly fine and thematic – just simple pictures of each Ingredient on the card. No real complaints on the quality of this prototype from me.
If you’re looking for a funny and fast party game, definitely consider checking out No Such Thing as a Free Sandwich on Kickstarter. The gameplay is easy and fast to learn and play, and it will keep players engaged and laughing throughout the rounds. Another plus? This game has a tiiiiiiny footprint so you can basically play it anywhere! Throw the tin in your pocket and you’ve got a game for anytime. If you want a game with a silly premise, light strategy, and a bit of math, then this might be the game for you. All in all, fun game and gameplay from AvianRampage Productions, and I look forward to following this campaign!
Disclaimer: We were provided with a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this preview. What you see are not finalized components or artwork, and they will change in final production. -L
No Such Thing as a Free Sandwich is a party game in which players are attempting to make the best (or worst) sandwich according to the parameters set by the current Challenge card in play. To setup for a game, shuffle the Challenge and Ingredient decks separately. Decide which side of the Challenge deck you will use – one side is black, and the reverse is white. Each side provides a different set of Challenges with which to play, and just adds some variability to the gameplay. Deal 3 Ingredient cards to each player, reveal the first Challenge card, and the game is ready to begin!
Once a Challenge card is revealed, players will look at their hand of Ingredients and place their selected Ingredients face-down in their tableau. Each Ingredient card has stats attributed to 5 different Categories: Presentation, Taste, Nutrition, Affordability, and Wow Factor. These stats, including both negative and positive numbers, are what will determine your score for the Challenge. (For example, lowest Nutrition score, greatest sum of all categories, etc.) All players must play at least 1 card each round, but can play all 3 of the cards in their hand if they so choose. Certain Ingredient cards offer special effects when played, and those powers can boost your own score, allow you to draw more Ingredients, or even pawn off an Ingredient to an opponent. Plan wisely and see what your random Ingredients can offer you each Challenge!
When all Ingredients have been selected, players simultaneously reveal their cards and tally up points. The player with the best score (best Sandwich) according to the Challenge is the winner, and takes that Challenge card for themselves. The winning player may choose to take 1 of the Ingredient cards in play into their hand, and all other Ingredient cards (regardless of if they were played or not) are re-shuffled into one deck again. The next Challenge card is revealed, all players are dealt 3 new Ingredient cards, and the next round officially begins. Players will only ever have 3 cards in their hand each round, with the previous round-winner potentially having 4 cards. The game continues in this fashion, revealing a Challenge card, playing/revealing Ingredients, and determining a round winner, until all of the Challenge cards have been played and awarded. Players then count up the Challenge cards they have won over the course of the game, and the player with the most Challenge cards is named the winner!
For being a game with a silly premise, it’s actually more engaging that you might initially think. The inclusion of 5 different categories for Ingredients is what elevates this gameplay from silly humor to actual strategy. I’m not saying this is the heaviest brain burner game you’ll ever play, but for being a light party game, you really have options each round to consider. What is the best combination of your Ingredients to meet the Challenge? Do any of your Ingredients have special effects that could enhance your round? What if you just have a bad hand and none of your Ingredients are optimal for this Challenge? You’ve just got to figure it out!
And the fact that cards are selected in secret and revealed simultaneously adds another layer as well. You can’t pick which cards to play based on what you saw an opponent play. You really have to go for the win each round since you don’t know what anybody else has in hand. The make-up of the Ingredient deck is mostly unique as well, with only a few duplicates of cards. You never really know what anyone has in hand at any point, so there’s no benefit to play it safe.
To touch on components for a minute – I mentioned that this is a prototype copy of the game, which will most likely be different in final production. That being said, this prototype is pretty good quality already. The tin that houses the game is nice and sturdy, and the cards themselves feel nice in hand and are a good size. The artwork is not yet finalized, but is mostly fine and thematic – just simple pictures of each Ingredient on the card. No real complaints on the quality of this prototype from me.
If you’re looking for a funny and fast party game, definitely consider checking out No Such Thing as a Free Sandwich on Kickstarter. The gameplay is easy and fast to learn and play, and it will keep players engaged and laughing throughout the rounds. Another plus? This game has a tiiiiiiny footprint so you can basically play it anywhere! Throw the tin in your pocket and you’ve got a game for anytime. If you want a game with a silly premise, light strategy, and a bit of math, then this might be the game for you. All in all, fun game and gameplay from AvianRampage Productions, and I look forward to following this campaign!
graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror in Books
Feb 15, 2019
Shallaballah by [a:Mark Samuels|679023|Mark Samuels|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1485638875p2/679023.jpg]
Weird and I didn't completely understand it. I'm not big on surreal-like stories.
1.5 stars
Sob in the Silence by [a:Gene Wolfe|23069|Gene Wolfe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207670073p2/23069.jpg]
I liked it okay, but wasn't wowed. I feel like there was a missed opportunity and that the ending was too abrupt.
3 stars
Our Tun Too Will One Day Come by [a:Brian Hodge|167606|Brian Hodge|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1326937946p2/167606.jpg]
Folklore and horror equal an interesting tale. I'd read more from Brian Hodge.
4 stars
Dead Sea Fruit by [a:Kaaron Warren|1207458|Kaaron Warren|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1303270263p2/1207458.jpg]
So far the best in the book. Perfectly paced and pretty darned creepy.
4.5 stars
Closet Dreams by [a:Lisa Tuttle|38313|Lisa Tuttle|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1296860221p2/38313.jpg]
Haunting. That's the first word that popped into my head when I finished this story. Also, disturbing, sad, and devastating. Trigger warning: <spoiler>pedophilia and abduction, although not described in any kind of detail</spoiler>
5 stars
Spectral Evidence by [a:Gemma Files|765702|Gemma Files|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1266869494p2/765702.jpg]
I had a hard time with this, especially at the beginning since it's written as a case study with footnotes. Had this been written as a regular short story, I do believe the horror is there for a good tale, but as it stands it didn't feel at all scary or nightmarish.
2.5 stars
Hushabye by [a:Simon Bestwick|2830642|Simon Bestwick|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
This was...okay. It sorta fit the book, but it also sorta didn't. The story almost felt noir, but not quite, plus everything was rather vague. Not bad, but fine.
3 stars
Very Low-Flying Aircraft by [a:Nicholas Royle|20435|Nicholas Royle|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]
The only horror in this is the fact that it's included in a horror anthology. I'm not even sure what the point was.
1.5 stars
The Goosle by [a:Margo Lanagan|277536|Margo Lanagan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1361153347p2/277536.jpg]
Meh. An even more twisted sequel of sorts to Hansel and Gretel sans Gretel. While it's gory, it didn't bother me but I didn't love it.
3 stars
The Clay Party by [a:Steve Duffy|376166|Steve Duffy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1329037438p2/376166.jpg]
A take on the Donner Party told through diary entries and a letter at the end.
4 stars
Strappado by [a:Laird Barron|466494|Laird Barron|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1446325324p2/466494.jpg]
This didn't do anything for me; it was just too vague.
2 stars
Lonegan's Luck by [a:Stephen Graham Jones|96300|Stephen Graham Jones|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1458951688p2/96300.jpg]
Interesting, the writing and pace was good. The MC is a conman of the old(?) West. I didn't understand why he did what he did exactly, like were there circumstances of something that happened to the country as a whole, but it's not such a big thing. I only hoped he'd get a taste of his own medicine, so to speak.
3 stars
Mr. Pigsny by [a:Reggie Oliver|518983|Reggie Oliver|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1477924368p2/518983.jpg]
An odd, creepy little tale.
4 stars
At Night, When the Demons Come by [a:Ray Cluley|4446653|Ray Cluley|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
Perfectly told, perfectly paced, with a horrible-ish ending. Definitely memorable.
4.5 stars
Was She Wicked? Was She Good by [a:Mary Rickert|7344680|Mary Rickert|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (as M. Rickert)
Meh. Not bad, but not great either. I don't really have much to say about it.
3 stars
The Shallows by [a:John Langan|58413|John Langan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
I honestly don't even remember this one so it must not have been all that bad or good.
2 stars
Little Pig by [a:Anna Taborska|4343515|Anna Taborska|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
Horrific only in the way of what you might do to for the survival of those you love. A quirky start with an powerful ending.
4 stars
Omphalos by [a:Livia Llewellyn|2966042|Livia Llewellyn|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1298571003p2/2966042.jpg]
Well-written but definitely not one for everybody. It's sick, a little too descriptive with the incest. I don't need an actual scene with explicitness. While I felt sorry for the MC and her brother, the story made me sad for actual victims. Possibly the point, but it's an upsetting story that some should probably skip. Also, what happened in the end? I get some of it, but it was so confusing and vague that I didn't fully comprehend the conclusion. It doesn't matter much, but I'm getting tired of vague endings or other scenes in these stories.
3.5 stars
How We Escaped Our Certain Fate by [a:Dan Chaon|16560|Dan Chaon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1241719844p2/16560.jpg]
Interesting and thoughtful zombie tale. Slightly melancholy.
3.5 stars
That Tiny Flutter of The Heart I Used to Call Love by [a:Robert Shearman|128037|Robert Shearman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1363523036p2/128037.jpg]
Strange. I'm not sure exactly what I thought of this tale, and I'm not sure I totally get what happened at the end, but that seems to be my lot with some of these stories.
3 stars
Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8) by [a:Caitlín R. Kiernan|4798562|Caitlín R. Kiernan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1491390729p2/4798562.jpg]
I liked this story. It was....interesting to say the least. Not my favorite but solid.
3.75 stars
Shay Corsham Worsted by [a:Garth Nix|8347|Garth Nix|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207583754p2/8347.jpg]
3.5 stars
The Atlas of Hell by [a:Nathan Ballingrud|2957979|Nathan Ballingrud|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1354770124p2/2957979.jpg]
4.5 stars
Ambitious Boys Like You by [a:Richard Kadrey|37557|Richard Kadrey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1252945001p2/37557.jpg]
4 - 4.5 stars
Okay, I kinda ran out of reviewing steam near the end, but the last two stories were excellent.
Weird and I didn't completely understand it. I'm not big on surreal-like stories.
1.5 stars
Sob in the Silence by [a:Gene Wolfe|23069|Gene Wolfe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207670073p2/23069.jpg]
I liked it okay, but wasn't wowed. I feel like there was a missed opportunity and that the ending was too abrupt.
3 stars
Our Tun Too Will One Day Come by [a:Brian Hodge|167606|Brian Hodge|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1326937946p2/167606.jpg]
Folklore and horror equal an interesting tale. I'd read more from Brian Hodge.
4 stars
Dead Sea Fruit by [a:Kaaron Warren|1207458|Kaaron Warren|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1303270263p2/1207458.jpg]
So far the best in the book. Perfectly paced and pretty darned creepy.
4.5 stars
Closet Dreams by [a:Lisa Tuttle|38313|Lisa Tuttle|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1296860221p2/38313.jpg]
Haunting. That's the first word that popped into my head when I finished this story. Also, disturbing, sad, and devastating. Trigger warning: <spoiler>pedophilia and abduction, although not described in any kind of detail</spoiler>
5 stars
Spectral Evidence by [a:Gemma Files|765702|Gemma Files|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1266869494p2/765702.jpg]
I had a hard time with this, especially at the beginning since it's written as a case study with footnotes. Had this been written as a regular short story, I do believe the horror is there for a good tale, but as it stands it didn't feel at all scary or nightmarish.
2.5 stars
Hushabye by [a:Simon Bestwick|2830642|Simon Bestwick|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
This was...okay. It sorta fit the book, but it also sorta didn't. The story almost felt noir, but not quite, plus everything was rather vague. Not bad, but fine.
3 stars
Very Low-Flying Aircraft by [a:Nicholas Royle|20435|Nicholas Royle|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]
The only horror in this is the fact that it's included in a horror anthology. I'm not even sure what the point was.
1.5 stars
The Goosle by [a:Margo Lanagan|277536|Margo Lanagan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1361153347p2/277536.jpg]
Meh. An even more twisted sequel of sorts to Hansel and Gretel sans Gretel. While it's gory, it didn't bother me but I didn't love it.
3 stars
The Clay Party by [a:Steve Duffy|376166|Steve Duffy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1329037438p2/376166.jpg]
A take on the Donner Party told through diary entries and a letter at the end.
4 stars
Strappado by [a:Laird Barron|466494|Laird Barron|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1446325324p2/466494.jpg]
This didn't do anything for me; it was just too vague.
2 stars
Lonegan's Luck by [a:Stephen Graham Jones|96300|Stephen Graham Jones|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1458951688p2/96300.jpg]
Interesting, the writing and pace was good. The MC is a conman of the old(?) West. I didn't understand why he did what he did exactly, like were there circumstances of something that happened to the country as a whole, but it's not such a big thing. I only hoped he'd get a taste of his own medicine, so to speak.
3 stars
Mr. Pigsny by [a:Reggie Oliver|518983|Reggie Oliver|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1477924368p2/518983.jpg]
An odd, creepy little tale.
4 stars
At Night, When the Demons Come by [a:Ray Cluley|4446653|Ray Cluley|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
Perfectly told, perfectly paced, with a horrible-ish ending. Definitely memorable.
4.5 stars
Was She Wicked? Was She Good by [a:Mary Rickert|7344680|Mary Rickert|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (as M. Rickert)
Meh. Not bad, but not great either. I don't really have much to say about it.
3 stars
The Shallows by [a:John Langan|58413|John Langan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
I honestly don't even remember this one so it must not have been all that bad or good.
2 stars
Little Pig by [a:Anna Taborska|4343515|Anna Taborska|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
Horrific only in the way of what you might do to for the survival of those you love. A quirky start with an powerful ending.
4 stars
Omphalos by [a:Livia Llewellyn|2966042|Livia Llewellyn|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1298571003p2/2966042.jpg]
Well-written but definitely not one for everybody. It's sick, a little too descriptive with the incest. I don't need an actual scene with explicitness. While I felt sorry for the MC and her brother, the story made me sad for actual victims. Possibly the point, but it's an upsetting story that some should probably skip. Also, what happened in the end? I get some of it, but it was so confusing and vague that I didn't fully comprehend the conclusion. It doesn't matter much, but I'm getting tired of vague endings or other scenes in these stories.
3.5 stars
How We Escaped Our Certain Fate by [a:Dan Chaon|16560|Dan Chaon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1241719844p2/16560.jpg]
Interesting and thoughtful zombie tale. Slightly melancholy.
3.5 stars
That Tiny Flutter of The Heart I Used to Call Love by [a:Robert Shearman|128037|Robert Shearman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1363523036p2/128037.jpg]
Strange. I'm not sure exactly what I thought of this tale, and I'm not sure I totally get what happened at the end, but that seems to be my lot with some of these stories.
3 stars
Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8) by [a:Caitlín R. Kiernan|4798562|Caitlín R. Kiernan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1491390729p2/4798562.jpg]
I liked this story. It was....interesting to say the least. Not my favorite but solid.
3.75 stars
Shay Corsham Worsted by [a:Garth Nix|8347|Garth Nix|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207583754p2/8347.jpg]
3.5 stars
The Atlas of Hell by [a:Nathan Ballingrud|2957979|Nathan Ballingrud|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1354770124p2/2957979.jpg]
4.5 stars
Ambitious Boys Like You by [a:Richard Kadrey|37557|Richard Kadrey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1252945001p2/37557.jpg]
4 - 4.5 stars
Okay, I kinda ran out of reviewing steam near the end, but the last two stories were excellent.
Jordan Binkerd (567 KP) rated American Vampire, Vol. 6 in Books
Jul 21, 2019 (Updated Jul 21, 2019)
Not all the art works (for me) (1 more)
Adult content.... but if you made it this far in the series, that's not a surprise
Filler Anthology, but still fun...
Note: this review is transposted from my personal review blog, and so was originally written several years ago.
So, it has come to this. The sixth and latest collection of American Vampire comics. Now it’s not just my library’s slow acquisition policies holding me back, but the fact that there haven’t been any more published yet! Apparently the creators put the book on hiatus for a while, but they’ve at least started publishing again. I just have to wait for it to hit the collections….This particular collection is a couple of one-shots they put out in the meantime to keep our appetites whetted–one from the main American Vampire team, one with them letting a whole bunch of other comics creators play in their sandbox. Obviously, this review could spoil events from the previous collections.
First off, we have THE LONG ROAD TO HELL. Snyder and Albuquerque set out the story for this one together, with Albuquerque taking over to script and draw the story. Billy Bob and Jo are the Bonnie and Clyde of petty thieves, picking pockets by night to add to their stash. They’re hoping to have enough soon to cover the cost of renting a chapel, but one fateful encounter with a vampire coven recruitment team and everything changes…not for the better, I’m afraid. Jasper Miller is a young orphan, favorite target of a group of bullies. It seems that young Jasper is a very insightful young man, and some of what he knows makes these bullies very nervous, and he decides that the open road would be safer for him than the old orphanage. Vampire hunter Travis Kidd we’ve already met back in Vol. IV, and it’s good to see that he survived the ambush he willingly dove into at the end of that book. Seems to have picked up a katana somewhere in the interim too, which is always cool. Fate has these four on a collision course, and blood will be spilled by the time they reach the end of the road….
Moving on to the American Vampire Anthology, we open with the frame story by Snyder and Albuquerque. THE MAN COMES AROUND is set in 1967 as Skinner Sweet hides out in the middle of nowhere, hoping to avoid the major events he can sense just over the horizon. Seems there’s always someone trying to kill him, though…. Jason Aaron and Declan Shalvey then enlighten us as to what really happened on Roanoke Island in THE LOST COLONY. Here’s a hint, vampires were involved. We then move on to BLEEDING KANSAS, where Albuquerque puts down his pencil and takes a shot at writing the story, leaving the art to Ivo Milazzo. Set against that tumultuous time and place, Albuquerque and Milazzo set down for us a tale of what I can only assume are Henry Jones’ grandparents. Next up, Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes serve up a tale of terror in the frozen north with CANADIAN VAMPIRE as ex-Mountie-turned-bounty-hunter Jack Warhammer is hired to find out what happened to a German fur trading expedition missing in the wild. Becky Cloonan handles both the writing and art for GREED, starring Skinner Sweet and featuring his first encounter with those crazy folks who hail from a place called “Hollywood….” Francesco Francavilla then pulls the same trick for THE PRODUCERS, detailing the birth of a star as he makes a shady deal in exchange for fame and fortune. Gail Simone and Tula Lotay treat us to Hattie Hargrove’s origin story in ESSENCE OF LIFE, showing us just what happened to her that made her willing to screw over her best friend in the world. Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon share both the writing and artist credits for LAST NIGHT, as a lounge singer describes to a reporter the events leading up to the previous evening’s massacre at the club. Finally, Greg Rucka and JP Leon tell the tale of a dying drunk and the lowlifes who try and shanghai him in PORTLAND, 1940.
On the whole, I really enjoyed this as per the usual for this series. The writing was stellar, and the anthology format really served well for the world being depicted. As with any comics anthology, there’s a wide variety of artistic styles represented, and some of those styles I’m not really a fan of, but that’s largely a matter of taste. I could sit here and tell you that I really wasn’t a fan of Ivo Milazzo’s art on BLEEDING KANSAS (which is true), but the next guy might have loved it. I could laud Tula Lotay’s work on ESSENCE OF LIFE (also true), but the next guy may not have been a fan. That’s kind of how it works–peoples’ tastes are pretty subjective. I did enjoy getting into Hattie’s head a bit more than we were able to back when she was introduced, and Skinner Sweet’s adventures are always fun–I’ve mentioned before my weakness for antiheroes. As a historian, Roanoke’s lost colony is always a fascinating topic, and a number of the plot twists contained here were very satisfying if not always surprising. I really can’t wait for the next volume to come out so I can see the payoff to some of the plot threads being set up both here and in the teaser from the end of volume V….
CONTENT: R-rated language. Brutal, bloody vampire violence–these aren’t sparkly, angst-ridden pretty boys, these are monsters through and through. Some explicit and implicit sexual content, including what more or less constitutes a rape. No real occult content, as there isn’t a spiritual element to this version of vampirism.
Original review link: https://jordanbinkerd.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/review-american-vampire-volume-vi-by-scott-snyder-rafael-albuquerque/
So, it has come to this. The sixth and latest collection of American Vampire comics. Now it’s not just my library’s slow acquisition policies holding me back, but the fact that there haven’t been any more published yet! Apparently the creators put the book on hiatus for a while, but they’ve at least started publishing again. I just have to wait for it to hit the collections….This particular collection is a couple of one-shots they put out in the meantime to keep our appetites whetted–one from the main American Vampire team, one with them letting a whole bunch of other comics creators play in their sandbox. Obviously, this review could spoil events from the previous collections.
First off, we have THE LONG ROAD TO HELL. Snyder and Albuquerque set out the story for this one together, with Albuquerque taking over to script and draw the story. Billy Bob and Jo are the Bonnie and Clyde of petty thieves, picking pockets by night to add to their stash. They’re hoping to have enough soon to cover the cost of renting a chapel, but one fateful encounter with a vampire coven recruitment team and everything changes…not for the better, I’m afraid. Jasper Miller is a young orphan, favorite target of a group of bullies. It seems that young Jasper is a very insightful young man, and some of what he knows makes these bullies very nervous, and he decides that the open road would be safer for him than the old orphanage. Vampire hunter Travis Kidd we’ve already met back in Vol. IV, and it’s good to see that he survived the ambush he willingly dove into at the end of that book. Seems to have picked up a katana somewhere in the interim too, which is always cool. Fate has these four on a collision course, and blood will be spilled by the time they reach the end of the road….
Moving on to the American Vampire Anthology, we open with the frame story by Snyder and Albuquerque. THE MAN COMES AROUND is set in 1967 as Skinner Sweet hides out in the middle of nowhere, hoping to avoid the major events he can sense just over the horizon. Seems there’s always someone trying to kill him, though…. Jason Aaron and Declan Shalvey then enlighten us as to what really happened on Roanoke Island in THE LOST COLONY. Here’s a hint, vampires were involved. We then move on to BLEEDING KANSAS, where Albuquerque puts down his pencil and takes a shot at writing the story, leaving the art to Ivo Milazzo. Set against that tumultuous time and place, Albuquerque and Milazzo set down for us a tale of what I can only assume are Henry Jones’ grandparents. Next up, Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes serve up a tale of terror in the frozen north with CANADIAN VAMPIRE as ex-Mountie-turned-bounty-hunter Jack Warhammer is hired to find out what happened to a German fur trading expedition missing in the wild. Becky Cloonan handles both the writing and art for GREED, starring Skinner Sweet and featuring his first encounter with those crazy folks who hail from a place called “Hollywood….” Francesco Francavilla then pulls the same trick for THE PRODUCERS, detailing the birth of a star as he makes a shady deal in exchange for fame and fortune. Gail Simone and Tula Lotay treat us to Hattie Hargrove’s origin story in ESSENCE OF LIFE, showing us just what happened to her that made her willing to screw over her best friend in the world. Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon share both the writing and artist credits for LAST NIGHT, as a lounge singer describes to a reporter the events leading up to the previous evening’s massacre at the club. Finally, Greg Rucka and JP Leon tell the tale of a dying drunk and the lowlifes who try and shanghai him in PORTLAND, 1940.
On the whole, I really enjoyed this as per the usual for this series. The writing was stellar, and the anthology format really served well for the world being depicted. As with any comics anthology, there’s a wide variety of artistic styles represented, and some of those styles I’m not really a fan of, but that’s largely a matter of taste. I could sit here and tell you that I really wasn’t a fan of Ivo Milazzo’s art on BLEEDING KANSAS (which is true), but the next guy might have loved it. I could laud Tula Lotay’s work on ESSENCE OF LIFE (also true), but the next guy may not have been a fan. That’s kind of how it works–peoples’ tastes are pretty subjective. I did enjoy getting into Hattie’s head a bit more than we were able to back when she was introduced, and Skinner Sweet’s adventures are always fun–I’ve mentioned before my weakness for antiheroes. As a historian, Roanoke’s lost colony is always a fascinating topic, and a number of the plot twists contained here were very satisfying if not always surprising. I really can’t wait for the next volume to come out so I can see the payoff to some of the plot threads being set up both here and in the teaser from the end of volume V….
CONTENT: R-rated language. Brutal, bloody vampire violence–these aren’t sparkly, angst-ridden pretty boys, these are monsters through and through. Some explicit and implicit sexual content, including what more or less constitutes a rape. No real occult content, as there isn’t a spiritual element to this version of vampirism.
Original review link: https://jordanbinkerd.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/review-american-vampire-volume-vi-by-scott-snyder-rafael-albuquerque/
5 Minute Movie Guy (379 KP) rated Baby Driver (2017) in Movies
Jul 1, 2019
Baby Driver is simply the epitome of cool, and if you’re looking for a fun and frisky thrill-ride of a movie, this is sure to be the ticket!
Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver is a pulse-pounding, jukebox-jamming blast! In this wildly entertaining crime thriller, a young man called Baby is the perennial pedal-pushing getaway driver for an Atlanta crime boss known as Doc. The two of them have worked countless jobs together, and in Doc’s mind, Baby is the only one worthy behind the wheel. Unbeknownst to Doc, however, Baby plans to wipe his hands clean and hit the road for good as soon as the opportunity arrives. Tensions steadily rise as this perfect getaway driver tries to find a way out and get away from his life of crime.
The premise in Baby Driver is a familiar one, although the movie itself is anything but. Sure, it features the cliché of one last job, but the motives here are a bit different and morality is a big focus. I’ll spare the details, but this crime movie has a heart and a conscience, and at its core, it’s really more of a love story, as Baby tries to make a daring dash for freedom all in the name of romance. After meeting a nice girl named Debora at a local diner, Baby has finally found a reason to want to break free from his past so he can live a life of love. With its romantic drive, its high-octane action, and its fresh and funky soundtrack, Baby Driver is an action thriller that would make for a perfect date night movie.
While I did very much enjoy Baby Driver, it did leave a worrisome first impression. One of the earliest scenes verges on the borderline of being a musical, and as well-crafted as the one-take scene may be, it sort of rubbed me the wrong way by making Baby look like a goofball. It was trying too hard to be cool and to me it ended up feeling pretty pretentious. Really what got me engaged in the movie was the film’s stellar supporting cast, led by Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, and Jon Bernthal, all of whom play bank robbers working for Doc. By the time the film’s second robbery rolled around, all else was forgiven, and I was eagerly strapped in for the ride.
The cast in this movie is outstanding. Foxx steals the show in every scene he’s in, playing a violent loose-cannon thug known as Bats. His intensity, wit, and strong distrust of others make Bats a character you won’t want to take your eyes off of. Hamm’s character Buddy is less abrasive, but no less intimidating when he’s angry. I really loved watching his nice guy façade crumble away when things got personal. Ansel Elgort, the teenage heartthrob from The Fault in Our Stars, has enough charm and coolness to make Baby an easy character to root for. Meanwhile, Kevin Spacey does a wonderful job balancing the complexity of his character, Doc. Eiza González is lovely and cool as Buddy’s girlfriend Darling, and Jon Bernthal truly makes the most out of his limited screen-time. All in all, I have nothing but praise for the actors as well as their well-written characters.
A big part of what makes Baby Driver so cool is its killer soundtrack, and it’s not just the music, but the way that it’s incorporated into the movie. The music itself is practically a character in the movie, as Baby is always playing songs through his iPod to drown out the ringing in his ears caused by a condition known as tinnitus. It’s used to great effect in terms of both plot and action. The movie’s eclectic music mix features over 40 songs, and much of the action is brilliantly synced up to the beat. The timing really ratchets up the fun factor and makes for a uniquely wild experience. I don’t know a good half of the songs in the movie, but this diversity helps give Baby Driver an identity of its own, and I look forward to taking the soundtrack for another spin.
Baby Driver is so fresh, fun, and entertaining that you’ve really just got to go see it for yourself. Edgar Wright has really made something special with his upbeat, funky crime thriller. The characters are compelling, the action is superb, and the comedy is hysterical. It’s one of the most laugh-out-loud funny movies of the year, but also full of edge-of-your-seat excitement. The movie builds tension so well, and it rarely takes its foot off the gas. I particularly loved the final act when Baby propels the intensity to new heights by taking charge of his own destiny, bringing forth an exciting and unpredictable turn of events. It puts an exhilarating and frantic twist on what is already a wild movie.
That’s not to say it’s a perfect movie, though. The ending itself left me feeling pretty unsatisfied. It forgoes the predictable ending for something different, and as respectable as that may be, it went on for too long and was a little too hokey and hard to believe for my taste. After riding high on Baby Driver’s adrenaline for so long, the ending botches the film’s momentum by devoting too much time to unnecessary explanation. While I even like the way the story concludes, I wish it could have gotten there a little more smoothly.
Bumpy start and finish aside, I really had a great time Baby Driver. It is an incredibly fun and energetic experience that the whole audience seemed to enjoy. It’s rhythmic, it’s stylish, and it’s not like any other film you’ll see this year. Baby Driver is simply the epitome of cool, and if you’re looking for a fun and frisky ride in theaters this summer, Baby Driver is sure to be the ticket.
The premise in Baby Driver is a familiar one, although the movie itself is anything but. Sure, it features the cliché of one last job, but the motives here are a bit different and morality is a big focus. I’ll spare the details, but this crime movie has a heart and a conscience, and at its core, it’s really more of a love story, as Baby tries to make a daring dash for freedom all in the name of romance. After meeting a nice girl named Debora at a local diner, Baby has finally found a reason to want to break free from his past so he can live a life of love. With its romantic drive, its high-octane action, and its fresh and funky soundtrack, Baby Driver is an action thriller that would make for a perfect date night movie.
While I did very much enjoy Baby Driver, it did leave a worrisome first impression. One of the earliest scenes verges on the borderline of being a musical, and as well-crafted as the one-take scene may be, it sort of rubbed me the wrong way by making Baby look like a goofball. It was trying too hard to be cool and to me it ended up feeling pretty pretentious. Really what got me engaged in the movie was the film’s stellar supporting cast, led by Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, and Jon Bernthal, all of whom play bank robbers working for Doc. By the time the film’s second robbery rolled around, all else was forgiven, and I was eagerly strapped in for the ride.
The cast in this movie is outstanding. Foxx steals the show in every scene he’s in, playing a violent loose-cannon thug known as Bats. His intensity, wit, and strong distrust of others make Bats a character you won’t want to take your eyes off of. Hamm’s character Buddy is less abrasive, but no less intimidating when he’s angry. I really loved watching his nice guy façade crumble away when things got personal. Ansel Elgort, the teenage heartthrob from The Fault in Our Stars, has enough charm and coolness to make Baby an easy character to root for. Meanwhile, Kevin Spacey does a wonderful job balancing the complexity of his character, Doc. Eiza González is lovely and cool as Buddy’s girlfriend Darling, and Jon Bernthal truly makes the most out of his limited screen-time. All in all, I have nothing but praise for the actors as well as their well-written characters.
A big part of what makes Baby Driver so cool is its killer soundtrack, and it’s not just the music, but the way that it’s incorporated into the movie. The music itself is practically a character in the movie, as Baby is always playing songs through his iPod to drown out the ringing in his ears caused by a condition known as tinnitus. It’s used to great effect in terms of both plot and action. The movie’s eclectic music mix features over 40 songs, and much of the action is brilliantly synced up to the beat. The timing really ratchets up the fun factor and makes for a uniquely wild experience. I don’t know a good half of the songs in the movie, but this diversity helps give Baby Driver an identity of its own, and I look forward to taking the soundtrack for another spin.
Baby Driver is so fresh, fun, and entertaining that you’ve really just got to go see it for yourself. Edgar Wright has really made something special with his upbeat, funky crime thriller. The characters are compelling, the action is superb, and the comedy is hysterical. It’s one of the most laugh-out-loud funny movies of the year, but also full of edge-of-your-seat excitement. The movie builds tension so well, and it rarely takes its foot off the gas. I particularly loved the final act when Baby propels the intensity to new heights by taking charge of his own destiny, bringing forth an exciting and unpredictable turn of events. It puts an exhilarating and frantic twist on what is already a wild movie.
That’s not to say it’s a perfect movie, though. The ending itself left me feeling pretty unsatisfied. It forgoes the predictable ending for something different, and as respectable as that may be, it went on for too long and was a little too hokey and hard to believe for my taste. After riding high on Baby Driver’s adrenaline for so long, the ending botches the film’s momentum by devoting too much time to unnecessary explanation. While I even like the way the story concludes, I wish it could have gotten there a little more smoothly.
Bumpy start and finish aside, I really had a great time Baby Driver. It is an incredibly fun and energetic experience that the whole audience seemed to enjoy. It’s rhythmic, it’s stylish, and it’s not like any other film you’ll see this year. Baby Driver is simply the epitome of cool, and if you’re looking for a fun and frisky ride in theaters this summer, Baby Driver is sure to be the ticket.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Avengers: Endgame (2019) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
The final curtain.
So… thanks again to work and family commitments, I’ve spent 7 days dodging social media to arrive at my showing of “Endgame” spoiler free… and was successful in doing so! It is of course impossible to write just about anything on this film without dropping spoilers. So I will keep this first part of the review short, but add some footnotes (indexed with <#> symbols) to a “spoiler section” below the trailer video. Proceed at your peril if you haven’t yet seen it!
The Plot
The MCU has delivered an impressively well-connected movie series. In the case of Thanos, this is a story-arc that started in the mid-credit “monkey” at the end of 2012’s “The Avengers” and, at the conclusion of “Avengers: Infinity War”, saw half the universe’s population drift away – Voldemort-style – into grey ash. This, of course, also wiped out half of our heroes (good trivia question for future years: who was the first we saw drift away? Answer below* ). This included Spider-Man (Tom Holland); Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson); half of the remaining Guardians; The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr Pym (Michael Douglas). Oblivious to all of this is Ant Man (Paul Rudd), still stranded in the ‘quantum realm’ following the demise of his colleagues, and with no one to flick the ‘return’ switch.
After some early action, Endgame’s story revolves around a desperate attempt by the remaining Avengers, led by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a ‘retired’ Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) to undo the undoable. Can they succeed against all the odds? (With a new Spider-Man film due out in the summer, I’ll give you a guess!). Of more relevance perhaps is whether the team can stay unscathed from their encounter with the scheming and massively powerful Thanos (Josh Brolin)?
Thoughtful
The film will not be to every fan’s taste. After the virtually non-stop rip-roaring action of “Infinity War”, “Endgame” takes a far more contemplative approach to its first hour.
The film starts with a devastating prologue, and a great lesson in statistics: that you need a decent sized population to guarantee getting a 50:50 split! There is also a very surprising twist in the first 15 minutes or so that I didn’t see coming AT ALL.
But then things settle down into a far more sombre section of the film: short on action; long on character development. The world is grieving for its loss, unable to move on past the non-stop counselling sessions that everyone is getting. This first hour was, for me, by far, my favourite part of the film. Seeing how the characters we know and love have been impacted – some for better rather than for worse – was terrific. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (with a rather glib plot-point) takes on an hilarious new aspect; and Chris Hemsworth adds hugely comedic value as Thor, setting up in Scotland a “New Asgard” settlement in uncharacteristically laid-back fashion.
Cast
As an ensemble cast, everyone plays their parts extremely well. But it is just the breadth of the cast that astounds in this film: just about everyone who is anyone in the Marvel Universe – at least, those who are still alive (alive!) and not dead (dead!) – pop up for an appearance! This is great fun with, in one particular case, the opportunity to try some more rejuvenation of an old timer as previously done with Samuel L. Jackson in “Captain Marvel”.
Inevitably, some of these appearances are overly brief, and characters that I wanted to see developed more in this film (particularly Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel) get very little screen time. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) barely get a single line each. So it will depend on where your loyalties lie as to whether you are satisfied with the coverage or not. (I personally find Chris Evans‘ Captain America a bit of a po-faced bore, so I wasn’t keen on the amount of screen time he had).
Stan Lee again gets another cameo in the bag before his demise: will this actually be his last live one?
Overall view
I enjoyed this movie. It could obviously NEVER live up to the over-hyped expectations of the fan base. But as a cinematic spectacle, for me, it delivered on its billing as a blockbuster finale, but one filled with a degree of nuance I was not expecting. The problem with the way that the plot have been structured (no spoilers – <#>) is that it is easy to pick holes in the storyline. Indeed, some dramatic options (that to me seemed obvious ones to ‘mine’) were left ‘unmined’ <##>; others were left inexplicably hanging <###>.
I suspect the reason for some of this is that the initial cut of this film probably ran to 5 hours rather than the – still bladder-testing – 3 hours as released. There were probably a bunch of scenes left on the cutting room floor that might allow things to make more sense in the extended BluRay release.
It’s at times slow, but for me never dull. It does suffer from one significant flaw though: the “Return of the King” disease. It doesn’t know when to quit. There was a natural MCU arc to follow and a perfect time at which to end it: but the directors (the Russo Brothers, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo) kept adding additional scenes that detracted from the natural ending <####>.
Above all, unlike I think all but one film in MCU history, there is NO “MONKEY” in the end credits: either mid-credit or end-credit! So, after the long title crawl (and some rather odd choices for end-title music by Alan Silvestri), if you are not to look bloody stupid as the lights come up, and face a storm of derision from your partner, then leave after the dramatic roll-call sequence of the film’s stars!
(*BTW, the answer to the trivia question is, I believe, Bucky.)
So… thanks again to work and family commitments, I’ve spent 7 days dodging social media to arrive at my showing of “Endgame” spoiler free… and was successful in doing so! It is of course impossible to write just about anything on this film without dropping spoilers. So I will keep this first part of the review short, but add some footnotes (indexed with <#> symbols) to a “spoiler section” below the trailer video. Proceed at your peril if you haven’t yet seen it!
The Plot
The MCU has delivered an impressively well-connected movie series. In the case of Thanos, this is a story-arc that started in the mid-credit “monkey” at the end of 2012’s “The Avengers” and, at the conclusion of “Avengers: Infinity War”, saw half the universe’s population drift away – Voldemort-style – into grey ash. This, of course, also wiped out half of our heroes (good trivia question for future years: who was the first we saw drift away? Answer below* ). This included Spider-Man (Tom Holland); Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson); half of the remaining Guardians; The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr Pym (Michael Douglas). Oblivious to all of this is Ant Man (Paul Rudd), still stranded in the ‘quantum realm’ following the demise of his colleagues, and with no one to flick the ‘return’ switch.
After some early action, Endgame’s story revolves around a desperate attempt by the remaining Avengers, led by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a ‘retired’ Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) to undo the undoable. Can they succeed against all the odds? (With a new Spider-Man film due out in the summer, I’ll give you a guess!). Of more relevance perhaps is whether the team can stay unscathed from their encounter with the scheming and massively powerful Thanos (Josh Brolin)?
Thoughtful
The film will not be to every fan’s taste. After the virtually non-stop rip-roaring action of “Infinity War”, “Endgame” takes a far more contemplative approach to its first hour.
The film starts with a devastating prologue, and a great lesson in statistics: that you need a decent sized population to guarantee getting a 50:50 split! There is also a very surprising twist in the first 15 minutes or so that I didn’t see coming AT ALL.
But then things settle down into a far more sombre section of the film: short on action; long on character development. The world is grieving for its loss, unable to move on past the non-stop counselling sessions that everyone is getting. This first hour was, for me, by far, my favourite part of the film. Seeing how the characters we know and love have been impacted – some for better rather than for worse – was terrific. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (with a rather glib plot-point) takes on an hilarious new aspect; and Chris Hemsworth adds hugely comedic value as Thor, setting up in Scotland a “New Asgard” settlement in uncharacteristically laid-back fashion.
Cast
As an ensemble cast, everyone plays their parts extremely well. But it is just the breadth of the cast that astounds in this film: just about everyone who is anyone in the Marvel Universe – at least, those who are still alive (alive!) and not dead (dead!) – pop up for an appearance! This is great fun with, in one particular case, the opportunity to try some more rejuvenation of an old timer as previously done with Samuel L. Jackson in “Captain Marvel”.
Inevitably, some of these appearances are overly brief, and characters that I wanted to see developed more in this film (particularly Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel) get very little screen time. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) barely get a single line each. So it will depend on where your loyalties lie as to whether you are satisfied with the coverage or not. (I personally find Chris Evans‘ Captain America a bit of a po-faced bore, so I wasn’t keen on the amount of screen time he had).
Stan Lee again gets another cameo in the bag before his demise: will this actually be his last live one?
Overall view
I enjoyed this movie. It could obviously NEVER live up to the over-hyped expectations of the fan base. But as a cinematic spectacle, for me, it delivered on its billing as a blockbuster finale, but one filled with a degree of nuance I was not expecting. The problem with the way that the plot have been structured (no spoilers – <#>) is that it is easy to pick holes in the storyline. Indeed, some dramatic options (that to me seemed obvious ones to ‘mine’) were left ‘unmined’ <##>; others were left inexplicably hanging <###>.
I suspect the reason for some of this is that the initial cut of this film probably ran to 5 hours rather than the – still bladder-testing – 3 hours as released. There were probably a bunch of scenes left on the cutting room floor that might allow things to make more sense in the extended BluRay release.
It’s at times slow, but for me never dull. It does suffer from one significant flaw though: the “Return of the King” disease. It doesn’t know when to quit. There was a natural MCU arc to follow and a perfect time at which to end it: but the directors (the Russo Brothers, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo) kept adding additional scenes that detracted from the natural ending <####>.
Above all, unlike I think all but one film in MCU history, there is NO “MONKEY” in the end credits: either mid-credit or end-credit! So, after the long title crawl (and some rather odd choices for end-title music by Alan Silvestri), if you are not to look bloody stupid as the lights come up, and face a storm of derision from your partner, then leave after the dramatic roll-call sequence of the film’s stars!
(*BTW, the answer to the trivia question is, I believe, Bucky.)
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Mary Poppins Returns (2018) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
A valiant attempt to recreate a masterpiece.
How do you repaint a masterpiece: the Mona Lisa of children’s fantasy cinema? Some would say “You shouldn’t try”.
As I’ve said before, Mary Poppins was the first film I saw when it came out (or soon afterwards) at a very impressionable age…. I was said to have bawled my eyes out with “THE MAGIC NANNY IS GOING AWAY!!” as Julie Andrews floated off! So as my last cinema trip of 2018 I went to see this sequel, 54 years after the original, with a sense of dread. I’m relieved to say that although the film has its flaws it’s by no means the disaster I envisaged.
The plot
It’s a fairly lightweight story. Now all grown up, young Michael from the original film (Ben Whishaw) has his own family. His troubles though come not singly but in battalions since not only is he grieving a recent loss but he is also about to be evicted from 17 Cherry Tree Lane. Help is at hand in that his father, George Banks, had shares with the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. But despite their best efforts neither he, his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) nor their chirpy “strike a light” lamplighter friend Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) can find the all-important share certificates. With the deadline from bank manager Wilkins (Colin Firth) approaching, it’s fortuitous that Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) drops in to look after the Banks children – John (Nathanael Saleh), Anabel (Pixie Davies) and Georgie (Joel Dawson) – in her own inimitable fashion.
Songs that are more Meh-ry Poppins
I know musical taste is very personal. My biggest problem with the film though was that the songs by Marc Shaiman were, to me, on the lacklustre side. Only one jumped out and struck me: the jaunty vaudeville number “A Cover is not the Book”. Elsewhere they were – to me – unmemorable and nowhere near as catchy as those of “The Greatest Showman“. (What amplified this for me was having some of the classic Sherman-brothers themes woven into the soundtrack that just made me realise what I was missing!) Richard M Sherman – now 90 – was credited with “Music Consultant” but I wonder how much input he actually had?
The other flaws
Another issue I had with the film was that it just tried WAAYYY too hard to tick off the key attributes of the original:
‘Mary in the mirror’ – check
‘Bottomless carpet bag’ – check
‘Initial fun in the nursery’ – check
‘Quirky trip to a cartoon land’ – check
‘Dance on the ceiling with a quirky relative’ – check
‘Chirpy chimney sweeps’ – check (“Er… Mr Marshall… we couldn’t get chimney sweeps… will lamplighters do?” “Yeah, good enough”)
Another thing that struck me about the film – particularly as a film aimed at kids – is just how long it is. At 2 hours and 10 minutes it’s a bladder-testing experience for adults let alone younger children. (It’s worth noting that this is still 9 minutes shorter than the original, but back in the 60’s we had FAR fewer options to be stimulated by entertainment and our attention spans were – I think – much longer as a result!)
What it does get right
But with this whinging aside, the film does get a number of things spit-spot on.
Emily Blunt is near perfection as Poppins. (In the interests of balance my wife found her bizarrely clipped accent very grating, but I suspect P.L. Travers would have approved!). Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda also does a good job as Jack, although you wonder whether the ‘society of cockney actors’ must again be in a big grump about the casting! I found Emily Mortimer just delightful as the grown-up Jane, although Ben Whishaw‘s Michael didn’t particularly connect with me.
Almost unrecognisable was David Warner as the now wheelchair-bound Admiral Boom. His first mate is none other than Jim Norton of “Father Ted” Bishop Brennan fame (thanks to my daughter Jenn for pointing that one out)!
Also watch out (I’d largely missed it before I realised!) for a nice pavement cameo by Karen Dotrice, the original Jane, asking directions to number 19 Cherry Tree Lane.
What the film also gets right is to implement the old-school animation of the “Jolly Holidays” segment of the original. That’s a really smart move. Filmed at Shepperton Studios in London, this is once again a great advert for Britain’s film technicians. The London sets and the costumes (by the great Sandy Powell) are just superb.
Some cameo cherries on the cake
Finally, the aces in the hole are the two cameos near the end of the film. And they would have been lovely surprises as well since neither name appears in the opening credits. It’s therefore a CRYING SHAME that they chose to let the cat out of the bag in the trailer (BLOODY MARKETING EXECS!). In case you haven’t seen the trailer, I won’t spoil it for you here. But as a magical movie experience the first of those cameos moved me close to tears. He also delivers a hum-dinger of a plot twist that is a genuinely welcome crossover from the first film.
Final Thoughts
Rob Marshall directs, and with a pretty impossible task he delivers an end-product that, while it didn’t completely thrill me, did well not to trash my delicate hopes and dreams either. Having just listened to Kermode and Mayo’s review (and it seems that Mark Kermode places Poppins on a similar pedestal to me) the songs (and therefore the “Place Where Lost Things Go” song) just didn’t resonate with me in the same way, and so, unlike Kermode, I mentally never bridged the gap to safely enjoying it.
But what we all think is secondary. Because if some three or four year old out there gets a similarly lifelong love of the cinema by watching this, then that’s all that matters.
As I’ve said before, Mary Poppins was the first film I saw when it came out (or soon afterwards) at a very impressionable age…. I was said to have bawled my eyes out with “THE MAGIC NANNY IS GOING AWAY!!” as Julie Andrews floated off! So as my last cinema trip of 2018 I went to see this sequel, 54 years after the original, with a sense of dread. I’m relieved to say that although the film has its flaws it’s by no means the disaster I envisaged.
The plot
It’s a fairly lightweight story. Now all grown up, young Michael from the original film (Ben Whishaw) has his own family. His troubles though come not singly but in battalions since not only is he grieving a recent loss but he is also about to be evicted from 17 Cherry Tree Lane. Help is at hand in that his father, George Banks, had shares with the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. But despite their best efforts neither he, his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) nor their chirpy “strike a light” lamplighter friend Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) can find the all-important share certificates. With the deadline from bank manager Wilkins (Colin Firth) approaching, it’s fortuitous that Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) drops in to look after the Banks children – John (Nathanael Saleh), Anabel (Pixie Davies) and Georgie (Joel Dawson) – in her own inimitable fashion.
Songs that are more Meh-ry Poppins
I know musical taste is very personal. My biggest problem with the film though was that the songs by Marc Shaiman were, to me, on the lacklustre side. Only one jumped out and struck me: the jaunty vaudeville number “A Cover is not the Book”. Elsewhere they were – to me – unmemorable and nowhere near as catchy as those of “The Greatest Showman“. (What amplified this for me was having some of the classic Sherman-brothers themes woven into the soundtrack that just made me realise what I was missing!) Richard M Sherman – now 90 – was credited with “Music Consultant” but I wonder how much input he actually had?
The other flaws
Another issue I had with the film was that it just tried WAAYYY too hard to tick off the key attributes of the original:
‘Mary in the mirror’ – check
‘Bottomless carpet bag’ – check
‘Initial fun in the nursery’ – check
‘Quirky trip to a cartoon land’ – check
‘Dance on the ceiling with a quirky relative’ – check
‘Chirpy chimney sweeps’ – check (“Er… Mr Marshall… we couldn’t get chimney sweeps… will lamplighters do?” “Yeah, good enough”)
Another thing that struck me about the film – particularly as a film aimed at kids – is just how long it is. At 2 hours and 10 minutes it’s a bladder-testing experience for adults let alone younger children. (It’s worth noting that this is still 9 minutes shorter than the original, but back in the 60’s we had FAR fewer options to be stimulated by entertainment and our attention spans were – I think – much longer as a result!)
What it does get right
But with this whinging aside, the film does get a number of things spit-spot on.
Emily Blunt is near perfection as Poppins. (In the interests of balance my wife found her bizarrely clipped accent very grating, but I suspect P.L. Travers would have approved!). Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda also does a good job as Jack, although you wonder whether the ‘society of cockney actors’ must again be in a big grump about the casting! I found Emily Mortimer just delightful as the grown-up Jane, although Ben Whishaw‘s Michael didn’t particularly connect with me.
Almost unrecognisable was David Warner as the now wheelchair-bound Admiral Boom. His first mate is none other than Jim Norton of “Father Ted” Bishop Brennan fame (thanks to my daughter Jenn for pointing that one out)!
Also watch out (I’d largely missed it before I realised!) for a nice pavement cameo by Karen Dotrice, the original Jane, asking directions to number 19 Cherry Tree Lane.
What the film also gets right is to implement the old-school animation of the “Jolly Holidays” segment of the original. That’s a really smart move. Filmed at Shepperton Studios in London, this is once again a great advert for Britain’s film technicians. The London sets and the costumes (by the great Sandy Powell) are just superb.
Some cameo cherries on the cake
Finally, the aces in the hole are the two cameos near the end of the film. And they would have been lovely surprises as well since neither name appears in the opening credits. It’s therefore a CRYING SHAME that they chose to let the cat out of the bag in the trailer (BLOODY MARKETING EXECS!). In case you haven’t seen the trailer, I won’t spoil it for you here. But as a magical movie experience the first of those cameos moved me close to tears. He also delivers a hum-dinger of a plot twist that is a genuinely welcome crossover from the first film.
Final Thoughts
Rob Marshall directs, and with a pretty impossible task he delivers an end-product that, while it didn’t completely thrill me, did well not to trash my delicate hopes and dreams either. Having just listened to Kermode and Mayo’s review (and it seems that Mark Kermode places Poppins on a similar pedestal to me) the songs (and therefore the “Place Where Lost Things Go” song) just didn’t resonate with me in the same way, and so, unlike Kermode, I mentally never bridged the gap to safely enjoying it.
But what we all think is secondary. Because if some three or four year old out there gets a similarly lifelong love of the cinema by watching this, then that’s all that matters.
Chris Sawin (602 KP) rated Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) in Movies
Dec 14, 2021
Tom Hardy's performance. (2 more)
Better CGI than the first film.
The film is stupidly fun.
It is REALLY dumb. (2 more)
Shriek is a wasted character.
Woody Harrelson's "hair."
Idiotic Gold
Venom was an unlikely hit for Sony Pictures making over $850 million worldwide – despite being a sloppy mess of a film.
Written by Jeff Pinkner (Jumanji (2019), The Dark Tower), Scott Rosenberg (Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds), and Kelly Marcel (Cruella, Fifty Shades of Grey), the first Venom film boasted cheesy 90s dialogue, ugly, blobby CGI/special effects sequences, and a wacky performance from Tom Hardy.
However, its sequel – Venom: Let There Be Carnage – is essentially the restaurant/lobster tank sequence from the first film stretched across 90-minutes of absurdity.
If you revisit Venom before watching Venom: Let There Be Carnage – and more specifically, the end credits sequence from the first film – the difference between the two is almost night and day. At the end of the last film, Eddie showed a calm, confident demeanor totally confident in his demeanor when interviewing Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson).
However, in the actual sequel itself, Eddie is back to looking sick, sweating profusely, and constantly fidgeting while talking to Cletus, obviously showing signs that his attempts to keep Venom under control have taken a toll on him.
Meanwhile, it seems as though the filmmakers couldn’t decide on how to style Harrelson’s red-haired wig for the film, as it humorously changes in appearance nearly every time Cletus is on screen.
Not learning anything from Anne’s (Michelle Williams) decision to leave him in the first film, Venom: Let There Be Carnage sees Eddie attempting to cover Cletus as a way to right his struggling journalism career.
But after Cletus gets a taste of Eddie’s blood, he becomes Carnage, the unpredictable and murderous son of the symbiote.
Kelly Marcell is the only writer from the first film to return, but the sequel mark’s Tom Hardy first feature film writing credit. Hardy contributed a ton of material regarding the intricacies of Venom and Eddie’s relationship – and it shows, as because they obviously know each other very well, the two drive each other crazy and argue like an old married couple.
For example, Venom is sick of eating chickens and being restrained by Eddie’s rules, and throws weird, symbiotic tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, acting very much like a child who isn’t able to play with their favorite toy or eat their favorite candy.
What’s intriguing about Venom and Eddie’s relationship is that it’s complicated, to say the least. There are homosexual undertones in the film, with Venom seemingly having his own ‘coming out party’ and even confessing his love for Eddie, but most of the film’s romantic undertones deal with both Eddie and Venom’s desire to win back Annie – the former because he’s still in love with her, and the latter because he wants Eddie to be happy, as the two humans are better together than they are apart.
It’s not as awkward as Eddie and Venom having a baby in the comics, but it’s still a peculiar way to go about exploring their relationship. Yet, it kind of works with the overall hectic and fast paced nature of the film.
The sequel also features an overall improvement in CGI and special effects, with Venom appearing more detailed in both the black, sleeker, and shinier parts of his body and his head, while his teeth have so much more detail than they did in his first outing.
Carnage being red also allows the audience to decipher what’s occurring on screen so much easier than in the first film, whose final fight between Venom and Riot is a horrid mess of two gray and black symbiotes that kind of just mashes them together into an indistinguishable blob of CGI and hopes that the audience’s imagination can do most of the heavy lifting.
Notably, there’s also a ton of fire in Let There Be Carnage, an ambient background addition which adds additional light sources and makes the action so much easier for your eyes to process.
The transformation sequences are special effects masterpieces because they have almost a werewolf kind of aspect to them – those in-between animations of Tom Hardy’s and Woody Harrelson’s faces being half transformed go a long way.
In particular, Carnage’s introduction is a pretty incredible display, as he causes a ton of mayhem and kills a massive amount of people. However, there is one lame aspect of Carnage’s CGI appearance, which is the goofy ‘tornado’ he turns into to as he violently sweep across his prison block – thankfully, however, it’s a simple thing to look past.
As for the Shriek (Naomie Harris)/Officer Mulligan (Stephen Graham), her entire side story is ultimately unnecessary. Shriek is only included in the film because of her ability to scream, and thus hurt symbiotes (due to their weakness to loud sounds).
Harris also uses a really stupid raspy voice for the role and is basically wasted overall in both her talents as an actor and as a meaningful character.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage never tries to be anything other than a dumb superhero film, but if you hated the first film, the sequel won’t make you feel any differently about Marvel’s lethal protector.
Hardy, in dual roles, is what makes these films worthwhile in the slightest, as his intricately comical self-chemistry is insane. The film also boasts what feels like an accelerated pace that moves the story from action sequence to action sequence before coming to an end rather quickly, leaving Venom: Let There Be Carnage to stand as one of those a special kind of stupid blockbuster endeavors that, every so often, strikes idiotic gold.
The sequel is a definite improvement over the first film in the sense that it totally embraces its stupidity resulting in a comic book film that feels light, silly, and amusingly psychotic all at the same time.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering – yes, the end-credits sequence is as worthwhile as the internet has made it out to be.
Written by Jeff Pinkner (Jumanji (2019), The Dark Tower), Scott Rosenberg (Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds), and Kelly Marcel (Cruella, Fifty Shades of Grey), the first Venom film boasted cheesy 90s dialogue, ugly, blobby CGI/special effects sequences, and a wacky performance from Tom Hardy.
However, its sequel – Venom: Let There Be Carnage – is essentially the restaurant/lobster tank sequence from the first film stretched across 90-minutes of absurdity.
If you revisit Venom before watching Venom: Let There Be Carnage – and more specifically, the end credits sequence from the first film – the difference between the two is almost night and day. At the end of the last film, Eddie showed a calm, confident demeanor totally confident in his demeanor when interviewing Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson).
However, in the actual sequel itself, Eddie is back to looking sick, sweating profusely, and constantly fidgeting while talking to Cletus, obviously showing signs that his attempts to keep Venom under control have taken a toll on him.
Meanwhile, it seems as though the filmmakers couldn’t decide on how to style Harrelson’s red-haired wig for the film, as it humorously changes in appearance nearly every time Cletus is on screen.
Not learning anything from Anne’s (Michelle Williams) decision to leave him in the first film, Venom: Let There Be Carnage sees Eddie attempting to cover Cletus as a way to right his struggling journalism career.
But after Cletus gets a taste of Eddie’s blood, he becomes Carnage, the unpredictable and murderous son of the symbiote.
Kelly Marcell is the only writer from the first film to return, but the sequel mark’s Tom Hardy first feature film writing credit. Hardy contributed a ton of material regarding the intricacies of Venom and Eddie’s relationship – and it shows, as because they obviously know each other very well, the two drive each other crazy and argue like an old married couple.
For example, Venom is sick of eating chickens and being restrained by Eddie’s rules, and throws weird, symbiotic tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, acting very much like a child who isn’t able to play with their favorite toy or eat their favorite candy.
What’s intriguing about Venom and Eddie’s relationship is that it’s complicated, to say the least. There are homosexual undertones in the film, with Venom seemingly having his own ‘coming out party’ and even confessing his love for Eddie, but most of the film’s romantic undertones deal with both Eddie and Venom’s desire to win back Annie – the former because he’s still in love with her, and the latter because he wants Eddie to be happy, as the two humans are better together than they are apart.
It’s not as awkward as Eddie and Venom having a baby in the comics, but it’s still a peculiar way to go about exploring their relationship. Yet, it kind of works with the overall hectic and fast paced nature of the film.
The sequel also features an overall improvement in CGI and special effects, with Venom appearing more detailed in both the black, sleeker, and shinier parts of his body and his head, while his teeth have so much more detail than they did in his first outing.
Carnage being red also allows the audience to decipher what’s occurring on screen so much easier than in the first film, whose final fight between Venom and Riot is a horrid mess of two gray and black symbiotes that kind of just mashes them together into an indistinguishable blob of CGI and hopes that the audience’s imagination can do most of the heavy lifting.
Notably, there’s also a ton of fire in Let There Be Carnage, an ambient background addition which adds additional light sources and makes the action so much easier for your eyes to process.
The transformation sequences are special effects masterpieces because they have almost a werewolf kind of aspect to them – those in-between animations of Tom Hardy’s and Woody Harrelson’s faces being half transformed go a long way.
In particular, Carnage’s introduction is a pretty incredible display, as he causes a ton of mayhem and kills a massive amount of people. However, there is one lame aspect of Carnage’s CGI appearance, which is the goofy ‘tornado’ he turns into to as he violently sweep across his prison block – thankfully, however, it’s a simple thing to look past.
As for the Shriek (Naomie Harris)/Officer Mulligan (Stephen Graham), her entire side story is ultimately unnecessary. Shriek is only included in the film because of her ability to scream, and thus hurt symbiotes (due to their weakness to loud sounds).
Harris also uses a really stupid raspy voice for the role and is basically wasted overall in both her talents as an actor and as a meaningful character.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage never tries to be anything other than a dumb superhero film, but if you hated the first film, the sequel won’t make you feel any differently about Marvel’s lethal protector.
Hardy, in dual roles, is what makes these films worthwhile in the slightest, as his intricately comical self-chemistry is insane. The film also boasts what feels like an accelerated pace that moves the story from action sequence to action sequence before coming to an end rather quickly, leaving Venom: Let There Be Carnage to stand as one of those a special kind of stupid blockbuster endeavors that, every so often, strikes idiotic gold.
The sequel is a definite improvement over the first film in the sense that it totally embraces its stupidity resulting in a comic book film that feels light, silly, and amusingly psychotic all at the same time.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering – yes, the end-credits sequence is as worthwhile as the internet has made it out to be.
Mandy and G.D. Burkhead (26 KP) rated Hottest Blood: The Ultimate in Erotic Horror in Books
May 20, 2018
Shelf Life – Hottest Blood: The Ultimate in Erotic Horror is Neither of Those Things
(I’m gonna go ahead and throw a disclaimer on up here: You are about to read something that deals with purportedly “erotic” subject matter. If you don’t like the sound of that word, you might wanna go elsewhere. If it’s actually-erotic things that offend you, though, you’ll be fine.)
I like short story compilations because you get a variety of content that’s just as easy to breeze through if you have the time as it is to get to a stopping point and put down if you don’t. I like horror fiction because it usually involves the super-natural, which interests me, and intense emotional responses, which are almost always a good thing in writing. And I like eroticism because I am a warm-blooded human being with a pulse. However, on the whole, I do not like Hottest Blood.
I wanted to, I did. Look at that cover. It’s equal amounts scary and sexy, both in completely safe, PG-13-at-most kind of ways. Unfortunately, Softcore Succubus here is both the scariest and the sexiest thing about this book
Bluntly analogized, you know that feeling you get when you come across something on the internet that disturbs and/or disgusts you, and then you learn that there’s a dedicated group of people that gets off on it? Most of the stories in this book are that feeling captured in words.
Case in point, the story “Damaged Goods” by Elizabeth Massie, which as far as I can tell is about a couple of physically abused, emotionally damaged, developmentally stunted kids somewhere around their early teens who live with a religious fringe cult being led out to a field to have sex with each other while a nameless U.S. President watches and masturbates before both kids are drowned in a river by their preacher/pimp caretaker.
Or there’s “Mr. Right” by Chris Lacher, which tells the story of a college student named Russ who has a secret fetish for the deformed women in the freak show at a nearby carnival – a fascination which leads to him getting held down and forcibly raped by a group of unwashed subhuman mutants, which the detailed descriptions make sure you understand are completely revolting to all five senses. The story ends with him being dumped out behind the fairgrounds while a small, legless girl happily informs him that this is how all carnival workers reproduce, and he can look forward to seeing his own mutant rape-spawn in the show next year.
Or there’s “Abuse” by Matthew Costello, which simply shows us how the arrest of a Peewee Herman surrogate goes down in an adult movie theater before ending with another man jerking off with the cold, dry, severed hand in his pocket as he contemplates getting a new one to replace it.
The tone of these three are pretty much par for the course for the rest of the book: thoroughly disturbing, and sex is involved, but the disturbing feeling stems from revulsion rather than fear, and the sex bits are so far on the other end of the spectrum from erotic that it feels like the authors are trying to punish their readers for even expecting to be aroused in any way.
Of course, I said myself earlier that intense emotional responses are “almost always a good thing in writing.” By that merit alone, this book technically succeeds; in fact, if it had billed itself as shock fiction instead of erotic horror, I’d begrudgingly give it a medal in its class. The “aw, what the hell?!” moments are not as artistically executed as, say, a Chuck Palahniuk read, and they tend not to have as much depth to them, but strictly in terms of making you wish that you could unread words, they get the job done.
But that isn’t the job that Hottest Blood was hired to do, and that’s not what it put on its resume. It said it was going to “heat the blood and chill the mind,” and promised that “terror never felt this sexy!” It would have been more appropriate to say that “sex never felt this terrible.”
All of that said, if you abandon any hope of seeing anything resembling erotica or horror (scary horror, anyway), there are a few stories in here that are decent reads – mostly because they try to say something with their subject matter rather than use it to see how thoroughly they can ruin the idea of sex for the reader. To give a few quick nods of approval:
Nancy Holder’s “I Hear the Mermaids Singing,” which opens the anthology, is a dark and modern re-imagining of “The Little Mermaid” that brutally points up the drawbacks to throwing away your whole life and family in order to pursue someone that you know nothing about outside of a few fleeting glimpses and lustful inner fantasies.
J.L. Comeau’s “Black Cars” is the narrative of a high-class chauffeur as he tells his passenger an increasingly mysterious story about a couple of his regular customers, culminating in a creepy twist payoff that, in retrospect, actually makes it count as a legitimate horror story, and a decently gripping one at that.
And “Safe at Home” by Steve and Melanie Tem, while decidedly and disturbingly unsexy, at least has good reason to be; it’s a short character study of a young woman who’d been molested as a child, and the lasting and complex psychological damage resulting thereof that prevents her from having any normal social life or relationships, even with someone whom she legitimately likes, someone who knows what’s happened and sincerely cares for her.
So for the handful of intriguing stories that don’t make you quit (or wish you had) mid-read out of revolted disappointment, I can’t completely condemn Hottest Blood. If you want to test your own threshold for repulsion but are understandably hesitant to use online image searches to this end, I heartily recommend it.
If you are legitimately turned on by the idea of a man eating a woman alive and then gestating her alien spawn inside his own bloated body until his head detaches and crawls away (“How Deep the Taste of Love,” John Shirley), I suppose I still heartily recommend it, though I do so from a safe distance.
If you want to read one of the few stories involved that aren’t horrible, I heartily recommend trying to find them on their own somewhere else first.
But if you want “the ultimate in erotic horror,” stay the hell away. Softcore Succubus is a trap.
I like short story compilations because you get a variety of content that’s just as easy to breeze through if you have the time as it is to get to a stopping point and put down if you don’t. I like horror fiction because it usually involves the super-natural, which interests me, and intense emotional responses, which are almost always a good thing in writing. And I like eroticism because I am a warm-blooded human being with a pulse. However, on the whole, I do not like Hottest Blood.
I wanted to, I did. Look at that cover. It’s equal amounts scary and sexy, both in completely safe, PG-13-at-most kind of ways. Unfortunately, Softcore Succubus here is both the scariest and the sexiest thing about this book
Bluntly analogized, you know that feeling you get when you come across something on the internet that disturbs and/or disgusts you, and then you learn that there’s a dedicated group of people that gets off on it? Most of the stories in this book are that feeling captured in words.
Case in point, the story “Damaged Goods” by Elizabeth Massie, which as far as I can tell is about a couple of physically abused, emotionally damaged, developmentally stunted kids somewhere around their early teens who live with a religious fringe cult being led out to a field to have sex with each other while a nameless U.S. President watches and masturbates before both kids are drowned in a river by their preacher/pimp caretaker.
Or there’s “Mr. Right” by Chris Lacher, which tells the story of a college student named Russ who has a secret fetish for the deformed women in the freak show at a nearby carnival – a fascination which leads to him getting held down and forcibly raped by a group of unwashed subhuman mutants, which the detailed descriptions make sure you understand are completely revolting to all five senses. The story ends with him being dumped out behind the fairgrounds while a small, legless girl happily informs him that this is how all carnival workers reproduce, and he can look forward to seeing his own mutant rape-spawn in the show next year.
Or there’s “Abuse” by Matthew Costello, which simply shows us how the arrest of a Peewee Herman surrogate goes down in an adult movie theater before ending with another man jerking off with the cold, dry, severed hand in his pocket as he contemplates getting a new one to replace it.
The tone of these three are pretty much par for the course for the rest of the book: thoroughly disturbing, and sex is involved, but the disturbing feeling stems from revulsion rather than fear, and the sex bits are so far on the other end of the spectrum from erotic that it feels like the authors are trying to punish their readers for even expecting to be aroused in any way.
Of course, I said myself earlier that intense emotional responses are “almost always a good thing in writing.” By that merit alone, this book technically succeeds; in fact, if it had billed itself as shock fiction instead of erotic horror, I’d begrudgingly give it a medal in its class. The “aw, what the hell?!” moments are not as artistically executed as, say, a Chuck Palahniuk read, and they tend not to have as much depth to them, but strictly in terms of making you wish that you could unread words, they get the job done.
But that isn’t the job that Hottest Blood was hired to do, and that’s not what it put on its resume. It said it was going to “heat the blood and chill the mind,” and promised that “terror never felt this sexy!” It would have been more appropriate to say that “sex never felt this terrible.”
All of that said, if you abandon any hope of seeing anything resembling erotica or horror (scary horror, anyway), there are a few stories in here that are decent reads – mostly because they try to say something with their subject matter rather than use it to see how thoroughly they can ruin the idea of sex for the reader. To give a few quick nods of approval:
Nancy Holder’s “I Hear the Mermaids Singing,” which opens the anthology, is a dark and modern re-imagining of “The Little Mermaid” that brutally points up the drawbacks to throwing away your whole life and family in order to pursue someone that you know nothing about outside of a few fleeting glimpses and lustful inner fantasies.
J.L. Comeau’s “Black Cars” is the narrative of a high-class chauffeur as he tells his passenger an increasingly mysterious story about a couple of his regular customers, culminating in a creepy twist payoff that, in retrospect, actually makes it count as a legitimate horror story, and a decently gripping one at that.
And “Safe at Home” by Steve and Melanie Tem, while decidedly and disturbingly unsexy, at least has good reason to be; it’s a short character study of a young woman who’d been molested as a child, and the lasting and complex psychological damage resulting thereof that prevents her from having any normal social life or relationships, even with someone whom she legitimately likes, someone who knows what’s happened and sincerely cares for her.
So for the handful of intriguing stories that don’t make you quit (or wish you had) mid-read out of revolted disappointment, I can’t completely condemn Hottest Blood. If you want to test your own threshold for repulsion but are understandably hesitant to use online image searches to this end, I heartily recommend it.
If you are legitimately turned on by the idea of a man eating a woman alive and then gestating her alien spawn inside his own bloated body until his head detaches and crawls away (“How Deep the Taste of Love,” John Shirley), I suppose I still heartily recommend it, though I do so from a safe distance.
If you want to read one of the few stories involved that aren’t horrible, I heartily recommend trying to find them on their own somewhere else first.
But if you want “the ultimate in erotic horror,” stay the hell away. Softcore Succubus is a trap.