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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2330 KP) rated The Rocky Road to Ruin in Books

Jul 28, 2021

Murder Served Ice Cold

Riley Rhodes has returned home to Penniman, Connecticut, for the funeral of her best friend’s mother. After the service, she sees that Caroline and her brother, Mike, are fighting over what to do with the property that the two of them were left, including Udderly Delicious, the ice cream shop where Riley worked as a teen. The next morning, Riley finds Mike dead. Knowing that Caroline will be a prime suspect, Riley tries to figure out what happened. Can she do it?

Riley has a fun background for an amateur sleuth – CIA librarian. And yet this is definitely still a cozy, and the warmth pulled me in right away. This book has a bit of a bittersweet vibe. We get the wonderful characters and setting we love in a cozy, but the beginning is appropriately somber. It really works well. The pacing was a little uneven in the middle, but the book had a strong beginning and ending that make up for it. I had a hard time putting the book down the closer I got to the climax. There is more than enough talk to ice cream to make you drool, and two recipes inspired by the more creative contributions are in the back of the book. Now’s the time to enjoy this debut. Me? I’ll be having a second helping of ice cream while I wait for the sequel.

Kudos

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Final Destination (2000) in Movies

Oct 3, 2020

Final Destination (2000)

2000 | Horror, Mystery

7.4

(32 Ratings)

Movie Rating

"𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳... 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯... 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯... 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘮 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘋𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘺."

In many places somewhat more awesome then I remember, but suffers on subsequent visits because of how increasingly over-the-top these immediately began to get with the deaths in the sequels compared to the more humble ones here - which still finds a morbidity in their simplicity, but no one's being cooked alive in a tanning bed, you feel? Still has a lot going for it, the garrote in the shower is every bit as grisly as you recall and remains one of the hardest-to-watch executions in the entire series. But what actually rings better for me this time around is the heavily portentous teen melodrama packed tight with insane amounts of hilarious foreshadowing and a palpable sense of fear + paranoia (through Wong's clean direction and these astute performances [Sawa in particular is real outstanding]) all over the fact that death just really fucking hates these kids lol. Accomplishes as much playful winking as is legal without going full meta. Still one of the all-timer horror movie premises which honestly should have spawned an infinite number of sequels, but the writing around it is genuinely ingenious here, too. Still prefer the sequels for being leaner and meaner though.

Kudos

Eleanor Luhar (47 KP) rated Supergirl, Volume 1: Reign Of The Cyborg Super-Men in Books

Jun 24, 2019

I went on a little comic spree yesterday and this is my favourite of the three I read. It was my first introduction to the Supergirl series, and I really enjoyed it. I look forward to reading more!

Kara Zor-El, the cousin to Superman, is sent to Earth while her home city is dying. She;s given a secret identity, a human life to lead under the name of Kara Danvers. Her human parents try to help her settle in and live like a normal human, going to school with other teens and even learning to drive a car. But then her father - who she thought was dead - returns, with some strange new (and very modern) changes.

I love Kara as a character. She's a sassy teen, but she also has so much more going on. She's from a whole different planet, she lost her parents (twice, now) and has to make decisions that no teenager could ever dream of.

And the art style in this is a bit different to other comics - more sketchy, kind of sharper. I liked it.

The overall plot was really good - Kara's dad, Zor-El, is trying to rebuild Argon for her. But his visions are twisted, and he's causing harm to Kara's new family while trying to bring back her old one.

This was easily one of my favourite comics I've read. 5 stars. It was so interesting and exciting and I just love Kara's character so much.

Kudos

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Miss March (2009) in Movies

Oct 1, 2020 (Updated Oct 8, 2020)

Miss March (2009)

2009 | Comedy

4.7

(3 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Bizarre, funny, and lovingly goofy enough to get a pass; but for being barely 90 or so minutes this doesn't just tread water it *drowns* before even the hour + ten mark. Still liked it, saw what this was going for immediately - a mostly effective satire of the usually ignominious teen sex genre at the time and its far past tired formula, as well as the way the 2000s noxious 'sex culture' warped its young men into Neanderthal-esque sexists (both the open kind and those who were brainwashed enough to think that they weren't) who saw women as nothing more than empty meat ciphers to project their selfish desires onto. Can't believe so many people misunderstood this but then again, the WKUK bunch have always been far ahead of their time anyway. That being said however, I have very similar problems with this as I did with a genre satire such as 𝘏𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘵 in that it sets up its tropes to lambast and then not much sooner does it start to embrace them itself. Though this is still ten trillion times better than some bottom-of-the-barrel, spoon-fed meta horseshit like 𝘐𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘐𝘵 𝘙𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘤? - Trevor Moore's quintessential dopey dudebro is deeply hysterical, and both he and Cregger are pitch-perfect as always. For all its grinding halts and hit-or-miss jokes this still remains a smart, unfiltered sideshow of point-blank slapstick and caustic gross-out gags that certainly catered to my inner imbecile.