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Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)
Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)
Nora Ash | 2018 | Paranormal
6
6.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
did not like Liv!
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this book.

I have *issues* with this book.

Aside from the fact its single person point of view and blah blah blah of course I wanted to hear from Warin, Olivia has to be the single most annoying main character I have ever come across and I cannot,for the life of me figure out why I kept reading!!

She whines and moans and has the mental age of a teenager, I wasn't actually sure how old she was supposed to be til she and Warin are talking about how old he is.

Clearly, the British vampire Night Lord who's name escapes me already, is playing on a much bigger playground than just Chicago. And Warin's brother, Aleric, is part of that playground judging by the epilogue, but I can't see what game he is playing.

The book is reasonably well written, with some sexy scenes and some violence, but nothing too explicit or graphic. I saw no spelling or editing errors.

Will I read book two? Depends on who has the majority voice in that one. If it's Aleric? Possibly.

I just did not like Olivia!

But I did finish it, so for that reason...

3 stars

 Sorry this is short, but I find the 3 star ones for meh books the hardest to write.

**same worded review will appear elsewhere**
  
    Dementia

    Dementia

    Games and Entertainment

    10.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

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    You are a young man with supernatural powers. And the purpose of your life is to study ghosts and...

Player's Handbook (Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition)
Player's Handbook (Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition)
2014 | Adventure, Book, Fantasy, Game System, Roleplaying
Everything you need to get started (2 more)
Plenty of information
Great for people who haven't played before
Can be a little difficult to sift through and find the information you want (0 more)
Makes the whole thing a little less daunting
I first tried playing dungeons and dragons years and years ago with a small group and it was a complete disaster. Only one member of the group had played before and their knowledge was limited, at best. We didn't have access to any books or character sheets and the entire session turned in to a frustrating stream of questions which led to more confusion.
I started playing again recently with another small group, all of us complete beginners, and owning the books made all the difference. There are a LOT of books available but this is the best starting point if you're new to the game or want to get the basics covered. Of course a lot of the information is also available online but the dungeons and dragons official site doesn't include everything and if you go looking elsewhere you have to trawl through different sites to find everything.
The book lays things out fairly clearly and though there's a lot to get through, it does break things down quite nicely.
It includes character sheets (though you can also find apps for these on your mobile) and covers all of the basics that you need to get started; character creation, dice rolling, battles, equipment, NPCs, spells, animals and so on. It also includes a 'quick build' box for characters to get you started if you're in a hurry.
I'd recommend the book to anyone looking to get started on a campaign, especially if you're without a seasoned player / dungeon master. It was a life saver to our group of newbies and we still refer back to it even now.
  
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015)
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015)
2015 | Animation, Comedy, Family
Are you ready kids?”

“Aye, Aye, Captain…………”

As if, one motion picture wasn’t enough. Nickelodeon decides to release a sequel to the well received 2004 movie, “Spongebob Squarepants.”

The game is afoot with pirate Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas), who finds a treasure map that leads him to a legendary book. This book tells the story of the day in the life of the residence of Bikini Bottom. Spongebob is hard a work flipping burgers at the Krusty Krab. Plankton as usual is trying steal the secret recipe to everyone’s favorite snack, the Krabby patty. In the midst of the battle to save the recipe from Plankton’s evil hands, the recipe vanishes in midair. When the town realizes this may be the end of the Krabby patty forever, everyone begins panic, panic turns into destruction, and destruction leads to a satirical play on every post-apocalyptic film imaginable. Always the skeptic, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) turns the town and Spongebob’s closest friends against him. Forcing Spongebob to team up with Plankton, who has his own ulterior motives, to search for the recipe.

Plankton decides the best way to try to find the recipe is to invent a time machine so they can travel back to just before the recipe disappeared. Thus begins the adventure of travelling through time and ultimately ending with the entire gang, dressed up as superheroes, venturing on land to locate Burger Beard and get the recipe back.

Director Paul Tibbitt does an excellent job at taking all the visual humor that we’ve come to love from the TV show, and presents it with wonderful animation and stellar computer generated sequences for the dry land scenes.

Ninety minutes of Spongebob and friends’ zany antics, absurdities, and that obnoxious laugh is more than any parent can handle. That aside, you don’t have to be a fan of the show to enjoy those goofy laugh out loud moments. Definitely a movie geared towards kids!
  
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
2022 | Action, Comedy
8
7.8 (6 Ratings)
Movie Rating
The performances of Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal. (1 more)
A simple concept wrapped in a ton of adult humor.
Could be a bit too meta at times. (1 more)
The second half of the film isn't quite as good as the first half.
The R-Rated Action Comedy of a Lifetime
Nicolas Cage portrays an exaggerated version of himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. In the film, Nick Cage is struggling as an actor. He’s in a crazy amount of debt, he can’t find steady work, and his ex-wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) and daughter Addy (Anna MacDonald) feel like he’s too full of himself to fit them into his life. Nick contemplates retiring from acting altogether and is intending to do so after an awkward $1 million gig of being on an island as the guest of honor at a birthday party.

But the birthday is for a gargantuan Nicolas Cage super fan named Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal). Javi and Nick become fast friends, but the CIA abducts Nick one evening and informs him that Javi is actually an arms dealer that is responsible for the kidnapping of the daughter of an anti-crime politician. Nick becomes torn between snitching for the government and seeing where his newfound friendship with Javi goes, which revolves around Nick having the most fun he’s had in years.

What makes The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent so entertaining is the bromance between Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal. The two seem like legitimate best friends and there’s essentially chemistry with the two actors as soon as they meet each other on screen. As Nick Cage, the real Cage is totally self-absorbed as the character. He’s blinded by his own interests and what he has going on in his life to really understand or pay attention to anyone else. The whole world revolves around Nick Cage. Meanwhile, Javi is more humble. He has so much Nicolas Cage memorabilia that his room devoted to him could be considered as a museum or shrine to the actor. The two surprisingly have a lot in common and end up being hilarious together.

The first hour of the film is basically the Cage and Pascal show with the two running around like idiots in the best kind of way. Nick and Javi bond over Paddington 2, possibly making a movie together, and doing acid together. The acid taking sequence in general is probably the funniest part of the film, especially with their uncontrollable paranoia and Pascal’s fake laughing.

The remaining 47 minutes is devoted to the two men attempting to kill one another. Nick believing that Javi is this guns dealing madman and Javi discovering that Nick has been working with the CIA. The film snowballs further and further into ridiculous territory and you just gobble it up because it’s so great. The R-rated action comedy is loaded with incredibly detailed movie references and Nicolas Cage being funnier than he has ever been.

Pedro Pascal has dabbled in comedy since leaving Game of Thrones and it has never really worked out. He was the best part of The Bubble, which dropped on Netflix earlier this month, but that’s not saying much since the film was so bad. This is the first time Pascal has gotten to showcase his comedic chops in a film that is legitimately funny, surprisingly sentimental, and enormously entertaining from beginning to end.

Throughout the film, Nick Cage argues with Nicky – the younger and more successful version of himself from Wild at Heart. Nicky is basically the devil on Nick Cage’s shoulder as he encourages him to take more risks and do whatever he wants simply because he is Nick freaking Cage. It’s incredible seeing two versions of Cage argue and interact on screen, but it nearly melts your brain from simply being too awesome for our Nicolas Cage admiring brains to process.

It certainly seems like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent will have a deeper impact on you if you’re at least somewhat of a fan of Nicolas Cage’s work, but could also be amusing for fans of absurd adult comedies. Pedro Pascal is the humorous wingman we all wish we could have; soft spoken and yet a priceless factor in the overall ludicrous nature of the film. Meanwhile, Nicolas Cage continues to reign supreme as a talented lunatic at the top of his game. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is an outrageous and uproarious expedition into hilarity and absurdity. Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal are an unlikely yet brilliant comical duo that will have you rolling on the sticky movie theater floor with laughter.
  
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    Education and Games

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    Human brain is like a muscle that should be trained a lot to function properly. Surely, everyday...

Fever Pitch (2005)
Fever Pitch (2005)
2005 | Comedy, Romance
7
7.0 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Spring is the time of year when past failures of the fall are forgotten by most baseball fans. While hope springs eternal every spring for most fans, Boston Red Sox fans have long had a love/hate relationship with their team. This is due in large part to the Red Sox’s ongoing and often bizarre ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for year after year, decade after decade, causing fans to claim that the team has been cursed ever since they traded Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees back in 1918. They have failed to win a championship since.

That is, until the magical season of 2005 where lifetimes of tears and frustrations were cleansed by an improbable and historic comeback from a three games to none series deficit to the Yankees, and a four game sweep of the St Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

In the new romantic comedy Fever Pitch two worlds are about to collide in a fury of romance and humor when workaholic Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore), meets and starts to date a school teacher named Ben (Jimmy Fallon). Though their first date is hampered by a bad virus, Lindsey is taken by Ben’s gentle and compassionate nature, finding him very kind, loving and attentive.

As the two become closer over the winter, Ben asks Lindsey to attend opening day at Fenway with him as a sign of his love and commitment to her. Knowing Ben’s passion for the game, Lindsey accepts but soon finds out, that Ben is fanatical about his love of the Sox and that every aspect of his life has to be scheduled around their

games. While this is at first a minor issue, as time goes on it becomes a bigger problem when Ben refuses to take trips or attend parties and functions that interfere with games.

Naturally this soon wears very thin for Lindsey as she begins to question how committed Ben is to her and their future. The humor in the film arises from watching the very kind and lovable Ben become a different person when he is watching his beloved Sox. Rather then painting Ben as an oddball, the story does show why he has such an extreme devotion to the team, as well as how the people around him react to his devotion. His male friends simply accept it as they are rabid fans themselves, while we learn that every woman in his past has had an issue with his love of the Sox.

What really makes the film shine is the solid work by the two leads. Barrymore has a charm and grace to her that lets Lindsey come off as a very lovable and compassionate lady, rather than a selfish shrew who craves attention. Fallon meanwhile is solid, showing the duality of his life, as well as the dilemma he has between wanting to be with Lindsey and his lifelong devotion to the Sox.

The film moves at a steady pace and has more than enough humor to make you leave the theater with a smile, even if you are not a baseball fan. While some may say the plot is a bit shallow and formulistic, the film wisely puts the attention on the two leads and not on the sports action which results in a very winning combo.