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Suggs recommended Back to Black by Amy Winehouse in Music (curated)

 
Back to Black by Amy Winehouse
Back to Black by Amy Winehouse
2006 | Rock
8.8 (8 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"For obvious reasons, since her passing, I’ve been playing it a bit, and it’s a fucking great album. I think it was Tony Bennett who said she had the voice in which he could recognise the echoes of the truly great singers. Again, she had that spontaneity: she could do five different versions of the same song and they’d all be equally good. And that’s the sign of a real soul singer. I did meet her a few times, I used to see her around Camden, and my daughters used to know her a bit, being Camden girls, and it was sad seeing her demise. She was this healthy, vibrant girl and bit by bit you saw that change. Really tragic, and especially when you hear how great that album was. It’s funny, even in our heyday, people in Camden would leave us alone a bit. There wasn’t that tabloid hunger in those days, and there wasn’t a lot of music in the papers. Also, we weren’t in the girly market. Girls didn’t like Madness, so there was no point in writing about us! So we avoided all that. But now of course there’s the internet, and all these fucking virals or whatever they are, and everyone’s got a camera on their phone, and if Amy wanted to go and hang out at the pub, she just couldn’t. And at the very end, all she wanted to do was come back to Camden. Hopefully in time people will remember her as a brilliant singer, and forget all the other nonsense."

Source
  
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather (1972)
1972 | Crime, Drama

"Favorite movie of all time, what I think is the best crafted movie of all time, is The Godfather. It was the perfect confluence of the source material being so intimate and true, and having within its DNA, it just so happens, is an incredible plot in the most organic matter. It is so not contrived, or “your IQ’s dropping,” which is almost the case of all other combinations, right? In this one, it’s inherently built into the life of these people. And there are stakes, there’s threat, and that’s just built in, so the source material had all of that. And the confluence of one of the great artists of his time for sure in Coppola, the great kind of forward thinking artists, and a leader in — he was a cult figure for artists that followed him for a long time. I got to meet him a couple times, and I feel the same way, if I was born on that time, I would have been on his ashram for sure. He’s coming from such philosophy, and depth about art, and this guy was kind of forced to do something with a hair more structure and a hair more chance of connection to people than he would normally want. He used all those tools of artistry and introspection and craft — he has an incredible handle on the world and a pushing of the envelope to bring depth and humanity to it, which makes it a perfect combination of everything."

Source
  
    Blood Group Diet

    Blood Group Diet

    Health & Fitness and Food & Drink

    3.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    Blood Group diet is a handy iOS App designed to educate the users with respect to their blood group....

Mayhem (2017)
Mayhem (2017)
2017 | Action, Comedy, Horror
6
7.1 (8 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Mayhem is a pretty fun comedy horror from Joe Lynch for the most part.

Centred around an outbreak of a virus in an office building, the workers inside are sealed in for 8 hours whilst the airborne anti virus does it's thing. The virus itself causes people to lose control of their inhibitions, and in an office space, that includes a whole lot of violence towards people that you would naturally grow to hate over time.
It's a simple premise executed well enough.

The two leads Stephen Yeun and Samara Weaving are a hugely likeable pairing, and have a great supporting cast to work with. The dialogue is often funny, and everyone involved nails the humour - I can't remember any of it falling flat.

The story is fairly predictable and it's one of those films that likes to cut away rather than show violence - not everytime, but certainly on multiple occasions, which takes away a lot of the impact Mayhem could have otherwise had.
The Last Drive-In host Joe Bob Briggs raises a good point - in a world awash with horror comedy, it would have been interesting to see how this film would have turned out if it had been played straight. As I said, the humour is genuinely good, but I agree here - it could have really benefitted from being a full on horror experience.

Overall though, Mayhem is entertaining, and I no doubt will watch it again at somepoint. It's hard to not enjoy a film that includes a brutal fight sequence whilst Faith No More plays in the background.
  
Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas
Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas
Adam Kay | 2019 | Biography, Health & Fitness, Humor & Comedy, Medical & Veterinary
10
7.6 (9 Ratings)
Book Rating
Another amazingly funny look at the life of a doctor, but this time over the festive period.
I don’t think I will ever tire of reading Adam Kay’s work, from the diary entries full of sarcasm to the explanatory footnotes with a touch of humour, he makes his books so easy to read.
This book shows how medical staff don’t get the standard couple of weeks off that most people seem to get where they can binge on cheese and wine and forget which day of the week it is, whilst watching rubbish TV. They still have to work, and sometimes it’s the worst time of year because of people overindulging and not being careful with the most ordinary of tasks.
I don’t know how he manages to keep his sense of humour throughout both books and throughout his career in medicine, but I’m so glad that he does.
The final chapter was the most poignant one for me, where he talks about thanking the medical professionals with small gestures such as a Christmas card or donating to a charity. It shows that even though he is no longer in the profession, it isn’t too far from his heart (probably because his siblings still work in the profession) and he wants to make it better for those that do pull the short straw at Christmas.
Another brilliant read from Adam Kay, I can’t wait to read more from him (hopefully!). My only regret? Not reading this one around Christmas!
  
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ClareR (5885 KP) rated Thirsty Animals in Books

Jun 25, 2023  
Thirsty Animals
Thirsty Animals
Rachelle Atalla | 2023 | Contemporary, Dystopia, Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I’m really going to have to start rationing my exposure to dystopian fiction. Although to be fair, after reading Thirsty Animals I did try to cut down the time spent in the shower (although I’m pretty sure that’s cancelled out by the marathon-length showers taken by the 19 year old). This is one of those books that is so plausible that you will be thinking about your own impact on the environment. It’s not ‘preachy’ though. It’s just the rather disturbing story of Aida’s life after she is forced to return to her home on a livestock farm (cows and sheep) when water starts to become really scarce - even in Scotland.

Until the point at which Aida goes home, Scotland is one of the last places with running water. But that is about to change.

This isn’t quite Mad Max, although when the water is switched off and people aren’t allowed to move about within Scotland, it does become pretty lawless - as Aida and her family soon find out.

Thirsty Animals is highly likely to be amongst my favourite books this year. Nothing seemed far-fetched, and the relationships were entirely believable. These were people in extremis, and no matter their behaviour, who knows how we would behave in a similar situation in order to keep ourselves and our families alive?
This is certainly a book that has kept me thinking about it for a while after having finished it.
I’m so intrigued where Rachelle Atalla will go next - I’ll certainly be reading it!