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Hocus Pocus (1993)
Hocus Pocus (1993)
1993 | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
Halloween Classic (2 more)
Bette Middler
Sarah Jessica Parker
Witches In Town
This was the first time i ever saw "Hocus Pocus" and i thought it was great. A halloween classic. You have witches, trick or treating, candy, cat, and more. Its a classic.

The plot: After moving to Salem, Mass., teenager Max Dennison (Omri Katz) explores an abandoned house with his sister Dani (Thora Birch) and their new friend, Allison (Vinessa Shaw). After dismissing a story Allison tells as superstitious, Max accidentally frees a coven of evil witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy) who used to live in the house. Now, with the help of a magical cat, the kids must steal the witches' book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal.

It was not a critical or commercial success upon its release, possibly losing Disney around $16.5 million during its theatrical run. However, largely through annual airings on Disney Channel and Freeform (formerly ABC Family), Hocus Pocus has been rediscovered by audiences, resulting in a yearly spike in home video sales of the film every Halloween season that has helped make it a cult classic.

Various rewrites were made to the script to make the film more comedic and made two of its young protagonists into teenagers; however, production was stalled several times until 1992, when Bette Midler expressed interest in the script and the project immediately went forward.

Midler, who plays the central antagonist of the film (originally written for Cloris Leachman), is quoted as saying that Hocus Pocus "was the most fun I'd had in my career up to that point.

Leonardo DiCaprio was originally offered the lead role of Max, but declined it in order to pursue What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Like i said before its a halloween classic.
  
Fun Size (2012)
Fun Size (2012)
2012 | Comedy
7
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
While this may be your typical Nickelodeon movie, it will bring you back to those days when the Beasties reigned supreme and Elizabeth Shue was having her Adventures in Babysitting. Wren (Victoria Justice) is your typical, slightly geeky, fairly hot high school student who thinks that going out for Halloween dressed as a Supreme Court justice is cool. Her friend April (Jane Leavy) is more in tune with high school social status and wants them to go to the popular boy’s party. They are actually discussing how this will never happen; when he rolls up and invites them to come. He may even sing a song for Wren.

Wren is getting ready to leave for the party when her mother (Chelsey Handler) tells her she needs to take Albert trick-or-treating. Albert is almost your typical little brother; there is an opening montage of all the sweaters he has destroyed of Wren’s. The small catch: Albert doesn’t talk. Wren takes Albert out and he gets into your usual mischief, but it’s not until they get separated in a haunted house that things really start to go wrong.

Wren realizes she has lost Albert and must find him and various hijinks ensue as Albert is exposed to the adult world of Halloween. Wren and her friends are caught up in all sorts of trouble looking for Albert, including their Volvo having an intimate encounter with a giant mechanized chicken.

Appearances by Kerri Kenney and Ana Gasteyer as the “moms” as well as Johnny Knoxville as the guy everybody can’t stand round out the cast and add some more adult humor to the story. All in all a cute movie, Fun Size will be enjoyed most by the Nickelodeon set, but parents will laugh as well. I laughed throughout the whole thing.
  
K(
Katana (Katana, #1)
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Original Review posted on <a title="Katana by Cole Gibsen" href="http://bookwyrming-thoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/review-katana-by-cole-gibsen.html">Bookwyrming Thoughts</a>

<i><b>Note:</b> Formatting is lost due to copy and paste</i>

Anyone who's seen me at book club would probably know that I was practically bouncing off the library walls when I found out Katana by Cole Gibsen was the next book we were going to read.

      I apologize if I looked like a hyperactive bookworm that day and looked like a chipmunk chittering away. Or maybe a squirrel starving for acorns (oops for any cuteness overload).

<i><b>Reviewer's Note:</b> removed pictures. You'll have to see the review on the blog for the pictures...</i>

     But here are a few interesting things about Katana:
 
     It's set in St. Louis – I love you New York, but I've never visited you or even live there, so... it's always exciting to see a book set in a place you've been to. Or maybe I just need to go to NY sometime in the future. I'll be sure to add it to my bucket list. ;)

      But... I do have much better time visualizing than I would with Victorian London*. Do brownie points exist? :p

      This is probably getting old and you might be tired of me saying this a lot, but yes, Katana has a great (and I mean great) idea with reincarnation in the present day without Angels being used.

      Well, Angels is getting a tad bit old. But thankfully, it's samurai. Cheers. Though I'm not sure why I'm saying cheers when it's very similar to paranormalish Romeo & Juliet style in a way. Random fact: I didn't really like Romeo & Juliet. It doesn't stop me from liking the book though.

      On the overall side though? It's action-packed from the first page. You're basically in for a "Good Reads" smoothie.

      Ironically, I like Goodreads too.
 
     But out of randomness, I've called dibs on its sequel, Senshi already (that review will come eventually). I apologize to any of my fellow book club members if they were interesting in checking out the only copy. I appreciate you guys waiting patiently.

      Just please keep the candy corn to yourself. You'll need them for trick-or-treating in a few weeks. ;)

 *Victorian London was randomly chosen. The Infernal Devices was on my mind at the time the review was written. If I were alive at the time, I would be six feet under the ground unless I'm like Tessa Gray and Magnus, and I'm a warlock.
  
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
2019 | Horror
Obviously I'm not familiar with the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books that this movie is based on - a series of three books containing short horror stories for children and drawing heavily on urban legend and folklore for it's subject matter, first published in 1981. Apparently, the series is listed by the American Library Association as being the most challenged series of books from the 1990s, with complaints relating to the violence and disturbing subject matter portrayed within them not being suitable for the children it was aimed at. The illustrations within the book also drew criticism, vividly portraying the nightmare creatures and scenes contained within the stories. Perfect material for a movie version!

That movie version comes from Troll Hunter director André Øvredal and producer/co-writer Guillermo del Toro and attempts a Goosebumps style movie, taking some of the better known stories from the 80+ contained within the books and weaving them into a larger narrative, set in Mill Valley Pennsylvania during the fall of 1968.

It's Halloween and a group of teens are preparing to go out for an evening of trick or treating - applying makeup, getting into their costumes, fishing in the toilet for turds in preparation for a Halloween trick. They head out on their bikes but it's not long before they run into some idiot jocks from their local school, and that turd trick suddenly comes in handy! We've already been introduced to the jocks earlier in the movie, out in a cornfield where they were hitting a creepy looking scarecrow about the head with a baseball bat. Yep, they're certainly going to regret that a little bit later on!

The teens manage to escape the jocks, working their way into a drive through movie that's showing "Night of the Living Dead" and into the car of another teen called Ramón. The group strike up a bond with Ramón after he helps them out and they all decide to go and break into an abandoned local house which is reportedly haunted. They find their way into the basement where legend has it that Sarah Bellows, the daughter of a prominent local family, was locked away in the late 1800s. Horror nerd Stella comes across a book containing short scary stories that were written in blood by Sarah, and she decides to take it with them. As Stella opens the book’s pages, she sees that Sarah’s stories are literally beginning to write themselves - stories that put her friends in some pretty unpleasant situations, stories which immediately become reality the moment they're written. As Stella later puts it, "You don't read the book, the book reads you".

The setup and the scenarios within each story are enjoyable enough and are certainly creepy, however the execution doesn't always work so well and the payoffs aren't quite as scary as I would have liked. The movie also suffers from some slightly dodgy CGI at times too, which doesn't help. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the final story, and the return to the house in order to try and stop Sarah Bellows worked really well for me. It all ends with a definite opportunity for a sequel and with plenty more scary stories to choose from within the source material, I'm sure we'll be seeing another one soon. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark taps nicely into the "It" and "Stranger Thing" vibe, with it's group of teens rising up together against evil, and despite it's faults I did have a lot of fun with it. I'm definitely interested in seeing more.
  
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Nadya R (9 KP) rated Caraval in Books

Jul 2, 2018  
Caraval
Caraval
Stephanie Garber | 2017 | Young Adult (YA)
10
8.1 (97 Ratings)
Book Rating
A story for all of you - lovers of the magical. Book that gonna feed you starvation for magic. With every page you will go deep into the Caraval's magic and secrets. But don't forget:
"Before you fully enter into our world, you must remember it’s all a game. What happens beyond this gate may frighten or excite you, but don’t let any of it trick you. We will try to convince you it’s real, but all of it is a performance."

Meet Scarlett and Tella Dragna - two sisters living in an island, governed by their father, who shows up to be such a cunt. He punishes them without any mercy. Beat and torture them and even kill a man to teach them a lesson. But Scarlett found their only way out from this bloody island- she gonna marry to a governor. Although it is an arranged marriage she can see clearly the situation and to understand that this is the only salvation for her and her sister. But life has other plans for them. When they received three tickets for the annual Caraval show, Tella kidnapped her, with the help of mysterious sails man, to the mysterious show’s island. And then the game began.
The Caraval is ruled by a man called Legend. Nobody saw his face, nobody knows his name. He is only known for his passion for games. Although his games can draw people to madness, everybody wants to play. And this year award is so tempting that nobody can resist. Who doesn’t want to get a wish come true?
It’s a magical book that took me away from reality for couple hours. But it’s not fully developed. There is not a built world, just some islands in the middle of somewhere. No world named, or government, nothing. This came as drawback for me, I missed the illusion that actually this world does exists. Another shortage for me is that the characters are not fully developed as well. I liked the way that Scar describes her feelings in colours, but there is almost nothing personal to learn about her. The major thing in the book is the Game. In some points I believed that everything that happened is true. All decisions are life treating. I’ve got lost between the pages, absorbed by the magic. I probably forgot that “it’s only a game”.