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Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post

Jul 25, 2021 (Updated Jul 25, 2021)  
Check out this awesome video excerpt from the crime thriller novel DEADLY BUSINESS by Anita Dickason, Author on my blog. Enter the equally awesome giveaway to win an autographed hardback of the book, a tote bag, mousepad, pen, bookmark, and other prizes - four winners!

https://alltheupsandowns.blogspot.com/2021/07/book-blog-tour-and-giveaway-deadly.html

**BOOK SYNOPSIS**
A Texas Multi-Billion Dollar Lure!

Following a tactical raid at an Oklahoma farm, a phone call sends U.S. Deputy Marshal Piper McKay rushing back to the East Texas cattle ranch where she grew up.

Her grandmother, Jennie Layton, is near death from a crushed skull. When local authorities claim the cause of the injury was an accident, Piper isn’t convinced.

Who wants Jennie dead and why? Is the reason connected to a dubious contract Piper finds in Jennie’s desk?

Piper realizes her grandmother isn’t the only one in danger when she barely escapes a deadly attack. Thrust into the middle of a high-stakes, high-risk shell game, Piper’s become the target.

The case takes a bizarre turn when Piper unknowingly crosses paths with a Special Ranger. If he can’t derail her investigation, it could cost him his life.

With millions of dollars on the line, nothing will stop a ring of cold-blooded killers, including the murders of a U.S. Marshal and a Special Ranger.
     
    That Dragon, Cancer

    That Dragon, Cancer

    Games

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    An immersive, narrative experience that retells Joel Green’s 4-year fight against cancer through...

    Six Pack ABS by VGFiT

    Six Pack ABS by VGFiT

    Health & Fitness and Utilities

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    Six Pack Abs by VGFIT helps you get in shape, lose belly fat, improve your core strength and stay...

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David McK (3547 KP) rated Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) in Movies

Nov 28, 2021 (Updated Mar 30, 2024)  
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
2021 | Action, Sci-Fi
Who ya gonna call?
Ghostbusters 2 was released in 1989.

Ghostbusters: The video game in 2009.

At that stage, it was - unofficially - touted as Ghostbusters 3.

The (atrocious) remake was in 2006.

This was released in 2021 - so over 30 years since Ghostbusters 2 - and is now the 'official' third entry in the franchise.

Having said that, there is absolutely no mention of Ghostbusters 2 during it, so you could easily skip that if you wanted a rewatch before going to see this.

This follows a new family, who find they have ties to a Ghostbuster of yore, when they are evicted from their tenement and inherit a farmhouse out in the rural countryside: a farmhouse that has secrets of its own, as does the surrounding neighbourhood.

It's also no secret that this relies heavily on nostalgia for the original and that family is at the core of the movie, written - as it is - by the son of the late Ivan Reitman (Jason Reitman) - and paying an elegiac tribute to the late Harold Ramis (1 of the original 4 Ghostbusters - Egon Spengler - , who passed in 2014.

Oh, and the post (not mid) -credits scene? Goes some way to making up for how Ernie Hudson was treated in the original, when he saw his scenes drastically cut from what was intended.
  
Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016)
Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016)
2016 | Action, Animation, International
4
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
It seems like just last week that the creators of the Final Fantasy game franchise sought to bring their vision of the universe they created, and their story, to the silver screen. Well, okay. It wasn’t last week. It’s actually been about 15 years since this really took place in 2001.

I remember being extremely excited for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but the movie itself escapes me today. I think the lack of a lasting impact could have to do with those same creators scrambling to find the distinction between a wide-release movie and a game they’re already heavily invested in. After re-visiting the film, I remember my initial thoughts and they remain the same today. The nowhere-near-photo-realistic animated characters battled and chased each other to and fro in a tale that made little to no sense, with or without the rules of the (bad for its time) computer animated gamescape it’s all set in.

Flash back forward to today, another Japanese made FF movie makes its way to the screen via Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. Kingsglaive represents a quantum leap forward in animation and design, if not a great leap in mo-cap technology and story. The images are far more flexible, more mobile, and more tactile; though, the faces still lack expression, much less what anyone could called subtle or nuanced. The backdrops are striking and surreal, on a par with many of the big sci-fi and fantasy films hitting theaters these days.

But, take away the advertorial nature of Kingsglaive, ignore its use as a cheat sheet, prep for the players of various corners of the game world it depicts, and deal with it as a story with characters and incidents anybody not devoted to the game would watch, and it’s the same old, same old when it comes to FF. It remains a misshapen mash-up heavy with sci-fi fantasy exposition and a back story so convoluted that a single two-hour movie cannot encapsulate it.

Kingsglaive dwells mostly in the realm of fantasy, inside a universe of medieval castles, steampunk weaponry, armor, and creatrues. A world where the Kingdom of Lucis faces a new threat at the end of an uneasy peace with the Niflheim Empire. There’s a magic crystal (of course there is) and the only warriors King Regis (Sean Bean) trusts to defend it are his Kingsglaive, who are empowered by the magic of their sovereign. There are tusked wildebeest warhorses. You would think these would be the point of reference when someone shouts, “Release the DEMON!” But no, they’re actually talking about war crabs – crabs that spit out a hailstorm of fireballs.

The stakes are high, and there’s been quite a bit of intermixing of Lucians and Niflheimers in the “hundred years of peace”, but anti-immigrant backlash rears its ugly head. Taunts and slurs against the immigrants are present, as is there a wall – who says video game movies can’t be topical. With the immigrants who must prove themselves, there are good soldiers, an evil prince, all with tongue-twisting names like Lenafreya Nox Fleuret, should you choose to try and remember them.

The dialogue, delivered by the likes of Aaron Paul and Lena Heady, could have been better. Though I don’t so much blame the voice talent as much as I do the script itself, with classics like “Get back here alive! That’s an order!” and “You speak of matters beyond the wall.”

Probably the biggest thing most movie fans will remember, is the name of the city under threat. It probably has the silliest name this side of Raccoon City. They call it, Insomnia. Which is kind of ironic, because Kingsglaive may be a cure for the condition for some.
  
Ready Player One
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline | 2011 | Fiction & Poetry
10
8.9 (161 Ratings)
Book Rating
"Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.’’

We are in the year 2045, where while Earth is deserted and almost destroyed, people don’t realise because they are too busy living in a virtual world - the Oasis!
The Oasis is a place where you can create an avatar for free, you can level up, you go to a school and you work inside the Oasis. This virtual world is filled with references from the 1980s. Cities are built in such a way, video games and books and movies still go on.

When the famous creator of the Oasis, James Halliday, dies, it turns out that there is a contest, and the person that will manage to find the ''Easter egg'' would inherit ownership of the Oasis.

We see the story from the point of view of the young Wade, that calls himself Parzival in the Oasis. He is in love with everything from the 1980’s, you name it - video games, pop culture, movies, shows, books. He is also amazed with Halliday’s work and life.

When five years from James Halliday’s death pass, people seem to have forgotten about the contest, and that’s when Parzival’s courage and knowledge will help him find the first key that unlocks the first of the three gates for the contest, putting him on the top of the scoreboard, and after five years, people start talking about Haliday’s ‘’egg’’ again.

Making friends along the way, and maybe finding the love of his life, Parzival faces millions of challenges, adventures, dangerous, funny and adorable moments. This is a book that will reveal a whole new world for you, and make you love Parzival while you follow his adventure into winning the contest.

With time running out, danger surrounding from all sides, and suddenly finding the ‘’egg’’ becoming a life or death game, Parzival and his friends have no choice but to win this contest. But will they make it, with the IOI Corporation behind their backs, following them both in the real and in the virtual world, endangering their lives?