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    Pendulum

    Pendulum

    Adam Hamdy

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    James Patterson has hailed Adam Hamdy's PENDULUM as 'one of the best thrillers of the year' saying...

Nellie (The Brides of San Francisco Book 1)
Nellie (The Brides of San Francisco Book 1)
Cynthia Woolf | 2018 | Mystery, Romance
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Nellie Wallace is a young widow with two children. In post civil-war New York, the men are scarce and none want the burden of a wife with children. Her dead husband's family is wealthy, and cruel. Desperate to escape their influence, and eager for a home, a husband, and a stable life for her children, Nellie decides to make a new life in San Francisco as a mail order bride.

Saloon owner Blake Malone is a bachelor and likes it that way. He worked hard for everything he has, but the San Francisco City Council won’t approve his plans to build a family emporium unless he is a family man himself. The solution? A mail order bride from New York who will bring him a ready-made family, stability, and the council's approval.

Blake expects his future wife to care for his home and, other than helping him impress the city council, to stay out of his business. He expects life as usual. What he gets is an unexpected desire to win Nellie's heart, a dangerous threat to his new bride, and a rich benefactor determined to steal his new family out from under him. Blake believed his battle for success a hard one. But he will discover that the battle to win Nellie's heart and keep his family safe is going to take everything he's got.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Early Man (2018) in Movies

Feb 8, 2018 (Updated Feb 8, 2018)  
Early Man (2018)
Early Man (2018)
2018 | Animation
One Million Years F.C.
Another movie from the people who made Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, and if you're familiar with either of those you will know that expectations will be high: Aardman are the British answer to Pixar or Studio Ghibli. Keeping such sky-high standards must be difficult, so we must try to be understanding when they fall a little short - as they do here.

A tribe of comedy cavemen with English accents are driven from their lovely valley by a nasty Bronze Age civilisation who variously sound French, Italian, and German. Brightest of the cavemen hits upon a scheme to win the valley back by playing the invaders at their sacred game, i.e. football (or soccer). Cue lots of sports movie cliches/parodies.

Well, obviously, you can't fault the craft that goes into these films, but on this occasion you can't help noticing the slightness of the story and the fact that it's neither as funny nor, crucially, as clever as many of their previous productions. (The fact that the film has a weird Brexit-friendly political subtext may be an issue for some viewers as well.) I love silly accents, absurd jokes and bad puns as much as the next person (probably more, in truth), but the fact that this film doesn't have the same kind of heart or warmth as (for example) your typical Pixar film is very noticeable. Still, not *actually* that bad.
  
Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
2019 | Animation, Comedy, Sci-Fi
What's not to love about an Aardman movie?

I won't go into an extended synopsis for this as it's not all that complex that it needs more background. Shaun the Sheep gets up to more antics, this time with an alien... there, we're all caught up.

The beginning surprised me as it was a little dark but filled with suspense and it had some of my favourite stop-motion bits of the whole film... those chips... it conjured up the first of many smiles throughout the film.

There are so many bits in Farmageddon that will make you happy, I loved the addition of Forever Autumn and spotting the original Wallace and Gromit, and the toaster that every one of us can identify with... these little touches really do add to the whole film. The attention to detail is epic. The other thing I love is that you can see the fine changes of the character's skin in the animation.

Who am I kidding with this "these bits are good"... I love the whole thing, it's amazing.


There's really isn't much I can say without gushing about just how wonderfully wholesome this film is. It's funny for kids and so well crafted with little touches here and there that adults will love it too... and that ending! I'm going to tell you I wasn't crying, and you're going to believe me.

Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2019/11/farmageddon.html
  
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
Owen Mullen | 2017 | Crime, Thriller
10
10.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
It is a snowy Hogmanay in Glasgow. Obstetric Surgeon Gavin Law has made an accusation of malpractice against a colleague, Wallace Maitland, only for an accusation to be made against him. Wallace Maitland doesn't remember Hogmanay but did end up covered in blood. Sean Rafferty is now the head of gangster family having taken over from his violent father Jimmy and is having a party to try to appear respectable.

When Law disappears on that fateful Hogmanay, private detective Charlie Cameron takes on the case to find him. But with no leads he also agrees to look at an apparent suicide for his policeman friend DS Geddes, something will put him on a collision course with Rafferty, a man who has tried to kill Cameron in the past.

This, roughly, is the setting for the third of the Charlie Cameron crime thrillers. Detective novels require their plot and characterisation to be convincing and Mullen delivers both. Cameron is always convincing, and an entertaining narrator of the events as he witnesses them. The usual supporting cast of Pat Logue and Geddes are in fine form and Rafferty seems even more of a threat when in the role of a respectable businessman. The various others involved in the cases all ring true as well. Mullen has a knack for not only making his characters believable but very human and realistic as well.

The plotting did not disappoint either with the Law case especially baffling as all avenues of investigation peter out to nothing, and Cameron's frustration at this is clear. The final reveal caught me by surprise but fits everything together perfectly. It certainly kept me guessing, although to be honest I was enjoying simply following Cameron around and seeing his world too much to spend much time worrying about who did it.

This was a book that I enjoyed reading enormously. Mullen is a terrific writer and Cameron and the world he inhabits is a living breathing thing in his hands. Very very highly recommended.