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Titanic: The Unsinkable

Games and Navigation

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App

Try to avoid the sinking of the RMS Titanic during her maiden voyage in 1912. Experience the...

SignVideo

Social Networking and Utilities

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What is SignVideo? SignVideo is a subscription based real time Video Relay Interpreting Service...

Midnight At The Electric

Jodi Lynn Anderson

8.0 (2 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Kansas, 2065: Adri has been handpicked to live on Mars. But weeks before launch, she discovers the...

Awix (3310 KP) rated Stranger from Venus (1954) in Movies

Aug 15, 2020

Yet another low-budget British knock-off of The Day the Earth Stood Still, distinguished (sort of) by the fact it's managed to secure the services of one of the stars of the original film, Patricia Neal (the movie never got an American release as it might have drawn a plagiarism suit from Fox). Bloke from Venus arrives in the home counties to deliver a grave message about the dangers of atomic weapons, engages in chaste sort-of romance with a woman who lives locally (Neal), is messed about by the government.

At least it's a little easier to take seriously than Devil Girl from Mars, but the production is even more primitive and it's a lot less fun. Helmut Dantine does the best he can, dispensing cosmic wisdom in a gravelly Austrian monotone, but the punishingly low budget really shows. The purest kind of rip-off - there's nothing here that isn't in the original movie, and everything that is here is less accomplished and less interesting. Not awful, though, nor is it without a certain historical curiosity value for SF aficionados.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Hellraiser (1987) in Movies

May 20, 2020 (Updated May 21, 2020)

Hellraiser (1987)

1987 | Horror

7.9

(58 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Iconic horror; progenitor of many mostly lousy sequels. An unscrupulous adventurer attempts to escape the clutches of sado-masochistic entities by recruiting his adulterous sister-in-law to provide the raw meat for his renewal (it was the 80s, everyone behaved like that under Thatcher).

Not quite the film an unsuspecting viewer might expect: the focus is mainly on the screwed-up Cotton family, especially nasty Uncle Frank; Pinhead, for all that he is on the poster, is in a very minor role (billed as 'Lead Cenobite'). Visually striking and with some interesting ideas, but the low budget is obvious and this is equally obviously a British movie desperately trying to appeal to an American audience. Where the film falls down is in its lack of focus and the fact that its central metaphor or argument is unclear (beyond the fact that the Cottons are a very dysfunctional bunch). Still, there have been worse debuts from writer-directors; it's just that not many of them go on to have nine sequels.

Kudos

ClareR (5911 KP) rated The Moscow Whisper in Books

Jun 12, 2020

The Moscow Whisper

Michael Jenkins | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, Thriller

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

This is another non-stop action spy thriller from Michael Jenkins, and this time his hero, Sean Richardson, is on a mission to infiltrate a group of Russian mercenaries who are trying to take over a nation state in Africa.

What surprises me more than anything, is how much I enjoy these books. I don’t like spy books. I failed miserably to read and enjoy the only James Bond book I picked up. But when I saw this pop up on the options of books to read on The Pigeonhole app, I jumped at the opportunity to sign up. I’ve enjoyed all three of these books in the series. They’re really engaging, well explained for those of us who don’t understand the inner workings of British Intelligence or military, and the characters are highly likeable (or detestable, depending on who they are!).

It’s simply a great read, whether you like spy novels, or if you’ve never tried one. This whole series is so good, and I’m already looking forward to the next one!