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Jurassic Park (1993)
Jurassic Park (1993)
1993 | Adventure, Sci-Fi
The CGI (2 more)
The Special Effects
The Storytelling
The all time best dinosaur movie made so far....
This move is a great one and will hold up for many many years. They way the original king Kong holds up the groundbreaking special effects for the time are solid enough to fool people nowadays in a charming old fashioned way. Yes technology is evolving faster than dinosaurs ever did, but when something is made this well, it tends to age well, not poorly. Jaws is another example of aging well, yes we can see the flaws and the seems, but it doesn't matter. Yes I understand the science is flawed, but the premise is interesting, and the pseudo science is good enough to capture the imagination. And the imagination runs wild here like a T-Rex after a Jeep. It gobbled me up like a guy on a toilet. I still love to visit Isla Sorna. And plan to go back many many more times.

Fun Tidbit: All of the cast were given a Raptor model, signed by Steven Spielberg as a gift. It looked very frightening, and Ariana Richards has it in her house to shock anyone coming in, like a guard at the gate. Jeff Goldblum's model has a prime spot in his house and is a cherished object. Laura Dern put her Raptor model in her son's room near his crib. When he was older and saw it he screamed like never before. She had to put it in storage, but hopes one day, the two will be friends.


Here's 2 awesome movie posters:
  
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The Marinated Meeple (1853 KP) Apr 5, 2018


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The Marinated Meeple (1853 KP) Apr 5, 2018


This Is the Sea by The Waterboys
This Is the Sea by The Waterboys
1985 | Folk, Pop, Rock
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I suppose this is another more upbeat song. I feel like I can remember it from one of those Best of the ‘80s compilations from when I was a teenager, but unlike a lot of the songs from that era, it has a lot of real lived experience and heart to it. “Although these songs are in chronological order, this had an influence on me when we were touring with Klaxons in 2007. At the end of the tour I stayed in New York to write on my own for a few weeks. I’d read that Mike Scott from The Waterboys was living on the East Side, and I would walk around that area every day listening to “The Whole of the Moon” hoping I’d bump into him. Which I never did, unfortunately. “I love the story behind this track. Essentially, one night Mike Scott had been out drinking and he met this girl. As he walked her back to her apartment, he told her he was a songwriter and she said “Well, then write me a song now.” He looked up at the sky and there was a half crescent of the moon, and he wrote the first half of this song on the walk home, just to impress this girl. I was so blown away by the romance of that. “I would sit on this bench at a dog park and think ‘How do I summon that greatness in a song.’ A few days before I flew home, I wrote “Two Doors Down”, sat on that bench in that dog park. And I feel I’ve got Mike Scott to thank for that."

Source
  
The Dinosaur Project (2012)
The Dinosaur Project (2012)
2012 | Action, Sci-Fi
4
5.0 (6 Ratings)
Movie Rating
More found footage, this time of the prehistoric persuasion, there really is nothing new here and nothing to get excited about in all honesty. The opening sees a boat pick up a backpack floating in the river which in contains tapes showcasing the efforts of a group of explorers who get a little more than they bargained for when they head into the Congo jungle.

Luke Marchant desperate to please and win over his intrepid father sneaks on board the plane taking the group to the jungle, once there they are guided to where it is believed dinosaurs once roamed. The footage is all shot from the POV of the film crew while Luke sets up mobile cameras in and around the camp site, even managing to attach one to a baby dinosaur giving us quite a unique view point.

The film moves through the gears, but at the end of the day it’s no Jurassic Park. There are some nice scenes and the CGI is pretty good, but that is as far as it goes. The cast of relative unknowns don’t do enough to make the film anywhere near as tense as it probably should be, and we’re better off waiting till a dinosaur appears on screen to get any real enjoyment out of it.

It certainly won’t be the worst film you’ll ever see, but you won’t miss anything should you choose to avoid it.
  
I'd Give Anything
I'd Give Anything
Marisa de los Santos | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, Romance
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
At eighteen, Ginny "Zinny" Beale is a lighthearted, fun, brave girl with a close group of friends and brother with whom she can unite against their uptight mother. But one night changes all of that. Someone sets the town's high school on fire and in the aftermath, the father of Ginny's best friend, Gray, is dead. The townspeople look for someone to blame--leaving most of it on a troubled teen--but Ginny learns some news that changes her entire world. She tells no one, but the secret alters her life and leaves her an outcast among her friends and family. Over the next twenty years, Ginny transitions, settling down, returning to her hometown and marrying Harris, a professor. They have a daughter, Avery, and Ginny cares for her mother, who is dying. But when scandal rocks the town again--this time focused on Harris--Ginny has to make some choices. It's time to confront the past and the secret she's kept buried all this time.


"In one night, one night, I lost all of them."


I adore Marisa de los Santos and her writing, though this wasn't my favorite of her books. Still, she's just so good at capturing the little moments in life: nailing down the feelings and emotions of her characters. Ginny, Avery, and others spring to life in this one. The story swings between past and present, with older excerpts often told from Ginny's diary entries. It takes a while to learn Ginny's big secret, which is a bit of a pet peeve of mine: I'm not always a fan of dragging out a secret.

This is a poignant and sad read, delving into marriage, love, and parenthood. My favorite character was fifteen-year-old Avery, who is hit hard by the incident involving her father, Harris. In many ways, I was far more invested in Avery's growth than Ginny's--I liked Ginny, but I couldn't quite find myself fully wanting to root for her. Although the juxtaposition between young Zinny and present-day Ginny was quite well-done.


Did you stop being your old selves? Did they fall away? Were you always only the self you were in the present?


The book explores how one secret can so change a person and the ripple effect it has on many lives. Ms. de los Santos examines her characters very closely via her writing, and I will always love picking up her books and getting an intimate look at her cast of players. In the end, this is a touching and well-written novel, even if I couldn't always find myself fully engaged in Ginny's world. 3.75 stars, rounded to 4 here.
  
Firefly: Big Damn Hero (Firefly #1)
Firefly: Big Damn Hero (Firefly #1)
Nancy Holder | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy
6
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
WOW! No, really, <b>WOW!</b> That was gorram incredible!

It's been ages since I read any fan fiction, as so much of it, at the end of the day, was just glorified 'Shipping. It's been almost two months since I have picked up anything (comic or prose) to read, as my wife and I have been through a hellish two months (started with the MS diagnosis, and ended with our 14 year old Mini Schnauzer having to be put to sleep). Long story short, not a whole hell of lot of reading going on my life, as I have been walking around in a fog, caring not one whit about much of anything, including eating or reading.

FIREFLY: BIG DAMN HERO came out on my Kindle November 20th, the day before my 50th birthday (without Lily, our 14 y.o. Mini, no longer with us, it was more like an UnBirthday, as I really felt it was no longer worth celebrating). I read the first two Chapters, or rather, I <i>tried</i>, but they seemed as though I had not when I returned to the book last week.

No matter, for it appeared not to affect my overall satisfaction that the FIREFLY prose novels were off to a very good start indeed! And I was able to focus my attention enough to finish the book in such a quick time!

From beginning to end, we are a presented with a tale of the SERENITY and her crew early in the first Season. Everyone is true to form, from Mal to Wash and Zoë to Simon and River, etc. No one ever seemed out-of-character.

At a base level, this was a Mal-centric story. We gain some backstory into his past, on Shadow, just prior to the War. We are also given an inside track to his inner thoughts, allowing us to gain an even deeper understanding of his character, beyond what we learned in the short-lived TV series and subsequent movie SERENITY.

DOCTOR WHO is a hot mess right now, something I am unable to get behind (after being a fan for almost 48 years). Too many changes, good and bad. Fortunately, though, FIREFLY remains the same, untouched, let to continue as the way it was intended, and I am totally fine with that!

If you love FIREFLY as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up!