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    DW - Breaking World News

    DW - Breaking World News

    News and Entertainment

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    Get unbiased, international news and information on the world’s most pressing issues. The free DW...

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Sarah (7798 KP) rated Duolingo in Apps

Jan 9, 2018  
Duolingo
Duolingo
Education, Social Networking
8
8.4 (60 Ratings)
App Rating
Great but lacks depth
To start learning a language or refresh yourself on a language long ago forgotten, this is a great app to use.

I'm currently re-learning German after taking it at school and it's a great app to use. The interface is user-friendly and it works very well in bitesize chunks so you don't overface yourself. I like that they've introduced the conversations section to actually "talk" to people properly as opposed to reading/saying sometimes hilarious and bizarre sentences in the main learning section.


The main issue with it is that it doesn't go into any real depth on grammar or reasoning behind the language. Like where to use certain endings to words or how to work out which tense or which identifier - I'm forever struggling to remember whether it starts with der, die, das etc. I feel like even when I eventually complete all lessons and reach what Duolingo classes as 100% fluency, I'll still need to supplement it with other learning to truly master the language.
  
Schindler's List (1993)
Schindler's List (1993)
1993 | Biography, Drama, History
Should be able to give this a 15
I remember reading and hearing about this film in 1993 before its release thinking "Wow, Spielberg made another movie this year besides Jurassic Park" and not having much confidence. It didn't open wide for me until January of 1994, so I had to wait.

The film ended up being unbelievable, breathtaking, emotional, inspirational, epic and a must watch for everyone. I know a lot of people watch in school these days. While I'm glad they are seeing, watching among other teenagers while broken up into 40 minute segments is not the way to go.

I always see different details when I have gone back and rewatched which makes the film even greater. I remember seeing a documentary a few years ago where they talked to relatives of German Nazi officers and they had talked to a descendant of Amon Goeth who wouldn't stop crying. I can't even even imagine having that type of ancestry within your family.

Needless to say, you must watch Schindler's List. Please say you will.
  
Mortal Engines (2018)
Mortal Engines (2018)
2018 | Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Another lavish dystopian YA adaptation with first-class art direction but a really thin story and bland characterisation. In a strange (and somewhat improbable) future world, lack of resources has forced cities and towns to mobilise themselves and wander the landscape on wheels and caterpillar tracks, preying on smaller habitations. Someone has an evil plan to do something or other, but this bit is quite forgettable.

Probably the main problem with this film for me was that it put me in mind of many great, quirky SF and fantasy stories (Brazil, Cities in Flight, Inverted World) without having more than a fraction of their narrative boldness: good-looking but forgettable characters wander about going through the motions of hackneyed character arcs, while lots of boxes get ticked but hardly anything surprising happens. It's actually quite an achievement for a movie which opens with London pursuing a small German town across country to wind up being quite as forgettably boring as this one does. Not sure if the books are any better, but this certainly qualifies as a huge waste of potential.
  
The Last Plane out of Paris
The Last Plane out of Paris
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This story starts out slow at first. Though once things get going it non stop action. It felt like what going to happen to these two agents. Though it was something. British Airmen have a mission to do but we are not told until they reach the France Resistance Though though out the whole thing they spect one person and they hold the spies with them think it the other person.

Things to got from bad to worse but how are the German getting the information Though things are getting more execting has the book goes on. Their original mission is failed though they get a new mission. The new mission is to save a person that is to land in England. I am so in to this book for it give you sence of what happening before the United States enter the WWII.

I am looking forward to find out more about this even though it part fiction and part fact. I am waitting to see if there another book to follow.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Biggles (1986) in Movies

Mar 28, 2018 (Updated Mar 28, 2018)  
Biggles (1986)
Biggles (1986)
1986 | Adventure, Sci-Fi
3
5.4 (9 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Biggles Cocks It Up
Startlingly incompetent big-screen version of the classic boy's-adventure hero. New York yuppie discovers he is 'time twin' of First World War fighter ace, is plucked back through time to help him destroy a German secret weapon. Don't worry, it doesn't make any more sense in the actual movie.

Potentially charming adventure movie is utterly torpedoed by fatal uncertainty of tone; what started off as a 'straight' period movie is reduced to gibberish by the addition of witless time-travel plotline, which drags crass 80s 'comedy' bits in with it. The fact it largely seems to be the work of people who've never actually seen a film before, let alone worked on one, is the just the coup de grace. Even Peter Cushing's usual near-supernatural ability to lift a dubious script mostly fails him; no wonder this was his final (non-CGI) big-screen appearance. Soundtrack contains Queen bassist John Deacon's only recordings away from the band; this is almost certainly not a good enough reason to watch the damn thing.
  
Top Secret! (1984)
Top Secret! (1984)
1984 | Comedy
Silly visual gags. Val Kilmer’s babysoft skin. (0 more)
There are so many quick one liners and puns it’s easy to miss some. (0 more)
Indiana Jones meets James Bond meets Airplane
Having watched this many, many times in my youth, it was a bit of a delight to revisit this and still find myself thoroughly entertained.

Like Indiana Jones, meets James Bond, meets National Lampoon, meets Rocky Horror. Only this time its spies that are being spoofed.

In fact this viewing probably revealed more jokes that I wouldn’t have even fully understood before.

Daisy’s careful infiltration of the German stronghold was wonderfully ludicrous. With her welly-boots and polka dot hide, the guards stood no chance of spotting her as different to the rest of the herd.
 
One of the most memorable bar-room-brawls ever tales place towards the end between Nigel and Nick... under the surface of a lake.
Not only do we get treated to chairs smashed over heads we even get a glimpse of the Ali Shuffle, all fully submerged.