Sign up
Search
Advanced search settings

Search only in certain items:

Search results
All (4815)
Content
People
Apps
Books
Orbs
Movies
Music
Podcasts
Shows
Tabletop Games
Tech
TV
Video Games
YouTube Channels
Videos
40x40

ClareR (6106 KP) rated Things In Jars in Books

Sep 22, 2019  
Things In Jars
Things In Jars
Jess Kidd | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
9.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Victorian England, a female detective and a touch of the supernatural - what’s not to like?
Things in Jars is set in Victorian London. Bridie Devine is a female detective who is called on by Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, a baronet, to find his secret daughter, Christabel, who has been kidnapped. However, he doesn’t want to involve the police (this is where alarm bells start to go off!). Very few people in his household know about the existence of Christabel, and she is shut away, ostensibly to protect them from her. Because Christabel is not an ordinary child: she has supernatural powers that can harm people. Bridie doesn’t believe this, of course. So with the help of Cora, her 7 foot tall housemaid and Ruby, the ghost of a prizefighter, she sets out to rescue the child.

I absolutely loved this book. I was never sure if the mythical, fairytale elements were real, or whether Bridie believed them to be real. The seedy, macabre side to London, the sights and smells of the winding streets and the general atmosphere were so well described, that I could have been standing next to Bridie, watching the moving tattoos across Ruby’s torso! Bridie is an excellent character. She feels compelled to find Christabel, mainly because she is coming to the job with a failure weighing heavy on her shoulders, but also she can remember being alone in the world as a child.

Mrs Bibby is a superb villain - she has her conspirators dancing to her tune. She has a gun (and a limp!) and she’s not afraid to use it! Her macabre ‘fairytales’ really ramped up the atmosphere, and showed how truly awful she was. There was a real menace about her.

Other than what I’ve said here, all I can really say is - go and read this book! I loved it (I’ve said that already, I know!), go and read it - you won’t be sorry!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.
  
40x40

Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Love Wedding Repeat (2020) in Movies

Aug 16, 2020  
Love Wedding Repeat (2020)
Love Wedding Repeat (2020)
2020 | Comedy
2
4.3 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Movie marketing departments, please repeat after me: "I will not mislead the audience with my blurb for the film."

Jack has to juggle with dramas at his sister's wedding to make sure a troublemaker doesn't ruin the whole day.

Love Wedding Repeat looks very much like every other romcom out there but its saving grace appeared to be an interesting cast and the fun alternate timelines we'd see as promised in the blurb... but don't get your hopes up on that last part. I rewatched the trailers to try and find out where I got the wrong end of the stick about this and I found it was only mildly implied, in fact, it's the synopsis that outright tells you "alternate versions of the same day".

What's given to us feels more like an accident, like they filmed heavy and then realised they were running out of time and needed to cram it in. The "alternate versions" are more of a footnote on the film and a wasted opportunity. You could have run the Groundhog Day-esque scenarios or had the comedy rewind sound and gone back to the beginning of the scene... but the comedy alternatives are really nowhere to be seen.

The lack of comedy doesn't stop there, for the most part the script isn't a great success, I don't think I even laughed once. It tries to rely on quite an aggressive humour (that might not make sense to you, but it does in my head!) and everything feels very forced.

A good cast can sometimes redeem those moments that don't land on the page but the majority of the characters are just forgettable. No one is particularly likeable and that was a real drawback when you add it onto all the other drawbacks.

Love Wedding Repeat feels terribly balanced, had any of the elements been even slightly better it could have made this more watchable, but alas, they weren't, so it wasn't. Simple as.

Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/08/love-wedding-repeat-movie-review.html