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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2277 KP) rated 21st Birthday in Books

Jun 2, 2021  
21st Birthday
21st Birthday
James Patterson, Maxine Paetro | 2021 | Mystery
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Needed Some Careful Editing to be Good
It all starts with a woman confronting Cindy Thomas in her office at the San Francisco Chronicle. The woman is certain that something bad has happened to her daughter and granddaughter, and her son-in-law is to blame. She wants Cindy to write stories about it and post about it on her blog, but Cindy quickly turns the woman over to her friend, San Francisco detective Lindsay Boxer, who pushes the police to start an investigation and make it a priority. Sadly, it isn’t long before a dead body turns up. Will Lindsay and the rest of the Women’s Murder Club figure out what is really happening?

Usually with this series, I complain about the characters having plotlines that rarely if ever intersect. Here, I was thrilled to see that the characters, including Claire and Yuki, are working together on one case, and they all get their moments to shine. While the characters are a bit thin, we did like them all and care enough to keep reading. The plot is compelling with twists that intrigue. However, the authors can’t land it. I get what we are supposed to think happened, but in the rush to wrap things up after the final twist, we don’t get a major plot point from earlier in the book explained. Meanwhile, the editing was sloppy, including students at a high school being in class on a Saturday, missing days, and Lindsay being in two places at once near the end of the book. This reads more like a first draft that needed an editor to help polish it up instead of a finished novel.
  
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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Dial M for Murder (1954) in Movies

Sep 20, 2020  
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
1954 | Crime, Mystery
6
7.8 (15 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
A mid-tier episode of "Law & Order" from the 50s that's as mildly rousing as it is boring in a nearly 1:1 ratio. Yes the writing is impressively airtight, and always leaves you looking for some sort of holes to no avail - one of those films where you play a fun little guessing game in your head every time a character says or does something. Could they have slipped up? Do the other characters know that? But here's my main problem with this: it's so DRY holy shit. Yes the story is rigorously optimized for this sort of deal, but that's all there is to chew on here - nothing else. The characters in this movie exist only to explain and inform each other about the story as it happens - outside of the first couple scenes there are no little moments of interpersonal interaction between characters that involves anything else besides telling people what just happened, no moments of humor outside of a bad gay joke and a couple telegraphed duds, no personality building beyond how they react in relation to - again - the singular crime narrative. That's virtually every single scene, so it quickly feels like you're just watching the same thing over and over again. This goes straight past staunchly formal and almost into rudimentary, but Grace Kelly and Ray Milland are wonderful enough to carry this very talky one-trick pony along with the sheer attention to detail of the plot. Still definitely fair but way too straightforward, I can't act like dozens of better ones have been done even if this did potentially pave the way for a lot of them.
  
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Andy K (10823 KP) rated Hobo With a Shotgun (2011) in Movies

Aug 31, 2019  
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
2011 | Action
6
4.8 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
One Shell at a Time...
Somewhere between Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (Braindead) and maybe a Troma or Roger Corman classic B movies lies Hobo With A Shotgun.

You have to be in the right mood to watch a movie like this. Watching cool practical effects means everything was performed on the set without the use of separate visual or CGI effects. These were obviously used exclusively back in the day before ILM and the many CGI effect groups which exist today. I still feel generally speaking they are more realistic and don't take you out of a scene like bad CGI does.

Your friendly neighborhood hobo gets fed up with the local town's hoodlum brothers and their father owning the police and generally making life miserable for everyone so he decides to take the law into his own hands and dispense his own quick justice. while he is at it, he also removes other scum from the Earth including pedophile Santas and convenience store bandits.

He befriends the girl toy of one of the hoodlums and she becomes his sort of partner in crime when she is not getting sawed into and generally degraded in every way.

When I was looking through IMDb at the career of now the late Rutger Hauer, I was amazed on how many truly bad movies or most I had never heard of he had done in his career. Not saying he was the best actor, but he did have screen presence (especially in Blade Runner) which not every actor has.

He will be missed.
  
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Sarah Blythe (22 KP) rated Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) in Movies

Aug 24, 2019  
Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
2018 | Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery
8
7.2 (201 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Characterisation (2 more)
Theming
Atmosphere
Continuity (1 more)
World canon
It's the Wizarding World, but not quite as we know it...
Contains spoilers, click to show
OK. So. I loved this movie as a continuation of the fantastic beasts universe. I think that the cast does an amazing job of portraying the characters, and I honestly can't imagine anyone other than Eddie Redmayne playing Newt. The atmosphere of the whole thing was built up really well, and the American and European Wizarding worlds that have been created are visually stunning and full of depth.

However, I have a few niggles. I have some minor misgivings about the idea of Jude Law as Dumbledore, not because I dont think he'll do a good job, but because his Dumbledore is so far removed from the one we know and love. I mean, seriously, how do you get from suits to full blown robes? They're opposite ends of the style scale! I think my biggest issue with the whole thing is the lack of continuity from the potter series. I don't understand the back story of Nagini, I want to know what happened between Albus and Grindelwald, and don't get me started on the revelation at the end?!? There was a whole story arc about a hidden Dumbledore child in the HP book series (I love Ariana) and yet here we are, supposed to believe there's another one! I just don't get it!

Overall it's a great film as part of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, and as part of the Wizarding World, but let's not link it too closely to the events of Harry Potter. If we try to work out that labyrinth, I fear all our brains may just explode!