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Deepwater Horizon (2016)
Deepwater Horizon (2016)
2016 | Action, Drama
True-life disaster movie permits the audience to feel good about paying their respects to victims of a genuine tragedy while still having all the fun of watching tons of stuff blow up. Marky Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell and his moustache, and various other characters head off to the titular rig, where evil corporate suits in pursuit of the bottom line (boo!) force them to cut costs, imperil safety standards, and so on. Sure enough, something important eventually goes boom.

I don't mean to sound glib about events in which nearly a dozen people died, but the fact is that this is a pretty glib movie - structured like a thriller, clearly designed to entertain, and making full use of its factual basis to include stuff you just wouldn't believe in a work of fiction (one character gets an award for his safety record literally an hour before his oil rig explodes). Capably done and exciting entertainment, but at the same time you are (on some level) watching real people die - I know many people don't have an issue with that, but it makes me uncomfortable, no matter how gravely reverential the film tries to be.
  
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Rhubarbio (27 KP) rated Coup in Tabletop Games

May 25, 2019  
Coup
Coup
2012 | Bluff, Card Game, Deduction, Party Game, Political
Fast game (0 more)
No longevity (1 more)
Boring if you can't think on your feet.
Coup, along with other bluffing games such as the Resistance, have been very popular games for groups, as they do not require much of an introduction and people can play a game pretty quickly. Whilst I appreciate people may love this game, it does have flaws. Unlike Resistance, each player plays the game solo and therefore cannot hide behind the logic of others. This game requires you to input at every step of the way and, if you're trying to bluff, you must always stay ahead and remember how other people have played, which can be uncomfortable and lead to player elimination. For those who are not too quick with their responses or have a poor poker face, this game is frustrating and will lead to elimination...which in turn is not great for the remaining players as this reduces the staying power of the game. Whilst I enjoyed playing this game a handful of times, none of my friends want to play it any more. We prefer the Resistance:Avalon for our bluffing fix.
  
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ClareR (5885 KP) rated Paris Adrift in Books

Feb 6, 2018  
Paris Adrift
Paris Adrift
E. J. Swift | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Time travel in Paris.
A group of people who can travel through time decide to send two people back: a chronometrist and an incumbent. These two people will help to influence another incumbent in Paris 2017, and set off a chain of events that will save the world. Each 'anomaly' (which is what incumbents use to travel though time) has its very own incumbent, who is the only person capable of using it as a door in time.
Hallie's anomaly is in the cellar of a bar (Millie's) in Paris. Long story short, she meets the chronometrist, uses the anomaly and hops through time a bit, using her trips to change history.
I really enjoyed this. There was clearly a reasonable amount of research into the times that she went back to, and a lot of imagination went in to the times she travelled forwards to. I liked Hallie and her crazy, bohemian friends. I especially liked how it showed that small things can influence the big things in society.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this great book!
  
50 Cities of the U.S.A. by Gabrielle Balkan is an informative book about famous people and places in some of the United States' best known cities. The book contains beautiful illustrations and the trivia.  Each city gets a two-page spread, and the author and illustrator Sol Linero do a great job in packing the two pages with as much information as possible. 

This is a book that will inspire great thinking about travel, the United States and different events, structures, and people. The book has so much to offer and sets it up in a fun, easy to read format. Children could look through the book to find just facts about buildings in the city or people. I find this to be such an excellent book because it provides in depth information for children who already have a geographic passion, but will also inspire new thinking for children who have yet to discover geography.

I recommend this book for children who enjoy learning about the U.S. and geography. 

I received an ARC of 50 Cities of the U.S.A from NetGalley via Quarto Publishing Group and Wide Eyed Editions. 
  
The Kingmaker (2019)
The Kingmaker (2019)
2019 | Documentary
'When they searched my closet, they found no skeletons, only beautiful shoes,' declares Imelda Marcos (subject of this documentary), displaying a somewhat inconsistent level of self-awareness. For many people in the west, Mrs Marcos is only the punchline to jokes about her shoe collection: this documentary gives the full story of her life, especially in the present day. We see her making her stately progress about Manila, occasionally pausing to literally throw money at the poor people she encounters.

Much of the movie concerns Mrs Marcos holding forth on her achievements as mother of the world, bringer of world peace, ender of the cold war (and so on), intercut with other people with perhaps a stronger grip on reality pointing out what actually went on. Intended criticisms just ping off Mrs Marcos' elephantine self-regard; the effect is blackly comic more than anything else. But the film moves on to consider her attempts to make her son president of the Philippines, with all the re-writing of history and political corruption this entails: it seems the world may hear from her again. Intelligently made, eye-openingly weird, ultimately rather chilling.
  
Crank (2006)
Crank (2006)
2006 | Action, Comedy, Mystery
7
7.1 (15 Ratings)
Movie Rating
First Person Video Game
People forgot that hardcore henry was not the first, first person movie. It seems like people were like oh my god hardcore henry was this first person film, and its the first one and its shot like a video game and your in the charcters shoes.

Crank came out many years before hardcore henry and was a first person film, your in cranks shoes and it is shot like a video game, it is basically a video game. The plot even sounds like a video game.

The plot: Chev Chelios (Jason Statham), a hit man wanting to go straight, lets his latest target slip away, then he awakes the next morning to a phone call that informs him he has been poisoned and has only an hour to live unless he keeps adrenaline coursing through his body while he searches for an antidote.

This film and its sequel i would highly reccordmend, not alot of people talk about these films.

It has action, drama, susepense, comedy, adventure. Hardcore henry is a copy and paste movie minus the everything that crank had.

Dont watch hardcore henry, watch this movie instead.