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The Leviathan
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SHE IS AWAKE... Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas...
Historical fiction Gothic Witches Mythology
ClareR (5885 KP) rated The Woman on the Bridge in Books
May 29, 2023
This is a wonderful story based on Sheila O’Flanagans own grandmothers experiences.
It’s the 1920’s and Ireland is fighting for its independence. There’s so much going on in this story: the fight for Irelands independence; domestic violence; poverty; tuberculosis; women’s rights; emigration of the Irish to the USA and other European countries.
Winifred O’Leary is a strong woman who wants to be independent, both as a woman and as an Irish woman. The book doesn’t go too much into the ins and outs of the political situation, but I’ve certainly learnt more about what went on during this time. It was a hard time to be living in.
Winnie’s husband certainly experiences a lot of this hardship. He’s imprisoned for his actions with his fellow freedom fighters.
This is a love story as well as a story about the politics at the time. I really enjoyed it and I realise that it was first and foremost a love story - and an enjoyable one at that!
It’s the 1920’s and Ireland is fighting for its independence. There’s so much going on in this story: the fight for Irelands independence; domestic violence; poverty; tuberculosis; women’s rights; emigration of the Irish to the USA and other European countries.
Winifred O’Leary is a strong woman who wants to be independent, both as a woman and as an Irish woman. The book doesn’t go too much into the ins and outs of the political situation, but I’ve certainly learnt more about what went on during this time. It was a hard time to be living in.
Winnie’s husband certainly experiences a lot of this hardship. He’s imprisoned for his actions with his fellow freedom fighters.
This is a love story as well as a story about the politics at the time. I really enjoyed it and I realise that it was first and foremost a love story - and an enjoyable one at that!
Movie Metropolis (309 KP) rated The Purge: Election Year (2016) in Movies
Jun 11, 2019
Deathly Dull
The Purge series has set itself as one of the front-runners in modern horror. The first film, starring Ethan Hawke, was a huge success, bringing with it one of the best stories seen in the genre for decades.
Its successor, Anarchy, was warmly received – namely for its greater focus on the night of crime itself, rather than the plight of one family. Naturally, another sequel was always going to be on the cards and Election Year continues the franchise. But does it continue the positive trend?
With only one returning cast member, Frank Grillo’s brooding Leo Barnes, The Purge: Election Year goes for a more political approach than its horror-rooted predecessors and director James DeMonaco was brave in altering the formula. He gets through it – but only by the skin of his teeth.
As a young girl, Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) survived the annual night of lawlessness that took the lives of her family members. As a presidential candidate, Roan is determined to end the yearly tradition of blood lust once and for all. When her opponents hatch a deadly scheme, the senator finds herself trapped on the streets of Washington, D.C., just as the latest Purge gets underway. Now, it’s up to Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo), her head of security, to keep her alive during the next 12 hours of mayhem.
The first major stumbling block Election Year faces is its lack of originality. Yes, the basic formula goes for a more political tone but the story itself is a near carbon copy of its predecessor. It’s unfortunate that once again, despite the plight of fans, the production studio continues to overlook the most fascinating part of the Purge, its inception.
Once again we are forced to sit through the hack and slash killings, only this time the acting isn’t as good and the majority of scares are signposted from the off. The ones that aren’t; well they’re in the trailer. It’s such a shame that a series with such promise has resorted to rehashing the same “tricks” to sell tickets.
The cast gel together well but the acting is below par and the dialogue is at times, dreadful with the same three expletives doing the rounds from character to character. Frank Grillo is underused with Elizabeth Mitchell’s preachy politician mistakenly put in the foreground. By far the most interesting person throughout the course of the film is Mykelti Williamson’s deli owner Joe, but he is lumbered with shockingly bad catchphrases.
The cinematography is very plain and the city setting isn’t utilised well at all. Washington should’ve been an exceptional place to helm a film about a night of legalised murder, but instead the audience is confined to its dimly-lit backstreets and alleys.
Overall, The Purge: Election Year is a step in the wrong direction for a series that showed such promise. Creating a film that, despite its intriguing political intentions, is exactly the same as its predecessor is sheer laziness and I don’t like to use this word when reviewing films, but it’s just completely and utterly boring.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2016/08/26/deathly-dull-the-purge-election-year-review/
Its successor, Anarchy, was warmly received – namely for its greater focus on the night of crime itself, rather than the plight of one family. Naturally, another sequel was always going to be on the cards and Election Year continues the franchise. But does it continue the positive trend?
With only one returning cast member, Frank Grillo’s brooding Leo Barnes, The Purge: Election Year goes for a more political approach than its horror-rooted predecessors and director James DeMonaco was brave in altering the formula. He gets through it – but only by the skin of his teeth.
As a young girl, Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) survived the annual night of lawlessness that took the lives of her family members. As a presidential candidate, Roan is determined to end the yearly tradition of blood lust once and for all. When her opponents hatch a deadly scheme, the senator finds herself trapped on the streets of Washington, D.C., just as the latest Purge gets underway. Now, it’s up to Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo), her head of security, to keep her alive during the next 12 hours of mayhem.
The first major stumbling block Election Year faces is its lack of originality. Yes, the basic formula goes for a more political tone but the story itself is a near carbon copy of its predecessor. It’s unfortunate that once again, despite the plight of fans, the production studio continues to overlook the most fascinating part of the Purge, its inception.
Once again we are forced to sit through the hack and slash killings, only this time the acting isn’t as good and the majority of scares are signposted from the off. The ones that aren’t; well they’re in the trailer. It’s such a shame that a series with such promise has resorted to rehashing the same “tricks” to sell tickets.
The cast gel together well but the acting is below par and the dialogue is at times, dreadful with the same three expletives doing the rounds from character to character. Frank Grillo is underused with Elizabeth Mitchell’s preachy politician mistakenly put in the foreground. By far the most interesting person throughout the course of the film is Mykelti Williamson’s deli owner Joe, but he is lumbered with shockingly bad catchphrases.
The cinematography is very plain and the city setting isn’t utilised well at all. Washington should’ve been an exceptional place to helm a film about a night of legalised murder, but instead the audience is confined to its dimly-lit backstreets and alleys.
Overall, The Purge: Election Year is a step in the wrong direction for a series that showed such promise. Creating a film that, despite its intriguing political intentions, is exactly the same as its predecessor is sheer laziness and I don’t like to use this word when reviewing films, but it’s just completely and utterly boring.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2016/08/26/deathly-dull-the-purge-election-year-review/
Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Universe: Awakening (Terra Nova #1) in Books
Nov 27, 2019
In the far future an advanced society of post-humans launch an audacious exploration project - DEUS - to probe the edges of the universe. The mission is a success but one of the two pilots involved fails to return and the other - his brother Ja'el - retreats into a self-induced coma to avoid facing up to what happened. Despite this the mission is regarded as a success and propels Science Minister Odessa to the pinnacle of political power.
Fast forward 100 years. The probes sent out by DEUS have gone dark one by one, sending potentially troubling data before they do so. Ja'el is showing signs of improvement to his counsellor Auberon. With the real danger that the perceived success of DEUS - the basis of her power - may unravel Odessa brings Auberon under her control to manage Ja'el's recovery.
The rest of the book follows Auberon's (and his assigned Guardians, Mich'ael and Gab'riel) as they realise that there may be a personal motive in Odessa's desire to see Ja'el rehabilited, and that they may be 'surplus to requirements' once he is.
Overttun aims high with this book; there are a lot of concepts around not only technology but future society and political attitudes. There is also a subplot around the more advanced ruling class and the far more numerous worker humans which is used to good effect to highlight social injustices of all kinds. On whole the premise is delivered well, although there are a few lengthy exposition passages, particularly early in the book, which do spoil the flow and are probably not actually required.
What is striking is the character development. All the main characters learn some lessons along the way, Auberon in particular discovering that far from being a meek and unassuming mid-rank civil servant is capable of far more, both mentally and physically, than he ever thought possible. His metaphorical awakening mirrors nicely Ja'el's rather more literal awakening.
As the first part of an intended series of books, this volume necessarily does a lot of work setting up the characters and situations and leaves a lot of threads hanging to be picked up later but there is closure around the main plots and character arcs within this part of the story.
Although this is going to be labelled as a science fiction novel because of the post-human, technological and space exploration aspects at its heart it is a political thriller. Given this and that it is chock full of interesting ideas it bears careful reading without any preconceived expectations. But above all this is an interesting read following a set of well-designed characters in a fully developed world.
With its length and depth this is not a light read but the writing style is straighforward and clear whilst still being fully descriptive and immersive which makes it a pleasure to pick it up and see what Auberon and associates will do next.
The characters and the world they inhabit are something the author is clearly proud of - and he is right to be. This first instalment bodes well for the rest of the series.
Fast forward 100 years. The probes sent out by DEUS have gone dark one by one, sending potentially troubling data before they do so. Ja'el is showing signs of improvement to his counsellor Auberon. With the real danger that the perceived success of DEUS - the basis of her power - may unravel Odessa brings Auberon under her control to manage Ja'el's recovery.
The rest of the book follows Auberon's (and his assigned Guardians, Mich'ael and Gab'riel) as they realise that there may be a personal motive in Odessa's desire to see Ja'el rehabilited, and that they may be 'surplus to requirements' once he is.
Overttun aims high with this book; there are a lot of concepts around not only technology but future society and political attitudes. There is also a subplot around the more advanced ruling class and the far more numerous worker humans which is used to good effect to highlight social injustices of all kinds. On whole the premise is delivered well, although there are a few lengthy exposition passages, particularly early in the book, which do spoil the flow and are probably not actually required.
What is striking is the character development. All the main characters learn some lessons along the way, Auberon in particular discovering that far from being a meek and unassuming mid-rank civil servant is capable of far more, both mentally and physically, than he ever thought possible. His metaphorical awakening mirrors nicely Ja'el's rather more literal awakening.
As the first part of an intended series of books, this volume necessarily does a lot of work setting up the characters and situations and leaves a lot of threads hanging to be picked up later but there is closure around the main plots and character arcs within this part of the story.
Although this is going to be labelled as a science fiction novel because of the post-human, technological and space exploration aspects at its heart it is a political thriller. Given this and that it is chock full of interesting ideas it bears careful reading without any preconceived expectations. But above all this is an interesting read following a set of well-designed characters in a fully developed world.
With its length and depth this is not a light read but the writing style is straighforward and clear whilst still being fully descriptive and immersive which makes it a pleasure to pick it up and see what Auberon and associates will do next.
The characters and the world they inhabit are something the author is clearly proud of - and he is right to be. This first instalment bodes well for the rest of the series.
TacoDave (3844 KP) rated Avengers: Endgame (2019) in Movies
Apr 26, 2019
Cast (3 more)
Humor
Story
Epic Scale
Almost a perfect movie
Contains spoilers, click to show
I just got out of Avengers: Endgame. This will have minor spoilers, but nothing related to the plot.
If you read my review of Captain Marvel, you'll see that I was underwhelmed because they didn't really explain her powers or weaknesses. Avengers: Endgame is exciting, funny, rich, and fantastic, full of great callbacks to earlier MCU movies and references to things we hadn't heard about it a while.
And yet... Here comes Captain Marvel. Again, her powers aren't explained. She doesn't help much until the last 20 minutes, and in those minutes she is seemingly invincible. Because we don't know what can hurt her, the stakes are minimal. It's an invincible woman punching an invincible man and there isn't really an expectation of anything.
But then she gets hit. And someone says "She has backup" or "She has friends" or something similar, and then we see almost every female character from the MCU come behind her to help.
I literally don't care if a superhero is male or female. It doesn't matter. But by forcing scene into the film, it is a reminder that Captain Marvel = Girl Power!!! and it pulled me right out of the film. It was an unnecessary political statement in the midst of a galatic battle. And I hated it.
I'm pro-woman. I'm pro-man. I think both sexes have unique attributes and abilities and features. But trying to say "The women have her back!" was, again, like I felt the directors sitting next to me in the theater, poking me in the ribs, saying "Look at the woke subtext!!!"
It isn't necessary. It is dumb. Let the heroes - all of them - have moments of strength and weakness. Imagine if there was a hero who suddenly called on the name of God and a big cross appeared behind them and the hand of God came down and helped them. That's the kind of heavy-handedness (pun intended) it felt like.
Go see the movie. It's great. But that one bit really soured the end of the movie for me, reminding me that it was a fictional story set in modern times. Why?
If you read my review of Captain Marvel, you'll see that I was underwhelmed because they didn't really explain her powers or weaknesses. Avengers: Endgame is exciting, funny, rich, and fantastic, full of great callbacks to earlier MCU movies and references to things we hadn't heard about it a while.
And yet... Here comes Captain Marvel. Again, her powers aren't explained. She doesn't help much until the last 20 minutes, and in those minutes she is seemingly invincible. Because we don't know what can hurt her, the stakes are minimal. It's an invincible woman punching an invincible man and there isn't really an expectation of anything.
But then she gets hit. And someone says "She has backup" or "She has friends" or something similar, and then we see almost every female character from the MCU come behind her to help.
I literally don't care if a superhero is male or female. It doesn't matter. But by forcing scene into the film, it is a reminder that Captain Marvel = Girl Power!!! and it pulled me right out of the film. It was an unnecessary political statement in the midst of a galatic battle. And I hated it.
I'm pro-woman. I'm pro-man. I think both sexes have unique attributes and abilities and features. But trying to say "The women have her back!" was, again, like I felt the directors sitting next to me in the theater, poking me in the ribs, saying "Look at the woke subtext!!!"
It isn't necessary. It is dumb. Let the heroes - all of them - have moments of strength and weakness. Imagine if there was a hero who suddenly called on the name of God and a big cross appeared behind them and the hand of God came down and helped them. That's the kind of heavy-handedness (pun intended) it felt like.
Go see the movie. It's great. But that one bit really soured the end of the movie for me, reminding me that it was a fictional story set in modern times. Why?
I think I'm becoming quite the Ali Smith fan
I absolutely loved this book. I'm becoming quite a fan, and I think I need to read more of Ali Smith's back catalogue. This novel is witty, current, heartfelt with a full-on family! Ali Smith has a lot of political dross and general misery in the news lately to find material from (unfortunately!), but she does so much good WITH it. In the blurb it says about this book that it's "The season that teaches us survival", and the characters in this certainly do just that.
There is a lot of jumping around in time: things that happened in the past that have a bearing on the presents of the characters, and the occasional toe-dip into their futures too. A lot can happen in the few days over Christmas. We're never quite sure if the mother in this is losing her mind or not (it would be a safe bet to say "yes", but then her son isn't particularly stable during the time period that the book is set in either).
I love the wittiness of Smith's writing. For the Brits reading this, you'll probably get this one straight away, but for everyone else, she's referring to Boris Johnson our current (2018) Foreign Secretary (although I think this would probably apply to any politician, regardless of political party or country! Call me a cynic!): "The man who wrote the dictionary. Johnson. Not Boris. The opposite of Boris. A man interested in the meanings of words, not one whose interests leave words meaningless."
And just a quote to finish with. One that represents both the season that the book is set in, and also one of the main story arcs:
"Cymbeline, he says. The one about poison, mess, bitterness, then the balance coming back. The lies revealed. The losses compensated".
Ali Smiths style can take a bit of getting used to (you'll probably have noticed the lack of speech marks - that's not a mistake on my part, by the way), but her books are so worth the effort.
There is a lot of jumping around in time: things that happened in the past that have a bearing on the presents of the characters, and the occasional toe-dip into their futures too. A lot can happen in the few days over Christmas. We're never quite sure if the mother in this is losing her mind or not (it would be a safe bet to say "yes", but then her son isn't particularly stable during the time period that the book is set in either).
I love the wittiness of Smith's writing. For the Brits reading this, you'll probably get this one straight away, but for everyone else, she's referring to Boris Johnson our current (2018) Foreign Secretary (although I think this would probably apply to any politician, regardless of political party or country! Call me a cynic!): "The man who wrote the dictionary. Johnson. Not Boris. The opposite of Boris. A man interested in the meanings of words, not one whose interests leave words meaningless."
And just a quote to finish with. One that represents both the season that the book is set in, and also one of the main story arcs:
"Cymbeline, he says. The one about poison, mess, bitterness, then the balance coming back. The lies revealed. The losses compensated".
Ali Smiths style can take a bit of getting used to (you'll probably have noticed the lack of speech marks - that's not a mistake on my part, by the way), but her books are so worth the effort.
Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Havana Storm in Books
Nov 14, 2019
I've been reading some pretty demanding books recently and needed something a bit more lightweight and the Cussler template usually fits the bill. You always know what you are going to get and sometimes that's just what you need. I didn't expect this book to blow me away and it didn't - but it was better than my expectations.
This is another collaboration with Dirk Cussler and as usual it's hard to know how much of the book is down to Clive and how much to Dirk. But that's not the point. In this book you get lots of underwater action, 'bad guys' intent on making money and creating environmental disaster in the process and Cuban political intrigue.
In previous installments the children of Dirk Pitt (called Dirk and Summer) have sometimes appeared to have written in just to make sure they appear in the series leaving the actual meat of the story progression to the familiar team of Pitt and Giordino. But this is quite notable for the ensemble cast that get their hands dirty in the course of the story, especially when the usual pairings are split up and Pitt works with his daughter and Dirk is with Giordino.
There are the usual scrapes and death-defying escapes but again the reader is kept guessing as sometime the escapes leave the heroes free to continue their task of thwarting the bad guys but other times ingenious and risky plans work but end up with their almost immediate recapture.
Overall the book is indeed a little more realistic that previous ones (although still pretty far fetched). The threat is localised rather than global and the motivation of political power and greed seems plausible, as does the way the NUMA team pull the threads together to work out what is going on.
This is never going to be a must read book or on any kind of literary shortlist for me but for pure escapist adventure, it's really hard to beat.
Possibly one for Dirk Pitt fans only as the first few books are far superior, but a lot better than some installments in the series.
Rating: Some violence but not excessive
This is another collaboration with Dirk Cussler and as usual it's hard to know how much of the book is down to Clive and how much to Dirk. But that's not the point. In this book you get lots of underwater action, 'bad guys' intent on making money and creating environmental disaster in the process and Cuban political intrigue.
In previous installments the children of Dirk Pitt (called Dirk and Summer) have sometimes appeared to have written in just to make sure they appear in the series leaving the actual meat of the story progression to the familiar team of Pitt and Giordino. But this is quite notable for the ensemble cast that get their hands dirty in the course of the story, especially when the usual pairings are split up and Pitt works with his daughter and Dirk is with Giordino.
There are the usual scrapes and death-defying escapes but again the reader is kept guessing as sometime the escapes leave the heroes free to continue their task of thwarting the bad guys but other times ingenious and risky plans work but end up with their almost immediate recapture.
Overall the book is indeed a little more realistic that previous ones (although still pretty far fetched). The threat is localised rather than global and the motivation of political power and greed seems plausible, as does the way the NUMA team pull the threads together to work out what is going on.
This is never going to be a must read book or on any kind of literary shortlist for me but for pure escapist adventure, it's really hard to beat.
Possibly one for Dirk Pitt fans only as the first few books are far superior, but a lot better than some installments in the series.
Rating: Some violence but not excessive
TM
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