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    MADDEN NFL Football

    MADDEN NFL Football

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    KICK OFF AN ALL-NEW SEASON WITH OUR BIGGEST UPDATE EVER, INCLUDING COMPETITIVE TOURNAMENTS, PLAYER...

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Phillip McSween (751 KP) rated Instant Family (2019) in Movies

Nov 18, 2019  
Instant Family (2019)
Instant Family (2019)
2019 | Comedy, Drama
8
8.6 (24 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Surprise Treat
A couple looking to foster a teenager end up taking on an entire family of three. Instant Family will give you laughs, tears, and, most importantly, insight.

Acting: 10

Beginning: 4
The movie doesn’t exactly come out of the gates swinging. You’re meeting the couple for the first time and you see what their life is like pre-kids. I understand it’s necessary, but definitely not the most fun way to get started.

Characters: 10

Cinematography/Visuals: 9
I love how director Sean Anders decided to shoot the film. It’s not your average feel-good family movie. There is a real sense of struggle here, real pain, and Anders captures this in great pockets along with the more comedic moments of being a parent. Sometimes the fun and the pain are intermixed and it makes for some beautiful scenes.

Conflict: 10
All three kids within the family pose different challenges that the parents find themselves having to adjust to, besides the challenges of just being new parents. The parental-work-life balance is real and you’re exposed to all of that throughout the duration of the movie.

Entertainment Value: 8

Memorability: 8

Pace: 5

Plot: 6
The story itself is pretty straightforward and basic. Twenty minutes in and you pretty much know how it’s going to play out. Still, that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable of a movie.

Resolution: 10
The ending…man, that ending. I’ve only watched this movie once because that damn touching conclusion. Such a great payoff.

Overall: 80
I typically don’t gravitate towards movies with Lifetime plots, but Instant Family is a winner. It heartwarming, endearing, and real from start to finish. Surprise treat of 2018.
  
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ClareR (5784 KP) rated New Boy in Books

Jul 16, 2018  
New Boy
New Boy
Tracy Chevalier | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
An intriguing retelling.
A modern reimagining of Shakespeare's Othello, this sees a Ghanaian diplomats son, Osei, on his first day at a new school in an American suburb of Washington DC in the 1970's. Dee quickly befriends him, and Ian decides that he doesn't like this. He decides to undermine this friendship and dispose of O. Yes, racism comes in to play here. Both the learnt racism of the children (from their parents), and that of the teachers.
This is all squeezed in to a very Shakespearian time frame of a day: we all know that in a Shakespearian play, people fall in and out of love, get marries and murder one another within 24 hours. For this reason, I can forgive the more mature behaviour and plotting of the 11 year old children. It seems unlikely to me as a mother of an 11 year old, that real 11 year olds would necessarily behave in this way; but this is literature and an author can bend their story and their characters to however they want them to behave. The changeability of the children's affections ARE more realistic, however.
I think this would probably be a great book for students to read at school before they access the original Othello. It would have made a great 'compare and contrast' exercise for me when I studied Othello (many years ago!).
Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and the ending is a real 'heart in mouth' moment!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth for my copy of this book.
  
    OnlinePianist

    OnlinePianist

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    Learn how to play your favorite songs on a real piano keyboard. Thousands of easy piano lessons for...