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Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Smart Wi-Fi LED Light Bulb in Tech
Sep 19, 2021
Easily turn on/off light bulb anywhere you have wi-fi through app. (2 more)
Control light bulb by voice using Alexa, Google assistant or Cortana.
Set light bulb to automatic conditions like weather, time, or device status.
Will sometimes go back to setup mode where it just keeps flashing and you have to connect or setup again. (2 more)
You have to have the switch turned on for it to be online or else you cannot turn the bulb on/off through app.
Confusing packaging.
Convenient, But How Convenient Really?
The Merkury Innovations Smart Wi-Fi LED Bulb (Dimmable*White/A19 Bulb) is made to replace your traditional light bulb where you can now control, dim and schedule your lights by app (geeni app) from anywhere you have your smart phone. The one I purchased was the 9W=60W, brightness 800 lumens, A19 bulb. The smart wi-fi bulb can be controlled from anywhere with wi-fi access by the app, voice or can even be set to a pre-set schedule and can easily share access with other family members. The life of the bulb based on 3 hours a day is 22.8 years.
So the other day I was at my grandmother's house with my Dad. The family has been doing some renovations over there and I saw my Aunt messing with a lamp and her phone. She told me she had bought one of those smart light bulbs and that she could use an app on her phone to control it. I have seen commercials for different similar products like the smart A/C thermostat and thought it was pretty cool. So I decided next time I was at the store to have a look at them and see if there was something affordable and not too expensive to give it a try and that's how I found this product.
This is my first time buying a smart bulb so I didn't really know what to expect. Inside the box was just the light bulb and instructions. The instructions didn't seem to complicated, download the "geeni" app, create an account and password, login and then setup the bulb. There were 3 ways to setup the bulb, bluetooth, easy mode and backup AP mode. I was doing it by bluetooth but somehow wound up not being able to get it. So then I tried easy mode and still wasn't able to get it and that's when I saw the small print that says, "Note: Geeni can't connect to 5GHz networks." Once I connected to the right network everything went smoothly.
In the app on the "My Home" tab, it shows you which light bulbs you have connected. If they are off it will show a message that says "device offline". If on it will show an on/off button and will also show a "Quick Actions" link where you can control the brightness from 1% - 100%. via dimmer. The next tab in the app is the "Smart Scenes" tab, under the Tap-to-Run page you can control multiple devices with one tap or with voice assistance like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Microsoft Cortana. On the Automation page you can execute actions automatically, and setup them up by specifications based on weather conditions, device status or time. The next tab is the "Notification Center", and there are pages for Alarms, Home, and Alerts. The last tab is the "Profile" tab and is where you can set your name, find the help center, the settings tab and manage your home so you can organize your light bulbs by house hold.
Pro:
Easily turn on/off light bulb anywhere you have wi-fi through app.
Control light bulb by voice using Alexa, Google assistant or Cortana.
Set light bulb to automatic conditions like weather, time, or device status.
Con:
Will sometimes go back to setup mode where it just keeps flashing and you have to connect or setup again.
You have to have the switch turned on for it to be online or else you cannot turn the bulb on/off through app.
Confusing packaging.
Rating: 7/10
Conclusion:
I have to say that these light bulbs can be pretty convenient and an awesome way to setup some lights at home to turn on when it's dark to make people think you're home. It's also good for when you are getting home at night and want to turn on the lights so you don't walk into a pitch dark room. It's awesome to just use the app to dim the lights without having to get up or even turn them off when your sitting down about to watch a movie. When I purchased them there was a 3-pack that was more expensive then buying 3 bulbs separately and I couldn't understand why. In retrospect I think maybe those were non-dimmable which really doesn't make sense. So I would say shopping for light bulbs is already confusing enough and getting a smart bulb might just cause more headaches for some people. But if you're looking to try it out I got this bulb for under $10 at Wal-Mart and think they are pretty cool. I give the Merkury Innovations Smart Wi-Fi- LED bulb a 7/10.
So the other day I was at my grandmother's house with my Dad. The family has been doing some renovations over there and I saw my Aunt messing with a lamp and her phone. She told me she had bought one of those smart light bulbs and that she could use an app on her phone to control it. I have seen commercials for different similar products like the smart A/C thermostat and thought it was pretty cool. So I decided next time I was at the store to have a look at them and see if there was something affordable and not too expensive to give it a try and that's how I found this product.
This is my first time buying a smart bulb so I didn't really know what to expect. Inside the box was just the light bulb and instructions. The instructions didn't seem to complicated, download the "geeni" app, create an account and password, login and then setup the bulb. There were 3 ways to setup the bulb, bluetooth, easy mode and backup AP mode. I was doing it by bluetooth but somehow wound up not being able to get it. So then I tried easy mode and still wasn't able to get it and that's when I saw the small print that says, "Note: Geeni can't connect to 5GHz networks." Once I connected to the right network everything went smoothly.
In the app on the "My Home" tab, it shows you which light bulbs you have connected. If they are off it will show a message that says "device offline". If on it will show an on/off button and will also show a "Quick Actions" link where you can control the brightness from 1% - 100%. via dimmer. The next tab in the app is the "Smart Scenes" tab, under the Tap-to-Run page you can control multiple devices with one tap or with voice assistance like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Microsoft Cortana. On the Automation page you can execute actions automatically, and setup them up by specifications based on weather conditions, device status or time. The next tab is the "Notification Center", and there are pages for Alarms, Home, and Alerts. The last tab is the "Profile" tab and is where you can set your name, find the help center, the settings tab and manage your home so you can organize your light bulbs by house hold.
Pro:
Easily turn on/off light bulb anywhere you have wi-fi through app.
Control light bulb by voice using Alexa, Google assistant or Cortana.
Set light bulb to automatic conditions like weather, time, or device status.
Con:
Will sometimes go back to setup mode where it just keeps flashing and you have to connect or setup again.
You have to have the switch turned on for it to be online or else you cannot turn the bulb on/off through app.
Confusing packaging.
Rating: 7/10
Conclusion:
I have to say that these light bulbs can be pretty convenient and an awesome way to setup some lights at home to turn on when it's dark to make people think you're home. It's also good for when you are getting home at night and want to turn on the lights so you don't walk into a pitch dark room. It's awesome to just use the app to dim the lights without having to get up or even turn them off when your sitting down about to watch a movie. When I purchased them there was a 3-pack that was more expensive then buying 3 bulbs separately and I couldn't understand why. In retrospect I think maybe those were non-dimmable which really doesn't make sense. So I would say shopping for light bulbs is already confusing enough and getting a smart bulb might just cause more headaches for some people. But if you're looking to try it out I got this bulb for under $10 at Wal-Mart and think they are pretty cool. I give the Merkury Innovations Smart Wi-Fi- LED bulb a 7/10.
BookblogbyCari (345 KP) rated The Naked Future in Books
Aug 5, 2018
Book Review by Cari Mayhew. Rating 7.5/10
This is a book about how the digital footprint we leave behind us can be used to make predictions about our future in all aspects of our lives. But are we seeing the coming to being of a dystopian science fiction, or are we tapping into a new superpower?
Every app on every device we use leaves a digital trail about us, and this has implications in the fields of medicine and the spread of infections, education and learning, and crime prediction, through to movie preference and dating.
The book predominantly examines the value to society in general but also looks at the benefits to the individual. Of course, these benefits come at a cost to our privacy, which the book also briefly addresses. Each chapter is centered on its own topic. I will mention each but in the interests of brevity won’t go into detail on each topic.
Chapter 1 begins by describing how certain apps can be extremely useful warning providers, but by the end of the chapter, we are looking at how your smartphone apps can be used to locate you, even when your GPS is turned off and you’re not geo-tagging posts or tweets. With modern statistical models and enough data points, it’s possible to predict where you will be down to the hour and within a square block one and a half years from now. Turning off your GPS doesn't actually make you less predictable, it just makes your predictability level harder to detect - your future remains naked.
Similarly, in Chapter 2 which examines deliberate self-tracking, Tucker notes that Fitbit users who are confused or ignorant of the device’s privacy settings are inadvertently sharing the data details of their sexual activity.
This seems like frightening stuff, but then the conversation turns to more benevolent uses of such technology. Chapter 3, by way of an imagined story, examines how such technology can be used to predict the spread of dangerous infections, including the identification of new strains of virus as new mutations occur.
Chapter 4 looks at the use of such technology in weather forecasting, and how it’s been used to make way for insurance against the effects of the weather for affected businesses. Chapter 5 explores how movie/book choice and ratings can be used to predict what makes a good movie/book.
We go back to the frightening stuff in Chapter 6. Here Tucker talks about how the smartphone has become the ultimate shopping accessory. Knowing what habitual time an individual wants a coffee, cig, or beer, is ideal for online advertisers, who will be able to send you a voucher/coupon or a mere suggestion right there on the spot. There could also be surveillance systems examining what you pick up and consider buying but don't put into basket /trolley. Tucker goes on to describe how data brokers such as Acxiom have begun selling on to advertisers access to not only your data to also to your future decisions.
Chapter 7 looks at education and learning, and makes the following good points: “What telemetric education offers is the chance for all students to raise their hands and be heard, without fear of confirming some unflattering, broadly held perception about their social group.” And “Imagine for a moment the power of knowing beforehand how well you would perform on a test but how disempowered you would feel if that same future was naked to your competition, or to your future potential employers.”
I like the title of chapter 8 “When Your Phone Says You’re In Love”. Here Tucker tells how online dating sites have become a living social science lab. Again here your personal details can be sold on. In the future, you could be rating your actual get-togethers on the app. Already invented is a “sociometer” which detects unconscious biological signals which show what role you’re taking in a conversation, and can then produce predictions on how the rest of the conversation will go.
Chapters 9 and 10 look at predictions in the where, when and who of acts of crime. He discusses where it has worked so far. But on this Tucker says “Predictive policing in the wrong hands looks less like a boon to public safety and more like a totalitarian hammer.”
The book concludes with Chapter 11, titled “The World That Anticipates Your Every Move”. Here one interviewee said as “Privacy is a blip on the radar of history.” Indeed the chapter ends with an obituary to privacy, where Tucker says “we will feel increasingly powerless against the tide of transparency rendering this planet in a new form as surely as the movement of glaciers carved our canyons and valleys.”
I’ve highlighted here the more worrisome aspects of the topics, but it’s important to note that Tucker does aim to offer a prescription for the situation, though it’s spread out in occasional paragraphs here and there rather than as a useful reference at the end. That said I found the actionable advice was rather brief and unoriginal.
Tucker presents a fair and balanced view of this important and highly relevant topic of our times, and the book is clearly well-researched. Some chapters show a little humor which was fun, but although the book is aimed at the layman, I often felt like I was reading a science textbook. The book is a real eye-opener, especially if it’s something you hadn’t given much thought to. The overall message of the book is clear: our data is already out there, but it’s ours first and foremost, and we can be savvy and use it to our advantage.
This is a book about how the digital footprint we leave behind us can be used to make predictions about our future in all aspects of our lives. But are we seeing the coming to being of a dystopian science fiction, or are we tapping into a new superpower?
Every app on every device we use leaves a digital trail about us, and this has implications in the fields of medicine and the spread of infections, education and learning, and crime prediction, through to movie preference and dating.
The book predominantly examines the value to society in general but also looks at the benefits to the individual. Of course, these benefits come at a cost to our privacy, which the book also briefly addresses. Each chapter is centered on its own topic. I will mention each but in the interests of brevity won’t go into detail on each topic.
Chapter 1 begins by describing how certain apps can be extremely useful warning providers, but by the end of the chapter, we are looking at how your smartphone apps can be used to locate you, even when your GPS is turned off and you’re not geo-tagging posts or tweets. With modern statistical models and enough data points, it’s possible to predict where you will be down to the hour and within a square block one and a half years from now. Turning off your GPS doesn't actually make you less predictable, it just makes your predictability level harder to detect - your future remains naked.
Similarly, in Chapter 2 which examines deliberate self-tracking, Tucker notes that Fitbit users who are confused or ignorant of the device’s privacy settings are inadvertently sharing the data details of their sexual activity.
This seems like frightening stuff, but then the conversation turns to more benevolent uses of such technology. Chapter 3, by way of an imagined story, examines how such technology can be used to predict the spread of dangerous infections, including the identification of new strains of virus as new mutations occur.
Chapter 4 looks at the use of such technology in weather forecasting, and how it’s been used to make way for insurance against the effects of the weather for affected businesses. Chapter 5 explores how movie/book choice and ratings can be used to predict what makes a good movie/book.
We go back to the frightening stuff in Chapter 6. Here Tucker talks about how the smartphone has become the ultimate shopping accessory. Knowing what habitual time an individual wants a coffee, cig, or beer, is ideal for online advertisers, who will be able to send you a voucher/coupon or a mere suggestion right there on the spot. There could also be surveillance systems examining what you pick up and consider buying but don't put into basket /trolley. Tucker goes on to describe how data brokers such as Acxiom have begun selling on to advertisers access to not only your data to also to your future decisions.
Chapter 7 looks at education and learning, and makes the following good points: “What telemetric education offers is the chance for all students to raise their hands and be heard, without fear of confirming some unflattering, broadly held perception about their social group.” And “Imagine for a moment the power of knowing beforehand how well you would perform on a test but how disempowered you would feel if that same future was naked to your competition, or to your future potential employers.”
I like the title of chapter 8 “When Your Phone Says You’re In Love”. Here Tucker tells how online dating sites have become a living social science lab. Again here your personal details can be sold on. In the future, you could be rating your actual get-togethers on the app. Already invented is a “sociometer” which detects unconscious biological signals which show what role you’re taking in a conversation, and can then produce predictions on how the rest of the conversation will go.
Chapters 9 and 10 look at predictions in the where, when and who of acts of crime. He discusses where it has worked so far. But on this Tucker says “Predictive policing in the wrong hands looks less like a boon to public safety and more like a totalitarian hammer.”
The book concludes with Chapter 11, titled “The World That Anticipates Your Every Move”. Here one interviewee said as “Privacy is a blip on the radar of history.” Indeed the chapter ends with an obituary to privacy, where Tucker says “we will feel increasingly powerless against the tide of transparency rendering this planet in a new form as surely as the movement of glaciers carved our canyons and valleys.”
I’ve highlighted here the more worrisome aspects of the topics, but it’s important to note that Tucker does aim to offer a prescription for the situation, though it’s spread out in occasional paragraphs here and there rather than as a useful reference at the end. That said I found the actionable advice was rather brief and unoriginal.
Tucker presents a fair and balanced view of this important and highly relevant topic of our times, and the book is clearly well-researched. Some chapters show a little humor which was fun, but although the book is aimed at the layman, I often felt like I was reading a science textbook. The book is a real eye-opener, especially if it’s something you hadn’t given much thought to. The overall message of the book is clear: our data is already out there, but it’s ours first and foremost, and we can be savvy and use it to our advantage.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Beatdown: Streets of Justice in Tabletop Games
Nov 12, 2019
Ever wanted to be a street level thug? Or the hero that fights said thugs? I haven’t really. But! I did used to love playing the Street Fighter games growing up. Now, you cannot Hadouken in real life (right?) and take out E. Honda, but you CAN fight thugs in the street… if you really wanted. You know what? I’m just gonna stick to fighting via card play. Wanna help?
Beatdown: Streets of Justice is a cooperative, push-your-luck, fighting card game that pits you and your team of heroes against waves of thugs and a boss fight. As it is cooperative, the players win by beating the boss (typically in the third wave of fights), or lose by being all knocked out. Silly heroes.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, each player takes a player mat, chooses a hero to play, and takes the dice of matching color to use during the game. Shuffle all the different decks of cards and place them on the table within easy reach of all players. The Attacks deck will include the base attack cards plus all cards that match the players in the game (like Invicta’s attack cards if she is in the game). Place tiny clear cubes on your starting health, as well as the starting health for the thugs you will be fighting in Wave 1, and you are ready to play!
Beatdown: Streets of Justice (or just Beatdown from now on) is played over three waves of fights where the heroes will play cards and do their fighting and then the bad guys will take their turns to fight. Generally, play will go like this: on a player’s turn they will play a card from their hand or one blindly from the top of the Attack deck. This is the opening to their “combo.” The Attack cards will typically have a damage amount and a combo rating number. In order to play more cards to the combo, the player will need to roll their d10 and roll a number equal to or higher than their accumulated combo rating (the little numbers showing in the green arrows of cards played + the green arrow number on the hero card). A combo can continue as long as the player can roll higher than their combo rating, but a failed roll doesn’t necessarily mean c-c-c-combo breaker, but rather that the hero has left themselves open for attack by the thugs. I won’t go into any more detail on fighting, as the rules are a little complex and I will let you discover those for yourselves.
After the heroes have taken all their turns, if thugs are still on the battlefield, they will now take their fighting turns. Flip over an Enemy Attack card from the deck for each enemy and resolve it against the heroes. Each baddie will make their attacks and if heroes are still conscious another round of the wave will begin. New thugs do not enter play, as they only populate at the beginning of a Wave. The thugs are no joke, and the bosses are even rougher. Can you be defeated? Yes. I was defeated in my first game. Can you be revived? Yes. Between Waves the players can participate in a Shopping Phase where they can use trophies (the cards of enemies they have defeated) to purchase health back, revive a fallen hero, or purchase a revealed Loot card to help in future fights. Play continues in this fashion for three Waves until the heroes complete the Boss Wave (by defeating all enemies) or all the heroes are knocked out.
Components. I have some good news and bad news here. Good news first. The dice are great. The tiny clear cubes are… tiny and clear. And they are just fine. The cards are good quality, as are the cardboard mats and tokens. The card layout is good too. The bad news: the rulebook is a little confusing for the first couple read-throughs and the art style does nothing for me. I appreciate the way the rules are very informal and make several chuckle-worthy jokes, but I feel like it could flow different and more efficiently. Similarly, in an industry where art can really make a good game great, this one is lacking. It’s really a shame, because everything else about the game is really good quality. The iconography is… fine, but the character art in-game is an issue I have with this.
Beatdown is actually a really decent game once you are playing. The rulebook needs work, and the art needs an update, but those grievances aside, Beatdown is an enjoyable experience at the table. I usually play pretty conservatively in push-your-luck games, but I went all out with this one and was more often than not rewarded handsomely for it. If your group enjoys cooperative, push-your-luck, fighting, card games give this one a look. Just don’t pay attention to the character art. This all said Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a 6 / 12. Improve the rulebook and art and that rating improves.
Beatdown: Streets of Justice is a cooperative, push-your-luck, fighting card game that pits you and your team of heroes against waves of thugs and a boss fight. As it is cooperative, the players win by beating the boss (typically in the third wave of fights), or lose by being all knocked out. Silly heroes.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, each player takes a player mat, chooses a hero to play, and takes the dice of matching color to use during the game. Shuffle all the different decks of cards and place them on the table within easy reach of all players. The Attacks deck will include the base attack cards plus all cards that match the players in the game (like Invicta’s attack cards if she is in the game). Place tiny clear cubes on your starting health, as well as the starting health for the thugs you will be fighting in Wave 1, and you are ready to play!
Beatdown: Streets of Justice (or just Beatdown from now on) is played over three waves of fights where the heroes will play cards and do their fighting and then the bad guys will take their turns to fight. Generally, play will go like this: on a player’s turn they will play a card from their hand or one blindly from the top of the Attack deck. This is the opening to their “combo.” The Attack cards will typically have a damage amount and a combo rating number. In order to play more cards to the combo, the player will need to roll their d10 and roll a number equal to or higher than their accumulated combo rating (the little numbers showing in the green arrows of cards played + the green arrow number on the hero card). A combo can continue as long as the player can roll higher than their combo rating, but a failed roll doesn’t necessarily mean c-c-c-combo breaker, but rather that the hero has left themselves open for attack by the thugs. I won’t go into any more detail on fighting, as the rules are a little complex and I will let you discover those for yourselves.
After the heroes have taken all their turns, if thugs are still on the battlefield, they will now take their fighting turns. Flip over an Enemy Attack card from the deck for each enemy and resolve it against the heroes. Each baddie will make their attacks and if heroes are still conscious another round of the wave will begin. New thugs do not enter play, as they only populate at the beginning of a Wave. The thugs are no joke, and the bosses are even rougher. Can you be defeated? Yes. I was defeated in my first game. Can you be revived? Yes. Between Waves the players can participate in a Shopping Phase where they can use trophies (the cards of enemies they have defeated) to purchase health back, revive a fallen hero, or purchase a revealed Loot card to help in future fights. Play continues in this fashion for three Waves until the heroes complete the Boss Wave (by defeating all enemies) or all the heroes are knocked out.
Components. I have some good news and bad news here. Good news first. The dice are great. The tiny clear cubes are… tiny and clear. And they are just fine. The cards are good quality, as are the cardboard mats and tokens. The card layout is good too. The bad news: the rulebook is a little confusing for the first couple read-throughs and the art style does nothing for me. I appreciate the way the rules are very informal and make several chuckle-worthy jokes, but I feel like it could flow different and more efficiently. Similarly, in an industry where art can really make a good game great, this one is lacking. It’s really a shame, because everything else about the game is really good quality. The iconography is… fine, but the character art in-game is an issue I have with this.
Beatdown is actually a really decent game once you are playing. The rulebook needs work, and the art needs an update, but those grievances aside, Beatdown is an enjoyable experience at the table. I usually play pretty conservatively in push-your-luck games, but I went all out with this one and was more often than not rewarded handsomely for it. If your group enjoys cooperative, push-your-luck, fighting, card games give this one a look. Just don’t pay attention to the character art. This all said Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a 6 / 12. Improve the rulebook and art and that rating improves.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Forest Fighters in Tabletop Games
Oct 22, 2020
My back yard at my house is half lawn and the back half is woods. The woods are expansive and house many species of wildlife, some of which I care not to ever see. I have squirrels running through my yard and up my trees all the time. I have deer running freely through the neighborhood, and those dang raccoons to tear up my yard when it’s grub season. So when I heard about Forest Fighters being a game about squirrels and possibly fighting against raccoons I knew it had to be reviewed.
Forest Fighters pits players against each other, being rival squirrel clans preparing to gather acorns for the winter. Only one clan can succeed because there is but one oak tree in the entire forest from which acorns may be gathered. Players will be recruiting other animal species onto their side by way of deck building game mechanics and using gained cards to send to battle against their opponents.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, separate the cards into their respective decks. Deal each player five Forager Squirrels, two Acorns, and three Blackberries. This creates the 10 card deck players will shuffle and begin the game playing. Players will also choose 12 other animal deck types to use for the game and display all the decks within reach of all players. Each player will then draw the top five cards from their shuffled deck to create their starting hand. The game may now begin!
On a turn a player will use all the cards from their hand to purchase new cards from the main display to be added to their discard pile, like every other deck building game out there. The cards have multiple uses, however, and up to two currency values. Most animals will be recruited using Food (like Blackberries and Honey), and Food cards can mostly be obtained by using Forage values. Example: the starter Forager Squirrel can be used as one Food, one Forage, or even one Attack.
Speaking of Attack, on a player’s turn, should they be done shopping for other cards, they may attempt to attack an opponent using animal cards in their hand. Players will add up the Attack value on the cards they wish to use and declare an opponent who will reveal cards whose Defense value meets or exceeds the Attack value. Should the attacker win they will be able to take possession of Blackberries and Honey cards in the loser’s hand, send an animal back to its stack, or take all the Acorn cards. Acorns are both VP and the determining factor in ending the game; once all Acorn cards have been purchased the game is over.
Each animal card recruited will also have a special ability that can be used during a turn, and some of them are quite powerful. Turns continue in this fashion until either all Acorns have been purchased or all players except one have been eliminated. A player is eliminated once they can no longer purchase cards and have no more animals in their deck.
Components. Let me tell you about the good and the okay. The rulebook is a small pamphlet style that has only five pages of rules. And honestly, if you have played deck builders before, could have only taken one page. I like that. There is just enough information to get the game going, but doesn’t explain every card’s abilities, or throw in three pages of game art. Similarly, if any questions arise with card abilities, the card dividers provide more text to help clear up the questions. The cards are all good quality, and there are a ton of them.
The okay part of the game is the art on the cards. It is not at all bad, but it could use a different art style to be a bit more attractive. The last little concern I have is the design of the box. The size, shape, color, and all that is fine. What I wish was different was having the title of the game on all sides. My shelves are organized in a way that I try to pack as much as I can into the space by orienting the boxes to be as small and deep as possible so that the smallest side of the box is showing. I cannot do that with Forest Fighters because the smallest sides have a few art slides and credits. Honestly, this isn’t quite as egregious as some games (I’m looking at you, Oceans), so it’s not a huge deal, but worth mentioning for me.
All in all the game is a solid deck-builder with that extra bit of attacking and stealing from opponents. I have never been a fan of Dominion as I find its themelessness boring and its mechanics antiquated. Now, I think I might be able to use Forest Fighters as a gateway deck builder that is more interesting, but still considered light for new gamers.
I am kind of sad that I missed the Kickstarter for this one because I would have liked to have splurged for the higher tier (those yummy extras), but I am happy to have added Forest Fighters to my collection. I believe it is a great entry into deck-building and if you are looking to find a similar game with a cute theme, an interesting new take on the genre, and can play up to five comfortably, then I recommend you give this one a try. I think you’ll like it. Just don’t ever use the raccoons against me or I will be attacking you every turn.
Forest Fighters pits players against each other, being rival squirrel clans preparing to gather acorns for the winter. Only one clan can succeed because there is but one oak tree in the entire forest from which acorns may be gathered. Players will be recruiting other animal species onto their side by way of deck building game mechanics and using gained cards to send to battle against their opponents.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, separate the cards into their respective decks. Deal each player five Forager Squirrels, two Acorns, and three Blackberries. This creates the 10 card deck players will shuffle and begin the game playing. Players will also choose 12 other animal deck types to use for the game and display all the decks within reach of all players. Each player will then draw the top five cards from their shuffled deck to create their starting hand. The game may now begin!
On a turn a player will use all the cards from their hand to purchase new cards from the main display to be added to their discard pile, like every other deck building game out there. The cards have multiple uses, however, and up to two currency values. Most animals will be recruited using Food (like Blackberries and Honey), and Food cards can mostly be obtained by using Forage values. Example: the starter Forager Squirrel can be used as one Food, one Forage, or even one Attack.
Speaking of Attack, on a player’s turn, should they be done shopping for other cards, they may attempt to attack an opponent using animal cards in their hand. Players will add up the Attack value on the cards they wish to use and declare an opponent who will reveal cards whose Defense value meets or exceeds the Attack value. Should the attacker win they will be able to take possession of Blackberries and Honey cards in the loser’s hand, send an animal back to its stack, or take all the Acorn cards. Acorns are both VP and the determining factor in ending the game; once all Acorn cards have been purchased the game is over.
Each animal card recruited will also have a special ability that can be used during a turn, and some of them are quite powerful. Turns continue in this fashion until either all Acorns have been purchased or all players except one have been eliminated. A player is eliminated once they can no longer purchase cards and have no more animals in their deck.
Components. Let me tell you about the good and the okay. The rulebook is a small pamphlet style that has only five pages of rules. And honestly, if you have played deck builders before, could have only taken one page. I like that. There is just enough information to get the game going, but doesn’t explain every card’s abilities, or throw in three pages of game art. Similarly, if any questions arise with card abilities, the card dividers provide more text to help clear up the questions. The cards are all good quality, and there are a ton of them.
The okay part of the game is the art on the cards. It is not at all bad, but it could use a different art style to be a bit more attractive. The last little concern I have is the design of the box. The size, shape, color, and all that is fine. What I wish was different was having the title of the game on all sides. My shelves are organized in a way that I try to pack as much as I can into the space by orienting the boxes to be as small and deep as possible so that the smallest side of the box is showing. I cannot do that with Forest Fighters because the smallest sides have a few art slides and credits. Honestly, this isn’t quite as egregious as some games (I’m looking at you, Oceans), so it’s not a huge deal, but worth mentioning for me.
All in all the game is a solid deck-builder with that extra bit of attacking and stealing from opponents. I have never been a fan of Dominion as I find its themelessness boring and its mechanics antiquated. Now, I think I might be able to use Forest Fighters as a gateway deck builder that is more interesting, but still considered light for new gamers.
I am kind of sad that I missed the Kickstarter for this one because I would have liked to have splurged for the higher tier (those yummy extras), but I am happy to have added Forest Fighters to my collection. I believe it is a great entry into deck-building and if you are looking to find a similar game with a cute theme, an interesting new take on the genre, and can play up to five comfortably, then I recommend you give this one a try. I think you’ll like it. Just don’t ever use the raccoons against me or I will be attacking you every turn.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats in Tabletop Games
Sep 1, 2021
Okay! Yes. Firefly, a great IP. Check! Gale Force Nine, a publisher that brought a previous Firefly game to life and was pretty darn good. Check! Solo, Cooperative, or Competitive? Check! So far so good, so how does it stack up and have I finally found my gorram Firefly love?
Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats (from here just Firefly) is a miniatures skirmish game that can be played as a one-off game experience or as a campaign style story game. In it players will either control one or more Crew (the heroes of the show) or all of the Goons (the bad guys). For the solo experience I will be detailing here the solo player will control all characters on both sides. The Crew will be attempting to pull off The Rescue Job by rescuing an injured comrade hostage stashed in one of the 10 buildings on the board. After the hostage has been rescued all Crew and hostage must make it to the landing pad area before time for the Job runs out.
To setup, follow the instructions on the included Job pamphlet (there are four included in the box). The beginning of the Job will look similar to the photo below, though other components outside the board setup may be in whatever location fits the player best. After Equipment cards have been revealed and shopping completed, the game may begin in earnest, and best be quick – you only have 50 Moments to complete the Job!
Firefly is a turn-based minis game, but turns will probably never be in the same order. Each action taken by a character costs Moments in time, tracked by the brown Moments tracker around the board. Each character, be they Crew or Goons, will have their own Time Marker to show where in the 50 Moments the character currently resides. The character whose Time Marker is furthest in the rear of the pack will take their turn next. On a turn characters will have several choices of actions to take: Move, Complete a Test, Heal, Assist, or even Brawl and Shoot!
This Job focuses on gathering Intel from a terminal in one of the buildings or by chatting up nearby Cowboys. These Intel chips may be turned in for information to help narrow down exactly in which building the hostage is being held. Along the way, however, certain events may cause the Crew to have to “act heroic,” which means swapping out their gray “casual” mini for their green “heroic” mini in order to complete the event. Funny thing though, once a Crew member acts heroic, if ending their turn within line of sight of a Goon, that Goon becomes Alerted and joins the Timeline with their own mini and Time Marker. The Goons will now be trying to take out the beloved Crew member! As in the photo below, poor Mal is being surrounded by Goons with Zoe and Jayne nearby to help.
When all is said and done, Crew and Goons will be taking actions and spending Moments to do so. Should the Crew get to the landing pad with the hostage in tow the Crew wins! However, if time runs out on the Job (as it did with me twice) then the Job has failed. In either case the Crew may receive Rewards in various amounts of credits or Intel or other rewards that they may carry with to the next Job if playing a Story (several Jobs in succession).
Components. I am a HUGE fan of the components in this box. Not only are the minis great, the tokens chunky, and the artwork very good, but each 3D building is pre-assembled right out of the box. They nest very tightly and neatly within the box (whose bottom is also a very large building), but you will need to provide a bunch of baggies or other storage means because all the small components will be dumped into these buildings otherwise. I love all the components in this game, and they are all wonderful to handle… except one – the Time Markers. These are the tokens that represent the characters on the Moments tracker. As characters move along the tracker their Time Markers will be placed on a blank spot, or more often than not, on top of a stack of other Markers. No problem usually, unless your big man-hands tend not to be dextrous enough to grab the top Marker cleanly off the stack and it causes a giant mess of Time Markers on the board. I mean, not that it happened to me several times, of course…
In any case, Firefly is a marvelous scenario-based minis game that I have had nothing but great times playing – even solo! I honestly cannot imagine having more fun by adding more players, so this may be another “solo only” game for me. I will probably try it with my wife, maybe, or someone else once the COVID is gone. I love being able to figure out how best to maneuver each character in order to achieve the goals of the Job, but then something always causing me to have to act heroic and end my turn in LOS of a Goon, so now they are coming after me. I would not necessarily compare it to an action-programming game where you make plans only to have randomness obliterate them, but it certainly adds a giant amount of tactics to the game. In fact, during one play Mal alerted four Cowboys at once, and then the game was no longer a strategic stealthy experience but an all-out melee just to survive. I lost the Job, but only by a few Moments.
Ahh, this one is fabulous, and I am so happy that I have finally found that perfect-for-me Firefly game. If you are a fan of the Firefly mythos and are looking for a game that does it justice while having a ton of replayability, then please check out Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats. I am seriously also considering purchasing the expansions to add Book, Inara, Simon, and River. I mean, how could you NOT want to add River to your game?? I’ll be in my bunk.
Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats (from here just Firefly) is a miniatures skirmish game that can be played as a one-off game experience or as a campaign style story game. In it players will either control one or more Crew (the heroes of the show) or all of the Goons (the bad guys). For the solo experience I will be detailing here the solo player will control all characters on both sides. The Crew will be attempting to pull off The Rescue Job by rescuing an injured comrade hostage stashed in one of the 10 buildings on the board. After the hostage has been rescued all Crew and hostage must make it to the landing pad area before time for the Job runs out.
To setup, follow the instructions on the included Job pamphlet (there are four included in the box). The beginning of the Job will look similar to the photo below, though other components outside the board setup may be in whatever location fits the player best. After Equipment cards have been revealed and shopping completed, the game may begin in earnest, and best be quick – you only have 50 Moments to complete the Job!
Firefly is a turn-based minis game, but turns will probably never be in the same order. Each action taken by a character costs Moments in time, tracked by the brown Moments tracker around the board. Each character, be they Crew or Goons, will have their own Time Marker to show where in the 50 Moments the character currently resides. The character whose Time Marker is furthest in the rear of the pack will take their turn next. On a turn characters will have several choices of actions to take: Move, Complete a Test, Heal, Assist, or even Brawl and Shoot!
This Job focuses on gathering Intel from a terminal in one of the buildings or by chatting up nearby Cowboys. These Intel chips may be turned in for information to help narrow down exactly in which building the hostage is being held. Along the way, however, certain events may cause the Crew to have to “act heroic,” which means swapping out their gray “casual” mini for their green “heroic” mini in order to complete the event. Funny thing though, once a Crew member acts heroic, if ending their turn within line of sight of a Goon, that Goon becomes Alerted and joins the Timeline with their own mini and Time Marker. The Goons will now be trying to take out the beloved Crew member! As in the photo below, poor Mal is being surrounded by Goons with Zoe and Jayne nearby to help.
When all is said and done, Crew and Goons will be taking actions and spending Moments to do so. Should the Crew get to the landing pad with the hostage in tow the Crew wins! However, if time runs out on the Job (as it did with me twice) then the Job has failed. In either case the Crew may receive Rewards in various amounts of credits or Intel or other rewards that they may carry with to the next Job if playing a Story (several Jobs in succession).
Components. I am a HUGE fan of the components in this box. Not only are the minis great, the tokens chunky, and the artwork very good, but each 3D building is pre-assembled right out of the box. They nest very tightly and neatly within the box (whose bottom is also a very large building), but you will need to provide a bunch of baggies or other storage means because all the small components will be dumped into these buildings otherwise. I love all the components in this game, and they are all wonderful to handle… except one – the Time Markers. These are the tokens that represent the characters on the Moments tracker. As characters move along the tracker their Time Markers will be placed on a blank spot, or more often than not, on top of a stack of other Markers. No problem usually, unless your big man-hands tend not to be dextrous enough to grab the top Marker cleanly off the stack and it causes a giant mess of Time Markers on the board. I mean, not that it happened to me several times, of course…
In any case, Firefly is a marvelous scenario-based minis game that I have had nothing but great times playing – even solo! I honestly cannot imagine having more fun by adding more players, so this may be another “solo only” game for me. I will probably try it with my wife, maybe, or someone else once the COVID is gone. I love being able to figure out how best to maneuver each character in order to achieve the goals of the Job, but then something always causing me to have to act heroic and end my turn in LOS of a Goon, so now they are coming after me. I would not necessarily compare it to an action-programming game where you make plans only to have randomness obliterate them, but it certainly adds a giant amount of tactics to the game. In fact, during one play Mal alerted four Cowboys at once, and then the game was no longer a strategic stealthy experience but an all-out melee just to survive. I lost the Job, but only by a few Moments.
Ahh, this one is fabulous, and I am so happy that I have finally found that perfect-for-me Firefly game. If you are a fan of the Firefly mythos and are looking for a game that does it justice while having a ton of replayability, then please check out Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats. I am seriously also considering purchasing the expansions to add Book, Inara, Simon, and River. I mean, how could you NOT want to add River to your game?? I’ll be in my bunk.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Why Will Smith is a wise, wise man.
I’m catching up on a few of the big films I missed during 2016. But Roland Emmerich has a lot to answer for with this one. Twenty years after Independence Day smashed the summer box office of 1996, the aliens are back: bigger and badder than ever. Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is no longer on the scene but, to give Emmerich a little credit, he has gathered an impressive array of the original stars to return led by Hiller’s wife Jasmine (Vivica Fox), President Whitmore (Bill Pullman), Dr Okun (Brent Spiner), David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) and his dad (Judd Hirsch). The great Robert Loggia even turns up, who played the original General Grey, looking like he is about to expire (which unfortunately he did late last year, and the film is in memorial to him). All of them have weathered over the years apart from Judd Hirsch who must have a picture in his attic.
Playing the new generation (Hiller’s young son Dylan and the president’s daughter Patricia) are Jessie Usher and the comely Maika Monroe respectively, the latter having the pout of a young Jessica Alba and showing promise. Rounding off the young ‘uns, and playing an enormously irritating hunk/hero and his sidekick buddy are Jake (Liam Hemsworth – yes, younger brother of Chris) and Floyd (Nicolas Wright). And with the obvious needs of summer blockbusters to appeal to the ravenous Chinese market there is also Shanghai-born Angelababy as a young hotshot pilot and Chin Han as her uncle, moonbase commander Commander Jiang.
It’s hard to know where to start with criticism of this film. It’s like you’ve caught someone desecrating the grave of a dearly departed relative. The plot is ludicrous…. Uh oh…here comes another One Mann’s Movies Showcase Theatre….
The scene: onboard the alien craft high above central Asia
DRONE K’FAALL: “The use of the anti-gravity weapon worked a treat your Majesty. We have ripped up Shanghai and dumped in from a great height on London! Take that Queenie! All hail our weapons superiority! I take it we should just ‘rinse and repeat’ around the world to wipe them all out? ”
QUEEN ALIEN BEE: “No K’Fall. Let’s land in the Atlantic and then go fight them one-on-one with our little ships in the desert near Area 51.”
DRONE K’FALL: “B-b-b-but your Majesty, with our gravity weapon we could eliminate all threat, drill out the earth’s core and find what we came here for in perfect safety!”.
QUEEN ALIEN BEE: “No… that’s just what they’ll be expecting us to do…”
I thought the Oscar for the dumbest aliens of the year was a shoe-in for the ones who chose a similar tactic in “The 5th Wave” – but no… we have another contender for the crown. This ridiculous London-based CGI sequence – a virtual re-shoot of the ridiculous CGI sequence in Emmerich’s “2012” where John Cusack is fleeing by plane a collapsing Los Angeles – is mitigated only by Goldblum’s witty comment about them “Always going for the landmarks” – the best line in the film.
Elsewhere, the story and screenplay – by an army of writers (never a good sign) – is risible and an insult to intelligence, alien or otherwise. The ludicrous plot points go on and on…
Why on earth is the single landed alien craft from 1996 owned by an African warlord? If mankind have ‘benefited’ so much from the alien technology that must surely have been through the UN-dismantling of that ship?
There seems to be no logical connection between the “visions” (stolen from “Close Encounters”) and the alien craft. The visions might have well have been of the alien’s last shopping list (“six cans of Kraag beans; one bottle of Vollufi ale; … “);
The alien craft is big enough to span the WHOLE Atlantic when it lands, but – who would believe it? – comes to a stop with its edge in Washington JUST ENOUGH to dip the White House flag to a jaunty angle. #cringe;
The alien ship – apparently open to the elements – allows our heroic hunks to wander around without spacesuits;
Breathless… or not. Jessie T Usher and Liam Hemsworth (foreground) not dying of asphyxiation or cold.
At one point it looked like our curvaceous heroine was going to defeat the alien queen in good ol’ Wild West fashion armed only with a handgun (but no, my head could come out of my hands again);
And don’t even get me started on the opening “excitement” about propping up a collapsing supergun on the moon with a spaceship. Gerry Anderson would be spinning in his grave.
The dialogue is little better. The original “Independence Day” was probably most famous for two scenes: the impressive destruction of the White House and Bill Paxton’s ludicrously corny “We will not go quietly into the night” speech. Here trying to go one better we have not just one version of this but two with William Fichner’s General Adams chipping one in from the rough before Paxton delivers an impromptu hanger speech that is toe-curlingly excruciating.
Much of the acting is of the “I really don’t want to be here but it’s good for the pension” variety with Paxton and Goldblum going through the motions and Charlotte Gainsborough being horribly miscast as a French anthropologist running around the world on the trail of Pokemon Go characters… or symbols… or something. Only Brent Spiner and Judd Hirsch really get into their stride with likeably over-the-top performances.
Goldblum and Charlotte Gainsborough. A less likely historic romantic attachment its difficult to imagine.
If this was a standalone story it might scrape a double-Fad… but as it so horrendously sullies a classic movie experience it incurs my cinematic wrath. It might have made Roland Emmer-richer (sic)…. but my recommendation would be to get a big bag of popcorn, the original 1996 movie on DVD and enjoy. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Playing the new generation (Hiller’s young son Dylan and the president’s daughter Patricia) are Jessie Usher and the comely Maika Monroe respectively, the latter having the pout of a young Jessica Alba and showing promise. Rounding off the young ‘uns, and playing an enormously irritating hunk/hero and his sidekick buddy are Jake (Liam Hemsworth – yes, younger brother of Chris) and Floyd (Nicolas Wright). And with the obvious needs of summer blockbusters to appeal to the ravenous Chinese market there is also Shanghai-born Angelababy as a young hotshot pilot and Chin Han as her uncle, moonbase commander Commander Jiang.
It’s hard to know where to start with criticism of this film. It’s like you’ve caught someone desecrating the grave of a dearly departed relative. The plot is ludicrous…. Uh oh…here comes another One Mann’s Movies Showcase Theatre….
The scene: onboard the alien craft high above central Asia
DRONE K’FAALL: “The use of the anti-gravity weapon worked a treat your Majesty. We have ripped up Shanghai and dumped in from a great height on London! Take that Queenie! All hail our weapons superiority! I take it we should just ‘rinse and repeat’ around the world to wipe them all out? ”
QUEEN ALIEN BEE: “No K’Fall. Let’s land in the Atlantic and then go fight them one-on-one with our little ships in the desert near Area 51.”
DRONE K’FALL: “B-b-b-but your Majesty, with our gravity weapon we could eliminate all threat, drill out the earth’s core and find what we came here for in perfect safety!”.
QUEEN ALIEN BEE: “No… that’s just what they’ll be expecting us to do…”
I thought the Oscar for the dumbest aliens of the year was a shoe-in for the ones who chose a similar tactic in “The 5th Wave” – but no… we have another contender for the crown. This ridiculous London-based CGI sequence – a virtual re-shoot of the ridiculous CGI sequence in Emmerich’s “2012” where John Cusack is fleeing by plane a collapsing Los Angeles – is mitigated only by Goldblum’s witty comment about them “Always going for the landmarks” – the best line in the film.
Elsewhere, the story and screenplay – by an army of writers (never a good sign) – is risible and an insult to intelligence, alien or otherwise. The ludicrous plot points go on and on…
Why on earth is the single landed alien craft from 1996 owned by an African warlord? If mankind have ‘benefited’ so much from the alien technology that must surely have been through the UN-dismantling of that ship?
There seems to be no logical connection between the “visions” (stolen from “Close Encounters”) and the alien craft. The visions might have well have been of the alien’s last shopping list (“six cans of Kraag beans; one bottle of Vollufi ale; … “);
The alien craft is big enough to span the WHOLE Atlantic when it lands, but – who would believe it? – comes to a stop with its edge in Washington JUST ENOUGH to dip the White House flag to a jaunty angle. #cringe;
The alien ship – apparently open to the elements – allows our heroic hunks to wander around without spacesuits;
Breathless… or not. Jessie T Usher and Liam Hemsworth (foreground) not dying of asphyxiation or cold.
At one point it looked like our curvaceous heroine was going to defeat the alien queen in good ol’ Wild West fashion armed only with a handgun (but no, my head could come out of my hands again);
And don’t even get me started on the opening “excitement” about propping up a collapsing supergun on the moon with a spaceship. Gerry Anderson would be spinning in his grave.
The dialogue is little better. The original “Independence Day” was probably most famous for two scenes: the impressive destruction of the White House and Bill Paxton’s ludicrously corny “We will not go quietly into the night” speech. Here trying to go one better we have not just one version of this but two with William Fichner’s General Adams chipping one in from the rough before Paxton delivers an impromptu hanger speech that is toe-curlingly excruciating.
Much of the acting is of the “I really don’t want to be here but it’s good for the pension” variety with Paxton and Goldblum going through the motions and Charlotte Gainsborough being horribly miscast as a French anthropologist running around the world on the trail of Pokemon Go characters… or symbols… or something. Only Brent Spiner and Judd Hirsch really get into their stride with likeably over-the-top performances.
Goldblum and Charlotte Gainsborough. A less likely historic romantic attachment its difficult to imagine.
If this was a standalone story it might scrape a double-Fad… but as it so horrendously sullies a classic movie experience it incurs my cinematic wrath. It might have made Roland Emmer-richer (sic)…. but my recommendation would be to get a big bag of popcorn, the original 1996 movie on DVD and enjoy. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
honingwords (32 KP) rated No Good Reason in Books
Jul 5, 2018
Cari Hunter is most definitely as top notch a writer as you are going to find in crime/thriller writing.
Cari Hunter’s Dark Peak crime series, starting with No Good Reason, was recommended to me by a Lesfic author. I reckon you have to be pretty good for your peers to claim you are ‘top notch’ and after reading four of her books in quick succession I can guarantee that Cari is most definitely as top notch a writer as you are going to find in crime/thriller writing.
Let me admit to you that I generally find crime novels too much hard work to follow. I like my books to be romances, and the sexier the better. I’m surprised as all get out to find I love Cari’s thrilling ride through these Police stroke Hospital novels. Especially as there is almost no juicy sex to lubricate the grit. The infrequency of sex scenes is because the main characters, Sanne and Meg, aren’t officially a couple. Or maybe they are. It’s entirely possible everyone knows they are, except themselves.
The story isn't necessarily about their sexual tension, but it was always in the back of my mind that they would see sense in the end and I patiently waited them out.
I have found in the last few years that there are many padded-out books on the market by well-respected authors, where you can skip through whole pages at a time without losing any real sense of the plot. Not so with No Good Reason which kept me riveted through each paragraph and exquisite word right from the tense prologue.
Cari definitely makes every single word count and I felt engaged in the story and with her main characters within the first few pages.
I’d already read Snowbound, which was a fantastic debut novel, but the characters in No Good Reason are one smidge more sophisticatedly written.
Sanne and Meg go back a very long time, from before their first kiss at the age of twelve, and they know each other better than they know themselves. They have generated a world around them where they are each others’ support and comfort. They are BFFs, they are Friends With Benefits, but somehow Cari has written them as even more than these things. They are each others’ absolute other halves.
These two girls have aches and bruises, and tears and emotions, and genuine exhaustion from their ridiculously long work hours.
They do things like accidentally drop perishable shopping on the floor, but eat it anyway; burn their tea; and turn the shower off when the toilet flushes for fear of being scalded.
I love details like these. I love that they can have a discussion about putting the bins out and HobNobs can fall in their tea the same as they do for you and me, without making the whole book boring and mundane. It simply endears the characters to me all the more.
They made me smile a lot. Meg prefers ham and quaver butties, for goodness sake, what’s not to love?
It doesn’t take long for Cari to completely draw you into their world in Northern England, around the Manchester area, and mainly in the Peak District which is where Cari lives and I feel like I have travelled the hills and crunched the snow and tramped through the same streets as she has now.
This area has its own accent, Northern English, and it is noticeable that she uses phrases and words particular to there. I can’t remember which words I picked up on first, probably some dialogue, but you quickly become used to the fact this is not written by an American. It’s refreshing to have only regional UK main characters: no Londoners; no Americans.
Don’t let the idea of a local accent and local characters put you off, there is nothing in the book you wouldn’t understand, it is still all ‘plain English’ and if you come across a word you can’t decipher I will more than happily translate for you!
Other than the almost-a-romance-but-so-much-more between the two girls there is also this whole other kidnapping / crime malarkey going on. Sanne is a little too personally involved in the case right from the beginning, being caught up in the initial rescue of the victim. She and her police partner, the sensitive, caring, supportive, gorgeously written Nelson, are embroiled in working the case together. Needless to say they spend a lot of time visiting Meg in her role as A&E Doctor in the local hospital for one reason or another. Nelson is a beautiful soul and just the kind of partner Sanne needs, but that writers seldom allow their straight characters to be, especially in Police fiction.
The kidnapping plot is fast paced and exciting. The characters on both sides of the investigation were all believable and there was an audible ‘Huh!’ out of me with the final twist at the end. I really didn’t see that coming. Such a simple way to pull the whole plot together. Chilling!
Cari has a remarkable flair for descriptive writing and she pays particular attention to details like sounds and how things feel against skin. You are left in no doubt every time a character is sore, almost feeling the pain and peeling off the scabs with them.
Sometimes you have to reread a passage to understand the gist of what an author means, or furrow your brow over a combination of words because they just don’t make sense or even belong together, but with Cari Hunter the only thing I can point out to her is ‘Try feeding goldfinches niger seeds instead of nuts.’ That’s it. No other tweaking or corrections required. Nothing. Cari Hunter writes sheer perfection.
My favourite line in the book is the first one I stopped at, blinked appreciatively and re-read.
“Sanne ran her fingertips across the gritstone, letting it wear away her skin like an over-keen emery board.”
From that point on I knew I was going to love not only the book, but also Cari’s style and I wasn’t disappointed with further chapters.
I have a simple test for new authors, to find out how much I like them. The test is ‘how sick has this author made me?’ By that I mean - how long did they keep me awake reading when I ought to have been asleep for work the next day. If I am awake too long it makes me sick for several days after - it shouldn’t be something I am proud of but
Let me admit to you that I generally find crime novels too much hard work to follow. I like my books to be romances, and the sexier the better. I’m surprised as all get out to find I love Cari’s thrilling ride through these Police stroke Hospital novels. Especially as there is almost no juicy sex to lubricate the grit. The infrequency of sex scenes is because the main characters, Sanne and Meg, aren’t officially a couple. Or maybe they are. It’s entirely possible everyone knows they are, except themselves.
The story isn't necessarily about their sexual tension, but it was always in the back of my mind that they would see sense in the end and I patiently waited them out.
I have found in the last few years that there are many padded-out books on the market by well-respected authors, where you can skip through whole pages at a time without losing any real sense of the plot. Not so with No Good Reason which kept me riveted through each paragraph and exquisite word right from the tense prologue.
Cari definitely makes every single word count and I felt engaged in the story and with her main characters within the first few pages.
I’d already read Snowbound, which was a fantastic debut novel, but the characters in No Good Reason are one smidge more sophisticatedly written.
Sanne and Meg go back a very long time, from before their first kiss at the age of twelve, and they know each other better than they know themselves. They have generated a world around them where they are each others’ support and comfort. They are BFFs, they are Friends With Benefits, but somehow Cari has written them as even more than these things. They are each others’ absolute other halves.
These two girls have aches and bruises, and tears and emotions, and genuine exhaustion from their ridiculously long work hours.
They do things like accidentally drop perishable shopping on the floor, but eat it anyway; burn their tea; and turn the shower off when the toilet flushes for fear of being scalded.
I love details like these. I love that they can have a discussion about putting the bins out and HobNobs can fall in their tea the same as they do for you and me, without making the whole book boring and mundane. It simply endears the characters to me all the more.
They made me smile a lot. Meg prefers ham and quaver butties, for goodness sake, what’s not to love?
It doesn’t take long for Cari to completely draw you into their world in Northern England, around the Manchester area, and mainly in the Peak District which is where Cari lives and I feel like I have travelled the hills and crunched the snow and tramped through the same streets as she has now.
This area has its own accent, Northern English, and it is noticeable that she uses phrases and words particular to there. I can’t remember which words I picked up on first, probably some dialogue, but you quickly become used to the fact this is not written by an American. It’s refreshing to have only regional UK main characters: no Londoners; no Americans.
Don’t let the idea of a local accent and local characters put you off, there is nothing in the book you wouldn’t understand, it is still all ‘plain English’ and if you come across a word you can’t decipher I will more than happily translate for you!
Other than the almost-a-romance-but-so-much-more between the two girls there is also this whole other kidnapping / crime malarkey going on. Sanne is a little too personally involved in the case right from the beginning, being caught up in the initial rescue of the victim. She and her police partner, the sensitive, caring, supportive, gorgeously written Nelson, are embroiled in working the case together. Needless to say they spend a lot of time visiting Meg in her role as A&E Doctor in the local hospital for one reason or another. Nelson is a beautiful soul and just the kind of partner Sanne needs, but that writers seldom allow their straight characters to be, especially in Police fiction.
The kidnapping plot is fast paced and exciting. The characters on both sides of the investigation were all believable and there was an audible ‘Huh!’ out of me with the final twist at the end. I really didn’t see that coming. Such a simple way to pull the whole plot together. Chilling!
Cari has a remarkable flair for descriptive writing and she pays particular attention to details like sounds and how things feel against skin. You are left in no doubt every time a character is sore, almost feeling the pain and peeling off the scabs with them.
Sometimes you have to reread a passage to understand the gist of what an author means, or furrow your brow over a combination of words because they just don’t make sense or even belong together, but with Cari Hunter the only thing I can point out to her is ‘Try feeding goldfinches niger seeds instead of nuts.’ That’s it. No other tweaking or corrections required. Nothing. Cari Hunter writes sheer perfection.
My favourite line in the book is the first one I stopped at, blinked appreciatively and re-read.
“Sanne ran her fingertips across the gritstone, letting it wear away her skin like an over-keen emery board.”
From that point on I knew I was going to love not only the book, but also Cari’s style and I wasn’t disappointed with further chapters.
I have a simple test for new authors, to find out how much I like them. The test is ‘how sick has this author made me?’ By that I mean - how long did they keep me awake reading when I ought to have been asleep for work the next day. If I am awake too long it makes me sick for several days after - it shouldn’t be something I am proud of but
Well written (1 more)
Great characters
If the world ended, could you keep your morals and values? Imagine that your a father, with a young child in a burned-out world, barely surviving out on the road, and there are cannibals and murderers out to get you. Over time, you would watch your child become thinner and thinner, and every now and then you're lucky enough to find some canned or jarred food here and there, but it's only a matter of time before you can't find anymore. Soon, you would both be too weak to move - - - would you murder someone if they had food? Yet, most people out on the road are just like you, with no food and searching for more - - - in that case, could you kill and eat a person to survive? Or would you let yourself and your child starve, keeping your morals and values intact?
This is a scenario people may have to face one day, especially with the shape the world is in today. Even now people are faced with sticking with their morals and values, from helping our fellow man to the decision of holding a door open for a stranger. The Road, Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, brings the very question of humanity to the forefront, as well as how hard it is to hold onto it.
The father, The Road's main character, takes us on a journey through the mountains in a burned-out America, but the fires that took over are never explained and they didn't need to be. Apparently having been on the move for a couple of years, he wants to take his young son South to survive the winter months that are very close by. Readers get glimpses of what happened the night the grid went down from the father's point-of-view, but so many years have passed that the memories are few, the facts aren't completely straight, and any type of life before the fires seems to have been just a dream. So the two begin the story heading South, dragging everything they have scavenged in their travels inside of a metal shopping cart, and the father isn't sure they'll make it out of the mountains before winter. He only has tattered pieces of a map that they have carried for a long time, having numbered each piece with a broken crayon they had found, making it hard to estimate how far they need to travel.
While traveling, they very rarely run into other people, at one point, when they run into a very bad man, the father realizes he hasn't spoken to another person (other than his son) in at least a year. This is mostly because the majority of people that are still alive are the type of people that would rather kill you and take whatever you have than speak to you. Even most of the houses they come upon are burned and abandoned, but the father sees these buildings as a chance to find food and supplies: "The roadside hedges were gone to rows of black and twisted brambles. No sign of life. He left the boy standing in the road holding the pistol while he climbed an old set of limestone steps and walked down the porch of the farmhouse shading his eyes and peering in the windows. He let himself in through the kitchen. Trash in the floor, old newsprint. China in a breakfront, cups hanging from their hooks. He went down the hallway and stood in the door to the parlor. There was an antique pumporgan in the corner. A television set. Cheap stuffed furniture together with an old handmade cherrywood chifforobe. He climbed the stairs and walked through the bedrooms. Everything covered with ash. A child's room with a stuffed dog on the windowsill looking out at the garden. He went through the closets. He stripped back the beds and came away with two good woolen blankets and went back down the stairs. In the pantry were three jars of homecanned tomatoes. He blew the dust from the lids and studied them. Someone before him had not trusted them and in the end neither did he and he walked out with the blankets over his shoulder and they set off along the road again. " The young son is usually left close by outside because he seems scared that either there will be bad people or dead people inside.
Throughout this incredible, heart wrenching novel, the father slowly becomes more ill with what seems to be a case of pneumonia, possibly caused by all of the ash that is in the air from the fires; this makes him cough uncontrollably. Yet, he doesn't focus on that he may not live too much longer, instead he tries everything to get his son as far South as possible without too much of a plan of what to do when they get there.
The horror of this book is brought to light by the realism of what could happen if the world were to end, when people lose their humanity and begin to kill and eat their fellow humans. It leaves us wondering if we could hold onto what we are today when the basic need for shelter and food become more important than another person's life. But the father and son are examples of the few individuals who are able to hold onto their humanity during the end of the world: they share supplies if they can, they don't kill humans or animals to feed themselves, and they live by one rule: if a person is still alive, they take nothing from them.
The struggle these two go through is very real and believable, and McCarthy's writing is so well done that this book is hard to put down. Even while reading, most won't notice that there is only one character in the entire story that is given a name; our two main characters are never addressed by anything other than Papa or son/boy. The father's worry about keeping his son alive and unharmed is heartbreaking, for instance, one scene where he believes that he and his son are going to be found by cannibals, he quickly goes over with his son on how to shoot himself with the pistol, so neither of them will be taken alive. As a parent, I choked up in quite a few scenes, including this one - - - and as with the film adaptation, I cried heartily at the end.
This emotional, dark novel is an amazing book to read. The Road is bound to leave readers questioning what they would do in the same circumstances as the father. I highly recommend this book to people who love dystopian novels, but beware, this is a story you won't be able to forget.
This is a scenario people may have to face one day, especially with the shape the world is in today. Even now people are faced with sticking with their morals and values, from helping our fellow man to the decision of holding a door open for a stranger. The Road, Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, brings the very question of humanity to the forefront, as well as how hard it is to hold onto it.
The father, The Road's main character, takes us on a journey through the mountains in a burned-out America, but the fires that took over are never explained and they didn't need to be. Apparently having been on the move for a couple of years, he wants to take his young son South to survive the winter months that are very close by. Readers get glimpses of what happened the night the grid went down from the father's point-of-view, but so many years have passed that the memories are few, the facts aren't completely straight, and any type of life before the fires seems to have been just a dream. So the two begin the story heading South, dragging everything they have scavenged in their travels inside of a metal shopping cart, and the father isn't sure they'll make it out of the mountains before winter. He only has tattered pieces of a map that they have carried for a long time, having numbered each piece with a broken crayon they had found, making it hard to estimate how far they need to travel.
While traveling, they very rarely run into other people, at one point, when they run into a very bad man, the father realizes he hasn't spoken to another person (other than his son) in at least a year. This is mostly because the majority of people that are still alive are the type of people that would rather kill you and take whatever you have than speak to you. Even most of the houses they come upon are burned and abandoned, but the father sees these buildings as a chance to find food and supplies: "The roadside hedges were gone to rows of black and twisted brambles. No sign of life. He left the boy standing in the road holding the pistol while he climbed an old set of limestone steps and walked down the porch of the farmhouse shading his eyes and peering in the windows. He let himself in through the kitchen. Trash in the floor, old newsprint. China in a breakfront, cups hanging from their hooks. He went down the hallway and stood in the door to the parlor. There was an antique pumporgan in the corner. A television set. Cheap stuffed furniture together with an old handmade cherrywood chifforobe. He climbed the stairs and walked through the bedrooms. Everything covered with ash. A child's room with a stuffed dog on the windowsill looking out at the garden. He went through the closets. He stripped back the beds and came away with two good woolen blankets and went back down the stairs. In the pantry were three jars of homecanned tomatoes. He blew the dust from the lids and studied them. Someone before him had not trusted them and in the end neither did he and he walked out with the blankets over his shoulder and they set off along the road again. " The young son is usually left close by outside because he seems scared that either there will be bad people or dead people inside.
Throughout this incredible, heart wrenching novel, the father slowly becomes more ill with what seems to be a case of pneumonia, possibly caused by all of the ash that is in the air from the fires; this makes him cough uncontrollably. Yet, he doesn't focus on that he may not live too much longer, instead he tries everything to get his son as far South as possible without too much of a plan of what to do when they get there.
The horror of this book is brought to light by the realism of what could happen if the world were to end, when people lose their humanity and begin to kill and eat their fellow humans. It leaves us wondering if we could hold onto what we are today when the basic need for shelter and food become more important than another person's life. But the father and son are examples of the few individuals who are able to hold onto their humanity during the end of the world: they share supplies if they can, they don't kill humans or animals to feed themselves, and they live by one rule: if a person is still alive, they take nothing from them.
The struggle these two go through is very real and believable, and McCarthy's writing is so well done that this book is hard to put down. Even while reading, most won't notice that there is only one character in the entire story that is given a name; our two main characters are never addressed by anything other than Papa or son/boy. The father's worry about keeping his son alive and unharmed is heartbreaking, for instance, one scene where he believes that he and his son are going to be found by cannibals, he quickly goes over with his son on how to shoot himself with the pistol, so neither of them will be taken alive. As a parent, I choked up in quite a few scenes, including this one - - - and as with the film adaptation, I cried heartily at the end.
This emotional, dark novel is an amazing book to read. The Road is bound to leave readers questioning what they would do in the same circumstances as the father. I highly recommend this book to people who love dystopian novels, but beware, this is a story you won't be able to forget.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Roma (2018) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
“Siempre estamos solas”
Alfonso Cuarón‘s “Roma” has been lauded with praise and award’s hype, and I must admit to have been a little bit snooty about it. A black-and-white Spanish language film with subtitles that – to be honest – looks a bit dreary: can it really be that good? Having now (finally) seen it on Netflix I can confirm that’s a big YES from my point of view. It’s a novelty of a glacially slow film that grips like a vice.
A primer on 70’s Mexican History.
This is a film about ordinary life set against tumultuous times. Set in the Colonia Roma district of Mexico City (if you were puzzled, as I was, where the title came from) it is an “Upstairs, Downstairs” tale of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a maid and nanny to a middle class family in the early 70’s.
There are two intertwined stories here: Cleo’s personal story and that of the family background in which she works.
Cleo has a pleasant enough life working as partners in crime in the household with Adela (Nancy García García). Life is about getting the work done (well, more of less), keeping the four children happy – to who she is devoted – and scraping enough by to spend her downtime with her martial arts boyfriend Ramón (José Manuel Guerrero Mendoza).
Meanwhile the lady of the house Senora Sofia (Marina de Tavira) has an affluent and cosseted lifestyle amid her loving family.
But times are about to change for all of the players, as events – not just the events of the ‘Mexican Dirty War’ of 1971 going on in the background – transpire to change all their lives forever.
A masterclass in framing.
It’s criminal that I wasn’t able to get to see this in the cinema. Since every frame of this movie is a masterpiece of detail. There is just so much going on that your eyes dart this way and that, and you could probably watch it five times and see more. Even the opening titles are mesmerising, as the cobbled floor becomes a screen and an airliner lazily flies across it.
Even major action sequences, that other directors would fill the screen with (“Do you KNOW how much this scene is costing for God’s sake??”), are seen as they would typically be seen in real life – second hand, from a place of hiding. This is typified by the depiction of the Corpus Christi Massacre of June ’71, where the military, and more controversially the elite El Halconazo (The Hawks) of the Mexican army, turned on a student protest. Most of the action is seen as glimpses through the windows by the characters during a shopping trip to the second floor of a department store. How this was enacted and directed is a mystery to me, but it works just brilliantly.
A masterclass in pacing and panning.
One of Cuarón’s trademarks is the long take (think “Children of Men”) and here he (literally!) goes to town with the technique. An incredibly impressive scene has Cleo and Adela running through the streets of the City to meet their lovers at the cinema. It’s a continuous pan that again defies belief in the brilliance of its execution.
Even the mundane act of Cleo tidying up the apartment is done with a glorious slow pan around the room. Some of this panning is done to set the mood for the film (“Get settled in… this is going to be a long haul”) but others manage to evoke a sense of rising dread, an example at the beach being a brilliant case in point.
The cinematography was supposed to have been done by the great Emmanuel Lubezki, but he was unavailable so Cuarón did it himself! And it’s quite brilliant. So, that’s a lesson learned then that will reduce the budget for next time!
A personal story.
Cuarón wrote the script. Of course he did… it’s his story! He’s the same age as I am, so was nine years old for the autobiographical events featured in the film (he is the kid who gets punished for eavesdropping). Numerous aspects of the film are from his own childhood, including the fact that his younger brother kept spookily coming out with things that he’d done in his past lives! It’s a painful true story of his upbringing and of the life of Liboria Rodríguez: “Libo” to whom the film is dedicated.
Where the script is delightful is in never destroying the mood with lengthy exposition. Both of the key stories evolve slowly and only gradually do you work out what’s really going on. This is grown-up cinema at its finest.
It’s also a love letter from Cuarón to the cinema of his youth, a passion that sparked his eventual career. We see a number of trips to the local fleapit, and in one cute scene we seen a clip from the Gregory Peck space epic “Marooned”: the film that inspired Cuarón’s own masterpiece “Gravity“.
A naturalistic cast.
Casting a large proportion of the cast from unknowns feels like a great risk, but its a risk that pays off handsomely, particularly in the case of Yalitza Aparicio, who is breathtakingly naturalistic. Cuarón withheld the script from his cast, so some of the “acting” is not acting at all – specifically a gruelling and heartrending scene featuring Cleo later in the film. That’s real and raw emotion on the screen.
Marina de Tavira, although an actress with a track record, is also mightily impressive as the beleaguered and troubled wife.
Final Thoughts.
This is a masterpiece, and thoroughly deserves the “Best Picture” awards it has been getting. It’s certainly my odds on favourite, as well as being my pick, for the Oscar on Sunday. Will it be for everyone? Probably not.
There are some scenes which feel slightly ostentatious. A forest fire scene is brilliantly done (“Put out the small fires kids”), but then a guy in a monster suit pulls off his head-wear and starts singing a long and mournful song. Sorry?
There will also be many I suspect who will find the leisurely pace of the film excruciating; “JUST GET ON WITH IT” I hear them yelling at the screen. But if you give it the time and let it soak in, then you WILL be moved and you WILL remember the film long after you’ve seen it.
I remain cross however that this was released through Netflix. This is a film that deserves a full and widespread cinema release in 70mm format. It’s like taking an iPhone snap of the Mona Lisa and putting the phone on display instead.
A primer on 70’s Mexican History.
This is a film about ordinary life set against tumultuous times. Set in the Colonia Roma district of Mexico City (if you were puzzled, as I was, where the title came from) it is an “Upstairs, Downstairs” tale of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a maid and nanny to a middle class family in the early 70’s.
There are two intertwined stories here: Cleo’s personal story and that of the family background in which she works.
Cleo has a pleasant enough life working as partners in crime in the household with Adela (Nancy García García). Life is about getting the work done (well, more of less), keeping the four children happy – to who she is devoted – and scraping enough by to spend her downtime with her martial arts boyfriend Ramón (José Manuel Guerrero Mendoza).
Meanwhile the lady of the house Senora Sofia (Marina de Tavira) has an affluent and cosseted lifestyle amid her loving family.
But times are about to change for all of the players, as events – not just the events of the ‘Mexican Dirty War’ of 1971 going on in the background – transpire to change all their lives forever.
A masterclass in framing.
It’s criminal that I wasn’t able to get to see this in the cinema. Since every frame of this movie is a masterpiece of detail. There is just so much going on that your eyes dart this way and that, and you could probably watch it five times and see more. Even the opening titles are mesmerising, as the cobbled floor becomes a screen and an airliner lazily flies across it.
Even major action sequences, that other directors would fill the screen with (“Do you KNOW how much this scene is costing for God’s sake??”), are seen as they would typically be seen in real life – second hand, from a place of hiding. This is typified by the depiction of the Corpus Christi Massacre of June ’71, where the military, and more controversially the elite El Halconazo (The Hawks) of the Mexican army, turned on a student protest. Most of the action is seen as glimpses through the windows by the characters during a shopping trip to the second floor of a department store. How this was enacted and directed is a mystery to me, but it works just brilliantly.
A masterclass in pacing and panning.
One of Cuarón’s trademarks is the long take (think “Children of Men”) and here he (literally!) goes to town with the technique. An incredibly impressive scene has Cleo and Adela running through the streets of the City to meet their lovers at the cinema. It’s a continuous pan that again defies belief in the brilliance of its execution.
Even the mundane act of Cleo tidying up the apartment is done with a glorious slow pan around the room. Some of this panning is done to set the mood for the film (“Get settled in… this is going to be a long haul”) but others manage to evoke a sense of rising dread, an example at the beach being a brilliant case in point.
The cinematography was supposed to have been done by the great Emmanuel Lubezki, but he was unavailable so Cuarón did it himself! And it’s quite brilliant. So, that’s a lesson learned then that will reduce the budget for next time!
A personal story.
Cuarón wrote the script. Of course he did… it’s his story! He’s the same age as I am, so was nine years old for the autobiographical events featured in the film (he is the kid who gets punished for eavesdropping). Numerous aspects of the film are from his own childhood, including the fact that his younger brother kept spookily coming out with things that he’d done in his past lives! It’s a painful true story of his upbringing and of the life of Liboria Rodríguez: “Libo” to whom the film is dedicated.
Where the script is delightful is in never destroying the mood with lengthy exposition. Both of the key stories evolve slowly and only gradually do you work out what’s really going on. This is grown-up cinema at its finest.
It’s also a love letter from Cuarón to the cinema of his youth, a passion that sparked his eventual career. We see a number of trips to the local fleapit, and in one cute scene we seen a clip from the Gregory Peck space epic “Marooned”: the film that inspired Cuarón’s own masterpiece “Gravity“.
A naturalistic cast.
Casting a large proportion of the cast from unknowns feels like a great risk, but its a risk that pays off handsomely, particularly in the case of Yalitza Aparicio, who is breathtakingly naturalistic. Cuarón withheld the script from his cast, so some of the “acting” is not acting at all – specifically a gruelling and heartrending scene featuring Cleo later in the film. That’s real and raw emotion on the screen.
Marina de Tavira, although an actress with a track record, is also mightily impressive as the beleaguered and troubled wife.
Final Thoughts.
This is a masterpiece, and thoroughly deserves the “Best Picture” awards it has been getting. It’s certainly my odds on favourite, as well as being my pick, for the Oscar on Sunday. Will it be for everyone? Probably not.
There are some scenes which feel slightly ostentatious. A forest fire scene is brilliantly done (“Put out the small fires kids”), but then a guy in a monster suit pulls off his head-wear and starts singing a long and mournful song. Sorry?
There will also be many I suspect who will find the leisurely pace of the film excruciating; “JUST GET ON WITH IT” I hear them yelling at the screen. But if you give it the time and let it soak in, then you WILL be moved and you WILL remember the film long after you’ve seen it.
I remain cross however that this was released through Netflix. This is a film that deserves a full and widespread cinema release in 70mm format. It’s like taking an iPhone snap of the Mona Lisa and putting the phone on display instead.