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LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Doom: Annihilation (2019) in Movies
Feb 7, 2020
Doom Annihilation is not a good film, no sir, but it's honestly not as terrible as I expected it to be.
The main problem stems from the low budget - a low budget doesn't always mean a bad end product, but when that end product is a sci-fi horror based on a hyper violent video game, there are going to be issues.
The whole film has a plastic cheap look to it. It works to a certain degree - it does have a kind of Starship Troopers-esque aesthetic (a good thing), but the cheap looking weapons and re used sets are a glaring eyesore.
The monsters a very generic for the most part, but I do respect that the bulk of them are practical. The CGI that is used is mostly awful, with a few exceptions - the occasional exterior shots of the base are passable, and the ending sequence doesn't look too bad - but otherwise, it's used infrequently, and for good reason.
The actors involved all do the best with what they're given - lead Amy Manson is likable enough - but the poor character writing provides us with a group of cliché ridden Marines and scientists that feel like cannon fodder.
The only concrete connection to the Doom game series that I noticed was the character of Dr Betruger, but that's it. The fact that Bethesda and id Software stayed well away from this, and that the production team were not allowed to use anything from the 2016 Doom reboot onwards, shows that maybe this shouldn't have been a thing.
As a schlocky B-movie sci-fi horror, it's not completely terrible, but I can't help but feel it shouldn't have the Doom brand attached to it, and even a cheeky Wolfenstein reference won't change my mind on that.
The main problem stems from the low budget - a low budget doesn't always mean a bad end product, but when that end product is a sci-fi horror based on a hyper violent video game, there are going to be issues.
The whole film has a plastic cheap look to it. It works to a certain degree - it does have a kind of Starship Troopers-esque aesthetic (a good thing), but the cheap looking weapons and re used sets are a glaring eyesore.
The monsters a very generic for the most part, but I do respect that the bulk of them are practical. The CGI that is used is mostly awful, with a few exceptions - the occasional exterior shots of the base are passable, and the ending sequence doesn't look too bad - but otherwise, it's used infrequently, and for good reason.
The actors involved all do the best with what they're given - lead Amy Manson is likable enough - but the poor character writing provides us with a group of cliché ridden Marines and scientists that feel like cannon fodder.
The only concrete connection to the Doom game series that I noticed was the character of Dr Betruger, but that's it. The fact that Bethesda and id Software stayed well away from this, and that the production team were not allowed to use anything from the 2016 Doom reboot onwards, shows that maybe this shouldn't have been a thing.
As a schlocky B-movie sci-fi horror, it's not completely terrible, but I can't help but feel it shouldn't have the Doom brand attached to it, and even a cheeky Wolfenstein reference won't change my mind on that.
Age of War: The Legends of the First Empire Book 3
9.0
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Book
The epic battle between humankind and their godlike rulers finally ignites in the masterful...
fantasy
ClareR (5748 KP) rated The Chalet in Books
Nov 8, 2020
The Chalet was a twisty, turny thriller that had me guessing all the way through. I couldn’t for the life of me work out who had been responsible for the death (and at one point I wasn’t even convinced that he was dead!), and I had a list of pretty much everyone in the chalet. My main reason for their guilt was that they just weren’t very nice (I know, I’ll never make a great detective!).
This story is split between two timelines to begin with - the present day and twenty years before. In the present day, two couples are sharing a chalet for a holiday mixed with business. I’ll say this again: these are not particularly nice people. They’re rich, entitled and generally insensitive.
Interspersed with this timeline is that of two couples twenty years earlier. Two brothers and their girlfriends are on a skiing holiday. They’re all Oxford University students: three come from affluent upper class families, and one, Louisa, comes from a working class, single parent family. She is made to feel different at all times - whether this is her own insecurities is never quite clear. Her boyfriends brother certainly doesn’t do much to make her feel welcome. At some point during this holiday, there’s a terrible accident that has an equally terrible effect on characters in the present day timeline.
I won’t say any more about the storyline - I don’t want to be the one to spoil someone’s reading enjoyment! What I WILL say, is that I thoroughly enjoyed this and looked forward to reading it every morning on the Pigeonhole app. It’s a tense, exciting, addictive read - and I loved it!
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this and helping me once more, to read my NetGalley books! And also thanks to the author, Catherine Cooper for reading along with us.
This story is split between two timelines to begin with - the present day and twenty years before. In the present day, two couples are sharing a chalet for a holiday mixed with business. I’ll say this again: these are not particularly nice people. They’re rich, entitled and generally insensitive.
Interspersed with this timeline is that of two couples twenty years earlier. Two brothers and their girlfriends are on a skiing holiday. They’re all Oxford University students: three come from affluent upper class families, and one, Louisa, comes from a working class, single parent family. She is made to feel different at all times - whether this is her own insecurities is never quite clear. Her boyfriends brother certainly doesn’t do much to make her feel welcome. At some point during this holiday, there’s a terrible accident that has an equally terrible effect on characters in the present day timeline.
I won’t say any more about the storyline - I don’t want to be the one to spoil someone’s reading enjoyment! What I WILL say, is that I thoroughly enjoyed this and looked forward to reading it every morning on the Pigeonhole app. It’s a tense, exciting, addictive read - and I loved it!
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this and helping me once more, to read my NetGalley books! And also thanks to the author, Catherine Cooper for reading along with us.
ClareR (5748 KP) rated My Name is Monster in Books
Jul 30, 2020 (Updated Jul 30, 2020)
My Name is Monster is a book that really took me by surprise. It’s far more thoughtful and gentle than a lot of other post-apocalyptic books that I’ve read before. I kept expecting something terrible to happen - but it becomes apparent that the terrible thing has already happened.
After a series of wars, both sides have unleashed a sickness that has wiped out the population, and the survivors of that have died of starvation. Monster is a survivor. She had sheltered in the Arctic Seed Vault where she had been working. When she emerges, she is alone. She takes a boat and makes for the Scottish coast. When she washes up on a beach, shipwrecked, she walks towards the only place she really wants to see - home.
She starts to build a solitary life, resigned to living alone. And then one day she finds a child. She names her Monster, and renames herself Mother.
This is a story that made me think about the role of society, and what happens to an individual when there IS no society. It also showed what it means to be a mother: that it isn’t always the ones who give birth who are the mothers. Often it can be the things that a person DOES that makes them a mother. It also shows that one doesn’t have to have lots of possessions to be content. Contentment can be achieved through work or relationships.
There was a point quite early on, where I wondered whether this was the book for me, but I’m glad that I kept on reading. It’s the little things in this book that are actually the big things: the actions of an individual and love.
This was a really enjoyable, satisfying read. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my copy of this book.
After a series of wars, both sides have unleashed a sickness that has wiped out the population, and the survivors of that have died of starvation. Monster is a survivor. She had sheltered in the Arctic Seed Vault where she had been working. When she emerges, she is alone. She takes a boat and makes for the Scottish coast. When she washes up on a beach, shipwrecked, she walks towards the only place she really wants to see - home.
She starts to build a solitary life, resigned to living alone. And then one day she finds a child. She names her Monster, and renames herself Mother.
This is a story that made me think about the role of society, and what happens to an individual when there IS no society. It also showed what it means to be a mother: that it isn’t always the ones who give birth who are the mothers. Often it can be the things that a person DOES that makes them a mother. It also shows that one doesn’t have to have lots of possessions to be content. Contentment can be achieved through work or relationships.
There was a point quite early on, where I wondered whether this was the book for me, but I’m glad that I kept on reading. It’s the little things in this book that are actually the big things: the actions of an individual and love.
This was a really enjoyable, satisfying read. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my copy of this book.
When we Were Young and Brave
9.0
Rate It
Book
Their motto was to be prepared, but nothing could prepare them for war. . . The New York Times...
historical literary women fiction
Alien Minds (Dimension Drift #3)
Book
DIVERGENT meets OCEAN’S EIGHT in this urban fantasy heist! On my seventeenth birthday, I wake...
Science Fiction Young Adult
Andrew Furlong (14 KP) rated Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) in Movies
Sep 27, 2017
The plot is just awful (5 more)
Everything about the Khan twist. The character neither looks nor acts anything Like Khan so it's all just a pointless name drop
The treatment of Carol Marcus and Uhura is honestly kind of insulting
The scenes that reenact Wrath of Khan feel incredibly forced and just make me wish I was watching that movie instead
Too much emphasis on action over story
The Klingon redesign is awful
Ugh
While I can certainly understand the appeal of the first I just cannot with this thing. Most of it feels like any generic action movie rather than Trek and the stuff that does feels like terrible retreads of previous material. I'd honestly rather watch Voyager's "Threshold" and Enterprise's "A Night in Sickbay" back to back than watch this again
Suswatibasu (1702 KP) rated Tenth of December in Books
Nov 21, 2017
Dark, disturbing and satirical
This collection of short stories cannot be pigeon-holed. In this oddly disjointed, surreal collection, the underlying issues in modern American culture are loudly explored. George Saunders' breathless writing style floods over terrible realities and hard truths, leaving the reader gasping in its wake.
Tenth of December handles its running themes in a poignant, individual and certainly irreverent way. Narcissistic ideas of charity stems from trivial competition, while sheer denial is shown in the face of true poverty. Generations breed generations, passing on corrupted ideals and traumatic examples. Paedophilia, racism, poverty: nothing is safe from these chastising, powerful stories.
Saunders leaves an expunged, brutally telling view of the American dream. In his futuristic imaginings, he exaggerates the failings of Western consumerism, yet ultimately his message is clear: When one tries to have it all, they're left with nothing.
Tenth of December handles its running themes in a poignant, individual and certainly irreverent way. Narcissistic ideas of charity stems from trivial competition, while sheer denial is shown in the face of true poverty. Generations breed generations, passing on corrupted ideals and traumatic examples. Paedophilia, racism, poverty: nothing is safe from these chastising, powerful stories.
Saunders leaves an expunged, brutally telling view of the American dream. In his futuristic imaginings, he exaggerates the failings of Western consumerism, yet ultimately his message is clear: When one tries to have it all, they're left with nothing.
Suswatibasu (1702 KP) rated My Dad Wrote A Porno in Podcasts
Jan 5, 2018 (Updated Jan 5, 2018)
Hilariously bad
This is a bit like Sex and the City, in terms of being so terrible, it's a guilty pleasure. And the fact that it has had 90 million downloads constitutes it as a cultural phenomenon.
The podcast is self-explanatory, in which the host Jamie Morton discovers that his retired father has begun dabbling in writing erotica. Introducing Belinda Blinked, her profuse sweatiness, and those 'pomegranates'. As a result, he decides to bring his friends into the action, each week discussing a chapter and literally peeing their pants over how hilariously bad it is. Beware, listening to this in public can cause people to give you strange looks as you attempt to stifle a laugh.
It has received such acclaim that we're onto book three now. It's obviously for adults only, but it's cheeky and pretty ridiculous.
The podcast is self-explanatory, in which the host Jamie Morton discovers that his retired father has begun dabbling in writing erotica. Introducing Belinda Blinked, her profuse sweatiness, and those 'pomegranates'. As a result, he decides to bring his friends into the action, each week discussing a chapter and literally peeing their pants over how hilariously bad it is. Beware, listening to this in public can cause people to give you strange looks as you attempt to stifle a laugh.
It has received such acclaim that we're onto book three now. It's obviously for adults only, but it's cheeky and pretty ridiculous.
Awix (3310 KP) rated Lost Horizon (1973) in Movies
Apr 26, 2019 (Updated Apr 26, 2019)
Horribly misjudged update of Frank Capra's classic fantasy. A group of westerners are abducted to a mystical Himalayan paradise, where the locals pass the time practising politeness and kindness; everyone should really spend more time practising their choreography because the dance routines in this film are really, really grim, although the songs may actually be worse.
You know how some films are hilariously bad? This is not one of them. This one is just jaw-droppingly awful: poorly-staged (the remote lamasery resembles a resort hotel) and stuffed with terrible creative decisions (John Gielgud plays an Asian character called Chang, through the miracle of sticky tape on his eyelids). Once the shock wears off it is more gruelling to watch than anything else; you stay to the end out of a sense of sheer disbelief more than anything else.
You know how some films are hilariously bad? This is not one of them. This one is just jaw-droppingly awful: poorly-staged (the remote lamasery resembles a resort hotel) and stuffed with terrible creative decisions (John Gielgud plays an Asian character called Chang, through the miracle of sticky tape on his eyelids). Once the shock wears off it is more gruelling to watch than anything else; you stay to the end out of a sense of sheer disbelief more than anything else.