Search

Search only in certain items:

40x40

Kevin Wilson (179 KP) rated The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) in Movies

Jul 13, 2018 (Updated Jul 13, 2018)  
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
1993 | Animation, Family, Sci-Fi
Fantastic animation style (3 more)
Great music
Great acting
A unique story
My favourite movie of all time
This is by far my favourite movie of all time.

Created my Tim Burton who is also my favourite director (yes I know he didn't direct this)

The style he uses in incredible. It's all stop motion which basically means he builds real life models, takes a picture of it in a pose and then takes another in a slightly different pose then and another and another until the pictures come together to look like a moving model. It's incredible and if you watch the behind the scenes you can see the effort they put into this movie and it shows.

The character designs are so good as well as the locations.

The plot is pretty much halloweentown finds Christmas for the first time. It's fun, funny, emotional, even creepy and it's just a good time all the way through.

The music is fantastic. Every song is unique and catchy and you will find the soundtrack on my phone. Actors are incredible and at perfect for the roles they play.

People tend to ask if it's a Halloween or Christmas movie but I watch it anytime of the year.
  
Knife (Harry Hole #12) (Oslo Sequence #10)
Knife (Harry Hole #12) (Oslo Sequence #10)
Jo Nesbo | 2019 | Mystery, Thriller
4
6.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Entirely unnecessary
I've had this book on my shelf for quite some time but have held off on reading it purely because the synopsis sounded like it completely rewrites all of the good work in the previous few books. And I'm afraid to say that I was right.

The previous books turned Harry Hole into a rather respectable person but without losing his impressive deduction and detective skills. His life is pretty much sorted. This book completely erases that and pushes Harry back into his alcoholic mess and also ruins his relationship with Rakel. I hated this. Was it really so hard for Nesbo to write a Harry Hole book that didn't completely ruin his entire life at the same time? As even the reveal at the end of this book just further adds to my despair of how much Hole and his life has been ruined.

There are some glimpses of the well written story you'd expect from Nesbo in this, but even the writing is very convoluted and drawn out. This book is at least 100 pages longer than it needs to be and features far too much unnecessary rambling and description. If it had been cut down, it may have made the plot a little easier to absorb.

I'm probably biased by my preconceptions about the plot of this book, but i really didn't enjoy it and even started skim reading towards the end. The whole initial plot plus the surprise twist ending just completely ruins Harry Hole to the point that I really hope this is the last book.
  
40x40

Erika (17789 KP) Nov 15, 2020

I think I'm going to consider Police the last Harry Hole book. I can't bring myself to read The Thirst, or Knife. I hope Nesbo moves on from Hole novels.

Everybody Hurts
Everybody Hurts
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I don't usually read cheesy YA romance novels, and very rarely do I enjoy them much. This was kind of an impulse read, and I probably wouldn't have read it usually. But I'm glad I did.

It is pretty cheesy, and the voices of the characters are maybe over-exaggerated and trging-too-hard. But something about the writing was just really good, and I often found myself not wanting to put it down. Even though it was about love and sex and brain tumours. 

Jango is an interesting character, who seems like a plain old bully/idiot at first but actually turns out to be pretty good. His home life is complicated, and his friendship with Matt is more valuable than he lets on. But near-death experiences bring out the truth - and Jango's affectionate, kind side.

Like I said before, it does all feel a bit too artificial - the "teenage" lingo is just not right, and the events are maybe played out to be more dramatic than they needed to be. I'm not actually sure how much I liked either of the main characters, but the telling of the story was great and made up for any dislikes I had.

It is a bit of a feel-good, cheesy romance in the end, which is nice to read sometimes. It's got a lot of twists - bad luck, bad tempers - that make it a bit more unique than similar YA romances. 4 stars.
  
    Juvie

    Juvie

    Steve Watkins

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    Heart-wrenching and real, Juvie tells the story of two sisters grappling with accountability,...

40x40

Blake Anderson recommended Blood Visions by Jay Reatard in Music (curated)

 
Blood Visions by Jay Reatard
Blood Visions by Jay Reatard
2006 | Rock
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"""That seems like the one album that if they were like, ‘Hey, you can only listen to one thing for the rest of your life,’ I think I can listen to that maybe forever. It’s kind of like punk, but it’s got poppy hooks to it. It’s pretty dirty and fast, but he was actually pretty good at writing choruses and melodies. It just is timeless to me. ""I saw a documentary on Jay, he passed away pretty early. But in the documentary, he said this shit about how he was thinking when you have your creative time in your life, there’s like two ways to look at it: either you have a certain amount of time, a certain amount of years where you are creative or you have a certain amount of ideas. I have just gone with the motto that it is a certain period in your life and you just kind have to hustle while you are hitting. I don’t know, I just think that was some inspiring shit that he said. Plus I kind of look like the dude so, the three times I’ve seen him I was weirded out, like he would see me and would be like, ‘Whoa that guy is trying to be me.’"""

Source
  
The Goldfinch (2019)
The Goldfinch (2019)
2019 | Drama
The life of Theodore Decker (Ansel Elgort and Oakes Fegley) is for every changed when his mother is killed in an explosion at an art museum. In the same tragic moments when his mother is killed he also makes a decision that will help shape the rest of his life, he takes a rare and valuable painting in the chaos of surrounding. This painting, The Goldfinch, wasn’t something he planned on taking, but having it will be the only thing that brings him comfort in the days ahead. After the tragedy he is temporarily placed with a family he really enjoys. He has a best friend, Andy Barbour (Ryan Foust), and a mother figure in Mrs. Barbour (Nicole Kidman). Theodore also makes a connection to a girl Pippa (Aimee Laurence and later by Ashleigh Cummings) and her caretaker Hobie (Jeffrey Wright). Pippa and her uncle Welty (Robert Joy) were standing right next to Theodore when the explosion that killed his mother happened. Welty also passes away during the explosion but not before he would influence Theodore to take the painting. Thus changing the trajectory of the rest of his life.
This film is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Donna Tartt of the same name. I have not read the book so I cannot make a comparison between the two. The director, John Crowley (Brooklyn and Closed Circuit) makes a visually beautiful film. You can tell that care was taken to make the film have a certain feel and texture. The cast is very good, including those mentioned above and Finn Wolfhard, Sarah Paulson, Aneurin Barnard and more. I particularly thought the casting of Oakes Fegley as the Young Theodore and Ansel Elgort as the adult Theodore was particularly good. The story skipped in sequence and you could see the similarity in the two actors as on character. The overall story is original and fascinating. But the film jumped around and made it feel choppy. Also the run time of two hours and twenty nine minutes somehow felt longer than that. The story moved at a snail’s pace and really seemed like it had no direction. Then in the final 10 minutes it wrapped up in a flash.
I thought overall the performances were good and the story was interesting but how it was presented really lacked. It was slow and developed in a non-compelling way. I could definitely see potential but it fell a little short for me. It did make me want to read the book and see how the author meant for the story to be told. I would recommend seeing this in a theater for the cinematography because it was beautifully shot.
  
One Pink Line
One Pink Line
Dina Silver | 2013 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Romance
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Feels! (0 more)
A Feel Good Kind of Story
Normally, I'm not a women's fiction kind of person. However, I have been pleasantly surprised with the books I've read in this genre, so I decided to give One Pink Line by Dina Silver a go.

I found the plot and world building of One Pink Line to be very well written and enjoyable. As you can already guess from the title, this book deals with pregnancy and is a very straight forward but sweet story. This also wasn't a very long novel. It was enjoyable to read about Sydney's ups and downs with her pregnancy, and it was interesting to read about how Grace felt about everything from her perspective as well. There weren't any plot twists that I can remember, but this book didn't need any to be good. There also weren't any cliff hangers at the end of the book, and all of my questions were answered.

The characters in One Pink Line were all very enjoyable to read about. As I've said before, I enjoyed reading about how Sydney dealt with her pregnancy as well as her feelings with her life, the pregnancy, and her love life. Grace struggled with learning that the dad she had come to know wasn't actually her biological dad. It was interesting to read things from her point of view as show grows up from a 5th grader to a 22 year old woman. I admired Ethan and how loving he was throughout everything. I also loved Ethan's mom and how doting she was.

I enjoyed the pacing very much in One Pink Line. The story flowed very well, and not once did I find myself becoming bored. In fact, I looked forward to each time I could read more about Sydney's and Grace's life.

Trigger warnings for One Pink Line include some profanity, alcohol use, implied sex, and an unwed pregnancy.

All in all, One Pink Line is a feel good kind of story. It is such a sweet book that will definitely leave you with happy feelings long after you've finished it. I would definitely recommend One Pink Line by Dina Silver to all women aged 16+.