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The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1)
The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1)
Carrie Ryan | 2009 | Fiction & Poetry
6
7.8 (8 Ratings)
Book Rating
___ <b>3 Star Rating</b> ___

I just had to read this one as I fell in love with the front cover, it looked great so I expected a great story.

I had a love/hate relationship with this book, there were bits that were so good I wanted to shout from the rooftops but there were also parts that were so bad I wanted to run to a dark corner and cry.

<u>The bits I loved</u>

1. The suspense - Oh my life and soul I thought my heart was going to give out! That tension was fantastic! The way the author wrote the action scenes were great, the extra long description filled build ups which make you sweat and then straight into the action. The action was always really good with a nice bit of gore and clever tactics...very well done!

2. The dog - You have to have a dog in there somewhere, I love dogs! If the dog survives then that's extra points from me, I just want the animals to be ok...f*ck anyone else!

3. The Unconsecrated - Very well described, I liked the idea of 'The Fast One' and yeah I know they're Zombies...but I like Zombies.

<u>The bits I hated</u>

1. Mary! Mary! Aaaaand...Mary! - Oh what a pain in the ass! I did not like the MC one little bit. She was incredibly selfish, self centred and just plain rude. She was willing to step on anybody to get her own way. Everything was...love, love, love, OMG Mary I love you!
Mary: *Like I give a shit! I just wanna go to the Beach!*
People whom she supposedly loved were dropping like flies around her but oh well that's one less person in the way of her ocean filled dreams.
I'm sorry but I just hoped for this...

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/TJ9LVsr.jpg"; width="300" height="210"/>

2. Lack of character development - Actually, there was none. I still know nothing about the other characters, it's like they were just there to show how 'amazing' Mary really was. I so wanted at least one of the other characters to take centre stage for a while, just so I could see things from a different perspective...but no.

3. Lack of story building - So...why? When? Who? What? Did they live? Die? How did the dog get across the rope the second time?
Why the gates? The fences? Why are there Unconsecrated? What is the Sisterhood all about? What are they hiding? How did this all happen? WTF is Mary's problem?
Ok...so I know there's a second book and I've heard that it doesn't even carry the story on, if that is true I think I'm gonna scream. So many questions!
  
Stuck in Love (2013)
Stuck in Love (2013)
2013 | Comedy, Drama
6
5.3 (4 Ratings)
Movie Rating
I regularly looked at the message boards on the IMDB website, (when they were available!) and I couldn’t find a decent review in the message boards for this film so I thought I’d do one on here.

The premise is about a family of writers, a father, daughter and son dealing with love over the course of a year. The father is a divorcee and still has conflicting feelings for his ex-wife who he has been apart from for 3 years. It’s a story about finding love and holding onto it, i guess another theme could be to not rush head on into love for fear of getting hurt and doing this by learning from personal experience (for instance the daughter and son learning from their parents).

This film has an amazing cast (amazing as in great performances, it’s not exactly an A-list cast which i think would ruin it due to the genre of the film) and uses the actors to the absolute best of it’s abilities.

One of the best performances in this movie is probably Greg Kinnear as he strikes the balance between a good and a bad father through no fault of his own as he’s caught up in the complexities of his own love life. Which is another great thing about this film, as the children are supposed to be between 17-19 years old, they actually go through the same problems as the adults, thus making everyone in this film equal and shows that no matter who you are or what you’re background is, everyone gets hurt by love, and more or less everyone reacts the same.

If I had one problem with this film it’s that it could have been about 20-30 minutes longer as it’s one of those films where you want to know more back story of the characters, particularly Greg Kinnear’s.

But as I say, this film couldn’t have used the actors better for this genre. To compliment the acting and great story the soundtrack is one of the best I’ve heard for a long time. The first track we hear is “Home – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros” which is an amazing, comforting, happy, melancholic song in of itself, but it opens the film with a huge bang of presumptions that enter your mind of where this film could lead you.

It leads you exactly where you want it to.

There will be some things I’ve left out purposefully as I hate any reviews or trailers that just show you all the best bits and you go to see the movie and find that they really were the ONLY good bits. So watch the movie and enjoy it for what it is!
  
World&#039;s Greatest Dad (2009)
World's Greatest Dad (2009)
2009 | Comedy, Drama
8
6.4 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Lance Clayton is a pretty well-established writer, in a sense. He's written several novels and children's books. The problem is none of his work has ever been published. Every submission to publishers has been denied. So Lance tells himself that if his next novel is rejected, he'll give up writing. Lance is also a high school poetry teacher that's on the verge of losing his course due to not having enough student interest. During all of this, Lance has his hands full with his son Kyle. Kyle doesn't seem too interested in much of anything other than the most disturbing type of pornographic videos while continually acting out at school and is on the verge of being transferred to a school for students with special needs. Then, as if that wasn't enough, Lance is seeing the art teacher, Claire, who wants to keep their relationship a secret while not getting too serious. So, it's safe to say that Lance has his hands full. On top of it all though, he's afraid of dying alone. Lance winds up getting everything he's ever wanted after a certain situation presents itself, but soon realizes having all of that doesn't automatically make you happy.

World's Greatest Dad hooked me the first time I read about it debuting at Sundance. I heard, "dark comedy," and, "Robin Williams," and was instantly interested. Then the trailer and plot summary really reeled me in. The result is a film that not only surpassed expectations, but also went in an unexpected direction. When a film is described as a dark comedy, it has usually still stuck to specific guidelines. Maybe it still followed a similar formula to what other comedies did before it. These other films that are labeled as dark comedies don't really break any new ground. World's Greatest Dad goes beyond that. It breaks any ground rules that were laid before it and doesn't follow any sort of formula. When they say, "dark," they aren't kidding. The subject content is pretty disturbing yet is somehow still humorous.

Robin Williams plays the role of a dad who's trying to do his best with the obstacles life has thrown at him incredibly well. With everything that's going on in his life, even in the moments of the film where he doesn't speak, it looks like he's constantly thinking about something. Always dwelling on what's going on around him with the people who are close to him in his life and trying to decide how he's going to handle this situation he's gotten himself into. While his role does show a bit of his comedic side, Robin Williams proves he can handle serious roles rather well with this performance.

While I obviously can't say much about what direction the film goes in without completely spoiling the film, I will say that the trailer does a good job of not giving any of that away. Once the film makes that turn though, it really follows through with it and doesn't let up. One of the best parts of the experience of watching this film for the first time is seeing how far the concept of the film is going to go. As Lance buries himself in this, people begin to say the actions that were taken changed their life for the better. If you told a lie that did that to not just one person, but practically an entire high school...how would you tell them the truth?

World's Greatest Dad is not going to be for everyone. Some people will love it and others will just downright hate it. The film isn't just dark, it's DARK. That and it's a very different kind of comedy with an unexpected turn of events. Most of the humor is very dry, so if that's not your thing then I wouldn't recommend it. For me personally though, it's one of the most interesting films I've seen in quite some time.
  
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Ama (21 KP) rated Detroit (2017) in Movies

Sep 11, 2017  
Detroit (2017)
Detroit (2017)
2017 | Drama, History, Thriller
Shattering
The first couple of questions when writing a review here are What's good? and What's bad?
Now, as you've seen I have given this film a full score, but I could not for the life of me put into a sentence what was good about it. It's not a nice film. Nothing about it is good. Except the way it makes you feel with it. But then even that is not a good thing. It's ugly.

I watched Detroit yesterday at the local cinema. I had seen the trailer, knew it was gonna be a tearjerker, knew I would hate the world and myself after watching it.
What I realised is that I completely underestimated the film.
About half an hour to an hour in all I wanted to do was to turn it off. I had an urge to just turn the cinema off, go home and potentially have some chocolate.
It wasn't the fact that the film was bad (I repeat, I gave it a full score), nor was it surprising narrative (again, I had seen the trailer and my tiny bit of historical knowledge filled in the gaps), but something in the way it was presented somehow evoked that feeling of wanting it to go away.


When I walked out of the cinema and forced myself to think about it, I realised a couple of things (all of which eventually made me come to the conclusion that that might have been deliberate).
First of all that film was lit like a feature film and shot like a documentary. This means that watching it, my brain was trying to fool me into thinking this was real a lot more than it usually would. It's film like a documentary, so it's a documentary so this is exactly what must have happened, right? There was a camera at the scene, right?
Well, of course there wasn't. Of course it was still a feature film and of course before the credit it was even stated that besides the testimonies of the parties involved, there was still dramatic licence taken. But that didn't change the fact that it shook me. It shook me because that little shake of the camera that was a little more intense that I was used to and that little zoom every now and then to get closer to an action as though the camera had only just noticed it all lead to that convincing idea of this being real and having happened exactly as I was seeing it.


The acting was splendid. Again, upon contemplating the film, I wondered what it was like for all of these black people (the term used deliberately) to play these roles, having grown up in that country themselves. I wondered what it was like for Will Poulter to become an asshole from the work 'Action!' and while that isn't any different than any other set, somehow, in Detroit, it seemed like so much bigger a deal. On this note, kudos to all the actors in this piece. There was none of you that felt out of place or irrelevant. Each of you portrayed a character dealing with the situation at hand differently and on a spectrum that showed how truly diverse humans are - even if united in a cause, be it on the white side or the black.


I could go on for hours (which I did, with the friend I went to see it with) about how this film made me feel and how much insecurity in the current world it made me feel, but there is no point in doing that. Feelings are best felt, rather than read so just watch it and I'm sure you'll understand.
I do want to say this though:
This film made me realise that the world we live in today is not the product from its past, but rather a work in progress towards what is to come.


I in no way mean that I did not know that previously, but there is a difference between knowing and understanding.


On this note, this film is not for the faint hearted but it is one of those important films that need to be watched at the moment.
  
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Morgan Sheppard (936 KP) created a post

Apr 3, 2020  
☘️ (`*•.¸(`*•.¸☘️¸.•*´)¸.•*´) ☘️

Cover Reveal by S.H. Pratt

~°•💚•°~☘️~°•💚•°~☘️•°~

Get Away Closer

Release day June 25, 2020

“You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

When Charlie Lawrence meets his neighbor, it’s not good.

Lanie Kelly is a small town girl who loves contemporary rock n’ roll; lives the night owl life; and craves peace and quiet.

Charlie is a city boy who loves country western music; sunrise walks with his dogs; and woodworking with his collection of power tools.

They share a driveway and little else.

Sparks fly as summer heats up and a thunderstorm drops a tree on Charlie’s house. As their relationship begins to blossom, a fifty year old family feud and a toxic ex-lover test its strength.

With hearts and homes on the line, Lanie and Charlie must decide to give up or…

Get Away Closer.

Pre-order your copy today!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086M3VQYP

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1136776078
     
Alphablocks
Alphablocks
2010 | Animation
7
7.6 (7 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Very entertaining and educational for kids (0 more)
Lack of progression (0 more)
Early years education
As we are all spending our time at home & children's education is important, these may be worth your time.
As a parent myself I can assure you that although for an adult these can be mind numbing and rather boring, its good to know that there's tv to help home schooling.
Alphablocks is a British animated educational television programme that is designed to teach young children how to spell using animated blocks representing each letter. It is animated by Blue-Zoo and produced by Alphablocks Ltd.

 Once the Alphablocks discover that whenever they make a word it comes to life, many new adventures in Alphaland can be created.
 This is meant to help preschool children with learning the alphabet, spelling, reading and writing.

With it's bright colours & easy to understand dialogue, Alphablocks is a fun and intriguing show for kids.