
Lee (2222 KP) rated The House (2017) in Movies
Jul 14, 2017
Will Ferrell is Scott, Amy Poehler is his wife Kate. When their daughter Alex gets into the university she wanted, they’re over the moon. Especially as the town runs some kind of scholarship program, paying for one lucky students education each year. This years lucky recipient is due to be Alex but when sleazy city councilman Bob decides to cancel the program in favour of building a huge pool for the town, Scott and Kate need to come up with another way of raising the money. Recently divorced neighbour Frank has a big empty house and between them they hit upon the idea of building a casino in his home, somewhere for the locals to come and spend all their money. Things go well for a while, then things get way out of hand. Cue the opportunity for some riotous, hilarious humour…
Only there’s none of that. It’s riotous, but this is just such a lazily written movie that the humour is non-existent. Featuring a date rape ‘gag’ within the first five minutes(?!) it just gets progressively worse from there. Pointless, nonsensical playground style bickering, name calling and random violence feature heavily throughout in a scatter-gun attempt at trying to raise a laugh. All of this ends up coming across as either poorly written, badly improvised, or both. Even the editing is a total disaster – in one scene Amy Poehler has a guy standing right behind her, cut to another camera and he’s gone, cut back and he’s there again, cut back and he’s gone!
The biggest disappointment about this is the complete waste of talent. Admittedly, Will Ferrell is on a downward spiral anyway since his Anchorman days and the brilliant Step Brothers, but you’d still expect more from him than this. One of my favourite TV shows, Parks and Recreation, stars Amy Poehler as the hilarious Leslie Knope, so I’d expect way more from her too. Even her movie roles haven’t been too bad so far. I guess it just proves that if you’ve got a seriously dud script on your hands, there isn’t really much that anyone can do to fix it. This isn’t just a bad comedy, it’s a bad, bad movie.

Color + Design: Transforming Interior Space
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BookwormMama14 (18 KP) rated Lone Star Trail (Texas Trails, #1) in Books
Jan 2, 2019
It is 1845, the Morgans are Texans through and through. They raise the famous Morgan Horses on their ranch, the Running M Ranch and have fought hard and sacrificed much to be the successful ranchers that they are. The Fleischer family have traveled from Germany and just arrived in Texas. This foreign land has taken much from them in the short time they have been here. Jud Morgan carries bitterness and distrust for the Germans who have begun to overtake "his" Texas. But his eyes are opened to the Lord's love for all people when he accepts the friendship of the Fleischers. Especially when the eldest daughter, Wande, catches his eye. It becomes apparent that the Lord brought these two families together. To work and live side by side to survive the untamed land of the "Lone Star State".
I couldn't put this book down! Depending on the personal events of our family, it usually takes me a little while to complete a book, no matter how interesting it is. But with this book, I couldn't help it. The dishes piled up, the laundry went unwashed and I read every second I could. Darlene Franklin captured my attention from the start. I always enjoy reading about this particular time era, when families are venturing into unknown land to build a new life. And Lone Star Trail did not disappoint. I look forward to reading the rest of the Texas Trails series and continuing the Morgan family adventure!
As part of their Blogger Review program I received a free copy of Lone Star Trail from Moody Publishers. All opinions expressed are mine alone.

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