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Book Review: Remain by Nicholas Sparks with M. Night Shyamalan

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  When architect Tate Donovan moves to Cape Cod to design a home, he meets Wren, a beautiful woman with a mysterious past. As they begin to build a connection, Tate discovers that in order to free Wren, he has to discover the truth about her past, and the dark secrets of the town, before it's too late. I was actually quite sceptical about this book. Despite liking works by Sparks and Shyamalan, the idea of a 'supernatural love story' could either be great or terrible, and I hadn't seen many great reviews. So I was really surprised by how much I loved it! For a start, I got into the story right away. From the moment I opened the book I felt like I really knew the characters and their world and was so invested in their story. I really loved the characters, including the surrounding ones that didn't have as much time on the page. There is a little twist to the story that comes out maybe a quarter of the way through. This was spoiled for me as I was reading the book whe...
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The Devils | 100 Movies Bucket List

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  I hadn't heard of this movie before the bucket list, but after seeing what it was roughly about, I was a bit apprehensive. I find horror movies rooted in religion a bit hit or miss (and probably more miss than hit). Coupled with seeing that it had been banned when it came out for how controversial it was, I didn't really know what I was getting into! I didn't love this one. I found this film really hard to follow, especially at the beginning. Not only do you not really get the opportunity to connect with the characters, but the story itself was hard to get your head around. At least, it was for me. Either way, the story didn't grab me. And it got to a point in the film where I knew that it probably wouldn't. The actors are great, and do a great job with the characters. I can definitely see where the controversy comes in, particularly for an audience of the time. By today's standards I wouldn't describe it as controversial, but it is interesting to look at ...
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Ice Cream Man | Film Review

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  An ice cream man (Ari Millen) sells treats to children, with murderous consequences. Sometimes hearing bad things about a movie makes me more excited to see it than positive reviews, and this was definitely one of those times. I'd heard so many terrible things about the movie that I couldn't wait to see it for myself! And the reviews are right, this isn't a great film. Though for the most part I did enjoy watching it. From the beginning it's clear that the acting isn't going to be great. I think the majority of the kids did a good job, but generally speaking this isn't an acting masterclass. But the thing that lets it down majorly is the writing. For a start, the characters are caricatures, particularly the child bullies. It's like someone wrote down the traits of a typical bully, mixed them up and threw them into the script with no accounting for individual personalities or anything that could have been used to develop the characters or push the story for...
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The Birds | 100 Movies Bucket List

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  This was one of my most highly anticipated rewatches on the bucket list. I love this movie, and for me it's definitely one of Hitchcock's most underrated. And thankfully this rewatch was just as great as all the other times I've seen this movie, which is a lot! I really like that the film took the time to establish the characters before the horrors start. We really get to know our main character, Melanie, and it's so much fun to follow the story with her. The result of this, though, is that it can make the beginning of the movie feel a bit slow, but because you're interested in the characters, you're interested in the entire story. So when the horrors start, you're that much more invested. In particular, I really liked the development of the female characters, who make up the majority of the film. Not only is it female-led, but the women are the centre-piece and absolutely who we're watching the film for. It was very ahead of it's time in that way....
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Evil Dead Burn | Film Review

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  Alice (Souheila Yacoub) and her in-laws are plagued by demonic forces following the death of her husband. I'm not the biggest fan of the Evil Dead franchise. I've seen most of the movies and haven't found one that I've really liked, but I still wanted to give this one a try. I actually liked this more than some of the other ones I've seen. That's not to say that I think it was a great movie, but it was better than I thought it would be. I really liked the opening. It does a great job of reminding you what world you're in. The introduction to the family is interesting, we get to understand their dynamics really quickly and it makes you want to get to know them. And while I did like the characters, I also felt distant from them, and this remained until the end of the movie. I never felt like I really knew them, and I never cared about them enough. But it's their dynamics that make things interesting. While we aren't particularly interested in the cha...
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Pulse (Kairo) | 100 Movies Bucket List

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I hadn't heard of this one before the bucket list and had no idea what it was about before pressing play, so I went in completely blind.  I have mixed feelings about this movie. There were some great things, but also some things that I didn't love.  The opening scene is great. Not only does it set the tone for the rest of the movie well, but it also puts you on edge and holds you there for a lot of the film. The main reason the film works is because the actors are so great. Even when you don't really know what's going on, you buy into everything that happens because the actors performances are so convincing and feel authentic. Despite being a ghost story, something about it felt really grounded and real. Even though you know there are fantastical elements, the characters feel human.  It does a good job of creating scares, particularly because a lot of what's scary is the story itself rather than using jumps. You can feel the fear within the characters, which makes y...
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Supergirl | Film Review

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  When faced with a dangerous enemy, Supergirl (Milly Alcock) teams up with an unlikely ally for revenge. I had seen all of the bad reviews of this film before watching it, and while I didn't expect it to be as good as Superman, I was surprised by how much hate it was getting. I actually didn't hate the film, but it definitely had a lot of flaws. I really liked that they set it on another planet, rather than doing another story set on Earth. It would have been nice to see more of the planet and how the world was different to Earth. One of the first flaws of this movie is that it assumes Supergirl's appearance in the Superman movie was enough to make the audience care about Kara, and it really isn't. So because of that, no work was put into making us care about her. But in addition to that, Kara isn't as funny or likeable here as she was in her small Superman scene. And while she doesn't have to be, at times it doesn't feel like the same character. I kept wai...
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