Apr 15 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Audiobook Review: The Origin and Evolution of Earth – From the Big Bang to the Future of Human Existence

The Origin and Evolution of Earth: From the Big Bang to the Future of Human Existence
Written by: Robert M Hazen
Read by: Robert M Hazen

Origin Evolution of Earth

 

(Questions from Audible’s reviews page)

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
I would definitely recommend this book to a friend. In fact I already have one in mind. A good half of the course was geology and elements and things like that and, while not my cup of tea, I have a friend who will love it.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
The parts I liked the most were the cosmology and astronomy lectures, which were mostly in the first half. Once he started in on the table of elements and geology, however, he kind of lost me.

What about Professor Robert M Hazen’s performance did you like?
He’s very articulate, with a clear voice. Definitely a great lecturer.

Was The Origin and Evolution of Earth worth the listening time?
The parts that I enjoyed, very much so. I skipped almost half the lectures, though. I guess I should read the descriptions more closely.

Any additional comments?
I’m definitely not giving this course 6.5/10 because it sucked. As I said, Dr Hazen is a great lecturer, and what I enjoyed of the course I really loved. I gave it only 6.5 cause geology and mineralogy aren’t my bag. But for those interested in those subjects, I definitely recommend this course.

M.

Apr 9 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Killer Legends

Killer Legends
(2014) Joshua Zeman, Rachel Mills

killer legends

A bit disappointed in this one. Made by the team who brought us Cropsey (which I’ve wanted to watch for forever, but just haven’t gotten around to it), it promised to be good. But the first thing I noticed was that the man, Joshua, seemed to be more interested in having his face on the camera than his guests. If he wasn’t in a particular frame, he’d actually lean forward so that he was. His feigned sadness was also a little grating, because it was very obviously fake. He’d stand at a murder sight, talk in a mournful voice, shuffle his feet, sigh, etc. The girl, Rachel, also did it, but to a much lesser degree. Joshua’s voice-over voice was also grating, much different from his normal talking voice, and slightly ridiculous.

Now that we’ve got all the bad aside, we can focus on the good. The subject matter was very interesting, the premise being that urban legends always come from some truth. They take four famous legends (The Hook Man, Killer Clowns, The Babysitter Killer, and Deadly Halloween Candy) and dig around to find real life cases that might have been the beginning of these legends. They travel to the towns where the murders happened, talk to the locals, and, if there are any left alive, people who were there when the crime happened. It was quite interesting. Despite the fact that I spent the entire film wanting to punch the guy in the face, I still give it a 7/10, because the content was very interesting. But dude, if ever you read this (which I doubt), here’s a little advice: Unless it’s an autobiography, the audience isn’t interested in seeing you. The focus should be on the subject of the documentary.

This film is currently playing on Netflix US and YouTube. Although I should probably warn you, there are crime scene photos. Pretty graphic too. So if real dead bodies scare the crap out of you, stay far, far away.

 

M.

Apr 8 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil
(2014) Eric Bana, Édgar Ramírez, Olivia Munn, Sean Harris, Lulu Wilson, Mike Houston, Olivia Horton, Chris Coy, Joel McHale, and Dorian Missick

Deliver-Us-from-Evil

What a great watch this was! I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, since great possession films are few and far between these days, but then I saw Scott Derrickson’s name, and I was already sold. I’ve only seen two of his films (The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister), but they’re both incredible. And, to stay true to form in my eyes, this film was no less awesome. It was more tense than scary, but still incredibly well done. I imagine folks who scare easier than I do will find it much, much more frightening. The story was very interesting, just different enough to stay interesting throughout. It boasts the tagline “Inspired by actual events”, which to me means that there was a cop, his family was abducted by an unsub, and… well that’s it. I’m of the same opinion that Bana’s character has at the beginning: we don’t need demons, humanity does well enough on their own. The acting was mostly all top notch, the two leads were especially good. And the priest was almost disturbingly attractive (except when he was pulling on a cig, ick). So all in all, this was a pretty great piece of film, and gets an 8.5/10.

This film is not currently streaming on Netflix, but it is playing on TMN and On Demand. Enjoy!

M.

Apr 4 2015

OMG 100 Followers!!!

So I have just reached 100 followers this morning!! I don’t even know what to say, I’m so happy! When I started blogging, I was expecting no more than 10 followers or so, and those to likely be people I already knew. To have 100 of you following me, and only 4 of you being previously known folks, it’s just so amazing! Since I’m kinda speechless at the moment, I’ll let these images speak for me…

 

100_followers

 

 

Sherlock-thank-you

 

 

gabriel

 

 

loveyou

 

 

100 mario

 

 

awesome

 

 

jen

 

 

minions

 

 

stephen-king

 

 

thanks

 

 

dean

 

 

spike

 

In case you didn’t get that, THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU GUYS!

M.

Apr 3 2015

Mel’s 5 Second First Impressions: Face Off, Season 8

Face Off (2011-present)
(Season 8 cast) McKenzie Westmore, Ve Neill, Glenn Hetrick, Neville Page, Laura Tyler, Rayce Bird, Anthony Kosar, and Michael Westmore

Contestants: Darla Edin, Emily Serpico, Gregory Hewett, Julian Bonfiglio, Stephanie Masco, Adam Milicevic, Anthony Reyes, Logan Long, Regina Jiganti, Rob Miller, Alan Carnes, Ben Peter, Daniel Prado, Jamie Leodones, and Kelly Harris

faceoff 8

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I like the idea of a good few of the reality shows out there. There are quite a few of them with themes that I’m interested in; makeup, fashion, tattoos, music, dancing, etc. But so many of them are all drama, no substance. Both Ink Master and America’s Next Top Model only got one season for how awful they were. My favourites, besides this one, are Dancing with the Stars and RuPaul’s Drag Race. Funny how a show about drag queens is one of the least dramatic ones out there… but I digress, as usual.

Face Off is my very favourite reality show. With the exception of the awful season 1 (which I’m glad I didn’t see first, for I wouldn’t have continued), there is no drama, save tiny personal conflicts very, very seldomly. The focus really is on the makeups and costumes, and that’s why I love it. Two episodes into season 8, I find the format much changed, and while there’s still no drama, I’m not entirely sold on the concept of returning champions. This season, three former winners form 3 groups of 5, and compete as teams. It’s not bad, but I figure the show was perfect as is, why fix something if it ain’t broke? But I guess I’ll see how it goes as the show continues, but unless they change it up a little, I certainly hope they’ll go back to their old format for season 9.

This show isn’t on Netflix, but YouTube has a lot of episodes, if you’re interested in checking it out. I definitely reccomend it if you’re interested in special makeup effects.

 

M.

Mar 27 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Audiobook Review: Behold the Mighty Dinosaur

Behold the Mighty Dinosaur
Written by: John Kricher
Read by: John Kricher

behold dino

(Questions from Audible’s reviews form)

Where does The Modern Scholar rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This was the first one I’ve read from this series, and if the rest are as good as this one, I’ll definitely be buying more!

What other book might you compare Behold the Mighty Dinosaur to and why?
I actually haven’t read any other “real” dinosaur books, so I can’t really compare. I’ve read Dinopedia and others like it, and I loved Jurassic Park (book and film), but this was my first dino text book.

Have you listened to any of the narrator’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Nope, this was my first of his, and I quite enjoyed it. It wasn’t perfect, he swallowed and smacked his lips pretty audibly and quite often, but other than that he was clear and engaging.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I did, actually! I love dinosaur stuff, but I wasn’t sure how I’d like a whole dino text book, but I really loved it. I kept telling my husband so, too. “Man, I love this book!” It even made me laugh a few times, Dr Kricher has a pretty good wit.

Any additional comments?
All in all, I’d DEFINITELY reccomend this text to anyone even remotely interested in dinosaurs. It was informative without being dry, a great listen (or a great read too, I imagine). I loved it so much that I read it all in just two sittings. I’m sad that Audible doesn’t have any more dino texts from Dr K, I’d have scooped them right up! I give it a superb 9.5/10 (the .5 taken away for that lip smacking :-p )

M.

Mar 25 2015

Mel’s 5 Second First Impressions: Game of Thrones, Season 4

Game of Thrones (2011 – present)
(Season 4 cast) Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, Charles Dance, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Natalie Dormer, Iain Glen, Gwendoline Christie, Jack Gleeson, Rory McCann, Aidan Gillen, Sibel Kekilli, Liam Cunningham, Stephen Dillane, Rose Leslie, Pedro Pascal, Alfie Allen, Diana Rigg, Michiel Huisman, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ian McElhinney, John Bradley, Ellie Kendrick, Iwan Rheon, Hannah Murray, Jerome Flynn, Indira Varma, Burn Gorman, Kate Dickie, Finn Jones, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, and Conleth Hill (holy crap there are too many characters!! :-p )

GoT s4

So, I figured since season 5 is about to start, I should probably catch up on season 4 first. I’ve read all the books, so I wasn’t as gung-ho about keeping up with it as others seem to be. Don’t get me wrong, I love the show. Everything is absolutely perfect, the actors, the writing, the locations, perfect. But, as with all adapted stuff, the show has started to veer away more and more from the books. At first it was just little things, but now there seem to be whole story-lines missing or changed. And, as an avid lover of the books, it’s bumming me out a little.

So, my impressions so far. I’m only one episode in, but damn, did it start with a bang. One story-line they’re getting perfectly is Arya’s. She is suck a kick-ass, it’s almost ridiculous. I absolutely CAN NOT wait for when she gets to Braavos!! Tyrion is wonderful as usual, and Shae is breaking my heart already, since I know what’s coming (I could barely read the book through my tears!). I love Jaime and Brienne’s relationship, but I really don’t like how they’re tweaking his story so much. And yes, I’ve heard what happens after Joffrey’s death. That’s just… unacceptable. Disgusting. He may be a lot of things, but that, he’s not! *stomps foot* And Sansa… Well, Sansa is Sansa, isn’t she?

One episode down, nine to go. I’ll be back in nine hours..!! 😀

M.

Mar 23 2015

Mel’s 5 Second Audiobook Review: A Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time
Written by: Stephen Hawking
Read by: Michael Jackson

A_Brief_History_of_Time

(Questions from Aubible’s reviews form)

Is there anything you would change about this book?
The narrator for starters. And I’m not really sure what went wrong, but the last 4 or 5 chapters were just… kinda dull. He just went on and on and on… and on about black holes, and I just kinda zoned out. More than once.

What was your reaction to the ending?
By that point, I just wanted it to be over.

What three words best describe Michael Jackson’s performance?
Erratic, dry, dull.
He’d pause between words where there was clearly no comma or period, or then he’d zip through lines like his life depended on his reading as fast as he could. He even did some ahhs and ums, which really now, is a big no-no when recording audiobooks. And his voice just kinda droned on, made it very easy to zone out, or have my mind wander.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?
I’ve seen a lot of Stephen Hawking’s TV specials, like Into the Universe and Grand Design, and I absolutely loved them. If he were to make this book into a show like that, I’d certainly be interested in seeing it.

Any additional comments?
I give it 7/10 because it’s Stephen Hawking after all, and I’m a huge fan. But if his other books are narrated by this same guy, Michael Jackson, I’m afraid I won’t be listening to any more of them on Audible.

M.

Mar 22 2015

Mel’s 5 Second TV Review: Born to Kill?

Born to Kill?
(2005 – 2012) Christopher Slade, Katherine Ramsland, Louis B Schlesinger, Helen Morrison, and David Wilson

Born to Kill

This show, in my opinion, is one of the very best of it’s kind. Along with details of the horrible crimes, a lot of the focus is on the killers themselves, and that age old question: was it nature or nurture that drove them to kill? We’re treated to Forensic Psychologists and Psychiatrists, Criminologists, plus the police and detectives who were assigned to the various cases, who give us facts of the cases and their opinions on the killers. We’re shown locations of murders, and even a few pictures, but never the really disturbing ones. Well, I mean they’re all disturbing, but… bah, you know what I mean! :-p As far as I know, there are 25 episodes, and only one which I still haven’t seen (edit: wrong!! hehe). Killers included in the program are well known serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, Aileen Wournos, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy, and some lesser known, like Beverly Allitt, Donald Neilson, Donald ‘Pee Wee’ Gaskins, and Dennis Nilsen. You can see the whole list (edit: nope, a partial list) here. On the whole it’s a very well made and informative show, and I give it a well deserved 9/10.

This show is unfortunately not on Netflix. It currently plays on the Identification Discovery channel, but it may take a while to see all of them, since they’re played in random order all the time. And never mind that, I just checked on YouTube, and there’s a playlist of 31 episodes! So that means there’s more episodes than I knew of, which means I’m not done yet! More grizzly horror for me to watch, yay!! Uh… yeah. Maybe I shouldn’t sound so enthusiastic about that…

M.