My Two Blessings

  My reading slowed way down this month and I completed six books, sort of  finished one, and stopped halfway through another.   Super Powereds Year Four - Drew Hayes (Science Fiction, 1019) Daughter of Time (#5 Inspector Grant) - Josephine Tey (HF, 206) Hidden Palace #2 Golem & the Jinni - Helene Wecker (H Fantasy, 472) Leviathan Wakes - J.A. Corey (Science Fiction, e)   Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin (Science fiction, dnf) Bookshop at Water's End - Patti Callahan Henry (Literary Fiction, e) Bookshop of Second Chances - Jackie Fraser (Contemporary Romance, e) The Starless Crown (#1 Moon Fall) - James Rollins (Fantasy, 560) Super Powered is a great series and however much I'd like to compare it to Harry Potter, there really is no comparison. These are college age kids, each with a special super power, no wands, who learn how to use their powers amidst the angst of college and real life battles.  It will be well worth reading again....

  Salutations once again, we're diving back into the Marvel-verse and swinging our way into the Spider-verse with 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man starring Andrew Garfield and directed by Marc Webb. Enough delay, lets dive into this chapter of Spider-Man history, which came to be at a time when the fabled Marvel Cinematic Universe was getting off the ground. In the year 2007, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 released, serving as the final chapter in the Spider-Man trilogy that had been five years in the making, and was a box office success despite mixed reviews. After the movie was out, pre-production began on a Spider-Man 4. However, being displeased with how Spider-Man 3 turned out and after being frustrated with Sony's meddling, Sam Raimi quit the project and Sony green-lit a reboot with Marc Webb involved with the project. The result, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. The film released in the summer of 2012, shortly after The Avengers came out and its success kicked the Marvel Cinematic...

  Greetings, Gotham dwellers and Bat-fans. The time has come, we are now about to delve into darkness again, to review the one that you all love. It is time for BATMAN BEGINS! Starring Christian Bale as the titular Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan and released in 2005 over eight years after the last big movie BATMAN & ROBIN, Batman Begins returns Batman to his dark, edgy and serious roots. Released at a time when superhero movies were on the rise in popularity following the release of hits like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and before the famous Marvel Cinematic Universe got off the ground, BATMAN BEGINS showcases the traditional origin story of Bruce Wayne becoming Batman from the death of his parents to his transformation into the Dark Knight. We saw this together after holding off for a long time, especially after getting it's sequel 2008's THE DARK KNIGHT on Blu-Ray, and let me tell you, it is mind-blowing. Batman Begins is what you'd expect from a film featu...

  It's book week 13 in our 52 Books Quest and this week and we're celebrating Dana Stabenow's Birthday.  I'm dusting off Stabenow's  A Cold Day for Murder which has been on my eshelves since 2014 and will be reading it next. Not sure why I haven't read it yet but in the mood now.   "Eighteen months ago, Aleut Kate Shugak quit her job investigating sex crimes for the Anchorage DA's office and retreated to her father's homestead in a national park in the interior of Alaska. But the world has a way of beating a path to her door, however remote. In the middle of one of the bitterest Decembers in recent memory ex-boss - and ex-lover - Jack Morgan shows up with an FBI agent in tow. A Park ranger with powerful relatives is missing, and now the investigator Jack sent in to look for him is missing, too. Reluctantly, Kate, along with Mutt, her half-wolf, half-husky sidekick, leaves her wilderness refuge to follow a frozen trail through the Park, twenty thous...

  I just finished James Rollins newest fantasy novel, The Starless Crown .  I love his writing.   As I was getting closer to the end and the characters were still in peril,  I told my hubby I hope this doesn't end in a cliffhanger. Happily it didn't. How to describe without giving anything away. They live in an alternative world in which several characters come together over the course of the book to join together in a quest to save the world. An abandoned baby found in a swamp, bats, prophecies, darkness, a thief, a bronze statue, a fallen prince, wolves, horrible villains who will do anything including burning entire towns to get what they want, sky ships and battles. Our poor characters given no time to rest, hunted and chased, from peril to peril. A thrilling story I couldn't put down.  "A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death. Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of outcasts:  A broken soldier, who ...

  Let us take a moment, shall we? The year is 1992 and the sequel to the 1989 Batman movie has come out, it is well received and all seems fine, but then as the reviews come in, there is an uproar from parents that the movie is too dark. So, with those complaints, how do you remedy the problem? Simple, you try to be less dark in the next movie. It is 1995, three years have passed since Tim Burton's Batman Returns and a new movie is coming. This time, its lighter but still intense. Michael Keaton has been replaced by Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey is playing the Riddler and the new movie is BATMAN FOREVER! Welcome back in the year of 2022, my friends. After reviewing the first two Batman movies, we're now delving into the movie that followed, my first true live-action Batman movie viewing. As you can see, its Batman Forever. So, what is it about? Directed by Joel Schumacher, Batman Forever sees the Dark Knight take on Two-Face (who is played by Men In Black's Tommy Lee Jones) while ...

  The bookshop at water's end by Patti Callahan Henry is a deep dive into the relationships between two friends and the people surrounding them. The characters are broken emotionally and are returning for the summer to the summer home where Lainey's mother abandoned their family years ago.  Lainey doesn't want to go to Watersend but her friend needs her.  Bonny's marriage is over, she made a mistake in the emergency room and a man died. Bonny's daughter Piper has failed out of school, her boyfriend left her for another student, and she's flailing.  They agree to meet at the summer house to fix it up to sell and life's complications and emotions catch up with all of them.  Bookshop at Water's End is an emotional journey of finding their way, individually and together.  The bookshop is owned by Mimi who was lived in Waterends all her life and is there at the beginning and there at the end and in between provides a stabilizing influence to all the angst th...

  Hello again, old friends. Its time we dive into the Batman realm again, but we're gonna be delving into kid friendly territory this time... with THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE released in the year 2017, kinda set in the universe of THE LEGO MOVIE as a a spinoff starring Will Arnett as the LEGO version of the gritty protector of Gotham, Batman himself. And before we go further, I will say that if you're thinking of DC Super Heroes Unite, that is a totally different LEGO Batman movie as this is the real LEGO Batman movie. Difference, one is animation and the other is live-action stop-motion animation with voice acting. Ok, clarification over. This movie was released in the 5 years between The LEGO Movie of 2014 and The LEGO Movie II of 2019, focusing on Batman, his character and relationships and battles with his well-known enemies. The LEGO Batman Movie, from start to finish, is a fun family film with lots of action, comedy and is almost essentially a love letter to decades of Batman s...

It's week 12 in our 52 Weeks book quest and Sunday is the March equinox which means Spring in our neck of the woods and the start of our Spring Reading Fling.  I've filled my head with too much news and now I have the reading blahs.  I finished Helene Wecker's second book in her Golem and the Jinni duology - Hidden Palaces.  Chava, the Golem, and Admad, the Jinni are now living in New York and spend their nights walking the streets, filled with conversation and long silences. The story is interwoven with several different characters and is full of history, drama, and magic. I loved escaping into their world and will definitely read it again at some point.     Have you ever had an author you really wanted to like but couldn't get into their stories. I unfortunately ran into two this week that I didn't enjoy.  S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes and Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness . I had high hopes for both but ended up giving up halfway through both s...

  Greetings again, good DC friends and TMNT ninja nerds. We're back to review the third and final chapter in the Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover mega-event that's lasted more than two-three years. After seeing them battle Ra's Al Ghul and The Shredder in the first crossover and then go up against Bane in the second, what could end their crazy crossover crisis on infinite worlds in a half-shell with a bang? Simple, five words. Crisis In A Half-Shell. That's right, its a Multiversal crisis and at the center of it all is the Turtle's fearsome alien nemesis and Shredder's ally, Krang. And this crisis all begins when we take a look into what seems to be an alternate Batman/TMNT hybrid universe where Batman grew up with the Turtles as Splinter's fifth adopted son. But its not all as it seems and it turns out Krang fused the universes together as part of a plan to conquer the multiverse.  Once the good guys encounter the Turtles' original counterp...

  Hello and welcome back, we're doing another video game movie review. This time, we're diving into the realm of Pokemon with the 2019 movie adaptation of Detective Pikachu starring Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu himself aka Harry Goodman, father of the movie's protagonist Tim Goodman, who teams up with Pikachu to solve the mystery of his dad's disappearance. I saw this movie well after it came out back in 2019, then I saw it again a few years ago and I just recently rewatched it, making that my third viewing. Let me tell you, this movie is beyond good, it is a blast to watch and I should watch it again pretty soon. Detective Pikachu is where I became a Pokemon fan, leading to me playing the Detective Pikachu video game on the 3DS (a game that I will review in the future). This was my first film featuring Ryan Reynolds that I got to see, where I grew to respect him, even though I forgot that he was in the film and who he was until way later. To say that he plays a G-rated Dea...

Hello, old friends. Welcome back, we are about to once again delve into the crossover-verse and tackle another story of Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's right, we're taking a look at the sequel miniseries to the first Batman/TMNT crossover released a year prior. IDW and DC are once again collaborating on this epic crossover event continuation, which takes place well after the events of the first crossover.  I got my hands on this on the same day I got one of the latest IDW Sonic comic issues (as of this writing) during my usual weekly trip to the local comic book story and read it all, just like with the first crossover story. And believe me, it is awesome. The story for this one is very entertaining, especially with Batman's big enemy Bane as the big bad of this story. That's right, instead of Shredder and Ra's Al Ghul being the big bad just like in the first story, its a Batman villain serving as the big bad of the crossover sequel. Seeing well-...

  Airing from 1968 to 2001, Mister Rogers Neighborhood was an fun educational and entertaining children's show hosting the wonderful Fred Rogers as the show covered a variety of topics from war to racism and almost everything else. I saw some episodes of Mister Rogers Neighborhood with my dad when I was young, if memory serves me right, we only saw ten or twenty episodes and that was that. As I got older, I didn't even go near Mister Rogers even though a few memories came back and dad tried to imitate the show's theme song a few times. Then, not long ago as part of a school project, we saw Tom Hanks' A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood and I found a new appreciation for the show I didn't see much of. Afterwards, as part of a school assignment, my father and I sat down to watch an episode of the show. This one is perhaps my only favorite Mister Rogers' Episode yet, this is 1997's "Be Yourself, That's The Best" from Season 27 of the show near the...

  War, a fascinating and important subject, but also a dark and terrible time. War never changes, war takes lives, but can be entertaining in movies. There have been many wars throughout history, but World War II is the darkest time period in the history of our planet, occurring nearly twenty one years after the end of World War I and started by the most ruthless dictatorship in world history. This is where we gather to discuss a movie set during that era, a movie that depicted the reality of war in terrifying detail. This is Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks as Captain Miller and Matt Damon as Private Ryan himself, this movie unfolds in June of 1944 as Allied Forces land in France, moving inland and fighting hard against Nazi forces.  Kicking off in the present day with the older Ryan and his family in a graveyard, the story truly begins when it shifts to 1944 on D-Day, the Normandy Landings. The scene in the boat with the soldiers leadi...

Ugg! Daylight Savings Time. Enough said. Although I am appreciating the fact we only have a few clocks to adjust when I think about the clock merchant who has to reset a 1000 clocks . It's week 11 in our 52 Books Quest and our next 52 Books Bingo category is All the World's a Stage. Which works well with our golden age theme since William Shakespeare was alive during the Elizabethan era, considered the Golden Age in English history . I finished Super Powereds Year Four by Drew Hayes. Many answers to all the questions throughout the books. The kids learned so much the final year through their battles and the intramurals, learning to trust themselves and their powers, culminating in the final battle between the Heroes and bad guys. We never did find out which ten graduated? Grateful for the epilogue ten years later giving an update on all the characters. This is one series I'll read over and over again. Also finished Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time and love Inspect...

  Inspector Grant's recuperating in the hospital from an injury during the line of duty. He's bored out of his mind and becomes enamored with a picture of Richard the III and if the story was true that he killed his two young nephews. Grant involves everyone in his mystery from the medical staff to his friends while he reads everything he can about Richard. Along the way he uncovers the historical facts are tonypandy - historical events that were well-accepted but not reported accurately - in books like Sir Thomas More which Grant discovers were all hearsay since More was too young at the time of the event. Fascinating story and I will never think of history in the same way again. Dusty, historical fiction, 206 

  Oh, hullo again, folks. We're back... to review one of 2021's best movies yet. Free Guy, starring the respectable and humorous Ryan Reynolds himself as the character of Guy.  We got this on DVD months after its theatrical release instead of waiting until it hit Disney Plus and we watched this, so what are my thoughts on this fun video game movie that almost feels like a crossover between Ready Player One, The Truman Show and Wreck it Ralph? Well, as you already know, its very good. This was a fun, imaginative and mind-blowing movie worth watching again that tells an epic story about an NPC who steps beyond his programming and becomes a hero in his own right, defying the expectations of the video game's developers. Mr. Reynolds does an unsurprising good job as the character he's playing, even Taika Watiti plays a fun villain. He's quite amazing, this film has a great opening with Guy breaking the fourth wall to narrate the world to us. And guess what? I nicknamed h...

  Hello again, we now dive back into the IDW Sonic universe with the third issue of the Imposter Syndrome miniseries featuring Doctor Starline, Surge and Kit taking place in the lead up to the big milestone of IDW Sonic issue 50. I just read it and, wow, it is way past awesome. Ian Flynn didn't just knock it out of the park, he writes in a way that blows the mind. The issue starts off with Surge and Kit watching one of Doctor Starline's vlogs where Starline rants about Eggman and it looks as if the doctor is about to snap as he even calls Eggman's robots, including Metal Sonic, inferior. Ian knows when to ham it up as he writes villains, he did a fine job with Eggman in Archie Sonic and does a fine job here as well. Moving along, Surge and Kit then listen to everything Starline outlines about their "creation" and after they were "activated". The two are not to happy about what they learned and, when Doctor Starline enters the room, they attack the man wh...

  Wonderful installment and the finale to the series. Many answers to all the questions throughout the books. The kids learned so much the final year through their battles and the intramurals, learning to trust themselves and their powers, culminating in the final battle between the Heroes and bad guys. Did you notice we never found out which ten graduated? Grateful for the epilogue ten years later giving an update on all the characters. I may write a more indepth review at a later time about the whole series. Right now my brain is full and I have a book hangover.  This is one series I know I'll  read over and over again. 

  Hello and welcome back, true believers. Today, we return to the Spider-realm to review the final entry in the original Spider-Man film series; Spider-Man 3 directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Thomas Hayden Church, Topher Grace, J.K Simmons, James Franco and Bryce Dallas Howard. Released in 2007 a good few years after Spider Man 2, this movie served as the final entry in the Spider-Man trilogy and received mixed reviews while still a box office success. It was also the live action debut of Spider-Man's symbiote rival Venom (who'd made his debut in the 90s in the comics and cartoons beforehand). Initially, Sam Raimi wasn't going to include Venom in the movie, but Producer Avi Arid and the higher-ups at Sony made him do so. So, what is the story about? Lets keep it short and simple. Well after Spider-Man 2, Peter's life seems to be going smoothly for him, especially now that he finally has Mary Jane as his girlfriend and is about to propose t...

  It's book week 10 in our 52 Books Quest and this week we are continuing with our Golden Age mystery writers. This month's Crime Spree Bookology choice is Josephine Tey.    Tey is the creator of Inspector Alan Grant series and also wrote plays under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot.  I've had  The Daughter of Time  sitting in my stacks for quite a while and look forward to reading it now. But right now, I'm currently reading Super Powereds Year Four by Drew Hayes and it will take me a while at 1000 + pages.  "The final year at Lander has finally arrived for the Melbrook students and their peers, and with it comes a whole new set of challenges. Still reeling from the events of their junior year, the remaining students will have to push past their pain - and so much more - if they hope to be one of the ten to claim the title of Hero upon graduation. Constant tests and trials await the senior students. Beyond simulated missions and classes, they'll also ha...

  Salutations, we have returned... to the Ghostbusters universe. But this time, we're reviewing something nobody ever expected. That's right, we're looking at the all-female 2016 reboot: GHOSTBUSTERS aka Ghostbusters Answer The Call. My parents and I saw this a couple years ago and I saw it again prior to us seeing the Ghostbusters Afterlife movie. After seeing this twice in a row and despite what the critics have said about the movie, Ghostbusters (2016) isn't really a bad movie. Now, now, please do not pull out the pitchforks, torches and start attacking me, I'm not trying to defend this film nor am I bashing anybody who hates it. As anybody who does research knows, this movie came about when the people behind the first two Ghostbusters movies couldn't get a third film off the ground. So at one point, they decided to do a reboot and cast females as the lead protagonists of the movie. It came out to mixed reviews and backlash and was a complete flop at the box ...

  Hello, neighbors and friends. We're here to talk about... Mister Rogers. That's right. Very recently, as part of a school assignment, we sat down to watch A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, released in 2019 and starring Tom Hanks as the beloved TV star Mr. Fred Rogers of the Mr. Rogers show. The movie taught lessons of compassion and forgiveness, it was fun and thought-provoking and it made me feel kinda nostalgic as I saw the Mr. Rogers show a few times years ago. Tom Hanks was great in this, he's perhaps one of my favorite actors to date, especially after hearing him voice Woody in Toy Story and after he played Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan. Tom handles the material he's given very well, even if he doesn't live up to the man he's playing.  As someone who saw Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and has grown to respect the shows I used to watch in my childhood thanks to Dora & The Lost City of Gold (based on Dora The Explorer), this film is nothing sho...

  Greetings, good friends. We're back to review BATMAN VS TEENATE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES by IDW Comics.  That's right, we're delving into the comic that inspired the 2019 movie, but this version of Batman/TMNT is almost way different from how things played out in the movie save for certain plot beats and dialogue that was lifted from this for the movie.  Plus, need I forget to mention, characters like Splinter, April O' Neil and Cassey Jones from the TMNT-verse appear in this unlike the movie (where Splinter himself is mentioned a few times and is seen briefly at one point). I got the graphic novel that collected all six issues of this crossover and, lemme tell you, DC and IDW did a great job with this. Comic books about superheroes and sci-fi are really gripping and hard to stop reading, I read this entire thing in one sitting and was hooked.  As a matter of fact, I may do a rereading of it in the future. Wow, oh my gosh, these comics never ever get old. Seriously, wh...