My Two Blessings

Happy New Year, people. 2024 is just about over, and this year, my parents and I watched some really fun movies, and some of which I didn't think about seeing at one point. Over the many, many movies I watched this year, I will name just ten films that were undoubtedly great IMO. Let's start... 10. Eye In The Sky Released in 2015, this film stars Alan Rickman prior to his death, and revolves around taking out a terrorist. On the day we watched it, we planned on seeing INSIDE OUT 2, but it turned out the film wasn't free to watch on Disney Plus yet. Time to improvise. So, mom picked out this movie, and I initially got cold feet because it was R-rated until I recalled that I'd seen R-rated movies before and it had been a while since we all saw an R-Rated movie. We watched it and, well, it was really good, teaches you a lot about how things work out behind the scenes when it comes to taking out terrorists. 9. Jojo Rabbit We got this for Christmas in 2023, and this was the ...

Courtesy of @becauseallthebooks 2024 Books Completed   Alan Dean Foster- Life Forms (reread) **** Amanda Quick - When She Dreams #6 Burning Cove *** Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary:  ***** Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama (reread) **** Ashley Poston - Seven Year Slip - e, **** Ashley Poston - The Dead Romantics **** Ben Aaronovitch - Broken Homes #4 Rivers of London **** Ben Aaronovitch - Foxglove Summer #5 Rivers of London *** Ben Aaronovitch - Moon over Soho #2 Rivers of London **** Ben Aaronovitch - Whispers Underground #3 Rivers of London **** Blake Crouch - Dark Matter **** Bonnie Garmus - Lessons in Chemistry **** Brendan Slocumb - Violin Conspiracy **** C.J. Archer - The Librarian of Crooked Lane #1 Glass Library - **** Campbell Walker - Your Head is a Houseboat - Nonfiction **** Caroline Peckham - Zodiak Academy #1: The Awakening - *** Cassandra Clare - Lady Midnight: Dark Artifices **** Cassandra Clare - Lord of Shadows: #2 Dark Artifices   *** Cha...

  My 2024 Reading Year In 2024 I surprised myself by reading more physical books than ebooks. The past couple of years, I read 50% or more in ebooks so I'm proud of myself for sticking with the books on my shelves. I thought I was making headway in clearing some books out, except they kept having babies, so guess I'll have to start over again for 2025.  LOL! I read 104 books of which 82 were paperback or hard back and the rest were ebooks. Huzzah.  Out of those, I read 37 new to me authors, and 19 rereads and the rest were books by known authors. Out of all of them , 18 were Five Stars   - They were stellar reads.  The writing was compelling, the world building was outstanding and the story flowed. I couldn't put them down. They evoked an emotional response and made me feel my feelings. Or they were unique.  If it was a series opener, it made want to read the whole series.  If it was a new to me author, it made me want read more of their stories. I hav...

  I cheated a little on my A to Z and Back Again for x as long as long as it was contained within the spelling of the title. A to Z and Back Again A) Armada by Ernest Cline B) Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang C) Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel D) Dark Matter by Blake Crouch E) Elsewhere by Dean Koontz F) Fourth Wing #1 Empryean by Rebecca Yarros G) Giotti’s Hand #5 Jonathan Argyll by Iain Pears H) His Majesty’s Dragon #1 Temeraire by Naomi Novik I) Iron Flame #2 Empryean by Rebecca Yarros J ) Man’s War by John Scalzi K) Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami L) Lie to Me by J.T. Ellison M) Moon over Soho #2 Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch N) Now You See Me #1 Lacey Flint by Sharon Bolton O) Once Upon A River by Diana Setterfield P) The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree by Paola Peritti Q) The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn R) The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams S) Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston T) Talia Hibbert Get a Life by Chloe Brown U) Whispers U...

  December 1 :  I’m dipping my toes into multiple books right now and all of them are different so don’t get them mixed up. When I get tired of reading one, move on to the other. Steve Berry’s Emperor’s Tomb Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa Louise DeSalvo’s Art of Slow Writing Emily Henry’s Funny Story. My book buying binge is out of control and have added multiple books to my TBR. Thank you Amazon for extending Black Friday for a whole week. *facepalm*    Now it’s time to start Christmas shopping. Saturday Night Movie: How to Train Your Dragon. December 2:   All the packages from my black friday splurges have started rolling in and hubby asks did you do some christmas shopping? Um, yeah sure. Hee hee December 3:  Finished reread of Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore.  Understand a bit more, however feel the Same as when read it the first time.  Much to ponder, but it still left me in a state of confusion. Feel like that ...

  For decades, superheroes have been beloved by the public in pop culture. And yet, one rarely asks the question; "What if superheroes were real?" There have been a handful of stories that answer the question, and one of them was published by the company that produced the likes of Superman and Batman. In 1986, with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, DC Comics produced WATCHMEN, a story set in an alternate world where costumed superheroes were thriving before being outlawed with only one individual having superpowers. This one is real dark and gritty, and risqué, so, if anyone wants to read it, be warned, you may be diving into mature territory. So, allow me to summarize Watchmen's story. In the late 1930s, costumed heroes rose up to fight crime and protect the innocent, inspired by comic book superheroes, leading to the formation of superhero groups such as the Minutemen and, later, the Watchmen. Years later, the government has outlawed superheroes, with a few individuals like ...

  World War II was the darkest of conflicts in human history, lasting for six years, and it saw the most horrific acts ever committed in human history. We know how it ended, and what the cost was. And we know what the name Adolf Hitler means, just as we know what Nazism truly is. And yet, in the following decades, the global film industry has produced many incredible movies set during the war. Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day, The Monuments Men, and Der Untergang. However, one special movie deserves to be covered, and that is 2009's Inglorious Basterds by Quinten Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christopher Waltz, Daniel Bruhl (of later MCU fame) and Michael Fassbender and guest-starring Mike Myers. The story follows a pair of Jewish Allied commandos on a mission in Europe as they take on the Nazis, and begin making plans to take out Adolf Hitler and his inner circle when circumstances fall into place. Despite being intense, with many grizzly scenes, Inglorious Basterds is a fun ...

  November 2 :  It's non fiction November! When I told my husband I was planning on reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he said it’s fiction. I disagreed but when I looked it up, found a variety of opinions and the main consensus is Zen is a fictionalized Autobiography in which the author took creative license with the subject matter. *sigh* And hubby hated it when he read it way back when. Thank you for bursting my bubble. I’ll make up my own mind what I think of the story when I read it. A few people who shall remain nameless have fooled me in the past with their so called  autobiographies which turned out to be fictionalized and resulted in me tossing their books across the room in disgust. However, there is literary nonfiction or creative nonfiction which I love to read which uses literary styles and techniques similar to fiction but is actually based on fact to tell a story, rather than a dry tome regurgitating facts. I finished rereading Nina San...

  Mama mia, everyone! Its-a me, the Crazy Video Game Wizard, and we're here to talk about THE SUPER MARIO BROS MOVIE from Illumination/Universal & Niiiiiiiiiiintendo! As you all remember, back in the 1990s, during the near-height of Mario's fame, Nintendo gave Hollywood the license to make a Mario movie. In 1993, SUPER MARIO BROS starring the late Bob Hoskins as Mario and Dennis Hopper as King Koopa was released to the world... and it failed. It was so infamous, Nintendo never attempted movie adaptations again. But during the 2010s, as they worked on a theme park with Universal, the desire to make a Mario movie was rekindled. Collaborating with Illumination Studios, with Universal as the distributor, Nintendo worked on the new animated Mario film with Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser and Charlie Day as Luigi. In April 2023, after years of work, the movie was released and made billions of dollars despite being negatively received by critics. Oh, and it was well-...

  Welcome back, everyone. Today, we're here to review this comedic movie involving Nazis and World War II called Jojo Rabbit, loosely based on a book called Caged Skies, and the story is pretty simple: During the Second World War, Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis), who confides in an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler (played by the film's director Takia Wattiti, joins the Hitler Youth and, after recovering from an injury, he discovers a Jew named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in the house. As it turns out, Jojo's mother (Scarlett Johansson) is an anti-Nazi, and, the more Jojo interacts with Elsa, his patriotism towards the Third Reich begins to diminish. At one point, Fake Hitler launches into a frightening triad to Jojo, telling him how Germany relies on the passion of valiant young men and that its up to him to decide if he wants to be remembered by history or disappear insignificantly. While it is set during one of the roughest times imaginable, Jojo Rabbit is a fun m...

  Ah, superhero movies. The greatest of our time, right next to sci-fi space adventures and war movies. You've seen Marvel movies, and DC movies, but to see a superhero movie that isn't associated with those two is quite rare. And then, we have the parodies, especially the Movie movie stuff. 2008 was a big year for superhero films. Iron Man came out, kicking off the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE, alongside THE INCREDIBLE HULK, and then, there was THE DARK KNIGHT, the sequel to 2005's BATMAN BEGINS. And, among the many other superhero films, there's this movie... SUPERHERO MOVIE. Made by the same folks who made the SCARY MOVIE, er, movies, SUPERHERO MOVIE is a spoof of the pre-MCU Marvel films that were out at the time with some elements of DC. It spoofed Spider-Man, Batman, the X-Men, and you get the idea. The movie tells the story of Peter Parker parody Rick Riker, who gets bit by a dragonfly and, after being in a coma for five days, he learns that he has super powers. Aft...

  Hey, Godzilla nerds. I'm back to discuss a kaiju movie that is NOT a Godzilla film, but its still Japanese made. This movie is REIGO: THE DEEP SEA MONSTER, and you wanna know what makes it very special? As you know, kaiju movies like Godzilla or Rodan became known in the years after the conclusion of World War II, and monster flicks like these are usually set after the war. However, Reigo takes place DURING World War II IN THE PACIFIC THEATER. That's right, the crew of a Japanese battleship during the war battles a sea monster. Oh, and get this, the battleship is the YAMATO, which was actually a real ship. Excluding the opening of GODZILLA MINUS ONE, this is the first Japanese-made monster movie that takes place during the events of the infamous real-life conflict that led to the nuclear age which led to Godzilla's creation in the first place, and the plot is pretty interesting. At one point, while the ship's crew are fighting against Reigo, they team up with an Ameri...

  Happy Halloween, everyone.  Today, we're talking about Tim Burton's 1988 classic known as BEETLEJUICE, starring Michael Keaton as the ghost with the most. To make a long story short, the film sees a married couple trapped in their own house after dying in a car accident and, when new people move into their former living residence, they eventually turn to a troublemaking ghost for help... leading to all sorts of insanity. Right off the bat, I saw this film nearly a few weeks prior to Halloween and it is worth a watch during the spooky season, especially with the supernatural themes throughout from death, the afterlife and ghosts. Tim Burton knows when to freak people out with his style, and Michael Keaton's portrayal of Beetlejuice is hammy, over the top, and can be pretty disturbing in certain places.  BEETLEJUICE is a breathtaking work of art for it's time, and my family and I really loved it. Obviously, people in 1988 did too since the movie got a sequel this year. ...

  October 6 :  All I’ve been reading this week is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Fascinated by all the scientific jargon and what not.  Added the Cardiac Recovery Cookbook and well as The Diabetic Cookbook to our stacks to read as we are trying to figure out a more heart healthy meal plan. So much fun. Saturday Night Movie: Haunted House! One of my favorite authors is Nora Roberts. Our 52 Books author of the month is Nora Roberts and October 10th of this week just so happens to be her birthday. Roberts is the diva of romance, romantic suspense, action and adventure, and supernatural thrillers. I discovered her books back in 2007 and fell in lurve. I have one very full bookcase dedicated to all her books. She is a prolific writer and has written 242 novels which include multiple trilogies and stand alone books. All of which are unique and interesting. She writes stories that are full of world building, settings, and characters I have fallen in love with and makes me want ...