Not quite as good as Silver Linings Playbook, but definitely better than The Good Luck of Right Now
342680
Why I read it: I really enjoyed Quicks The Silver Linings Playbook (the book from which the movie of the same name is adapted). His last book, The Good Luck of Right Now, was disappointing (it read like a sad copycat of The Silver Linings Playbook), but I still had high hopes for his new release, which was an Indie Next List selection for July 2015.

What its about: The book opens with Portia Kane hiding in the bedroom closet at her palatial mansion in Tampa. She is wasted on her husbands Hennessey, has grossly defiled his humidor of illegal Cuban cigars, and holds his loaded Colt 45. He is a disgusting pig, who made his millions preying on young college girls and convincing them to be in his trashy porn, and she is waiting for his imminent arrival with his latest conquest, so she can shoot them both.

But, when her husband finally arrives in their marital bed with a vapid (but gorgeous) teenager who looks just like Khaleesi from Game of Thrones, Portia loses her nerve. She leaves Ken and heads back to her childhood home in South Jersey . . . where her fat, mentally unstable, hoarder mother has maintained her high school bedroom like a museum.

Soon, Portia realizes that this is the beginning of a life-altering quest. It is a quest that involves some unique and bizarrely connected characters, including a vodka-loving nun, a recovering junkie, the six-year-old lead singer of a Bon Jovi cover band, a dog named Albert Camus, and her very favorite high school English teacher (a man named Mr. Vernon, who has suffered an unspeakable tragedy and whom Portia is intent on saving).

Rating: 3.5/5

Matthew Quick is back, yall! Hooray and hurrah!! This book has all of the characteristics that I loved in The Silver Linings Playbook. It is charming and sweet and optimistic. It is filled with quirky (but highly unstable and, thus, often extremely entertaining) characters. It is light and fun, so it reads very, very quickly, but it is not just empty fluffit has a very strong positive message.

This book is a little more extreme and a little less believable than The Silver Linings Playbook. There are loads of unlikely coincidences and unusual circumstances. A lot of things turn out way better than they should (or realistically would). But if you can suspend belief a little bit, its an enjoyable read.

And, to top it off, the book truly celebrates the power of excellent teachers and the long-lasting impact they can have on their students lives. As a former teacher, I can definitely get behind that.
246543
"Life, or Something Like It" is a romantic comedy with a better-than-average premise.  It attempts to address the question "if you suddenly discovered that you might only have a week more to live, how would you spend that remaining time and what changes would you make to your life?"  Perhaps because this IS a romantic comedy, the best the film can manage to do within the tight strictures of the format is to raise a few of the more provocative issues surrounding the theme - those dealing with the meaning of life and the vagaries of fate, for example - then drop them so it can address itself to the customary clichs one would expect to find in a film of this genre.  One only wonders how a more serious-minded European filmmaker, for instance, might have tackled the same subject matter.
Angelina Jolie plays a beautiful, but thoroughly superficial and self-absorbed TV news reporter living a near-perfect life in Seattle.  Indeed, when we first meet her, Lanie Kerigan seems to have everything going for her: stunning good looks, a glamorous profession, a handsome major league ballplayer fianc, and now a major career advancement in the form of a regular spot on a national morning news program.  One day, however, her world comes crashing in when she meets up with a homeless man on the street, a self-styled "prophet of God" who tells Lanie that she will die within a week.  When all his other predictions begin to come true, Lanie realizes that this man may not be quite the lunatic or charlatan all her friends and acquaintances keep assuring her he is.
Given this setup, "Life, or Something Like It" can't help but grab our attention.  We wonder how we too would react to such a horrifying scenario if it were to suddenly present itself in our own lives. The problem is that the movie doesn't really do much with the material it has to work with.  Nothing Lanie does seems particularly thoughtful or meaningful when she is confronted with potentially imminent death: indulging in some halfhearted attempts to reconcile herself with an estranged sister and father, giving up her health-obsessive diet and exercise regimen, and dumping the fianc with whom she discovers she has nothing in common.  Considering the thematic potential of this material, the film always seems to be lagging several intellectual beats behind where it should be.  This is particularly true in the predictable love/hate relationship she shares with Pete, one of her cameraman coworkers.  Yet, oddly enough, it is this very pairing of Jolie with Edward Burns that gives the film its moments of greatest charm.  Both performers are so likeable in their understated warmth and vulnerability that we can't help liking and rooting for their two endearing characters.  Paradoxically, then, the film satisfies us most when it is at its least innovative.  The movie is at its worst in an embarrassingly unconvincing scene wherein a boozed-up Lanie, sans makeup and carefully groomed coiffure, leads a contingent of striking workers in a rendition of "Satisfaction" in the middle of a live TV interview.  Cloying moments like these merely serve to remind us that we are stranded in movie fantasy land when the film could, with a little more effort, have ascended to a much higher level.  (The film, incidentally, endorses a rather reactionary view of women in the workplace, arguing that a woman needs to consider whether achieving success in the corporate world is worth sacrificing a chance at achieving marital and familial happiness - a quandary that never seems to be posed to male characters in movies).
And this, alas, is the overall impression that "Life, or Something Like It" ends up generating.  Despite the fact that it has moments of quality and charm, the film, ultimately, feels like a case of lost opportunity.  One finds oneself leaving this film in a state of frustrating ambivalence: acknowledging that the film works on a level of superficial entertainment but knowing that, with a little more depth and insight, it could have amounted to so much more.
756011
Plan B was a great book.  This effort is more ambitious, but not quite (in my opinion)as good.  Some of it cliche, some of it is not needed (really Tallon?  Come on...what a goofy character).  On the other hand, Tropper is still very good at conveying emotions and capturing the pain of youth and finally growing up.  One other issue, why don't we learn more about what has happened to Carly?  She is still very underdeveloped.  OVerall, Tropper avoids the sophomore slump, but I think he tries to do too much...
1733792
Somehow, I missed what Pitch Perfect was even about until a friend learned I loved a Capella music and told me about it.  Ever since then, its been on my to be watched list, which means I had to set my DVR when I saw it on TV.  I think I paid about the right price.  It grew on me, but it wasn't as great as I had hoped.

Beca (Anna Kendrick) is a freshman at Barden University, but against her will.  She wants to go to LA to start a career in music, but her father is insisting she have at least one year in school first.  And she has to join some kind of group or club and attempt to make friends.

That choice is helped along when she is overheard singing in the shower and is asked to join the Bellas, the schools all-women a Capella group.  Last year, they made it to the national finals, something womens groups have a hard time doing.  They are hoping to actually win this year, which means beating the all-male group at Barden, the Treblemakers.  However, Beca is quickly clashing with the Bellass leader, Aubrey (Anna Camp) over just about everything.  Will it work out?  Can the Bellas rise above the past and win?

The plot is perfectly fine.  Its a fairly predictable story, but that never bothers me as long as Im having fun along the way.  And I did have some fun  once things settle down in the second half.

I actually had several issues with the film.  The first?  Projectile vomiting.  Twice.  Enough said there, right?  Moving on, the characters are just plain weird.  I don't know that there was a normal one in the bunch.  Now, I don't mind oddball characters as a rule, but this movie seemed to be almost mocking them, especially in the beginning.  Considering I hate what I have termed awkward humor, situations where we are supposed to laugh at someone making a fool of themselves, I really had a problem with that in the beginning.  I realized as I was watching the film that this is part of my problem with Rebel Wilson, who appears here as Fat Amy, another of the new Bellas.  We are supposed to laugh at her being stupid, and I just don't find it amusing.

However, as the film went on, all that began to change.  Some of the characters showed some depth.  They all stopped being completely clueless idiots.  And as they became friends, I got behind the movie and started rooting for them to get the well-deserved happy ending.  Well, most of them.  There were still a couple of jerks in the cast, but we weren't supposed to warm up to them.

One thing that never changed for me was my opinion of the commentators.  Played by Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins, they provided some color commentary for the viewers at home (I guess the contests were televised?  I never got that).  However, these comments were filled with pointless sexual innuendo and sexism.  They added nothing to the film and actually took away from my enjoyment.

However, I did enjoy the music.  Wow was it fabulous.  Im seriously thinking about getting the sound track.  Any time the groups are singing, and there is plenty of singing, the movie is wonderful.

And the acting is great as well.  Everyone brought their characters to life perfectly.  Yes, as much as I don't like the characters she plays, Rebel Wilson did a good job with Fat Amy.  I also really enjoy Skylar Astin as Becas potential love interest Jesse.

So Im left feeling ambivalent about the film.  Pitch Perfect definitely had some moments I enjoyed, but there was also plenty that made me cringe along the way.  Even though I loved the music, I probably won't rush out to watch it again.
589738
Don't judge a book by its movie, right? I absolutely LOVED the film version of Gone Baby Gone, so much so that I went right out and grabbed Moonlight Mile, the sequel book, which I also loved. I noticed a couple of discrepancies between the first movie and the second book, the most notable being that in the film version of GBG, Bea and Lionel were a childless couple. A son was mentioned in Moonlight Mile.

Before I get too far off-track, Gone Baby Gone is the story of Amanda McCready, a four-year-old girl who's gone missing from her mother, Helene's, `unlocked' apartment. Helene is an unfit parent, no two ways about that, and her brother, Lionel, and his wife, Beatrice (Bea), step in where they can to fill the void left by her absentee parenting. When Amanda goes missing, Bea hires Patrick Kenzie and Angie Genarro, two private detectives, to augment the police investigation, which immediately (and conveniently) turns up no leads. Patrick and Angie are reluctant to take the case, having found too many dead kids and unwilling to face the personal toll it takes on them, again. Something about Bea changes their minds. The deeper they look into Helene, the more shady characters emerge from her drug muling past as probably suspects in Amanda's kidnapping.

I'm going to stop there to avoid spoilers, but I'm going to go back to the film/book comparison because while so often Hollywood destroys a story with the cutting of scenes to pare down run time, in GBG's case, the film did some things really right. The book features an extended cast of characters, including Bea's son, which detracts from the believability that she'd go so far to `save Amanda'. There's a line in the film where Helene criticizes Bea for `God making her barren' (Helene is an ignorant, hateful character), and that simple fact made me believe that Bea would mortgage everything down to her socks to save this child who is, by proxy, `hers'.

Several of the characters names were changes, as were their descriptions, the most notable being Cheese "Olamon" who was an overweight white inmate in the book, and was a Haitian drug lord in the movie. Remy Broussard is Remy Bressant in the movie, and his partner Poole, was much less present. A drug transaction between Bubba and the Trents (in the movie) was a gun transaction in the book, but the end result of that grisly scene is the same. These minor changes were no big deal, but there's a football scene in the book that I, not being a sports fan, didn't enjoy, and it dragged on across a couple of chapters. The book seemed to take the long way around to the things the movie managed to accomplish in a line or two of succinct dialogue.

All in all, the story is incredible, but if you've seen the movie and enjoyed it, you, like me, might find the book a bit less powerful. The book deals a lot in low-level crime and more so in the police angle than in the Kenzie and Genarro's dynamic. Angie is particularly unlikeable in the book, by comparison. Her squeaky clean movie image was tainted by her chain smoking, tough girl persona in the book. Helene's character was lost in the book, which seemed less about Amanda and more about the Boston PD. I give the book four stars because I'm a Lehane fan and I'm not sure I can rate the book objectively since the translation to film was my biggest hang-up. I know, in my heart, that's wrong. But I liked Moonlight Mile better.
2002340
Im so glad you want to be my friend, she laughed. Even though Ive had seven abortions and slept with the principal and plotted to have Brandon Fitzsimmons murdered by Mafia hit men before killing him with my dirty texting, right?

###

The end-of-the-summer party at Elaine Odeas house didn't promise to be anything special. After all, it was thrown together at the last minute, after Elaines parents announced that theyd be spending the night at a friends house a few towns over. And for the most part, it was pretty unremarkable: Healy High students sitting around, getting drunk and watching tv. That is, until star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons texted Josh Waverly to brag that he and Tommy Cray had both done Alice Franklin in the upstairs guest bedroom: Brandon, then Tommy, then Brandon again.

Almost overnight, Alice is branded the school slut. Slowly but surely, her friends distance themselves from her; she becomes the subject of much salacious gossip, even among the parents; and hateful graffiti starts to pop up in the girls bathroom. But an ugly rumor that might have otherwise run its course spirals out of control when a drunk Brandon dies in a car accident  and his drunk passenger and best friend Josh claims that he was sexting with Alice when it happened. Now, Alice isn't just a slut, but a murderer too.

Alices story is told through four Healy High students: Elaine, the resident popular girl and one of Alices many soon-to-be-ex-friends; Josh, the wide receiver who may or may not have a crush on his longtime friend; Kelsie Sanders, a transplant to Texas from Flint whom Alice took under her wing; and Kurt Morelli, the school genius whos been crushing on Alice for years. Through them, the events leading up to and following Elaines infamous party are slowly unveiled.

This is a risky strategy  one that threatens to undermine Alices own agency  but I think it works here. For one, the students are remarkably candid: though it takes some time and quite a lot of hinting, eventually they cop to their heinous behavior, in some cases even reevaluating their decisions and becoming more self-aware.

Additionally, their accounts provide numerous clues to Alices state of mind. Its obvious that the rumor is just that  a rumor.  (Though its worth noting that the truth isn't as horrifying as Id feared; THE TRUTH ABOUT ALICE is, thankfully, free of rape, a la C. Desirs FAULT LINE. Also worth noting is the fact that Alice wouldnt be deserving of such treatment even if the rumors were true.) While the last chapter is narrated by Alice herself, its incredibly brief and doesnt directly touch upon the veracity of the rumors.

In addition to slut-shaming and gossip, Mathieu touches upon a number of other timely topics as well: the deference shown to student athletes; abortion, particularly the phenomenon wherein anti-choicers justify their daughters/wifes/own abortion as special and above criticism; exploring ones sexual orientation in a restrictive environment; underage alcohol use/abuse; sexual double standards; and parental neglect and denial.

Naturally, this book contains some problematic language, which is essential to the story line. Trigger warning for extensive bullying and a coercive abortion.

THE TRUTH ABOUT ALICE is a quick and engaging read, and one that will hopefully have teens  and adults  examining their own behavior and stereotypes.
1281020
This film shows what happens when a Hollywood team gets just a bit too much credit for some of their productions... (they go on to show that their earlier work was perhaps a lucky strike).  I could definitely see Apatow's fingerprints on this, and it had the usual cast of characters for one of his films, but I'm really finding his stuff isn't as funny as some give it credit for.  Yes Knocked Up was entertaining (and grew on me over time really), but over time Apatow and friends keep going back to the same formula and format and unfortunately they seem to keep forgetting to include humor or other compelling reasons to keep watching.

Owen Wilson plays a homeless individual that gets hired as a bodyguard for a group of picked-on high school freshmen.  Unfortunately his skills as a bodyguard are pretty much non-existent.  The kids go along with his unusual methods as they assume he's trying to teach them how to take care of themselves, but in the end the inevitable big fight between the kids and the bully they needed defense against remains their destiny.

Wilson does ok with what he's asked to do here and over the course of the film he seems to grow into an almost responsible individual.  Unfortunately the film doesn't seem to grow in the same way and viewers are left wishing for something better.

Worth a rental at best, but borderline skip it material in my book. It was ok over all, but there were parts that drug along and just weren't that funny or even that entertaining to me.  I'm glad I didn't even come close to blind buying this. About 2.5 out of 5 for me at best, with several stretches that made it seem more like 2 or lower...
1375813
I devoured this book like it was candy until I got to the happy ending, after which I felt like I feel when I eat too much candy.  It's not the happy ending I mind, of course, but I don't want books that lie to me to get there, and it feels like this one does.

Still, the writer transcends the "Nick Hornby with girl parts" box into which she might have fallen; voice is more important to me than plot in most cases anyway.

But having come to identify with and care for Tyler I wanted, if not needed, to believe in her redemption.  Because through the stories of the redeemed I hope to find paths I myself might tread.

Tyler suffers before her happy ending, but she doesn't work for it; so she doesn't earn it.  She seems, indeed, be trading one unlikely road to happiness for an even less-likely one.
1887197
I picked this book up from the library after hearing it compared to the Daphne DuMaurier classic Rebecca.  I won't go into a plot summary as there are already several excellent ones here on Amazon.  I would say the book was fair for me.  The author tried to be super-descriptive sometimes - descriptions would go on for days in Rebecca - but I wasn't really dazzled.  Like a lot of reviewers, I really liked the Altons story over the modern one of Lorna & Jon's story.  I actually felt something for the Alton characters and got a good understanding of the family dynamics. The love between the mom Nancy and the kids could be felt quite vividly at times.  As for the modern characters:  Lorna I found annoying and her fianc Jon was way too nice and understanding to be believable! Lorna's dad, Doug, was written as this hokey character who was neither funny nor much of anything else really.  Her sister, Louise, was better but not a central character in the story. I didn't think there were enough details in the back story about Lorna's relationship with her mom and her childhood in general to make us really care. Also, Lorna's deja vu regarding Black Rabbit Hall was hard to buy into.  A few times in the book, things were way overdramatized and I came away wondering if tragedy was somehow overused to move the plot forward.  These are my main reasons for why I rated it 3 stars. As for the positives:  it is very suspenseful and has a twist-and-turn kind of plot that will keep you guessing as to how it will all end up.
944826
*3.5 Stars*

The Lowdown: Greta has just gotten out of an abusive relationship and has traveled from Montana to a rural mansion in England for a nanny job.

The Good: I really enjoyed seeing Lauren Cohan in a new production! I loved her on The Walking Dead (I stopped watching two seasons ago), and it was nice to see her in this role. Aside from the that, the creepiness of the doll (I really hate dolls) was well done and the general horror movie atmosphere was good as well.

The Bad: the ending. Oh, how I hated that ending. It really ruined the build-up that had been moving the plot along. So disappointed.

Overall: while this movie wasn't stellar and didn't stand out in the crowd, I did, for the most part, enjoy it. The ending will probably keep me from buying this on DVD but I don't feel my time was wasted. The movie wasn't boring, and it never really slowed down.

If you like these types of horror/suspense films, I'd say it was worth the time to sit and watch it. But be aware that the ending will probably make you want to throw something at the tv.
1133372
This movie looked predictable, and maybe a tad bit boring.  That I gave it a try in the first place can be blamed on having too much time on my hands, and nothing to lose as it is free to stream for Prime members.  But this one stepped beyond the usual boundaries of the "road trip film" formula, without ever quite breaking through the realism barrier -- a fine line to walk.  It had some truly laugh-out-loud moments for me, and some beautiful settings, but the real redeeming qualities all lay with the acting.  Each character was so well done, that this alone breathed life into what would otherwise have been a mediocre script.  I found the ending to be a little bit less conclusive than I would have liked, but the pacing was decent, and it did have an over-all feeling of completion, and the scenes mostly flowed well together.  Not a show stopper, but better than 50% of what they regularly show in theaters, so if you are looking for something sweet and sentimental, you may enjoy this.
4533954
Not the best business movie and doesn't do a good job explaining the problem that led to the financial crisis (so for someone who doesn't know what caused it, I think they'd be totally lost throughout the movie).  I'm never sure if I should be routing for these financial criminals to succeed in their attempt to not lose a lot of money, or not.  I saw this after I saw the Big Short which is based on real people and does a better job explaining what happened and the characters were more enjoyable to watch. I always like Kevin Spacey, he does a believable job.  Some characters are pretty useless and undeveloped.  I watched it while waiting a long time for someone getting a medical procedure, so it was good enough to help pass the time if you are into business movies, which I am, but I won't be telling anyone else that they must see it.
373122
When I read the blurb for Played, I thought, "Sounds like a Can't Buy Me Love scenario, but maybe throwing in a guy from the Rez will make it a little more interesting."  When I read the first chapter, though, where Riley is receiving a BOTOX treatment from her friend (a high schooler who, needless to say, does not have medical credentials), I thought, "Whoa, this book is going to be a chore to get through."
But it wasn't.  Once I got past the first chapter, I was hooked.  And I really wanted Riley and Sam to get together, but I really had to think about it hard to realize why.
Sam does have flaws--for instance, I wish he would grab Riley's arms a little less, and he shouldn't be drinking beer or driving without a license--much less drinking beer, THEN driving without a license.  But overall, his reasons for doing things are so morally superior to and/or more reasonable than hers that he's almost a Mr. Knightley to her Emma--or maybe the gap between the justice of their actions is even greater than the gap in the Emma story.
Riley's frenetic recklessness reminds me of two things:  the movie Thirteen (which is not for the fainthearted or for children; the things that go wrong in those girls' lives are more hardcore than what goes wrong in Riley's), and a line in Wonderfalls when Jaye says something to the effect of, "I don't know what's going on with me. I feel like a pinball. I've been bouncing off bumpers and flippers trying to get something to happen, but I had no idea what it was."  Riley puts herself in very dangerous situations where she could be harmed or killed, and other people could also frequently be hurt or killed by her actions.
So why, then, was I rooting so hard for her to get the guy?  I came up with two reasons.  Near the end of the book, Riley finally comes clean and seems to actually feel some remorse and really want to make better choices.  More importantly, she and Sam both seem to feel comfortable together (from a relationship standpoint, if not from a life standpoint) and to really feel like it is right for them to be a couple.
I liked that Sam gave Riley space to make her own decisions and that Fichera created a respectful atmosphere for her characters.  I also liked that there was realism about things like alcohol at teenage parties and posts of compromising photos on Facebook, but I do wish there had been at least one character who said, "No, I don't drink" or "I'm not riding with you when you've been drinking."  Vomit, alcohol poisoning and vehicular manslaughter are not cool or glamorous, nor is tempting fate where those kinds of results are possibilities.  Parents in the book do say things like, "You could've been hurt or killed," but those words seem empty, and I'm not sure they have much effect on the main characters, since I didn't even remember those conversations happening until I went back through the book looking for details.  Most of the characters with any sense do eventually come to the conclusion that drinking and hard partying aren't really all that enjoyable, but it still bothered me that they do illegal and reckless things and apparently escape unscathed.  It also wasn't definitively spelled out, to my satisfaction, how far some of the sexual stuff went.  No, I don't want the gory details, but I didn't want to spend the rest of the book wondering if Riley should be going to the doctor for tests, either.
All that said. . .I really enjoyed the book.  I loved the moment at the beginning where Riley and Sam aren't getting along and Riley still checks Sam out as he hikes in front of her.  I enjoyed the basket aspect of the storyline.  I liked the descriptions of comfort in the right person's arms.  I only put Played down when I had to, and even with interruptions I finished it in two days.
4514139
Zoe and Daniel have great chemistry and the supporting cast holds their own as well. The script falters due to its much maligned focus on scatological humour, which is a pity because the banter is otherwise dead-on. Also, for a film that does a fabulous job overcoming the standard rom-com cliches, the final moments seem tacked on by a meddling studio desperate to make the film appeal to Americans (film is a joint Canadian/Irish production). Finally, the name for international audiences, "The F Word," is better than "What If."

I loved the Toronto setting, hated the low-brow moments. If the "Elvis" and "Diner" scenes had different dialogue, my review would be 4.5 stars. Instead I give it 3.5, but Amazon doesn't allow half ratings so I round it up to 4.
3723804
I think this movie was pretty good.  It reminded me of the movie Friends with Money, where each person is so busy judging someone else's life choices, they struggle to maintain status quo in their own lives.  I would recommend this to anyone who isn't looking for your average rom-com flick.  It's not for those who are trying to find the same laughs they got from Kristen Wiig's Bridesmaids.  Overall, good pick.
2496809
I liked this book better than the first one. Jim and Griffin are adorable together and Jim's friends are awesome. The story surrounding the romance of the two men gives glimpses into the harsh and gritty life of a detective in the homicide department and shows the not so bright and glamorous parts of Hollywood's film industry.

Again, the falling-in-love part came a bit too quickly for my liking considering that the whole book spans only a few weeks but in this case, I didn't mind too much. It still felt natural, IMO, and there's enough going on that keeps the story from being too fluffy (especially one scene that had me close to tears).

What made me wonder was that Jim felt like a totally different character than he was in Faith & Fidelity. Not sure if this was the author's intention or not. I still liked him, though.

And a brief comment on the audiobook: It was terrible! Not necessarily the narration which was good enough, but the quality! Missing sentences, static noise, and the entire epilog is missing.
1443393
Nicholas Cage seems to have cornered the market in "nerd with secret knowledge saves the world" films. From the trailers, and for the first two-thirds of this movie, that's where I thought we were headed, yet again. Things turn out a little differently this time, though. John Koestler is an widowed astrophysicist with a young son who comes into possession of a fifty-year-old coded document that precisely predicts dozens of disasters: Date, number of fatalities, and GPS coordinates. Turns out the little girl who made the predictions grew up, had a daughter of her own, and committed suicide. Now the daughter has a daughter, and she's hearing alien voices. And so is Koestler's son. There's one more disaster on the prediction list -- but no coordinates, because the entire Earth is involved. I kept waiting for the last-minute reprieve -- the solar flare would erupt in the other direction, or something -- but no. The prediction of the End Of The World indeed comes true. The performances all are competent but not remarkable, the script is pretty well done, and the score isn't bad, either. The script includes a few too many moral lessons for my liking, but whatever. As long as you don't object to the earth and all its inhabitants -- or nearly all -- being destroyed in the last reel, it's not a bad film.