Nice try, but kinda lame
596351
Overall, this game is lot like the classic show, but it's cheesiness prevents it from being that much fun.  You're likely to get bored with it in a short time.  Like other reviewers have suggested, this game's MSRP should be much lower or they should give us several game shows for the price of one game.

Just being able to use your Mii character would be a significant improvement.  The game's avatars are pretty poor.  One of the biggest negatives about this game is that you can't play with two humans and one CPU player.  If you have two humans, the third seat is empty - wtf?  The one time we played with two people, my friend got four whammies and that was it.  When you're answering questions, the host always says "you chose this answer".  There's no point to him saying it and it gets annoying.  The round where you use your spins is decent though there are some unexplained differences between the game and the TV show.  When you land on a trip spot, it never tells you what the destination is and it's always worth three thousand dollars.  The Big Bucks spot is not in the same spot on the board as the TV show.

To sum it up, don't pay regular price for this game and don't expect too much as it seems the designers rushed through this game.
1665907
It feels like the author is trying to pick up her father's mantle while also trying to make it her own. I think she falls short on both counts.  Examples: She keeps the  old cast of charcters, but gives Chee and Bernie a syrupy sweetness that is a bit over the top; and she brings back Leaphorn, but literally keeps him in a coma for almost the entire book.  If one has not read any of her father's books this one might be okay. Otherwise, don't bother.
3094797
_Forever Free_ begins promisingly: The veterans who survived the _Forever War_ find themselves unable to fit into a peaceful, but thoroughly alien culture. They try to escape their situation by skipping history for a few thousand years.
So far so good, and maybe it's a good idea that the author doesn't let them succeed in this project -I don't blame him for having no clear idea what sort of society the time travelers would find on their return, and even a well executed novel along these lines would appear to be overly derivative of _The Forever War_.
The alternative that Haldeman offers, however - literally a "deus ex machina" - was pretty unsatisfactory and ultimately left me disappointed in the book.
974995
A nice try but these essay/stories seem more like a gimmick than anything else. They try for a certain wildness and surrealism. But seem to stumble in the attempt. Daniels is not a Donald Barthelme nor a Thom Jones. Most (if not all) of these stories appeared in The Paris Review, which unfortunately has lost its avant-garde edge. Your time would be better spent re-reading Denis Johnson's brilliant Jesus's Son story sequence.
1805784
I really tried with this one. And I wanted to like it. Because I like Strauss. A lot. But Capriccio is not his best work.  Yes, it has some wonderful music, but not enough of it is wonderful. Mostly, the opera is just pretentiously self-conscious dialogue with a lot of self-depricating humor on the part of Strauss. And the premise is simply too slender to sustain interest for long.

Everyone in this production tried hard. Unfortunately, Rene Flemming, the Lana Turner of opera singers, somehow was not able to make her final scene, which should be ravishing, anything more than barely interesting. Of course, she looked gorgeous, but after all, that is not what opera is really about, is it?

Annie Sophie van Otter was way over the top as Clairon, and made the best impact of the rest of the bunch, although Finley and Trost were OK too.

The cutaway shots of everyone sitting around flashing knowing glances at each other in stage boxes while the performance of "their" opera was under way was a cute gimmick. But it was just that, a gimmick.

I was glad to see it, and did not mind it, but I am glad it was someone else who spent the money to buy the DVD.
1859605
Marilyn Manson is a very good lyricist. Anyone who listens to him knows that. This album was a good idea about how there are deeper messages in things like willy wonka than our parents would like us to know. Unfortunately, it was a failed attempt. It manages to merit a few good songs like dope hate, get your gun, and lunchbox, but that's about it. The album sounds like a cheap underground metal band, and there's a lot more to them on other albums. IT also seems really cheesy with all the child references. I can't blame it for sucking, because it was thier first album, i just prefer the other albums, especially Holy Wood.
2587119
This is supposed to be more "true to the point" as a love story for the underclass, but it comes off as more of an exploration of how to feel superior since it does not go into the "why" of what happens, the structure of "how" the two who headline this wound up as members of some disposable underclass, and doesn't have a true resolution, it simply runs out of story and leaves you hanging as to what the male intends to do.

The concept was great, the delivery is good, but falling from greatness to kinda good is a painful fall.
329300
This film had a lot of potential to be an insightful and darkly humorous horror or horror comedy film, but it petered out halfway through. It had the potential, especially with the stereotypical characters that seemed to parody themselves (the 20-somethings Wandering Around Europe who fall prey to rubbernecking/disaster tourism, the hilarious Ukrainian stereotypical ex-military tour operator Uri who promises to show them a good time in Pripyat (!), etc).  There was enough gallows humor that I thought the film had enough good starting material to be a self-aware horror or smart horror comedy film.  Although the characters are silly, I did find myself caring about them.  Then, after about 25 minutes, the film started running out of steam (sorry, not intended as a bad reactor pun).

SPOILER alert:

The last 70 minutes (yes, 70) of the film are a variation on the same theme:  To borrow/paraphrase a line from TVtropes.org, *Everything In Pripyat Is Trying To Eat You.* Literally.  This could be a significant message on the part of the filmmakers, a cautionary tale against Western disaster tourism/consumption (ie, the tourists in the film are rubbernecking/consuming Chernobyl, so Chernobyl consumes them). However, although the film starts out parodying the tourists (and "extreme tourism"), it doesn't appear to actually convey this message by the end.

One humorous/ironic point:  The heroes of the film may be adventure tourists/stalkers, but Pripyat is in fact "stalking" them.  To borrow a line from the video game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R., "Get out of here, stalker," indeed.

I keep wishing this film was better than it was, because it had a lot of potential.  Still worth a watch though.
2705604
Not a bad effort but really basic characters, pacing problems, and leaps of logic (but hey...how much logic is one really looking for when one picks up a book about buckin' werewolves?) mar a great idea.  The author obviously knows his pro wrestling and a deeper examination of that aspect would have been more believable and a better yarn than the Gladiator rip-off in the beginning.
4001138
Tried to like it.  The author used all the normal tropes to get you to like a parinormal detective novel, but it was too empty and fake and eventually just made me nauseous, just like a oversized twinkie dare from a roadside restaurant.
So, really it was just the author trying too hard, and so he got the character he wanted, but not one most readers would care for, and not a general book that was bad, just not for me worth forcing myself to finish reading.  There is lots of promise, I have read horrible horrible first books where the author has written 20 books in chained series after, so so there is hope here.

P.S.  Great cover, sorry if it doesn't match writing. Again, the author did a great research marketing job, it just didn't work together on the page.
4615064
Amateurish, sometimes fun to read, but essentially something you can skip.
2182321
Many here berate Vampire Weekend for being derivative.  I take exception to this.  At the end of the day, what pop act isn't?

Each of the influences cited repeatedly in these reviews--Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and David Byrne--has plenty of predecessors from whom they've borrowed plenty.  So, bumming a chord progression here and a measure there is hardly a crime.  It's called inspiration.

Vampire Weekend's problem is not that it borrows, but that it fails to compliment its application with a truly distinguishing signature.  There's simply too little depth and it comes across more as a cover band than anything else.

On the first pass, I missed this, thinking that "Mansard Roof" was unique lyrically and that the rhythmic structure of "Oxford Comma" was interesting.  Still, there was something missing.  The second time through, "unique" and "interesting" yielded to "cute (in the college freshman sense)" and "gimmicky." By the third run, I no longer cared.  It was already stale.

Then I stumbled upon "One (Blake's Got a New Face,)" which I found to be flat-out lame.  Minimalist synth, strained vocals, Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" wrapped in a Noughties New York foil and re-served.  They even went so far as to place a sub-title in parentheses.  That did it for me.

So, if you're throwing a frat party and need some peppy background noise, pick-up a copy.  For anyone else, listen to the Amazon streams, catch a few YouTube clips and claim with voguish pride that you've heard them.
3612653
Why can't I get along with Nina George's books? Enticing covers, but reading the content is another thing altogether. I felt the same way withLittleParis Bookshop. Both books have a promising premise. I had high hopes forThe Little French Bistrobecause Marianne Lanz, the main character, had a marriage much like my first unpleasant stumble down the aisle. I could relate to her longing to escape, feeling there was no way out. Or that even death was the better alternative.  But - the book turned a corner and it just got to be too much. What started off well, ended up feeling unrealistic. A bit too fairytale-ish; kind of cheesy. I'm a sucker for a pretty cover. Nina George knows how to get my attention; just doesn't keep it. This was one of those books that left me feeling squirmy. In other words, I was anxious to get it over with. It's not an entirely unlikable story. Others may find it delightful. Just average for me. That cover though.

*Copy courtesy of Blogging for Books
1015492
The concept is nice, with a matriarchal society that is even more brutal and feudal than any male one on this planet ever was, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.  Our hero is likeable enough, so we care what happens to him, but he moves through the society with such ease that no reader can believe the thing hadn't collapsed at least a generation ago.  The rest of the characters are cardboard and the ending is weak, silly and not foreshadowed:  Not only a mild surprise, but an unbelievable one.
509170
Atherton starts with a splendid idea and certainly enough talent to carry his idea off.  Despite some fine moments in a couple of the vocal selections, the rest is very forgettable.  Having done his bit for research, Atherton seems to succumb to the temptation to ride the CD out using a lot of faux-Near Eastern musical riffs that simply get tedious.  Adding to what others have already said, I also wonder if the ancient Egyptians had such a paltry knowledge of musical form.  This recording might have worked as an evocation of dockside bar music, New Kingdom, but that's about it.  The vocal areas, unlikely as they seem, get the CD three stars.  For too-brief but still shining moments, Egypt is evoked pretty well.  Pity the rest was so blah.
752002
I loved the idea of&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/One-Second-After-A-John-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765317583/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">One Second After (A John Matherson Novel)</a>. The concept is similar to the short-lived TV series, Jericho, which I also thought was a great idea. Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of the author's writing style. I think he did a fairly decent job of telling a story, but there were far too many lines of dialogue and actions that I felt were juvenile and not inline with what the characters would actually do or say. The scale of the disaster, as told in this novel, is too small to really allow us to feel like we're a part of it. We never really get to know the secondary characters enough for us to even care about them. So, although I loved the idea, the book really fails to live up to its potential.
31672
I bought this some time ago, but finally got around to it. I enjoyed Scalzi's Old Man's War, which was a good novel doing interesting things with elements from the Forever War and Starship Troopers.  As much as I love Star Trek, I figured Scalzi would do an excellent job riffing on the doomed red shirts theme.  With all due respect, he didn't.  There are scenes within the book that are amusing, but the book is unable to put together a coherent story.  The twist, if you will call it that, is predictable, and the solution might draw a groan -- if you get that far.  As some of the other reviewers note, this premise would have been great for a fan fiction short story or novella -- it just doesn't work here.  Again, there are a few funny scenes, but I'd say the same about a few In Living Color episodes that touched on Star Trek.