Movie Review: Ready Player One

Title: Ready Player One
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Zak Penn, Ernest Cline
Executive Producers:Adam Somner, Daniel Lupi, Chris DeFaria, Bruce Berman
Producers: Donald De Line, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg, Dan Farah
Release Date: March 29, 2018 (other dates)
More Details: Based off novel by Ernest Cline
*I attended an advance screening
Official Movie Website     

Trailer: 

My Thoughts:

I admit –I wasn’t sure if I was going to like Ready Player One, but I did have high hopes for it. My sister read the book, and every ten seconds she was coming to me with excited revelations. I could only hope I liked it. However, I loved it. If you like retro/classic things, video games, and virtual reality, you’ll love Ready Player One.

One of the first things I noticed was the balance of story and action. The time between fighting and action allowed the story to progress at a nice pace while letting the viewer get to know the characters. The latter I appreciated, because when something happened to a character, I actually cared for once. When a character acted out in a certain way, I understood the motive. Lastly, I don’t usually comment on this, but the CG scenes (especially within the oasis) weren’t too dizzying. Which I enjoyed since a lot of the movie takes place there.

I absolutely adored Ready Player One and I’d definitely recommend watching it.

Thank for reading.

Book Review: Texture Tresses: The Ultimate Guide to Maintaining and Styling Natural Hair

Title: Texture Tresses: The Ultimate Guide to Maintaining and Styling Natural Hair

Author: Diane Da Costa

Source/Format: Library Borrowed, Paperback

More Details: Natural Hair, Hair care

Publisher/ Release date: Touchstone; June 8 2004
Goodreads     Barnes & Noble

My Thoughts: 

I was really excited to read Texture Tresses, but at a certain point I didn’t finish it. Eventually I discovered that the book wasn’t what I was looking for. However, if you frequently visit salons to have your hair professionally styled then this might be the book you’re looking for.

Thanks for reading.

The Longest Book Tag

The other day I was tagged by my sister in her post The Longest Book Tag. So, I decided to take part. The Tag was created by Ditsha on her blog Bewitchingly Paranoid, and this is her post.

Rules:

• Make a list of the 5 longest books you’ve ever read
• Select 2 of the longest books on your tbr
• Discuss
• Tag Others

Longest books I’ve read besides textbooks:

1. Leading Lady: Sherry Lansing and the Making of a Hollywood Groundbreaker; 409 pages 
2. The Battle for Wondla; 480 pages 
3. Chanel and her World: Friends, Fashion and Fame; 384 pages 
4. Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design; 566 pages 
5. Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style: 480 

Longest books on my TBR:

1. William Shakespeare: Complete Plays; 1,194 pages 
2. Sociology: your Compass for a new Word 3rd Edition; 432 pages

Some thoughts:

Although pages can make a book long, so can height, width, and formatting. For example, the Battle for Wondla and Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style have the same number of pages; however, the later book is bigger, and has smaller text. Many fashion books such as those contain many pictures, but they become long reads because I take the time to read every quote and anecdote.

Tag:

I don’t have anyone specific to tag so… I tag you! Yes, you, the person reading this post.

Thanks for reading.

Game Review: Horizon: Zero Dawn

Title: Horizon: Zero Dawn

Developer/Publisher: Guerrilla Games; Sony Interactive Entertainment

Release Date: Febuary 28 2017

Platform: PS4

Source/ format: Purchased (Christmas Gift), Disc

Other: Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Addition, Frozen Wilds DLC

My Thoughts:

I was really looking forward to playing Horizon: Zero Dawn, I had expectations, and they were delivered. The combination of characters, storytelling, side missions, and open world made Zero Dawn a worthwhile game to play.
The majority of the story is presented the same way from when you start the game with Aloy as a child: walking through a dilapidated structure, listening to audio files and reading documents. That being said, a lot of the missions had action too. Actually, I found it to be a nice balance between fighting and reading/listening. Besides, there were quite a few side missions, and other things like Cauldrons, Tallnecks, Corruption Zones, Bandit Camps and Hunting Grounds that I couldn’t get enough of. This doesn’t even take into consideration the Frozen Wilds DLC (part of the complete addition), which I have yet to get my hands on. Overall, there was plenty of action to go around.

The next positive aspect of this game is the open world. You can pretty much revisit all the ground you previously covered. You can even climb Tallnecks again, but you can’t override them (enjoy the views though). The only places you can’t set foot on again are the cauldrons and some mission areas, which are cleverly placed on the edge of the map.

My only problem was the distance between some of the missions, which led to me using fast travel. However, I can’t say I was too annoyed since you can acquire a Golden Fast Travel. But my laziness did lead me to missing some settlements and side missions.

Finally, I liked the various levels of difficulty. I haven’t played above easy since I love story, but it’s very tempting. I finished playing the game on story mode where combat is eased to a minimum. The final boss wasn’t overly easy, but it was easy enough (with Shield-Weaver that is).

Overall I really enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn, I enjoyed the ability to stealth (or not), the open world, the story, and practically everything. Highly recommend playing it.

*Photo Mode is awesome!

Thanks for reading.

Book Review: The Startup Way

Title: The Startup Way
Author: Eric Ries (Website)
Source/Format: Blogging for Books; Hardcover
More Details: Nonfiction, Managment
Publisher/ Release date: Currency; October 17, 2017

Goodreads     Barnes & Noble    Penguin Random House

Synopsis from Penguin Random House:
Entrepreneur and bestselling author of The Lean Startup, Eric Ries reveals how entrepreneurial principles can be used by businesses of all kinds, ranging from established companies to early-stage startups, to grow revenues, drive innovation, and transform themselves into truly modern organizations, poised to take advantage of the enormous opportunities of the twenty-first century...

My Thoughts

As described by the synopsis and title, The Startup Way by Eric Reis is an overview of management technique(s). In it, he suggests possible ways that businesses, especially larger corporations, can modernize by run efficiently and smarter.

Reis presents a different view of businesses, by encouraging focus on customers. The author discusses how to apply entrepreneurial ideas with in organizations and how it can benefit the company as a whole. I enjoyed the fact that this book wasn’t filled with fancy business terminology, which was easy to understand. Most terms/ phrases were explained clear enough when first introduced. Another is that the ideas were presented as suggestions rather than a “you must do step a-z to see results”. Actually the driving force behind taking such techniques into consideration was the stories Reis included about the companies that took his advice –which included a discussion of their previous successes and failures.

I had no strife with The Startup Way. The writing flowed making it an enjoyable read. As such, I recommend checking it out.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
Thanks for reading.