AMAZON

After being a little upset at the way the fantasy drama Game of Thrones ended last Sunday, I ended up spending my Memorial Day evening watching a different (& better) dragon tale - How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (PG; 104 minutes), which landed on Blu-ray and DVD last week from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

The Hidden World is the final chapter in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, which is based on the children book series of the same name by Cressida Cowell. Written and directed by Dean DeBlois, the film features the talented voice cast of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, F. Murray Abraham , Kit Harington, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Picking up one year after the second film, Hiccup, Toothless, the other dragon-riders, and their entire Viking village must go on a journey to find a new home after being threatened by the legendary dragon hunter Grimmel the Grisly and his army of minions (and a few evil dragons). At Grimmel's disposal is a female Light Fury who easily captures Toothless's heart and sets the stage for the the dragon-riders' final battle.

Bonus Features include:

• Alternate Opening with Intro by Writer/Director Dean DeBlois
• DreamWorks Shorts:
• Bilby – Directed by Liron Topaz, Pierre Perifel and JP Sans; produced by Jeff Hermann and Kelly Cooney Cilella. Threatened daily by the deadly residents and harsh environment of Australia’s Outback, a lonesome Bilby finds himself an unwitting protector, and unexpected friend, to a helpless (and quite adorable) baby bird. 
• Bird Karma – Directed by William Salazar and produced by Jeff Hermann, the beautifully artistic 2D short film Bird Karma tells a delightfully lyrical and fully unexpected tale of a long-legged bird’s journey of blissful joy, inescapable greed and the accidental discovery of the consequences when too much is not enough.
• Deleted Scenes with Intros by Writer/Director Dean DeBlois
• How to Voice Your Viking – Go behind the scenes with the cast as they record the Viking voices of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD. 
• Creating an Epic Dragon Tale – Discover what filmmakers learned while crafting this epic dragon trilogy.
• How I Learned from Dragons – The diverse cast of characters reveal why they think the dragon trilogy is so special. 
• Brave Wilderness Presents: Nature + Dragons = Awesome – Join Coyote Peterson, host of Brave Wilderness, as he explores what it takes to make the dragon’s characters come to life. 
• The Dragon Sheep Chronicles – Protecting sheep from the dragons of Berk is no easy task but Hiccup has a plan. 
• A Deck of Dragons – Observe four new dragons as Fishlegs unveils his original deck of dragon trading cards. 
• Growing Up with Dragons – After years of being with these characters, hear the lasting effects of the dragon trilogy from the filmmaker’s perspective.
• The Evolving Character Design of Dragons – Cast and crew reveal what it was like to evolve not only the characters of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD, but themselves as well. 
• Drawing Dragons – Get a glimpse of what goes in to designing a DreamWorks dragon. 
• Epic Villain – A different kind of villain, Grimmel brings great challenges to the village of Berk. Go behind the scenes as filmmakers breakdown this epic character.
•  Astrid’s Whole Dragon Trilogy in 60 Seconds – Hold on tight as Astrid sums up the whole dragon trilogy in a legendary 60 seconds. 
• Welcome to New Berk – With Hiccup as your guide, get a firsthand look at the updated Viking village of New Berk.
• Feature Commentary with Writer/Director Dean DeBlois, Producer Bradford Lewis and Head of Character Animation Simon Otto.

Final Thoughts

AMAZON

Have you ever read a new book without realizing there was a lot of media buzz around it?

Well, that's the exactly what happened to me with the thriller The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz, which was published by Crown Publishers earlier this year. Originally, I had stumble upon the title in the "upcoming" books section on the Barnes & Noble website. After reading the blurb, I became interested in reading the book. It wasn't until after I finished reading it that I learned about the possible "limited series" adaptation. When I say "possible," I'm referring to little fact that there has been no new news about the rumored series since February.

The book centers around Lindsay, a journalist who's trying to unravel the mystery of why her friend Edie committed suicide in 2009. After talking to their friends, Lindsay realizes her memory of the night Edie died is mostly a blur. As she tries to put the pieces of that fatal night back together, she shockingly discovers evidence that suggests Edie was actually murdered.

Final Thoughts

Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @  Caffeinated Book Reviewer!

In the Mail

For the past week, I've been playing around on the website called Book Brush, https://bookbrush.com, which is basically a website where authors, publishers, and bloggers can create advertising and social media images.

If you follow this blog regularly, then you would already know I love to use images in my posts. I create many of the post headers myself by using different software and online programs, so naturally I was intrigued with Book Brush.

Book Brush has two different "creator" programs to use on their website - a custom image creator and a video creator. You can register for free without a credit card and create 3 images per month, but if you want additional features you'll have to sign up for the "Plus" package for $8 a month (paid yearly at $96)! There's a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee!

Creating an image with Book Brush is fairly simple. To begin with you need to pick what image size you need. You can customize the size to whatever you want or you can use one of the "popular"sizes that can be used on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.. There are many backgrounds (over 1 million free images) and templates available to choose from. There are even a few different book templates, which you can covert a 2D cover to 3D. Additionally, there are many different fonts for adding text and a wide variety of stamps to add to your image.

To use the video creator, you'll need to have already made an image or images. Then you add video effects and change the image transparency. 


Note: Book Brush cannot be used with Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer. It's only supported on Chrome, Firefox, & Safari.

Final Thoughts

Mill Creek Entertainment; Amazon

One of my favorite movie directors is John Carpenter, who happened to direct and co-wrote my favorite movie, Halloween. Mr. Carpenter made several "classic" horror and science fiction films during the 1980s. However, the 1990s weren't too good for the director, as almost every one of his films during this decade were complete flops; though over the the years many of them have become cult classics. His last two efforts (I'm not counting the two Masters of Horror episodes!) were 2001's Ghosts of Mars and 2010's The Ward.

Ghosts of Mars was originally planned to be the the third entry in the Snake Plissken film series with Kurt Russell returning as Snake. The title would have been Escape from Mars. After Escape From L.A. flopped, the film's title was changed to Ghosts of Mars and Snake was renamed to James 'Desolation' Williams with Ice Cube playing the character. The movie was released to Blu-ray (R; 99 minutes; $14.98) last week by Mill Creek Entertainment.

The film is set during the 22nd Century where Mars has been terraformed 84% and humans can walk around without having to wear a spacesuit. The plot involves Commander Helena Braddock (played by Pam Grier), Lieutenant Melanie Ballard (played by Natasha Henstridge), Sergeant Jericho Butler (played by Jason Statham), and a few other officers being sent on a mission to retrieve the criminal "Desolation" Williams (played by Ice Cube), who's in a prison cell located in the remote region of the planet. Unknowingly to the squad, the local mining workers had stumbled upon a Martian ancient crypt and unleashed evil spirits who have now taken over the bodies of the workers.

To escape Mars, the squat must work with Desolation, so they can find a way to stop the evil Martian spirits.

Special Features on the Blu-ray include:

• Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Natasha Henstridge
• Video Diary: Red Desert Nights
• Featurette: "Scoring Ghosts of Mars"
• Special Effects (SFX) Deconstructions

Final Thoughts

.

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it).
Post it.
 Add your (url) post below in the Linky at: www.fredasvoice.com
Add the post url, not your blog url.

The big garage door rose and rose, revealing black boots, silver-gray trousers, and she thought, The Wraith, it's the Wraith!

page 156, N0S4A2 by Joe Hill

  My Thoughts

Mill Creek Entertainment; Amazon

Are you deeply afraid of snakes?

Personally, I like snakes. (Don't ask me about spiders!) Yes they can be a bit creepy (and crawly), but I have nothing against them. Snakes is my favorite genre of creature flicks and my favorite title is 1997's Anaconda starring a young Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Owen Wilson, Jonathan Hyde, Kari Wuhrer, Vincent Castellanos, and Eric Stoltz, along with a cameo by Danny Trejo.

I remember skipping school just so I could watch Anaconda on day it was released on VHS in 1997.

FYI: It was video rental.
Side Note: Kids, please don't skip school!

Anaconda (PG-13; 89 minutes; $14.98) has beenre-released  on Blu-ray (+DVD) from Mill Creek Entertainment. It was previously released on Blu-ray in 2014, which I did review on this blog. (Read my review here!)

Directed by Terri Flores, the film centers around a documentary film crew, lead by anthropologist Steve Cole (played by Stolz) and director Terri Flores (played by Lopez), who are searching for the long-lost Shirishamas tribe on the Amazon River. On their journey, they rescue a snake hunter named Paul Serone (played by Voight) from a sinking boat.

Shortly after Serone's arrival, Cale is stung by wasp, which leaves him unconscious. Serone takes charge of the situation and says he will captain their boat to a hospital. However, Serone has another plan that involves hunting a deadly Anaconda.

Final Thoughts

Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @  Caffeinated Book Reviewer!

In the Mail