السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

 

Hello again, but today from the United States of America. Yes, as you can tell by the title I have been on a plane, and because that plane ride's duration is almost 20 hours I got myself busy. I was planning on doing a readathon but that didn't go well so I resorted to a collective review type thing of all that I watched and read.

أهلًا ، واليوم تحياتي لكم من الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية . من العنوان اتوقع استنتجتوا على الأقل موضوع السفر، ولأن رحلة أمريكا طويلة (حول ٢٠ ساعة بالطيارة) استغليتها بكتب وأفلام والقصص بأشكالها. هو الصراحة كنت بسوي فكرة المراثون القرائي في الطيارة بس فشلت فطلعت ذي التدوينة. 

 

 Doctor Strange

Some actors (and actresses) I like tend to either look good and/or act super well but their roles don't match their potential.. At least in my eyes (looking at you Julian Morris, find more roles like Wren)

Benedict Cumberbatch isn't like that, his works are always on the top of my list of what I desire to watch. He plays roles that extremely interest me such as Sherlock Holmes and Alan Turing. The characters he plays tend to be complicated and troubled characters with minds so intelligent and broad..  Its fascinating! They also come off as cocky, but its all part of the bigger picture.

Doctor Strange is not exception, he was slightly different in some way but nonetheless that superiority complex and intelligence is there, along with the struggle (after the accident). The movie tells the story of Doctor Steven Strange a neurosurgeon that gets into a terrible accident and renders his hands paralyzed-ish. He is pushed to retire but fights it and tries the impossible to fix his hands. I don't want to say much I think its best to not know much. 

Its a superhero movie, yet its unlike any other. It doesn't tell the story of the hero similarly. Its always an accidental power jolt they have to discover or a power they're born with they try to use well. This time its a hero who worked for his power.

He started with personal gain and ended up with a great responsibility on his shoulders, he worked for something he wanted for it to turn out to be something he needed, or they all needed. 

It is a truly amazing story of self discovery and power. And the romance takes a back seat to the chaos, I'm just so glad it didn't overpower the key elements.

 

This is a rewatch, but I do remember being quite confused and underwhelmed when I first watched it so I wanted to give it a rewatch and see.

Still underwhelmed, yet my confusion is cleared up.

I have read the Maze Runner series and loved it, the first movie and book are my favourites. The movie screwed up with the second book in some aspects, and enhanced it in others.

In the second book, Thomas & co never escape WCKED, that happens in book 3. But that plot fit with the Scorch so I loved that. I also loved how the movie portrayed the Right Arm, they were ridiculous in the book and sort of frustrating in the book (they show up in book 3 btw). The dynamic between the girls' group and the boys' group was better too, it was more 

realistic in its intital antagonism, yet the book's situation was realistic to its own since it was basically a race so its understandable that members of one maze might want to trump the other. 

Speaking of the book's situation, despite me liking how the movie took its course with the Scorch, it defeats the "trial" part of the Scorch Trials as they have escaped WCKED. It was an actual trial in the books, it was a race to the cure. That made the book quite intense. You know they've been injected with the virus , and it was a race to escape their impending doom as they do not know the status of their immunity. In addition to that, the fact that Teresa and Aris knew each other and are connected was a nice plotline. 

Thomas's personality was better in the books, one might argue he was a blank or universal character for the reader to connect to.. That's precisely the reason why I love him. That translated into his hesitation and stubbornness in the movie, while it isn't all that bad its just there's an aspect of him that.. Doesn't sit well. Nevertheless, both adaptations of the story balance themselves so good job Dashner and Nowlin.

 

I have been eyeing this show for a while, the fact that someone made a show from Alcatraz drew me to it.

This show's plot follows if the whole Alcatraz shutting down situation was a cover for a bigger mystery, as an Alcatraz inmate was found alive and at the same age of their imprisonment, the same age they were 50 years ago.

It follows a detective and an Alcatraz historian trying to figure the mystery out with the FBI. 

It was a different mystery show, as I haven't seen someone twist the incident, I can't give an opinion or recommend it based on an episode but it did leave me wondering and wanting more. 

 

I debated adding it, since I didn't finish it, but I have a story to go with it.

When I finished watching Doctor Strange, my sister and I agreed to buddy watch Assassin's Creed together.  The funny thing is I only watched the opening scene and slept through it. When I woke up my sister made fun of me for having high expectations and not even being attentive enough to watch it, when she wasn't expecting much and cared enough to watch most of it.

She didn't like it, I loved what I saw and would like to go back and watch it properly. I don't think the movie will be up to par with what I expect, yet I don't think it'll be as horrible as widely perceived. I mean.. Michael Fassbender is enough to elevate the whole thing.

Oh yeah, I slept out of fatigue not boredom. I was dying lol.

 

This is the only book I finished on the plane for this airplane readathon. I wrote a review on goodreads, which you can read here .

A debrief so I can say something about it here, it was very different from what I expected and I enjoyed it.

A generic relationship with an unlikely plot.

  

This is one of my most anticipated reads of the year, it was sold to me as a Breakfast Club murder mystery, and that was enough to sell it to me.

I am not far into it but it gripped me and excited me, the character dynamics and personalities were very reminiscent of the Breakfast Club in a "retelling" type of way. 

 

This is raved about like crazy in the online book community, and its always recommended to go into it blind.. I think even the author said so.

From what I read I think it is best to go into it blind, the synopsis would've given a clear structure to an otherwise hazy and mysterious story. You want to walk in the fog and mist with this one, not clear it up. 

I have finished the first part on the plane and continuing on with it now, and I am in love so far.

 

I was in the mood for poetry (as I always am) and I wanted something easy to read, this was my pick for both categories.

Now I said easy not light because I don't think poetry is light, its one of the deepest forms of writings. But lets talk about this particular collection.

I haven't read much because it was the last one I picked up before we landed, I read a few poems and absolutely fell in love, I went into it not expecting much but boy.. That was wonderful.

I love how it showcased the natural thinking process by the author typing on discarded and random papers, not caring if its crisp white paper. The introduction of the book had me notice the typewriter too, of course I knew he wrote all the poems on the typewriter but notice the inability to edit and erase with a typewriter, 

its a raw flow of thoughts (well unless he wrote and editted on paper but lets not ruin the artistic nature of the book) .

I am having a good reading session over here, lets hope all these don't disappoint by the time I'm done

The one I'm sure won't disappoint, and has become my favourite of the bunch is..

 

Let me just start with a side note, the plane had the Harry Potter movies to watch (the first 4 + the final one) and that was so exciting (even though I didn't watch them)

Back to this beauty, it has become my favourite book from the HP series. Not to belittle the others because each book is special and wonderful in its own way, but I have to hand the cup to the Deathly Hallows. 

I switched from audiobook to ebook, I don't have any time to listen to audiobooks and I haven't been enjoying my time listening to them recently so I made the heartbreaking switch (heartbreaking because I spent the last 6 books and a half on audio and now I'm on ebook, breaking the sentiment you would say) but I am still enjoying actually reading them, really enjoying my time.. I mean come on its Harry Potter, I'll be a liar if I say I didn't (and a bad one at that). 

Its bittersweet to be almost done with the series.

And that's all there is to my attempts at a readathon , but being quite distracted by the selection of movies it didn't quite pull through as I expected. Nevertheless it produced an interesting thing to write, and I hope it was just as interesting to read.