Movie Review: Giovanni's Island

When the JICC announced the date for this film I was a little surprised, I've never heard anyone else talk about the movie aside from Enzo at Lost in Anime. When I asked if I should go he told me yes, absolutely, that more people should see the film so I took advtange of the showing!

Giovanni's Island

Book Review: Children of the King

After I read Nightingale's Nest I was wondering if I should go ahead and review a MG book on my blog, even if it was really good, but after I read this book and it was also MG and excellent I felt like I had to. All of these great books make me sad that MG really got big when I was already in high school, just a few years earlier and I wouldn't have felt like I needed to start reading questionable adult science-fiction in middle school! (I would also like to note that I think this is a very pretty cover but I'm sure everyone knows I'm a sucker for illustrated covers)

The Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett

Book Review: Mare's War

I picked this one up at the library since I remembered it was a title on my to-read list and I've actually been in the mood lately for something with a more historical bent to it.

Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis

Summary: Octavia and her sister Tali are less than thrilled that they have to spend a large part of their summer vacation with their rather unconventional grandmother Mare. She smokes, drives fast cars, and wears high heels which throughly embarrasses her two granddaughters but she wants to take this summer and tell them her story and how as a young black woman, just a girl really, she joined the women's army in World War II and was even more unconventional than they had thought.

The Good: Mare's story was just as engaging and interesting as I had hoped, I liked how the story covered not only her time in the Women's Army but also her life before and a bit about her time after the war (and it was nice to see that just because the war was over doesn't mean her group was disbanded immediately since you still need to start with the reconstruction after the war). I liked the characters, although at times I wondered if Octavia and Tali were included in this story so that the author could get a little soapbox-y about inequality (it was how the lines were set up just a little too perfectly to lead into those bits) and felt like everything was also well paced. Since Mare isn't one of the key players in World War II this story is more character focused than plot focused and I thought it was really well pulled off.

The Bad: I'm in two minds about Octavia's half of the story, on the one hand I can see how Davis wanted to use this summer as a way to get Octavia (and Tali) to grow but on the other hand it was a bit boring. I think the story could have stood perfectly fine on it's own if it was just about Mare, although obviously then it wouldn't have been able to include the very end of the story in the present day, and I might have preferred it that way. Again, there was nothing wrong with the characters of Octavia and Tali or the plot, setting, pacing, any of that, it was just a bit dull and I don't feel like it was really needed in the end. 


I'm giving this book a 3.5 out of 5 for having an interesting historical story yet a duller half with the present day story. And of course I need to also plug both Flygirl (black girl passes as white to enter the WASP) and Code Name: Verity (British spy recounts to her diary, which is then read to her captors, how she and a friend, also a pilot, ended up working in the British military up to the point of her capture in German-held France). All three of these are great works of historical fiction although Verity is the most likely of the three to make you cry, just a warning about that (and I have no clue what it's sequel, due out this year, is supposed to be about or how that's even going to work).

Book Review: Code Name Verity

This was a book I had heard some things about, all good, for quite a while and so when I spotted it on the local library's shelves I of course grabbed it. I was a bit worried because it's set during World War II, emphasis on the war part, and in my experience that usually means that a lot of sad things happen. And even when some sad things started happening that wasn't enough to stop me from putting my computer away, putting my homework away, and reading a few hundred pages of it in one sitting in an afternoon.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Summary: Verity is in trouble, currently she's traded the last of the British military secrets she knows to the SS and her remaining time is running dangerously short. So while she endures her tortures she writes on the paper she's traded her country's future away for and begins to reminisce on how her best friend Maddie got into the military and slowly her own story unfolds as well.

The Good: This story spends it's first half bringing you down as low as it can and then the second half starts to bring you back up to which I must say thank god, even though the ending wasn't exactly a cheerful happy one (I don't think that's a spoiler to say since again, war novel, World War II war novel, it's going to have at least some bitter bits). This book always strikes me as a bit unusual since the most important relationship in the book, which is undeniably the backbone for the entire story (hell it's on the cover!) is the friendship between Verity and Maddie and I can't recall the last time I saw a story that was about a friendship between two girls to this degree (and boy I wish I could since I want more). I can see some people interpreting their relationship as one with a few romantic undertones, after reading the entire story I decided that I didn't see it that way, although I'm torn over whether I want it to be romantic (since fiction needs more non-straight couples) or not (since fiction also needs more stories about friends, especially girls, who are so close that they will literally go through hell for each other). And, if my introduction didn't make it clear enough, this is a really gripping book and I accidentally read over half of it in one sitting, once you get going you don't want to stop  

The Bad: Keep some tissues nearby folks, this book almost made me cry and I very rarely cry over works of fiction in any medium. Which isn't really a bad thing and honestly this was a really strong book without many faults. The second half was, how to put it, a little less believable to me (for reasons that are much too spoilerly to explain) but still flowed and worked well enough for me in the end for it to not be anywhere near a deal breaker.

So, 4 out of 5, hell maybe even a 4.5 out of 5 and I give this a hearty recommendation to anyone who likes young adult books in general or stories in general but friends who, well, will go through war for each other. I'm going to keep an eye out for this book at bookstores to get my own copy and will be keeping my eye out for Wein's other works (some of which appear to already be on my to-read list, excellent!). Oh, and since this seems like a good opportunity to recommend another book as well, Flygirl by Sherri L Smith. I didn't know a way to mention this in my review but Maddie's story is how she went from being a farm girl to a pilot and Flygirl is another fictional story about a female pilot in World War II, just this time in America and it stars an African-American lady who is passing for white so there is plenty of tension there as well. Another excellent book so if you like one go and read the other, you'll like it I promise!

Movie Review: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

And now for Sunday's normal review! I remember that my school was going to show the movie a while ago (I guess a year or year and a half ago) but removed it from their line-up which is never a good sign (for reference, the only other movie I can recall them changing was The Last Airbender). I was also a bit worried by the fact that this film came out in December 2010 and there's been no word since (plus, I seemed to recall it didn't do so well in the US). A quick google search reveals that the situation has gotten a bit complicated, personally I'd like for them to produce The Silver Chair next (they even had a tie-in to it at the very end of this film) since I would hate for them to change actors and the same actors are needed in The Silver Chair and to an extent in The Last Battle (teeeechnically in The Magicians Nephew and The Horse and His Boy as well but those would be much smaller roles involving characters who haven't had as much screen-time), but I like The Magicians Nephew so I wouldn't mind seeing that either, provided that at least one of them is made sometime before 2018.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

 Summary: In England, World War II is still raging on and, while the older Pevensie children are abroad, Edmund and Lucy are staying with relatives including their horrendous cousin Eustace. All three of them are dragged through a painting in the spare bedroom to find themselves in the sea east of Narnia and are quickly rescued by Prince Caspian (of the previous story, about two years have past) and join him, less than willingly on Eustace's part, to find out why a mysterious green mist has been haunting the seas and spiriting people off to the unknown.


The Good: It's clear that the producers want to make more Narnia films and went to the effort of putting in a few details foreshadowing which characters will be important in future films which was a rather nice touch. The returning cast, and new character Eustace, all act well, although I do wish some side characters had more chances to actually act.  And, as odd as it sounds, after the movie I checked out the deleted scenes to see what got cut and I agree with all the cuts made. Sometimes I wonder why scenes didn't make it into the feature film but here I could see why so, regardless of how I feel about the writing, it seems like they at least knew how to edit. 

The Bad: When I was a kid I loved this story because it was an adventure for the sake of adventure. Narnia is safe, well-ruled, so Caspian has a chance to go out, explore, and possibly find out the fate of a some of his father's closest followers who were exiled by his uncle. Here the story has been tweaked so that each of those retainers actually has a magical sword and together all seven of those swords can kill a people-eating, green mist which has started running around in the past few months because, um, well, they really don't explain that. They take some original ideas and ideas from the books, mash them up, put them out of order, and even mess with the character growth in the books* so it ends up being a very messy tale. A messy, watered down tale that I can't really recommend to anyone, especially since the other films are in limbo now so people don't even need to be concerned about keeping up with them for at least another two or three years.

The Audio: A lot of the music feels rather, well, standard fantasy-ish, like the composer got their inspiration from listening to just the Harry Potter soundtracks over and over. Even though I saw this movie less than a week ago I had to go to itunes and listen to clips from the soundtrack to remember the themes, the music simply isn't that memorable or different and that's never a good sign. The song used during the credits was odd too, I'm not a big fan of "wordless BGM for the whole movie and then song with lyrics used during credits" style since it just feels too out of place for me.

The Visuals: While not the best special effects I've seen of late, the movie looks fine on all accounts. The CGI is solid, the props, setting, and costumes look fine as well, although I do suspect that in another half decade or so much of it will look horribly out-dated. The film did have a smaller budget than the other two ($75 million smaller than Prince Caspian but only $30 million less than The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe), and for some reason the scenes set on the deck of the Dawn Treader never quite looked real to me, but for most people the movie is going to look just fine.



All in all a weak adaptation and that makes me rather sad since this was one of my favorites of the books. I was unhappy with a lot of the changes, especially the ones that changed the character's growth since a lot of those used the Christian theology/imagery that CS Lewis sprinkled quite heavily throughout the story which gave a lot of those scenes deeper meaning, here the characters appear much more shallow (and for god's sake can they please stop doing the "Edmund is still battling the darkness in his heart" bit? Poor guy can never catch a break). Don't foresee re-visiting this movie anytime soon, although regardless I hope it's sooner than 2018 than the next movie comes out since I would like there to be a full, seven movie set (or six, as much as I love The Horse and His Boy I can live with it not getting a film) for the sake of completion.

Book Review: Flygirl

Well I feel rather silly, in my rush to get out reviews of books from 2011 out before the New Year I completely neglected this slightly older book I read around the same time and I feel really dumb because I liked this book, it wasn't even a mediocre one you could be forgiven for forgetting! Thankfully the picture of the female firefighters from Pearl Harbor is still circulating around the web that that jotted my memory that hey, I read a (fictional) book that also involved women, women of color, and world war II recently, I need to talk about it!

Flygirl by Sherri L Smith

 
Summary: Ida Mae has loved to fly after her daddy first took her up in his crop duster years and years ago but there are two big problems in the way. First, she is a woman in the early years of World War II and secondly, an even bigger problem, she's African-American. She is however light enough (in skin tone) to "pass" as a white lady and makes the bold and potentially very very dangerous decision to apply and then train as a Women Airforce Service Pilot since it's the only way to get back into the sky she loves.

The Good: The book is a work of fiction, inspired by real WASPs but they were all white, but the entire book feels so believable that it's hard to remember that sometimes. The problems that Ida Mae and her friends (both her African-American friends and the other WASPs) face felt realistic and the book struck a nice balance showing the privileges Ida had when she was passing as white and yet how even they have so many restrictions on what they can and can't do (which can be hard to remember at times). The progression of the story also felt very natural, there were both hardships and successes and you need both of those to make a story feel real and on that level Smith has really succeeded.

The Bad: The historical setting almost worked against itself at times, if you know any US history involving women, people of color especially, and world war II it's just so hard to believe that the story will end well that it makes the book a little depressing at times (I was just waiting until someone caught her passing so the book got extra tense at times). Not much the author can do about that however and really that was my only major complaint about the book. There was a mention or two that Lily was Jewish and I would have liked that explored a little more but the book doesn't feel like it's lacking anything.

Excellent book, really need to read more historical books, and I could easily recommend this to quite a few people out there.

Also, new schedule starts tomorrow, not that anything is going to be any different tomorrow, just as a final reminder about that!

TV Series Review: Doctor Who 2011 Christmas Special, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe

I've debated in the past whether or not to review these Christmas specials since they're only an hour long but, partially since it is a self-contained story (and it looks like it will help connect season 6 to season 7) and partially since I don't have much else to talk about right now (unless you guys want me to talk about the 17th Precinct pilot that surfaced on the web which is pretty darn cool). As usual with these Doctor Who Christmas specials I was a little nervous about it, I haven't liked most of them but there's no more new DW until next fall so I wasn't in a position to be picky about it. 

Doctor Who 2011 Christmas Special: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe

Summary: After being helped out by Madge Adwell in 1938 Great Britain, the Doctor returns in 1941 to help her throw a great Christmas for her two children while she is putting off telling them that there father has been killed. However one of the children opens up a Christmas present before Christmas day, a portal to another world, and the Doctor discovers that the world isn't as safe as he had thought it was.

The Good: While there were plenty of over dramatic and cheesy moments there were also quite a few genuinely touching moments, something that caught me off guard. I thought the story was well paced and worked well both as a standalone story and as a nice connecting point between the end of season six and the beginning of season seven and has a few other nods to earlier episodes in the series. I was also surprised by Madge Adwell, from the trailers she seemed like a rather stern and un-fun parent but instead she had a surprisingly amount of whimsy and tolerance for the strange, something that you really need to have to be a likable Doctor Who character.   

The Bad: That said, at times Madge seemed a little odd, like she wasn't a fully fleshed out character, her conversations with the miners were very strange. There was also a little plothole at the very end* but thankfully it's not one that should ruin the episode for most people. Honestly this was pretty well done but those some of the bits with Madge and all the parts with the miners came off as just awkward for me.

The Audio: Lots of lovely music in there, not sure if any of it was new but I recognized a few familiar theme and thought that everything worked well together.

The Visuals: There were some shots in the episode where the lighting didn't look quite right (it looked more like the lighting you would see for a promotional shot, like the one at the top of the review, rather than light you would actually find at the scene^) but other than that the episode looked great. There wasn't any strange CGI (by television standards anyway), the settings looked good, the costumes looked just fine, overall this was a really well put together special.


This is probably my favorite Doctor Who Christmas special now (mind you considering that I actually dislike most of the others this doesn't mean too much) and overall I thought it worked really well, wonder if it'll be on the season six DVD sets.



*spoilers! Where was the rest of the crew for the airplane? Dead? Didn't make it somehow? Just out of sight? I'm also assuming in this case that Madge has a "reading steiner" in effect so she can remember the earlier time line.
^come to think of it, Doctor Who has a very distinct way they light their promotional images and the lighting in the show looks different as well, but then again I've noticed that British tv shows and American tv shows do lighting differently so that's probably why.

Movie Review: Captain America

Sorry this is late, it's finals week for me and the USB with projects for two of my classes exploded and had to spend a few hours fixing that, fun times. Also, Christmas is coming up really soon which means I'll be traveling around so the updates might be a bit wonky. I have plenty of things to type about it's just a matter of getting my computer to agree with the local wi-fi, fingers crossed that my laptop will be in a good mood.

So here it is, the last movie I'm watching on campus for the year and there's not much else to say to introduce it. This is the last Marvel movie before The Avengers coming out this summer (it even has Avenger in the title) and was meant to introduce the last big member of the group (since the Black Widow and Hawkeye only got cameos in Iron Man 2 and Thor and no one knows what's up with Nick Fury, I've heard that even Joss Whedon, who directed the movie, knows his backstory) and it did that pretty well.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Summary: It's World War II and Steve Rodgers just really wants to go to Europe to fight Nazis on the front lines. Trouble is that he is a 4F, completely unfit for combat, and keeps getting denied until the scientist Abraham Erskine decides that he might be just the kind of man they need for their new combat project to create the perfect soldier.

The Good: I was pleasantly surprised that plot wasn't as straightforward as "Steve Rodgers becomes Captain America and goes to kick Nazi ass," it was actually a bit more complicated to get to that point and it actually worked well both logically and for the plot. I was also surprised that again there was a prominent female side character who was very competent at her job and, since her job is being a British secret agent, she also gets a chance to kick ass. In this respect Captain America is a bit more like Thor than the Iron Man movies since both of them have a bigger side cast that gets a chance to be more fleshed out, something the movies really didn't need to do since, well, if The Avengers is set in the modern day you can already guess the ending.   

The Bad: While the plot progression worked and was logical there were times it just felt too slow to me in the early parts of the movie. It probably wouldn't feel as slow a second time around but for a while I was wondering how they were ever going to get to Nazi Germany. There were also some scenes that seemed too over the top and unrealistic, even for a superhero movie (mostly the parts involving Hydra, the actual villains of the movie) and at times Red Skull was just so hammy that i couldn't help but roll my eyes. The movie wasn't my favorite of the Marvel superhero films but it was a solid entry regardless.

The Audio: One again the music in this movie stood out much less to me than the visuals. The only piece that really stands out to me was a scene towards the end where there is a radio playing in the background and I liked how the sound people had gone to the trouble to make it sound like an authentic 1940s transmission (and considering nothing jerked me out of the movie they must have payed the same amount of attention to everything else).

The Visuals: The CGI in this movie didn't look as sharp to me as it could have and some of my friends, who had seen the movie once already, noticed the same inconsistent bits in places. It's a given that a superhero movie is going to need CGI to achieve quite a few scenes but with movies as high budget as these the CGI doesn't seem to be quite top of the line. For the traditional bits on screen I rather liked them, I'm fond of 1940s clothing and style and the movie did a good job at making these things look both historically authentic and like real set pieces or articles of clothing. Nothing looked shiny and fresh, they looked aged and used which was a very nice touch. And of course, the CGI used to make Captain America's actor look like a super scrawny person at first was exceedingly well done. I was really curious to see how well this turned out since I know of another movie in the planning stages who want to use this same group for body modification CGI and now I really want to see what else they can do. 

Tangentially related to this, the other night my friends and I marathoned the two Iron Man movies back to back and after seeing this and Thor relatively recently we noticed something interesting. In Thor we are introduced to both a seemingly magical device called the tessecrat (or apparently the cosmic cube according to wikipedia) and one of the characters also figures out that the "magic" of the gods is in fact highly advanced science. This tessecrat appears in Captain America (it's the little blue device that Red Skull obtains from the monastery that powers one of their weapons and Howard Stark experiments with it) and then in the stinger in Thor (I think they had just recovered it from Captain America's plane). My friends figured out however that whatever the tessecrat is is the new element that Tony Stark created in the second Iron Man movie and it was based on plans that his father had left behind. I think this is a really neat little subplot that Marvel has woven through their movies and it also took care of some of my issues with Iron Man 2 so kudos to Marvel so putting in some serious thought for how to connect these movies in more than just a superficial manner.   

TV Series Review: Doctor Who (The Curse of Fenric)

Hah, you guys thought this would be on season six didn't you? Well I haven't actually had time to watch the last episode yet plus I like to give myself more than a day to reflect on things before I write a review, the timing here is actually just a coincidence. But why did I go back to Classic Who now when I have so much else to watch you might ask, it was actually because of one of the new episodes. Some of my friends on facebook had seen the episode before I had a chance to and were half freaking out half saddened by it so naturally I start speculating what happened. I guessed, from their comments, that something happened to a companion (I guessed it was probably to Amy) came up with a few theories, discarded an obvious one and then thought of something that I had only heard about happening once in Doctor Who and lo and behold that's what happened. I remembered what serial it came from, asked a friend of mine who loves Classic Who if they happened to have the DVDs for it (and they realized immediately why I was asking for them) and it turns out this was one of their favorites as well so I was in luck. And now, back to the Seventh Doctor and amazing companion Ace for a very satisfying serial.

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric

Summary: The Doctor and Ace have landed in Northern UK in World War II and the Doctor is intrigued by one of the scientists who is using a code cracking machine to try and translate centuries old Viking runes in the local church crypt. The runes don't tell a happy story though and with mysterious Russian soldiers showing up on the beach will this story end unhappily as well?

The Good: On the advice of my friend I watched the special edition of this serial which had edited together all the episodes into one movie and, going by what my friend said, rearranged some scenes to better match the order they were in the originals script (apparently the order had to be changed to fit in the broadcast times). I liked not having to fast-forward through the opening and ending credits each time so this was a nice feature, although I'm curious which parts were switched around for the tv version. Regardless, Ace is now one of my favorite companions after this episode (partially because she is one of the few to really yell at the Doctor when he's keeping her in the dark) for how resourceful and capable she is. She's a fully recognized character and, something I've pointed out before as a difference between Class and Nu companions, it feels like she's traveling with the Doctor for her own reasons and expects to have some fun and adventures without him, unlike all the current companions who travel with the Doctor just because of the Doctor.

The Bad: Part of the reason I'm so curious about the change in order of events in this serial is because there were several points when I didn't understand why there was a scene change from one to another one, why that second one was so important at that moment, and had a little bit of trouble figuring out what was going on at a few points. The head of the English forces also seemed mad for no reason (was he paranoid? possessed? just plain crazy?) and I was completely confused by his motivations for the entire story, it felt like the writers needed someone to cause problems and that he was the man for the job. Honestly there were a number of little bits about this serial that I either didn't pick up or that confused me, perhaps they would make more sense on a second watch-though but I already knew all the major plot points of this episode and that didn't seem to help much.

The Audio: One thing that I didn't even notice while I was watching is how absolutely none of the English characters sound like they're in northern UK and apparently it was even in the script that some of the actors accents should change but that certainly didn't happen here. The opening theme still sounds incredibly 80s (which for me isn't a good thing) but other than that I was paying more attention to the visuals on screen than any of the background music, background music from live action shows just doesn't stick with me as well for some reason.

The Visuals: My friend mentioned that the special edition included some touch-ups to the special effects and either they were wrong or the touch-ups were really good since none of the special effects jumped out at me in a jarring manner (they still weren't the best but they were regular, Doctor Who level, looking decent effects). The prosthetics on some of the creatures still looked rather silly however (and I wanted to burst out laughing each time the two girls-turned-monsters appeared on screen, such 80s hair) but again, Doctor Who has never had the budget needed to do a lot of really quality special effects.

So a good character episode but I didn't think the actual plot was so great, or at least that it was execute in the past manner it could have been. But oh well, I like the Seventh Doctor and Ace pretty well so I did enjoy this serial pretty well, now let's see how I enjoy the current stuff!

Manga Review: Adolf (volume one)

I was browsing through my (college) library's comic section (the one in the nonfiction, not the one near the kids books) and came across this book and I was wondering if it was the same manga I had heard about online (I had heard that the first volume was really hard to find in English) but didn't think so since it looked like it was a one volume series. I then noticed that it was by Osamu Tezuka and decided to check it out since I need to read more of his work anyway (I believe his only other work I've read is Buddha and I didn't care for it that much). When I got home I found someone else mentioning this title online so I went to amazon, found a cover that matched mine and holy guacamole, it's going for $44 used online! It appears that my library doesn't have the other volumes in this series sadly but thankfully they can all be bought for less than MSRP on Amazon, really wonder why that first one is so limited.

Adolf by Osamu Tezuka

 
Summary: The story of three Adolfs, it begins during the Berlin Olympics of 1936 when visiting Japanese reporter Sohei Toge gets a mysterious phone call from his brother (who lives in Berlin) and by the time he meets up with him he's been murdered. Toge soon finds his investigation blocked at every possible point and starts to realize that there is something much bigger going on behind the scenes, something that has a connection with the death of a geisha months earlier back in Japan. A couple years later the other two Adolf's are introduced to the story, Adolf K whose German father is a main suspect in the geisha's death and Adolf K who accidentally learns the secret that has set in motion all of these events.

The Good: One thing Tezuka does well is pacing and balancing multiple points of view without every boring the viewer. The first volume focuses on a few, only slightly connected characters but there are already hints about how they will all play an important role later on in the story. The first volume is build up but it's build up done right, never boring enough to make the reader leave and genuinely important to the story, something that many writers today don't seem to grasp.


The Bad: There is a bit of melodrama in this work which made me roll my eyes and didn't seem to fit the more serious mood, such as the typhoon which caused all the dramatic flooding and landslides, and the villains can be a bit over the top as well (such as the associate of Adolf K's father). Honestly, there are a good number of over the top moments in this volume which can be grating on some readers, hopefully they will either become less common as the story goes on or the reader will be able to get more used to them.

The Artwork: As the introduction in the front of the book notes, Tezuka is using a more realistic style than normal in this work (it's also one of his later works) and I enjoyed it more than the art style used in Buddha (I think it was the general lack of over the top, cartoony reactions that many of the character in Buddha had). However, the introduction notes that this art style is still not going to appeal to many, non-manga reading Westners which makes me wonder why they bothered to flip the book (especially since flipping the book does make it a bit harder to follow the panel layout sometimes, plus it's rather insulting to change the artist's vision so that, theoretically, more people can enjoy the work without having to think about it as much).  Overall however I liked the art here, although I am also puzzled why they decided to make a composite image of actual photographs for the cover. 


I really enjoyed this story and I would love a chance to read more. Like I said earlier, the other volumes of the series are avaliable for much more reasonable prices although I think I'll poke around at all my libraries to see if I can read them there first.