I’ve read all sorts of explanations about the allegory going on in here, but it doesn’t quite ring true for me. I don’t care that it’s unlike Sixth Sense or The Village: LitW is a charming fairy tale, but rather than telling it as such, there’s too much ‘knowing nodding’ for my liking which takes away from the atmosphere. The pace/solutions become a bit too fast-paced and simply reached.

M. Night Shyamalan – always one for cameoing in his movies – gives himself a much bigger role here. In fact, if you didn’t know he was also the director, he does pretty well just as a part of the cast. However, the whole piece does come across as somewhat self-indulgent.

I might have been less likely to mark this as ‘worth consuming’ if I’d known the cliffhanger finale isn’t going to be followed up with a new series. Bah.

There’s something very familiar about the story here: poor boy finds out he has power; rich girl runs away from her restrictive life; knight goes on quest, blah blah. However, despite an initial bit of annoyance at the cliches I soon found myself quite enjoying the easy writing style. In particular I enjoyed the nastier characters – okay, a bit pantomime, but rather fun. There’s also a Shakespearian-esque pair of guards given little conversations on the side for some light humour.

Very enjoyable! Smart move to finally explore the future hinted at from the first movie, methinks – well, the future and kind of a bit of the past at the same time, as here we see the genesis of the T-800 we all know so well!

Christian Bale wouldn’t have been my first choice, but he managed not to annoy me too much. Sam Worthington, on the other hand, was fab – and I’m glad the movie focused at least as much if not more on his character.

The whole thing was perhaps a little constrained by trying to tie in to all the existing plot threads, but it was done well enough. The range of machines – not just Arnie-esque cyborgs – was probably the best bit for me.

I look forward to the planned sequels!

And so Brian Herbert finishes off the story his father left unfinished in Chapterhouse: Dune. On the plus side, it ties together the prequel Legends of Dune series, although that’s also a bit of a downside. Would Herbert snr have approved? Are these his ideas, or the son’s?

Still. I suppose just having loose ends tied is enough, and you know going into this it’s not going to live up to the original series. Personally, I didn’t think it did too badly, really, and it was entertaining enough at least.

I remember watching this years and years ago, with absolutely no knowledge of the books/story. And despite being a nutty, confuzzling mess, it left quite the impression! Now, deep into the original and follow-on series of reading, how could I not rewatch the movie?

Knowing the story already does help a lot, but at the same time it didn’t help the overall movie. Or perhaps this kind of thing just works better when you’re 13! Mostly it gets full marks for trying, and for the impressive cast, but I think you have to go into it already a fan.

On holiday with terribly chapped and sore lips, I found the Christmas special, Let Them Eat Cake was just doing nothing for me. It’s too light with its vegan base, and even repeat applications just weren’t helping. So, off to try something a bit heavier, and (a) this was the only one they had in the shop I hadn’t tried, and (b) the assistant said, oh yes – this was specially made for sore lips.

Hmm. It is thick – too thick. I couldn’t apply it as normal with my finger, as the darn stuff just wouldn’t melt (even after a couple of hours in my pocket, just to try!). Instead I had to scrape a bit off with a fingernail and then smear that into my lips. Admittedly, this did work, but to be honest it was a relief to find a Nivea stick in my handbag instead!

Oh yeah, and it doesn’t seem to smell of much at all, which is odd for Lush.

Read the Legends of Dune series first, as this combines the ongoing story from the original series (picking up pretty much where Chapterhouse ends) with the pre-pre-history stuff from Brian Herbers/Kevin Anderson’s earlier attempt at writing in the Dune universe.

Hunters is actually better written than the Legends book, although obviously struggles to live up to Frank Herbert’s originals. However, after wading through the rather patchy Legends, this one does flow a lot better, and overall it is nice to pick up with the unfinished story.

Not actually as bad as I was expecting, although still a bit of a confuzzled mess, really. Perhaps if I’d gone in with knowledge of the source it would have helped, but there was just too much going on and too many quick cuts between everything. On the plus side, quite the cast, and various bits did look very pretty.

Not sure I would have bought a DVD called The Caveman’s Valentine, but in the UK this goes by the title Sign of the Killer.

It’s a bit on the weird side: Samuel L Jackson plays a formerly brilliant pianist now living in a cave and obviously mentally unstable. The scenes of his ‘moth-seraphs’ inside his head art quite stunningly odd! This ‘caveman’ finds himself caught up in something, after a dead body is found in the tree outside his home. Accident, or murder? Does it involve the victim’s homeless friends, or the high arty crowd he worked with, or something else entirely?

SLJ is quite brilliant. The story feels slightly patched together, but is a bit different from most things out there.