January should have been a very “reading” month; I planned to read tons of books during the holiday, especially while my family and I went away to a resort in Charlevoix. As it turns out, I enjoyed spending with them and my boyfriend more, so no reading for me! I started Anna Karénine, and though I like it a lot, I’m not more than 200 pages in. I started University at the middle of the month, and the ton of readings I have to do there makes me frown at the thought of doing even leasure reading.

That might explain why there are a lot of TV, movies and “comic books” in here. My boyfriend and I went through both first seasons of Buffy in a single month – which is a pretty big feat for us. I love it so much! It’s a real treat to watch it. Also, with my parents, we started a “Movie Monday” thing, where we watch a different movie every Monday (when we can). So, we saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Casino Royale this month. I also saw a couple of movies with various people (mainly my best friend and my sister).

The biggest deception of all is Final Fantasy X-2 which broke in the middle of my game :( I was so sad! I loved it. I will probably buy it again to start over. I also listened to really good albums, including the last François Pérusse – my best friend have it to me for Christmas and it is amaziiiing! :D

A good month all in all, even with the lack of reading!

I thought this version wasn’t as good as the last one (the Frances O’Connor one). I agree with the previous poster, they almost made Mary Crawford the heroine of this one! Weirdly, I thought the casting of the two main ladies was off, Billie Piper should have been Mary Crawford and Hayley Atwell Fanny! I think Billie Piper looks a bit like a villain with her fair hair and dark eyebrows. Of course these are just physical points that don’t matter very much but still ;)

Fanny is aparently a very tough character to put on film, she’s never like in the book. Even the Frances O’Connor one made her more like an Elizabeth Bennet (or a Jane Austen); in this one Fanny is always running around (in the book she’s very frail and easily tired) and agrees to act in the dreadful play. Now, I sound like these nitpicking Austenites who find fault in everything. Don’t get me wrong, I like a little freedom of adaptation, this version just didn’t fit with me.

I actually fell asleep for a while, watching it! The other BBC 2007 adaptations seemed better, happily.

Oh, Buffy. Season one was enjoyable enough, but season two… it was just so great!!! Spike is such an awesome villain, and the two-faced Angel was incredible too. Each episode kept me on my toes and constantly wanting for more. I loved so many: Passion was my favorite, and Innocence was amazing, I also loved Phases and (in a different genre) Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. I loved how the EPs would go to really freaky to absurdly funny. Oh and also? Reptile Boy crept me out so much, we had to stop watching it between the third and fourth acts and I couldn’t stop worrying. (I just find it way much creepier when the bad guys are actual humans, because I always feel like it could really happen.)

I really loved the new characters in this season (which isn’t always easy!), Spike as mentionned but also Oz, who might just be the coolest good guy alive. The new trio of villains brought so much more to the show than the previous stereotyped “Master”. These new vampires were hip and cool; I also loved the turnaround of Spike at the end. (Can’t wait to see more of him in later seasons.)

The bonuses were interesting, I liked all the commentaries (but reading the scripts are extremely boring to me). The featurettes at the end were nice and informative too. It was a good idea to put the various TV spots too, it makes for a quite complete set.

(By the by, it’s “Des singes et des moutons”, but amazon is stupid when it comes to French titles!)

I have fond memories of buying this album, in Avignon, running to get to the nearest FNAC and hurrying up to find something to buy (we were expected somewhere and I didn’t know if I’d be able to find another FNAC during the trip) – when I saw this I didn’t hesitate. I already owned two other DSLZ albums – the first one and Les promesses and I really think it’s one of my favorite groups. They sound kinda like Polémil bazar, which is my favorite band in the whole world. I love the accordion in it; I love the poetry of the lyrics; I love the melodies! It’s great!

This specific album I think I like less than the other two, but that might just be because I don’t know it that well yet. I knew the song Elle from before and it is my absolute favorite from them (and near-favorite song in general, also). I also really like song other songs, like Les moutons and especially Les mots d’amour. Some songs (like Elle m’ennuie) get on my nerves a bit though.

So, it’s a great album with just a few lesser notes. I’m glad I bought it! :)

My best friend and I watched it on PBS, not long after seeing the 95 version, and I must say, I liked this one much better. It might have been because I knew the characters a bit already because of the other movie, but I felt like everything was clearer and I understood the links between everyone more easily.

Also, the cast was really great! Wentworth was reaaaallly good-looking, but you know, not excessively so. And what a nice surprise to find Anthony Head in it! I am currently watching Buffy for the first time so I was all excited to see his name.

The ending scene is really my favorite, it was so awesome and cute. I really loved it.

This movie always makes me want to go shopping and load my credit card with beautiful stuff. I am not, and I hope never will be a fashionista, I am very much like Andy in the beginning and I usually just thinks clothes cost a lot and I hate shopping for them (yes, I am very un-girly abot that), but in this movie… the clothes are SO great! Not all of them, but you know, often enough.

It’s a nice little movie too, I think it’s not that much of a chick flick – well, it is, obviously, but I’ve watched it with boys and they liked it, possibly because the main focus isn’t on the love story. Meryl Streep is just fantastic, and I think that everybody can relate to Andy because they all had at some point a boss who asked for crazy stuff.

The bonus features were really good, especially for a one-discer, the featurettes were interesting and there was nice long string of interesting deleted scenes. The gag reel even made me laugh which really isn’t always the case. So, it’s a good rent and if you find it cheap it’s also a good buy!

What I like most about this album is the fairy tale side of it. Which I guess is a bit paradoxical since it’s one of the only albums with sci-fi in it! But it’s like the usual Thorgal album with its great mythology except with less battle in it (though there is a bit, too, of course). I thought the story of Aaricia’s birth was so cute and fit so well. Also it’s always great to have a bit of backstory on the characters. So it’s for these reasons that I really like both this one and the Aaricia album.

I didn’t expect to like this, and yet I did! My sister insisted that we watch it on our “Movie Monday” and since we are often watching my movie choices I agreed. The only James Bond movie I had ever seen was Dr. No, so I really wasn’t expecting something this good. Sure, I don’t really care for battles and pursuits usually, but the ones in this movie were really good (also, not often in cars, watching cars following each other is so boring).

I also was very surprised by the dialogue, that I found quite good. I expected it to be cheesy and cliché but it really wasn’t – I especially liked Bond and Vesper’s banter, which was really sexy yet believable. I loved the Vesper character in general. The near-final scene, with the crumbling house (trying not to give too much away here!) was pretty amazing. I also loved the animated intro.

So to sum up, I loved it! A great surprise!

My best friend gave me this for Christmas and I was so excited! I have almost all the “album du peuple”, I love François Pérusse so much. Actually as a kid I listened to numbers 2&3 so much that I picked up on some of his speech patterns. It has subdued now, but I still find myself quoting him very often and also bursting out laughing because I just thought of one of his jokes (and that’s not embarassing at all).

This one is as hilarious as the rest. For #6, I was a bit disappointed on my first hearing, because I felt that a lot of the jokes were very similar, but this did not happen on #7. The only thing I dislike a bit is the “casino” thing which is the bridge between many jokes. I’m not sure why but I just don’t find it funny. But the main part of the jokes are really hilarious. My favorite is “Daniel Salade” which I can’t translate and is not funny out of context.. but I just felt like saying it was ;)

Also, one last note, the songs are really good on this album. “Tu fababounes” could actually be a mainstream radio song (if the lyrics weren’t so ridiculous of course) and I love Le soleil. Great job once again from Pérusse! :)

This is a really great movie. (I always feel kind of “duh” saying this on Academy Awards winners.) I love the way it’s built; I had as much fun watching it for a second time as the first. The first time, you’re kind of flabbergasted and enthralled by the movie, while the second time you take the time to understand it more. The main three actors are all really great and I liked the comparison between the destructive intense passionate love story of Almasy and Katharine and the sweet innocent “first love” of Hana and Kip. I won’t try to say more about it since a lot has already been said about the movie!

The extras on this DVD are a mixed bunch – the first ones feel very static, long conversations with various filmmakers on different relatively dry subjects. Some shots of the movie and also a “Play all” options would have been nice. (I actually found myself dozing off between two subjects.) Some others though are very nice little features – I really liked the piece about the still photographer as I had no idea such a job existed (and it also contained really beautiful pictures). The deleted scenes were fascinating. I usually don’t like them because they are often on the boring side (they were after all, cut) but these were beautiful, I loved the ostrich story with a passion. Also the explanations of these scenes were well-worded and made you understand what the scenes were about and why they had to be cut.

So, I think this version of the DVD is a good buy. The extras made me want to read the book (I had no idea it was inspired by a book).