I never really know what to say in theses reviews of FBorFW; they are just continually excellent. The characters are great book after book, each storyline is more endearing than the next, the drawings are beautiful and there are plenty of laughs at each page.

I could mention, though, that this is possibly the last collection book ever? Because FBorFW changed its formula this fall, though there are still new cartoons. So, it’s special! And it really looks the part too, with many Sunday cartoons in color and extra illustration colorful too.

A great read, and with Christmas so near, I mention that FBorFW books always make excellent gifts! :)

I am working my way through the whole Final Fantasy serie, but was particularly excited about this one for some reason (probably because it’s the first with really great PS2 graphics!). I fell in love with Yuna before even knowing who she was, eh.

I am certainly no expert on video games (I just played Final Fantasy stuff) but in my neophyte opinion, it’s a great game. It has flaws, sure, but they are easily beaten by the good points.

First, because I already mentioned them, the graphics. WOW! The movies are great and beautiful of course, but then even VIII and IX were too. What’s really changed is the facial expressions in-game! It makes it so much more enjoyable! Of course, there’s a slight downside to this, and there are really lots and lots and lots of cut-scenes. Somebody on 43T joked that between the 10 hours of cut-scenes, the 2 hours of playing was fun. ;)

But the story is great, so it’s okay. It’s a tad complicated at first, but you really get into it, and start feeling for Spira and Yuna and Tidus and everybody else. The characters are great, fully fleshed, and they make a great team together. In the end, altough I still like Yuna very much, I think Rikku was my favorite! (My boyfriend really loved Auron, too.)

Two of the greatest things introduced in that game, in my opinion, were the turn-based battle system and the sphere grid. I don’t like fast-paced battles because I suck at it (let’s say it like it is!) so this way was perfect for me and allowed me to discover more about the various actions that could be taken (instead of the usual attack-attack-attack). I also really liked being able to switch easily between the characters. Also, the sphere grid was so exciting! It was my favorite part of the battles ;) I wanted to give everything to everyone, but of course that wasn’t realistic in the slightest. Anyway, my boyfriend and I had lots of fun planning who would become what.

I think this game also has a good “play-again” value, which is rarely the case with RPGs. Of course, it might be a bit tedious to get through all the cut-scenes once more, but there is apparently lots of side-stuff (we did almost nothing!) and the sphere grid allows you to change your characters’ strenghts completely.

All in all, a great game. Square tried some new things in it and I loved it! :)

What to say? It’s Jane Austen. Seriously, that should be enough. It’s widely (and wisely) recognised as being synonymous of greatness, of wit, of great characters and beautiful love stories. I’ll still try to say a bit more about it than just its author name ;)

I saw the movie with Frances O’Connor and really loved it, so I looked forward to reading the book (even though I had been told that the movie was rather different from the book). It took me a really long time to read it, about a month, which is really long for me as I’m a fast reader. But I was very busy with school, and mostly, I wanted to take the time to appreciate it, to understand it fully (English is not my first language and since the style is of course a bit dated it’s sometimes harder to understand… but I wouldn’t read a translated version for the world).

I loved it! It’s very different from the other book I read from her, the famous Pride and Prejudice. Fanny is subsided, extremely moral, very different from the lively Elizabeth. It’s a bit weird sometimes to see whole scenes without the main character uttering a single word, but the secondary characters carry the story wonderfully.

The love story is very different from Austen’s usual style too. Usually, her female main character is ignorant of her own love for the male protagonist, who pursues her actively. Here, Fanny knows all too well how much Edmund means to her, and it is he who foolishly falls for the wrong woman. It’s great to see that Austen tried something new instead of her usual working formula.

I must admit that I was a bit saddened by the lack of love Fanny got. Of course she was courted by Crawford, but I think I prefer the movie version of their love (awful, I know), with the accepted proposal which just made sense at that point in the story for Fanny. And the good ending of the love story seemed rushed, while Fanny herself felt like “second best for Edmund” to me. So, that’s the only bad point I felt – more love please!! I am such a girl, heh.

So, all in all, a great book with wonderful style and lovable characters. Also, the name Edmund is so pretty and dignified, especially with that u (instead of an o). Okay now I’m rambling.

I am a huge Ani fan, so of course I want to get all of her very many albums eventually. I came into the game rather late (became a fan around the time Educated Guess was released) so I have a lot to catch up with! I bought this one when Verses was released, to benefit from the 15% off in the Righteous babe store.

I chose this one (the third official one, of about 18) for a variety of reasons. First, I knew some of the songs on it were “classics” but I didn’t know them very well, because she never plays them in shows (I am an official bootleg fan too!). Also, I really really liked the viola on Served Faithfully and wondered if the rest of the album was like that. (Turns out it wasn’t, but I like the girl-and-her-guitar just as much.)

It’s a really good album! It’s easier to approach than her later stuff. It’s more political, too – not that she isn’t anymore, but it’s more in-your-face on this album. I am glad to own it because it fits really well in Ani’s setting her own genre, as do most of the early albums. I can’t wait to listen to Puddle Dive, which I just bought, to see how she evolved in just a year.

Some songs I really like: What If No One’s Watching, Good, Bad, Ugly (hits close to home!) and the aforementionned Served Faithfully. It’s a must-buy for all Ani fans, and also a good way to get into her! :)

Well, I could try to say it nicely but I just plain hated this movie! ;) I just couldn’t get to feel anything for the characters (except disgut, the main character had really greasy hair, bleargh) and that’s an enourmous part of the fun gone for me. The story wasn’t so bad, I mean, the thumbsucking idea was fine but it could have been so much better. Also, what is up with Keanu Reeves? I thought he wasn’t so bad an actor, but his role in this was supposed to be really different from Neo, and then he acted it the exact same way!

I’m not used to being so mean in my reviews! But honestly I can’t think of a single redeeming quality about this movie. Wait, that’s wrong, the music was great! I love both Elliott Smith and The Polyphonic Spree. But even then, it seemed out of place – at least The Polyphonic Spree did.

The only reason I watched it all is because my cousin had rented it and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings… but then at the end it turned out he hadn’t liked it anymore than me and we could have been spared an hour of this. Oh well! ;)

But well, after all this not-niceness, I must say that I do see why some people like this movie. It has a certain style. (I also thought the little brother character wasn’t so bad.) It’s just not my cup of tea!

I bought that CD eons ago in France, it was rather cheap. But I had kind of a Yann Tiersen overdose so I left it to gather dust on my shelves. I finally listened to it last month, and I was happily surprised. Sure, it’s not much different from his usual style (it does evolve, but generally in the same direction) but it’s an album with a good ambiance. I recommend it, for fans of Tiersen. The pieces Monochrome and L’effondrement are my favorites.

Anthony Rozankovic knows my parents a bit, I think he was in a choir with them. Anyway, they bought his CD, but I don’t think they listened to it much. Eventually I asked if I could have it, but then I also let it gather dust! ;) I remembered it a while ago.

I actually only knew the song MSG and thought the whole CD would be like that. How very wrong I was! The CD is mostly various pieces from different soundtracks. It has a lot of different emotions and ambiances. It’s interesting to listen to. Not really my style, and not one of the best albums of my collection, but I don’t regret having it. I will certainly be glad to give it a spin from time to time.

I love watching movies just “on a whim”, because I heard it’s good or because I just felt like watching a movie (as opposed to because it’s part of a serie I like or because my favorite actors are in it). I don’t do it often! So when my sister asked if I wanted to buy pre-watched movies for cheap and have a blast, I agreed. She bought this one and we ended up watching it.

It’s a good movie! I had heard some terrific reviews and it’s really not as good as they said, but it’s still entertaining. The music style isn’t my favorite (my sister loved it though!) and I found myself doing other things during the tons of singing scenes. Of course it’s a Broadway musical, so I wasn’t annoyed by the number of musical numbers, I just didn’t enjoy it so much.

The acting is okay – I really hate Eddy Murphy but he wasn’t so bad in this. My favorite actor was John Krasinski, in his two-minute cameos that was a wonderful surprise for the Office-freak that I am ;) The visuals are good too, the story is nice. It’s by no way a great movie but it’s still entertaining.

It’s a great movie! I saw it in theaters the day of the release and then bought it as soon as it came out on DVD. It’s definetly one of Pixar bests (I’d say it’s the best, but I think I still prefer Monsters Inc!). The colors are great, the story is funny, the music is good (I love the song by Camille).

The DVD itself is okay, but before Cars Pixar released such good DVDs that one cannot help but be a bit disappointed by this one. But still, the menus are great, the two short are also. More making-of would have been appreciated, but it’s a good idea to mix the filmmaking and cooking views of the creative process.

On the weekend following the DVD release, my boyfriend and I did a themed night and cooked a ratatouille with my family before watching it! It was great fun (though ours was slightly less pretty than the one in the movie, but what can you do!).

I was a little unsure about the season at first, because season 2 ended on such a high (especially, of course, for us Jam fans) and then season 3 let us down so badly. But it picked up fast, and I ended up loving this season just as much. I don’t have much to say about it, I could just quote something but then everything is quotable!!

Some things though: the dvds are pretty, ths bonuses are nifty (“Kevin Cooks In The Office Kitchen” rocked!!) and I thought Beach Games was actually better than the finale and should have been the finale!! It might be my favorite episode (with The Dundees, I think!). Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort! I love Harry Potter references ;)