I picked up Victoria and the Rogue at a discount book fair for +/- 1€ as a “why not, in case I’m in the mood for something light during my holidays or something”. It turned out I liked it better than I expected, I wish I had picked up some more of Meg Cabot’s stuff. It was fun to read, albeit somewhat predictable. The character of Victoria is really what made this novel ‘worth consuming’ for me, she was well drawn out and I loved her attitude. I doubt that everything was historically correct though, the time they spent alone and the language between man & women seemed a lot more modern than say, in a Jane Austen story, but who cares, in this case it was more fun.

This is purely a one-sided view on Barbie, all praise and celebration. It doesn’t even mention the body image controversies. Even when she doesn’t agree with this point of view the author should have mentioned this to paint the whole picture of Barbie’s 50 year old history.
Still fun to read (look at), especially when I recognised one of “my” Barbies. And there are some cute “extras” like drawings and booklets you can pull out.

After I had read the first few chapters of The Time Traveler’s Wife I was a bit disappointed. When I’d seen the description “time traveling librarian” I had this image of some sort of Doctor Who in a steampunk outfit going on outrageous adventures. This book is nothing like that. At all. At heart it’s (just) a love story. But the time traveling spin brings up some interesting questions. Especially since the author chose to go for a time traveling world without an option to change anything. Is there still free will? Would Clare have fallen in love with Henry if she didn’t already know for years that she would? Or vice versa?
I liked the way the novel was build, the split narration and the chronology. You find out hints about the past/future, and when they do happen the puzzle fits, it’s very well done. It could have done with some editing, the dreams or Clare working on her art didn’t add anything for me. And some of the sex scenes were a bit awkward. But on the whole I really started enjoying the story in the end, I wanted to know how it would turn out for them (even though you kinda sorta knew already).

For those of you who read the book, I have one more question – why on earth was Henry working in that library? Because he wanted to live a normal life? I don’t know if the risks he takes by working there are worth that. It seemed to me that the only added value (to the story) of him working there was that the author could let him end up in the cage.

I love the leads in this movie (Shahrukh Khan & Aishwarya Rai). Khan plays the title character Devdas, who after being abroad for 10 years (and 6 months, 4 days and 6 hours to be exactly…) returns home where his childhood sweetheart Paro (extraordinarily beautiful Rai) has been waiting for him. But love in Bollywood movies never is that simple, and over the course of almost 3 hours it sure takes some turns here. The story is less predictable than the other Bollywood movies I’ve seen. But there are of course gorgeous colours, and dancing numbers. And jewellery. I always feel like I wear too little jewellery after watching one of these :)
Still, I hated the ending.

I recognized the cover of Tongue when I was walking towards the library check out, and picked it up on a whim. It’s no wonder I recognized this cover, as the book was heavily promoted here in Belgium, it was reviewed in at least 3 women’s magazines including an interview with the author in one of them. They all compared the author to Murakami – this is copied from the back flap. And not true. I’ll cut to the chase, MAN this book sucked! Did those ‘reviewers’ even read this thing? Page after page of theories on food, love and life or combinations. And not even good ones. This goes on (and on and on) until the mildly gruesome ending (which was revealed in every single review, so not even a surprise) that doesn’t deliver. A waste of my time.

Hmm. The first part of this movie is a modern remake of Tokyo Story: an elderly couple visiting their children in the big city, none of the children claim to have time for them, the only one that genuinely cares is the girlfriend (in TS the widow) of one of their children.

spoilers below

Then during the second part the character development begins to fail. The character of Rudi jumps from grumpy old “I like things just the way they’ve always been” Bavarian grandpa to “let’s learn how to dance butoh in the park from a weird girl while wearing my death wife’s clothes” in – what seemed to me – a flash. His wife’s death changed him, okay, I get that, but there’s no transition. It wasn’t convincing to me that such a stubborn old guy would turn around like that so soon.
Also, that trip through Tokyo’s sex scene didn’t make sense at all. They could’ve completely cut that out.

spoilers end

Hmm, the more I think about this movie the less I like it. You get what the director is trying to (obviously) bring across, but the execution just falls flat. Not subtle enough, and the missing character development made me loose touch completely. Didn’t work for me at all.
But for those who did like the movie, do watch Tokyo Story if you haven’t already.

If you only know Bogart as the cynical though guy, check him out in African Queen, where he imitates a hippo (no kidding). His performance got him his only Oscar. The whole movie is great fun.
And as a side note, it is not black and white, and there were no Nazis in this movie (though someone tagged this movie so), African Queen takes places during WWI so it’s the German army under Wilhelm II, not Hitler.

I actually liked this movie, cool concept. Maybe my opinion will change after I see the original version. Since I already like this movie (maybe i have a higher Cruise-tolerance level than the average consumer?) I’m looking forward to seeing this alleged superior Abre los Ojos.

I’ve been wanting to see this movie ever since it came out and finally got to it tonight. It was worth the wait, Bin-Jip (or 3-iron) is truly beautiful. And there’s not much more I can add to that.
Except that I need to warn my dad about the dangers of golf.

I haven’t seen that many Bollywood style movies but they all seem to be about love and (pre arranged) marriages with a good deal of dancing, singing and (melo)drama – and they’ve all been fun to watch. This movie is no exception.
The very beginning of the film sets the tone: we see our leading lady dreaming about an unknown mystery lover while dancing in the rain and jumping on the furniture, and we see the lead guy doing manly stuff like rugby, indoor karting and uhm, bowling (?). I won’t spoil any of the story but it follows the standard formula. It’s all incredibly silly and predictable, details don’t make sense (snow in the summer? no luggage yet endless supplies of clothes?) but it is a lot of fun too, with big hair and cheesy dancing numbers (which to me are a plus, I can’t help it).
Oh and her dad’s eyes are terrifying, I wish I could give people such evil looks, it would come in handy during work meetings >:D.
If you can handle the cheese and are in the mood for over 3 hours of very light entertainement, this is for you. I enjoyed spending a rainy Sunday afternoon watching it.