Why do people say that it’s stupid to revive the character and then go and see the movie? If you don’t want to see a revival movie, don’t go and see this movie.

To quote Emily’s review (see below):

“Are moviegoers so nostalgic about old heroes that they need to see them struggling past their prime?”

-yes, we are. So there. Seeing an old hero struggle past his prime is part of the fun of the movie. They did hand over a lot of the action to Shia LeBoef because Harrison Ford couldn’t have done it all on his own. I thought Mutt as a character fit well into the whole story. I didn’t like the Tarzan quote, either, but let’s not forget IT’s A B-MOVIE! (So aliens are OK.)

“What about new heroes?” There are plenty of new heroes. Go see the new “Mummy”-movie, if Brendan Fraser floats your boat.

I like the modern fairytale twist given to the Wizard of Oz, and as I am reading “Son of a Witch” (“Wicked”-Part II) at the moment, the more Oz (or in this case, O.Z.), the better, even if the stories don’t take place in the same universe.
The adaptations of the lion as “Raw”, Scarecrow as the man with the zipper on his head (“Glitch/Ambrose”) and the Tin Man himself were great! The one thing that bothered me thoroughly, though, was that Zooey Deschanel (“D.G.”) had only one facial expression on offer, sometimes with raised eyebrows, but mostly just the same boring look of slight bewilderment.
Her depiction of D.G.’s emotional journey, finding out about her true identity, her parents and regaining her memories of childhood was bland and one-dimensional.
Still, fun to watch.

I liked this somewhat comedic (but not really!) piece hoovering between “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Vanilla Sky”. Man in battered relationship hates himself and meets the woman of his dreams (Penelope Cruz). While sleeping. In his dreams.
Add Danny de Vito and a brunette Gwyneth Paltrow.
Nice story. Nice morale. Not amazing, but good enough for li’l old me.

This is the email I sent to Cirque du Soleil this morning:

I saw “Varekai” last night and there are two things that really spoiled my experience:
1. We sat in section 104, seat 10&11 in row C. This ticket is completely overprized, as the show is designed to be seen frontally. All the (admittedly amazing) artists were best seen from a “6 o’clock” position. We sat at “3 o’clock” and the missing applause from our section was indication that not only we felt that way, (especially the act with the 4 trapeze ladies, of which we only ever saw two). A group of six or seven people sitting in front of us had even left at half time break and didn’t come back.
I wish I had bought a cheap ticket and sat in the back of the “5 – 7 o’clock” section, between entrances 1 and 2.
The seats and view we had were certainly not worth category one price.

2. Loads of people brought in their food and drink, so the signs at each entrance were completely useless. Maybe it’s the culture in Holland, but you NEED to TELL THEM that you mean it when you say “no mobile phones”. My neighbour (who was 20 minutes late to the show but was still allowed in, despite the warnings on the website) was TEXTING on his mobile phone throughout the show, which was completely distracting.

The tickets were my birthday present this year, and I am quite sad that my first experience of Cirque du Soleil will most probably be my last. Maybe my expectations were simply too high.

This movie is so bad, we stopped watching after 20 minutes.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Jackie Chan in his slapstick/kung fu movies, such as Rush Hour or Shanghai Noon.
But to me, he needs a sidekick like Owen Wilson.
As a German, I have watched dubbed movies all my life. This one, though, was extremely strange to watch, as it is an obviously Chinese movie, but all characters had the fattest American accents, except Jackie Chan’s. He dubbed himself, accent and all. This works where he plays a Chinese in America, but not when everybody is of the same origin. He should either have had himself dubbed by an American, or all the other actors should have had Chinese accents, too. This was confusing and distracted completely from the movie.
The story was jumping from location to location, the characters’ behaviour was unbelieveable and sometimes just plain dumb, so I couldn’t find one to identify with and care about.
The princess was way too young to be Chan’s love interest (I just can’t buy that anymore), if that’s what she turned out to be.
Not even the admittedly amazing fight scenes kept me going, as, after the third, it was a bit like “more of the same” Jackie Chan fight magic. Yawn.
Sorry, Jackie. Try again.

Kurt Loder on rottentomatoes.com: “So is it funny? The best parts—and there are many of them—trigger fits of helpless, howling glee. Is it raunchy, depraved, filthy beyond all excuse or redemption? Only the best parts.”

A gloriously profane ode to the penis, with crudeness and charm that counter its coarseness with sincerity.

“I … am McLovin’!”

...if you like the Simpsons. Even better if you are familiar with certain characters.
I laughed from the very first moment (“Dadadadaaaaaa!”) until the end. It was like a long episode (not too long, though), the story was great and all I was missing was more of Ralph Wiggum. But I guess everyone’s got their favourite Springfield character…
If you haven’t seen it yet, stay to watch the credits for an awwww-moment.

“Okay, call it slavery, but you know they’re dirt poor down there anyway…”
(Nestlé spokesperson)

Tony’s Chocolonely tastes amazingly good.

The story is best told by Tony himself:

“One warm summer morning, Tony van de Keuken was reading a newspaper. On page 13 he found a short item about human trafficking in the cocoa industry. About children being sold at markets to slave traders. That was in 2002—one hundred and thirty-nine years after the abolition of slavery.

Tony is not only a big fan of chocolate, but also a journalist. The brief article in the newspaper continued to haunt him, so he did some research on the subject. It soon turned out that hundreds of thousands of children are being forced to work on cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast, the country where most of the cocoa comes from. Since chocolate is a blend of cocoa from different areas, every chocolate bar is basically tainted by slavery. And slavery is a criminal offence.

In March 2004, accompanied by a good lawyer, Tony went to the public prosecutor to turn himself in as a chocolate criminal. After all, he now knew that his favourite chocolate bars were produced with the help of child slaves. And buying something that you know was obtained by means of a criminal offence is punishable in the Netherlands by up to four years in prison. Then he had another bar….

Six months later, the public prosecutor dismissed the charges that Tony had brought against himself. Slavery was not a priority. The Netherlands had more pressing problems. Since Tony did not agree with this decision, he took it to the Supreme Court. For this, he needed the testimonies of ex-slaves. Fortunately for him, these are not hard to find in Africa.

Before long it was 2005, an important year for the chocolate industry. Four years earlier, all major chocolate producers had signed a covenant pledging the slave-free production of chocolate by 1 July 2005. They would be advertising this with a slave-free hallmark on every wrapper. Tony knew that multinationals are adept at making promises but not as good at keeping them.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the remake of Roald Dahl’s masterpiece Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opened in cinemas in July 2005. Nestlé would be making Willy Wonka chocolate bars in connection with the film, so Tony challenged them to produce the bars guaranteed slave-free. Nestlé didn’t like the idea. The covenant had turned out to be hollow. Not one of the chocolate producers had kept to the agreement.

Tony decided to start making chocolate bars himself and to be the first to bring a guaranteed slave-free chocolate bar to the market. He bought five thousand bars, the first of which became available in stores on 29 November 2005:
Tony’s Chocolonely®, with a slave-free logo. The bars sold out in one day.
It is a great success. Tony has gone into business. This is the twenty-first century. Slavery is archaic!”

Being doubtful between agnosticism and atheism, this book has helped me to finally put the various trains of thought into one station.
I am no longer doubtful, I can, with conviction, say: I do not believe that there is a god and there is nothing wrong with that, or with me.
To anyone who disagrees with this statement, I recommend reading this book with an open mind.

I am enjoying my secret affair with Paul Smith(’s voice) starring as my imaginary lover way too much for my own good…
Woops. Did I just post that for the world to see?