I do like (a lot to feast on the exterior of) Keanu Reeves, but boy, this was shite.
Keanu’s character, Klaatu, doesn’t say much, and I’m told that is a good thing for a KR role, although I also dig his low and rough voice. Still, I expected more PLOT for Klaatu. I found myself drawing constant parallels to other movies such as “Armageddon”, “Sphere” and the awfully bad “Deep Impact”.
The forced relationship with the kid took it all the way to friggin’ “Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom”. Taken, the kid nicely mirrors the single tracked mind of the US (destroy – destroy – destroy) and we forgive him, because he is a kid (unlike Kathy Bates, US Secretary of Defense). I still would have liked to see more of John Cleese and GORT.
Not even not having seen the original didn’t help.
OK, the CG was great, GORT was cool and all, but the predictability of both the story and the ending was sad, sad, sad.
I hear the ending of the original movie also made more sense. I wish I had spent my time watching that.

Excellent book for anyone to read who’s ever been young and seen his hometown change, since.
An hommage to the Des Moines of the 50’s, but it could be any other place in the world.
Hilarious. I giggled, uncontrollably, while reading.
Perfect christmas gift.

When I read this book, I started out liking the main character, Tildi, as well as the world described, including the way in which magic manifests itself (runes Tildi can see, but most others can’t).
Tildi, last survivor of her family, cannot inherit her house and estate because she is “just” a female halfling (called smallfolk). Her village elders make plans to marry her off, so she legs it (like “Yentl”), dressed in her brother’s clothes, fulfilling his destiny, had he not died: taking up an apprenticeship with Olen, the world’s equivalent of Gandalf.
From there, the story really starts to flow (magic, the Great Book, centaurs and werewolves, runes, kings and minstrel poetry), but unfortunately, I started finding Tildi too one-dimensional and not emancipating herself enough.
I also found too many parallels to LOTR, especially with the power of the Book, the Fellowship of Tildi, a visit to the elves and the foolish royalty.
All in all, too many twists in the story were so predictable that I already knew they were coming at the end when I was half way through the book, and upon reaching the final pages, it turned out not to be a closed story, but part one of Tildi’s quest.
I think I will read the other book once it comes out next year, but just to get closure.

predictable storyline
great visuals
graphic novel

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’!”