The Majickal show of Merlin

I've always loved knights, honor, battles, chivalry, pretty princesses, dragons, and we most certainly cannot forget, majick. (It IS spelled correctly btw). There is something so achingly beautiful about knights filled with chivalry, riding on gleaming horses, bravely facing their battle. I suppose it has to do with humanoids of now, most, not all I suppose, being selfish, mean, arrogant, prissy, in general the bringers of bad vibes. I really do long for the days of elegant princesses and valiant knights, the regality of it all. And I would be half and half, a knight and princess all in one. Not at the same time, just like in shifts or something.

Anywhoo, Merlin is a BBC show (meaning the American producers cannot ruin it with their predisposed 'rules' of how shows should be). And basically needs no explanation (ok then so why write about it). It portrays a younger Merlin, growing up, still learning his powers, or ahem his craft. His interaction with the young King Arthur are priceless good laughs. He also interacts with Morgana (who in this world is a ward of King Uthor), and Guenevere, a servant. Yeah, so the characters are a bit tossed. I might as well tell you Arthur is the Kings son, not some poor kid who pulls a sword from a rock. So, hmmm, explaining WAS necessary! The show is usually lighthearted, though, as shows pass time, most want to be taken more seriously and the end result of that is portrayed on the show as drama. But it is a good watch for fantasy lovers.

The Notebook : mini rant

I HATE the Notebook. I hated sitting thru the screaming shrilly voiced girls screamy shrilly shrieks every .5 seconds. And I hated the little "young hercules" man (yeah, check it out, he did some Saturday morning show where HE the tiny little string puppet was actually playing Herc. Hahahah!). I also thought the whole story was dumb, and well really, if you're constantly cringing (from my dazy memory of that waste of a day) during a movie, a WHOLE movie, need you really watch it??

Too Many Husbands

Don't most women wish!! This movie, warn you upfront is in the two beautiful colors of black and white. This movie is based on a book, and when you find out about the movie plot and actual book you wonder why, they even pretended the movie came from the same source.

The movie, is about a woman who loses her husband in a boating accident during their honeymoon. She then remarries her husbands business partner and finds 6 months in, that her first guy is back and kicking. She then lavishes in the attention that both men most obviously give her to make her choose him. The trouble is she seems to like both equally. It is a comedy, and it is not the best black and white film comedy but it is okay as a quick watch.

I need to ask, if Hollywood wants to "use" books and plays' stories for their movies, why then do they change them so dramatically and still have the gall, the audacity to name the movie after the book? It is so different! The absolute worst on which makes my blood boil even now is one based on my favorite book, Cheaper by the dozen. The movie (if you can call it one), was NOTHING (and I do not say this because of my anger) like the movie. Not word or mention of events that happened in the book. The two similarities? One was the book and movie both had families of twelve, and the other, the freakin title!!!!

Now back to Too Many Husbands, in the play, the main woman is selfish and vain. The surprise? NEITHER husband wants her! Both try to pawn her off on the other, both try being the 'noble' one and step aside. Now that would have made a terrifically DIFFERENT movie! Does Hollywood not get that movies with the guys vying for the girl are a dime a dozen and that a movie about guys trying to pawn off the lead female (no less) is something crazy funny and fresh? I would not hope that current Hollywood would remake this film, the book would rollover in its grave. You can just imagine what they'd throw in, talking monkeys and a pack of cheerleaders (no less!).

When in Rome

This Friday, needing to watch a light fluffy romantic comedy, I ventured into "When in Rome". I had been curious about it, having Veronica Mars' Kirsten Bell. Of course, having someone as short as Kirstin Bell paired with Josh Duhammel also whetted my curiosity as to how these two would come of screen. I wondered idly, how many inches were on her boots. Well I give the movie a C+, and this taking into account that I did not expect a moving epic motion picture to begin with.



Bells character is a typical "been hurt before in love, now throwing herself in work" type thing. She takes 4 coins from the fountain of love, thereby making the four men who threw the coins in there, fall magically in love with her. One of them being Danny Devito, a sausage moghul, and horribly underused or over abused, take your pick. The rest are Will Arnett from Arrested Development, a fake artist, John Hedder from Napolean Dynamite as the magician and (the funniest character) and finally Dax Shepard, the male model and real life fiance of Kirsten Bell. Once again she is dwarfed by her life love, real or fake.

Kirsten Bells acting was very off. Her Veronica Mars stuff was great, her Heroes stuff okay. But, her hand in movie acting has to end! It was overacted and lacked any screen presence. Her Veronica Mars costar Amanda Seigfried (Mama mia), on the other hand is the one to watch. Josh Duhamel seems to be okay in the movie, and can act. I had not been sure this would be the case. you can actually, buy him as the guy who is head over heels in love.

If you are craving a romance/comedy, either rewatch something good, or find something else, geez, they could have done so much better.

500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer is about Jason Gordon Levitt, (made famous from the half hour side spankin' comedy, Third Rock from the Sun) falling for a girl who is not looking for a partner or boyfriend or anything 'commint-menty'. The movie shows their ways of thinking thru their relationship, the way each sees the other. I guess I'm making it sound boring huh? It's not.

If you've seen the trailer for this movie you may or may not depending on the trailer think this is a lovey dovey romance. In some part it is, many scenes portray a sweet, 'first love' type relationship. During the movie you think you know where it's going, you think you've got some characters figured out, but the best I can describe it is a ," fresh", or" real" type ending.

The movie has some very funny lines/scenes and on the whole and on the end, you feel nice having watched the movie. I must say I disagreed with a cousin who thought Zoey Deschanel's character was 'selfish and mean'. I mean nobody can fortell who they fall for. You can't stay with people based on pity or because they break your heart with puppy dog eyes.

P.S After you've watched the movie (which you might not because my review is pretty lame in comparison to the actual movie), what the hell is up with Autumn?? Blah, snore snore, you could've picked better!

Transformers II

I saw THE movie of the summer, and Lordy Lord was it GOD awesome!!!!! Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, was filled with action BUT it was filled with just enough 'human' parts as well. Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf) and his parents created all the human/comedy elements needed. Megan Fox (aka there for eye candy, also did fine in her role. All the Fox haters I suppose went out of their way to scare potential moviewatchers about how horrid her acting is-- it's not. It was an action film people and not "A Beautiful Mind", they did'nt even give the actors lines that would wrench you heart and bring tears to your face. (....my heart wrenched a little when Opti fake died) They did fine with what they got (which was quite good), and conveyed their characters very well.

I was UNHAPPY with the role of Isabel Lucas. The Transformer who can transform into a GIRL??!! WTF??!! Originally I had thought, okay they are uptaking the eye candy quotient, until you see Isabel Lucas turn into a Deceptacon(!!!!) and you exclaim WTF really loudly in the movie theatre. Except nobody notices you because they are all exclaiming the SAME THING!!! Arg. How can a 500 ton (don't quote me on that), robot transform into a skinny little anorexic girl??!! And why didn't she crush Shia Labeouf into mushy paper when she was trying to fake mate with him?? Okay so if we nitpick every little detail in an action flick you will never enjoy it. But Isabel Lucas was just plain gratuitous.

Er, I'm not really going into the storyline here, I mean really how can you not know? Bad robots fight good robots who side with humanoids and fight epic battles filled with beautiful cars, that make your heart ache and think you have a faulty heart. And don't get me started on the freaking pyramids!!!!!!!!!! Okay to Late!!

I have always been into Egypt, the beautiful pyramids the mysteries, the burials, it all makes my heart ache to think I shall never be able to see or feel it. And the dumb snotty actors and actresses of Transformers (whose hearts don't ache just thinking about touching a beautiful pyramid) got inside access to places tourists will never see. As if they don't have fame, fortune, and a grand old time enough making crazy beautiful films like Transformers, they must take/squeeze/throttle the daydream/wishes/deepest desires of commonfolk daydreamers of the pyramids. Yarg. Rant OVER.

The Proposal

I recently saw Sandra Bullocks and Ryan Reynolds (Two guys a Girl and A Pizza Place!) much anticipated movie, The Proposal. All the hype, the high box office generating numbers--- hogwash. This movie I would rate "C-", and for a couple of reasons.

Where is the romance? (For that matter where was the comedy?). Ryan and Sandra Bullock barely seem to have scenes together, and when they do it feels they are like two magnets--on their opposing ends, repelling each other off the screen. I honestly felt like Ryan Reynolds had more onscreen chemistry with his 'high school sweetheart', who had a screen time of 5 minutes. I felt they would end up together! There were no scenes in which the two leads would feel closer to each other or even connect. (The 'naked' scene doesn't count-gratuitous nudity, and the two minute 'I like a geeky band and have a tattoo' bit to give Sandy some humanity was like oooo-kay what-ever).

Remember "While he was Sleeping"? You will! This movie had the same 1920's wedding dress bit, the same "I miss what it's like having a family" speech, and the same confession at the alter scene. Oh and the same "Grammy will have a heart attack if she finds out" crap. Geez.

Seriously, it seems like Sandra Bullock has lost her onscreen presence, her mojo, she looked like a spiritless dummy doll walking around the movie, doing totally random scenes devoid of anything to give the movie oomph.

Star Trek..........The Movie

When I first took my sneak peaks at leaked online trailers, and heard the ominous, "This is not your fathers Trek" type lines, I was mad. I wanted to choke Quinto, Pine, and Abram. Then I went to see the film (well, duh I HAD to see how badly it sucked did I not??) although after Thai food and a glass of wine, so with a grain of salt my freinds. It was good!

I must say though that as soon as the fake Spock (Quinto or Sylar from Heroes) came on I wanted to bum rush the screen and choke the living daylights out of him (my my violent are we not?). He showed way to much emotion for a Vulcan, not to think of the fact he was portraying THE Vulcan. Though he did get better as time went by, I forgave him, and enjoyed the rest of the movie.

Chris Pine as Shatner (hehe, imagine him doing the next gen Priceline ads--can't be done), was fine, he can act, and had charisma and enough skills to pull off the comedy bits. Thumbs up.

The movie itself, the storyline was good. Not overly complex and not dumbed down for the dumb kids of today.

Is it me or is every beautiful 80's cartoon or show being DUMBED down so todays brainless kids can drool their spittle into a tub of mega-corn and laugh like retards? Hey the grownups of the world (as grown up as we sci-fi geeks can be), can dole out money for tickets to movies too. Although, many geekazoids do illegally dload. Is that why everything is dumbed down with Jar Jar Binks and the Will Ferrells (Land of the Lost) of the world?

Monsters Vs. Aliens-----boo

So this weekend I took my young niece and nephew to watch this movie. Based on the commercials I thought it should be fun. WRONG. Nothing wrong with me being an 'adult' and not 'getting' a kids movie--this movie was so boring my neice and nephew were squirming around in their seats, peering into their popcorn bags and grabbing each others sodas.

The movie which is super hyped up due to Reece Witherspoon, is about a 50 foot tall woman and her freak monster friends who battle evil aliens. The 'comraderie' and friendship they try to tie in, falls flat. The humor, well wait, what humor? 3-D? Only in a limited number of places. Basically, a waster of time. And the only thing they really enjoyed was the previews!!!!!

Transformers would make it ANY way..........

Transformers did not make 700 billion dollars because of its storyline, I mean come on seriously? And no, it was not because of the "superb" acting abilities of Shia Lebeouf and Megan Fox. It made $700 billion because it is TRANSFORMERS, and it is cool cars becoming R-O-B-O-T-S, seriously people, ROBOTS. I mean is that not every freaking person in this world's dream? What more could u ask of god? A robot for everyone, I shall wish it for us all. No need to pray for world peace if you have a robot, it will keep it for you.......ahhhhh(takes a deep sigh). It will mow your lawn, walk your dog, and be the bestest freind you've ever had. No need for 'real' friends, no need for those pesky humanoid friends (which are useless and hard to come by anyway).

Errrr......my point WAS.........Transformers would have been watched by ANYONE and EVERYONE, just by reading the title, I mean who hasn't wished for another Optimus Prime based storyline? (I remember when he died, it was a traumatic and confusing experience as a child, and freaking stupid of the writers to think they could kill him off and the world would twirl merrily away).

Let's just hope Transformers II, is not a buttload of action sequences and product placement ads strewn together haphazardly. The autobots had heart.

Shows going Stale...

As I was watching my latest sc-fi show, it occured to me that most shows seem to go 'stale' for me. There are quite few that after the first season or two excite me enough to run to the tv at the correct time and groan in real physical pain if I missed the first 30 seconds.

X-Files kept me stuck to the television until the final season with Mulder and Scully in it together. Unforatunatly, they kept the show going with Mr. Evil Terminator and Miss. So Gay (forum fans know that one...) even after Mulder departed for non-hollywood. As a personal point of ARGGGHHHH, hair pulling, after years of a cool sister arc including being cloned to just mention ONE, they dump it into the lap of a child abductor??!! No really??? What a stinkin pile of Dren.

If you have never watched EVERWOOD, the most wonderful show ever, you can thank some dumb bimbo at WB for shutting the show down in favor of some dumb bimbo show that got cancelled afer like 3 episodes anyway. Everwood had a different storyline every episode that didn't bore you, it dealt with 'reality' based storylines. If you watch WB shows, where every spoiled little teeny bopper female sleeps with /seduces every other teen bopper hearthrob boy, it gets old fast. Everwood may not have had hearthrobs, fashion trends, and party tips but it did have a feeling of comfort..... Holy Frell, am I like getting old? Ew.

Lost is a show that really keeps me on my toes, things just keep happening on that show. Even the main characters are game for something happening to them, dying etc........ It really manages to rope in sci-fi and fantasy but at such a small quiet level, that you mostly just consider the show to be drama or action. The storylines blend perfectly together to create wide story arcs and yet each individual ep has it's own action. Really must watch.

Thundercats......HO!.........

I just saw a trailer for our most beloved of all cartoons, Thundercats. The trailer is a fake but boy is it a beaut! Brad Pitt, Chiana, and Mr. Wolverine himself spliced and painted to look like a real Hollywood trailer.....mmmmmmmm.

Can't wait for Hollywood to wake up and make the movie that will give me sweet sweet dreams for many months afterwards. Come On! Who doesn't dream themselves into Thundera? Become one of the Thundercats and fight the evil Mumra, SO awesome.

Okay, if you don't know what Thundercats is, it is an 80's cartoon about humanoid cats from another planet :) landing on third earth and fighting the evil Mumra and his henchmen. Lion-o, is the head, I'm not telling you guys which guys are which cats (duhrrrr), Cheetarah, Panthero (makes tech), Tigra, and wilykit and wilykat (no idea onto which cats they are based. Or for that matter they have a pet called Snarf, his kind does not exist on our Earth. Very kool cartoon, lots of storyline, much better than ALL of the idiot child retard cartoons they come up with these days...........remember HE-Man and She-ra? Sigh.

Fake trailer link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb50GMmY5nk&eurl=http://justjared.buzznet.com/2008/12/22/thundercats-the-movie-trailer/

My fav anime's....

Ever since I was introduced to anime with Escaflowne, I was in love. I had never before seen "cartoons" with such great graphics, scenery, and deep, powerful, and interesting storylines. Escaflowne has both a movie and show out, the latter is what I speak about. If you are not into reading subtitled stuff, worry not. Escaflowne was in English, it actually aired on Fox, every Saturday morning. It is a complex storyline, surprising, and SHOCKING (sister, wtf?!? for those of you who get it), and funny.

I once thought I could never watch anything with subs, I was wrong. The first 5 minutes of an anime would annoy me, then before I knew it, I did'nt even realize the voices were foreign. Just got into the flow of reading. Same with Pans Labyrinth, talk about it below, somewhere, not anime, but beautiful movie.

Howls Moving Castle, is another great anime movie, based on a book by Diana Jones, only anime-fied. Sophie, a hat girl is cursed into a 90 year old woman and helps out a wizard in his moving castle with his majickal friends. Great one.

Akira, really good movie, bit old. From what I remember (saw it a while ago), about a boy with vast mental abilities, corrupt governement scientists, psychics, bike gangs, deep storyline. Good one.

Inuyasha the series is really good, though after a while the episodes started to get 'clone-y', meaning it seemed like they always discovered a monster, fought it, and went on their way. I still recomend watching it, at least till you personally get bored if at all. Amazing scenery, monsters, story ideas, I loved it. About a girl who meets a half demon half boy and must collect pieces of a crystal before the evil Naraku does. Lots of characters to enjoy.

Princess Mononoke, really good movie. It was actually one of the highest grossing films in Japan until Titanic came along, and pushed it down. movie is older, and about the fight between basically, nature and industrialization/forest killing. Good movie.

Spirited Away, is about a girl whose parents are turned into pigs by a witch, the girl goes to a fantasy land to get her parents back, makes friends, and help others. Good movie and I just found out, it BEAT yes BEAT Titanic in Japan. Won an Academy too.

GhostTown

I recently came upon a movie called Ghost Town, I had never heard of it before but decided to try it. Guess what? "What, What?" you ask. I actually liked it. It seemed to have a small indi movie feel to it, the stories pace was not what you would find in a 'regular' theatre though.

The story was about a dentist, an ornery one at that who 'dies' for like 2 minutes, wakes up and can see ghosts. Ghosts that won't leave him alone and chase him around the city, funny. This movie was not slapstick funny but rather 'good lines' funny. Things get interesting for him when he falls for one of the ghosts wives, then...... a totally unexpected ending. Seriously, you actually have to rewind the movie and watch it over again....

P.S The only character I recognized was Tea Leoni, wife of David Duchovny (Mulder!!!), and if you don't know who Mulder is, seriously, were you born on this planet??

Better late than never.....Pans Labyrinth

I just saw Pan's Labyrinth!! And yes those exclamation points are there for a reason.....it was a beautiful movie!! At first I was a bit trepidacious, it is a foreign film with subs after all. I'm not usually into those. But this film is a played out sortof like a fairy tale, but also sortof with lots of reality thrown in, hard to explain for me it is. It is quite bloody in parts, torture scenes, and a bit--just the oh so tiny bit goose bumpy. But in the end all I could say to describe it was...beautiful! It had made me want to find more movies from the guy who made this one. Not for kids, it's not a fairy tale (for kids), it is more about a young girl who is caught up in that type of magical world.

If Stephen King says so....

Apparently even Stephen King is not into Stephenie Meyers 'Twilight' books. In an interview he claimed that even though both J.K. Rowling and Stephenie write for kids, Meyers writing is just plain bad. I personally thought the same thing, I watched the movie which I like, and thought to try the book series since it so popular. I was amazed that someone even published it! It was so fragmented and baby-ish.

There are so many wonderful vampire books out there, "Interview with a Vampire" series for example. Now that series is some thought provoking reading, deep, and beautiful. Well I guess she just got lucky--her book passed thru whatever standards they have for publishing scripts, and then actually became popular. Although we all know why, puh-lease, perfectly sculptured vamps biting young girls? What teenage girl would'nt go gaga over that? Seems like if someone had beat Meyer to writing a teenage vamp story, it would have claimed the popularity she has. She just got popular because she did it first.....

P.S I did think it a tad bit mean, for a celebrity status guy like Stephen King to publicly ridicule Meyer. Should a famous guy keep his opinions to himself, because they can be spread so fast/far and turn the object into a public humiliation symbol? OR, is it unfair for them not to be able to give out their own opinions like other people? Hmmm.

AVATAR the MOVIE!!!!

Okay, so we fans of Avatar had a near miss with at least one casting call. Zuko was supposed to be played by Jesse McCartney?! Remember 'Summerland', or actually, do you really want the nightmares to start again? The boy acted as if he were on a Disney Channel show. I literally had gag fests when tht show came on.

His replacment for Zuko is apparently 'Slumdog Millionaire" boy Dev Patel. No comment on that one, I have yet to watch the movie. Crossing fingers, hope he can act. Zuko is a MAJOR role. MAJOR. MAJOR.

The director will be M. Night Shyamalan, let's hope he has at least watched some of the series. I hate when directors take what they like to call 'artistic license' with a beloved show/series, and ruin the very essense of what made it beloved in the first place.

The movie version of Hannah Montana will likely have Miley Cyrus holding an ak47, a couple of grenades, and an oozie, while she saves the President of the United States. No really it will.

Batman Strikes again....

So apparently, Christain Bale DOES have an anger problem. While on the set of Terminator Salvation, he cursed for four whole minutes at some poor Director of Photography guy for accidentally walking where he's not supposed to -- on set.

EVERYONE makes mistakes, what I didn't get was that not one person stood up to the grand and almighty Christan Bale to tell him he was out of line for yelling at a man as if he were a five year old kid! One guy tried to calm hime down, then backed off, why were they ALL scared of him??

Seriously, Christain Bale has already ruined Batman, now he is going for my other alltime favorite of Terminator. If the man can't keep his temper like the ungod human he is..................

P.S I did enjoy the last 2 Batman movies----BUT for the story, the scenes, and the other actors who made the movies what they were.