Category Archives: Movie Review

Media Review: Written by a Kid

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Most of my readers will be familiar with the Geek & Sundry youtube channel, if you’ve not watched shows on it you’ve had your friends break out a new game they heard about on tabletop or your mother asked you about that steampunk thing you like that Felicia Day vloged about on the FLOG (because of course your mother is just that cool).

When Tabz told me to check out Written by a Kid though, I had my doubts.  I don’t have kids, and while I like kids books and am a bit of a kid myself, I’m often less than impressed by projects focused around ‘They say the darndest things.’  This is anything but that.  They interview a kit, the kid tells them the idea for a story and as the viewer hears about the story we see a visual representation of this story.  Whether it be animation, live action, a mix of both, or played by Joss Whedon and Dave Foley, it’s always fun to see.

You could watch this with your child, or just on your own and get a lot out of it.  Evil robot families, goth babies, a S.Q.U.A.T. team, half vampires taking out pirate witches, what’s not to love?  In addition to the main movies/stories the behind the scenes videos are really interesting.  Normally, I skip behind the scenes videos on youtube, it’s a lot more extra than content, but on this channel they talk about things that are interesting to me, animation, how they got Joss Whedon to perform, painted clothing (I really want to make some and wear it for real), different video effects and a Buffy Mustache.

Enough of me blabbing, go, watch the videos.  Oh and it’s work safe, kid safe and everything safe :)

PS: thanks Tabz for being right again about something I thought sounded like it wasn’t my cup of tea but in the end was right up my alley.

Movie Review: Tomboy

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“A 10-year-old girl, settling into her new neighborhood outside Paris, is mistaken for a boy and has to live up to this new identity since it’s too late for the mistake to be clarified.”

Today I watched this movie, it’s in french with english subtitles.  It’s slow going but it held my attention mostly because of the realistic acting from these child actors.  It was pretty good except it left me with a sadness at the end.  I thought I saw a real natural progression of what a young person might be going through if they were able to realize at such a young age they would prefer to be a boy rather than a girl.

SPOILERS BELOW:

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Twilight: Eclipse

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No I am not a Twihard, I mean yes I have read all the books and liked the first three, and now have seen all the movies, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love poking fun at the series.  It is a guilty pleasure of which I have little guilt.

First off, I feel bad for all of the men who were forced to go see this by their women.  The theatre I went to had quite a few and I heard some groaning by these poor men.  Though when one vamp was killed in a cool effect way there was a loud manly “NICE!” heard through the theatre, to wit everyone had a good giggle.

I went to see the movie at the base theatre.  I have never been to the base theatre so I didn’t know what to expect.  Would the screen be tiny?  How would the sound be?  What sort of chairs do they have?  Well the base theatre is really nice, a real theatre with real seats on an angle so you don’t have to worry about someone’s head in front.  The seats were really nice, wide, clean with loads of leg room.  Also, the cup holder in on the chair in front of you, got to say, that is a nice feature.  The screen is the same size at the multiplex screens in the town over (20-30min drive).  The sound, really good, and because it is a smaller room, it is much more intense.  There was one moment of the screen going yellow on us but I don’t know if that was in the movie or the projectionist’s fault.  Only problem with the theatre is it is cash only, and I gave all my cash to my husband for the PPV event he went to see tonight.  So I had to dig around in my purse for loonies and tunies to pay, luckily I had enough.  Amazing how much change you carry when the country doesn’t have paper money under 5$ bills.

On to the movie.

So 1/3 of it was awesome, sadly that 1/3 is broken up over most of the movie.  There is way too much sappy “I love you so much it hurts” crap.  Now those of you who I have spoken to about the Twilight series is one of my biggest beefs (behind the fourth book ruining the series) is from Eclipse when it is obvious that the author has never felt the kind of love she is trying to write about.  If you love someone, really love someone like she claims, there isn’t room for another romanic love.  It just doesn’t happen.  That is lust and deep feelings, and who can blame the kid, warm hot wolf kid who continues to put up with your shit and calls you beautiful at every turn no matter how many times you hurt him, who wouldn’t care for him and lust for him?  Same with Abercrombie Ad boyfriend who adores you.  The lalalove stuff was not my thing, and it was too long and drawn out in those scenes.  There is nothing in the movies that makes you feel Bella is into Jake, and honestly, Edward looked to be in pain the whole time, like he was passing a stone or something.  I really feel that Kristen Stewart’s performance in the first movie was great, she was SO Bella, but this movie I felt like she was phoning it in.  The awkward uncomfortable don’t know how to talk look was way overplayed.  I was happy to see more Jasper, and happy with the flashback scenes, I was so scared they would leave those out, though I do wish they emphasized some things more with them.  More about Rose’s desire for children, more about Jasper having a hardship with feeling his victims emotions, you know, his mortal victims!  Those who have seen the movie, the wedding dress flash back was a nice visual!  Rose kicked ass.

The Wolves were awesome!  So fluffy and cool and when Bella is petting Jake, I loved it!  The fight scenes were so good too, I really like how they did that and could have taken more scenes of that.

The wigs were lame, just use their real hair, the makeup sucked, but that is the same as the whole series.  The sparkling was done better, thankfully no chime sounds to let us know they are sparkling.  You know people have been making vampire movies for almost as long as they have been making movies, you might want to use the techniques they used rather then slabbing tons of baby powder on your characters and calling it a day.

The landscape shots were amazing, I see more and more tourism to the area coming.  The snow scene was not convincing, and who camps in cold weather without a heat source?  Seriously there is such a thing as winter camping, people do it all the time.  The music was pretty nice too, went well with the movie.

Oh and the “Valedictorian” was pretty unbelievable, I know they had to give more lines to the actress because her career is going places and they need her to stay in the movie but couldn’t they have made her class president or something?  How was that person the smartest of their class?

I don’t rate the movie highly, but I do say if you are a fan of the series go see it.  If you are not, why would you go to the third movie of any series you never saw?  And to all you men dragged there, I am so sorry.  I would never do that to anyone.  My man went to the UFC fight tonight.