Saturday, January 26, 2013

Django Unchained (2012): Beat those white sorry asses!

Critic 1

 

Tarantino's newest does not leave anybody cold. You either love it or you hate it.  Christoph Waltz makes excellent work as a German born dentists who's noted that killing people makes more money than healing them.  Jamie Foxx plays a part of an shining black knight rescuing a damsel in distress. When the plot is laid  down the movie rolls on nicely and the body count rises steadily. There is a kind of lapse during the end game but who cares. This is exactly what you would expect out of western made by Quentin Tarantino. Maybe not for the first dates though.

Critic 2

 

A new movie by Quentin Tarantino. A western about a topic rarely discussed in western movies, namely, slavery. Basic themes are familiar from previous movies by Tarantino, a lot of lively discussions and violence. But again marvellously talking is not boring and almost three hours went quickly. If you liked Tarantino's previous movies you will probably like this one too, although in my opinion this is not one of the best movies from him. The leading actors were really great again, but storyline starts to fall apart towards to the end and this is the biggest minus of the movie. 

A very good movie.
Judgement Star: A very good movie.
   

Friday, January 25, 2013

Book: Judas Unchained - Peter F. Hamilton

May the aliens shiver...

 

A sequel to the Pandora's Star  tells the story of the epic end game of the struggle between humans and the evil aliens the Primes. Not very surprisingly humans prevail after some moral dilemmas which are solved by an unruly hippie... Of course. The story flows nicely without unnecessary stalls. For a fairly long book (~1000 pages) its very fast to read. As a stand-alone book this will not work. It's expected that you know what happened before.

Conspiracy by Apple...?

 

One odd detail stole my attention. There were several references in Finnish things. Like one minor character and a planet named after a Finnish town. And make no mistake. The low Finnish birth rate will make sure that no planets will be named after our towns. At first they kind of seamed out of place and my crooked mind instantly thought  " Could it be that Apple modifies the details of the books based on the purchase location... " Damm... Changing these minor details would bring just enough patriotism in to raise the future sales.  But no. Hamilton has made these references before. Shame. No hidden conspiracy there. But I claim the idea of modified details myself (if it's unclaimed.)


A nice book indeed.

Forget it! - Take it as a gift - Buy it from a discount - Buy a hard cover - For the prime spot on the shelf     

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Frankenweenie (2012): Horror for the kids.

 

Critic 1


This movie is mainly for the kids and hard core Tim Burton fanatics... Or so I thought. The idea is a basic Frankenstein plot with obvious character substitutions. Tim Burtons puppet-animation style works extremely well here and the resurrected horror / tension elements really hit it home. This short and captivating movie probably suits well as a kids first "horror" film. And of course this is a good date movie. Should be easy enough to digest. 

 Critic 2


The movie is a very nice interpretation of the tale of Frankenstein. I thought this would be children's movie with several Disney singing songs. But I'm glad I was wrong. Well, there was one song, but it was creepy enough.  Black, white and grey colour scale suited to movie perfectly. This is a horror movie for children, but the movie was good and a heart warming story progressed nicely. You may also spot some references to old horror movies. Now I'm curious to see the original short version of Frankenweenie.

A nice movie.
The Judgement Star: A nice movie.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Book: Pandora's Star - Peter F. Hamilton

 

Solid but unsurprising universe...

 

The first part of the commonwealth saga paints a very plausible view of the human society in the not-so-distant future. Humans live practically forever - if the wallet allows - and humans are more or less under one government. Nothing really extraordinary here. Contrary to mainstay stories the space flight does not have so big role in this book. A refreshing exception, although towards the end of the book it started to become more prominent. The bad alien in this book is described chillingly good. The motivations behind the alien actions are told and the pure inhumanity tingles my spine... 

Storytelling like in the Game of Thrones


There is no single main character in the book. Much like in the certain very popular fantasy and middle-age related book series. And I like it. It lets the tension build up or lets you breathe when the main flow of the book demands it and splits the book into a manageable chunks.

A very entertaining but not so overly exceptional book.

Forget it! - Take it as a gift - Buy it from a discount - Buy a hard cover - For the prime spot on the shelf   

-Critic#1