Hunger Games - Movie Review

Friday, 23 March 2012

Last Friday was the premier for the movie The Hunger Games. It was based on the book by Suzanne Collins, which is the first and best book in the trilogy. Several months ago i listened to the audio books for all three. The first book was definitely the best, but the 2nd and 3rd were good too.


It stars a girl named Katniss who has to fight to the death against other kids from the 12 districts. It was set in the future but it reminded me of communist Russia, where everyone in lives in poverty except people from the Capital.

The movie was almost 2.5 hours long and was actually really good. Though it seemed rushed near the end. But as with all movies that are based on books, like Harry Potter, they always have to cut out several scenes and characters. Otherwise it would be a 6 hour movie.

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Movie Review - 3.5

Thursday, 12 August 2010

I've been slacking with the reviews but now there's 2 that i think are really good and worth writing about. Earlier i wrote about Inception which is still by far the best movie i've seen this year.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

First off, it's not what you think. From the title i thought it was going to be some teen girl movie starring Hanna Montanan or something. Ooooohhh but it wasn't. It was based on a best selling book by Stieg Larssons. Who i'm guessing is from Sweeden because that's what language the movie was in. You have to watch it with subtitles. It's more then two and a half hours long and the first half of the movie made me feel very uncomfortable. It was weird. They showed stuff you don't normally see in movies from the USA. It's about a 40 year old movie that the two main characters are trying to solve. It's really well thought out and easy to get drawing in to the very in-depth story and characters.

Great movie, but still creepy and uncomfortably weird, 8 out of 10.

The Book of Eli

Simply put, it's Mad Max, except replace gasoline with a "special book." And replace Mel Gibson with Denzel Washington. And there's this annoying girl that follows him around. But other than that it's basically the same. Even though the entire movie was this sort of grayish color, visually it was awesome. The story was cool too, except for the annoying girl. And, at least for me, there was a huge twist at the end that i didn't see coming.

Looked cool, the action was good, the story was ok, i'd watch it again, 7 out of 10.

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EncyclopediHUH?

Monday, 19 July 2010

Encyclopedia
Yes, it's a book.
A series of books with words in it.
It's like the Cliffs Notes of Google.
Before Google, you had to buy these books. If it wasn't in there, you had to head to the library to sort through other books. Now i don't know who was the first person to jump off the Broolkyn Bridge... but google does. Oh look, it's Robert E. Odlum in 1885. Google is awesome.

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Book Review

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

The rating system is out of a total of 10 thumbs up

The Children of Hurin - by J.R.R. Tolkien
Ok so it's probably not the best way to start off reviewing books with a book i didn't even finish. I tried reading this while out of town and just couldn't get through it. Admittedly i had never read the original Lord of the Rings but i'm guessing they were probably similar to this in writing style. This is what i mean, here's the first three sentences of the story:

"Hador Goldenhead was a lord of the Edan and well-beloved by the Eldar. He dwelt while his days lasted under the lordship of Fingofin, who gave to him wide lands in that region of Hithlum which was called Dor-lomin. His daughter Gloredhel wedded Haldir son of Halmir, lord of the Men of Brethil; and ad the same feast his son Galdor the Tall wedded Hareth, the daughter of Halmir"

WHAT ?????

If any of you were able to read and understand that, my hat's off to ya. The problem is that there was 300 more pages just like that. I was immediately lost with all the names. It didn't help the fact that almost every sons named rhymed with the fathers. This book should have come with a giant tree diagram to make sense of every character.

If you are looking for a casual read, this is NOT it. Like i said, i only made it about half way through, but if there had been some sort of comprehension quiz afterwords, i would have failed for sure.

So giving it the benefit of the doubt that it might have gotten a little better, 3 out of 10 thumbs up.






The Lightning Thief - by Rick Riordan
This is book one of a 5 part series called Percy Jackson & The Olympians. It's sort of like a combination between Harry Potter, The X-Men and Clash of the Titans. It actually starts off a lot like Harry Potter in that Percy is a troubled kid who doesn't know his father and soon discovers he has special powers. But it turns out, he doesn't have the powers because his parents are magical, as in Harry's case. It's because his father is one of the 12 Greek Gods. His mother is human, making him a half-blood. He ends up going to a special summer camp for other half-bloods but finds out he's even more special then all of them, goes on a quest with a girl and his best friend ... ya actually, it seem really really similar to Harry Potter now that i think about it.

Having said that, i actually really liked this book. It was fast paced. Very fast paced. The story seemed to really fly by. Even the way that ancient greek stories were mixed in, was quite interesting.

This was the first book in the series and like Harry Potter it did seem to be geared a little to younger kids. But i'm hoping that the remaining 4 books are a little more grown up. Also they are making a movie about this book, supposedly coming out in 2010. The director is Chris Columbus who did the first two Harry Potter movies. The trailer looks really cool, not a kids movie at all.

So having said all that, and with the intention of reading the other 4 books, i give it 8 out of 10 thumbs up.

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