h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I finally watched "The Untouchables" this evening whilst doing the ironing. It was a huge success here in Germany as well as in France where it comes from. The first scene has you grinning and most of the rest of the film is really uplifting.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675434/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Yes, that's a good movie. Unlike the one I just saw this evening: "Top Five." I had no clue what was going on much of the time. What was *not* going on was anything remotely entertaining.

Untouchable sounds like a good movie!

Another one which I have had sitting there in its cellophane for a long time now is "The Help". Generally however, films usually turn out better than I expect.

I don't think I'm very critical, although, paradoxically, I don't suspend disbelief easily.

I'm very bad at suspending disbelief, and once it's gone, it's gone. Which does ruin a lot of sci-fi films that try and explain things with utter junk science. Best to just not try to explain it.

Touché!


(I assume you're digging at my comments on "Interstellar". I think that the problem with suspending disbelief in Interstellar was due to the fact that it was set in a world not unlike our own, just a little further down the line. Most sci-fi worlds are fairly alien (pun not intended) and it's easier to accept that nothing needs to make sense.)

No, I don't dig

I actually have trouble suspending disbelief I suppose it comes from the way I write, I want to make sure that there aren't holes in it, because I think they often show lazy writing or a bad understanding of the subject they're writing about.

"I actually have trouble suspending disbelief biggrin I suppose it comes from the way I write, I want to make sure that there aren't holes in it, because I think they often show lazy writing or a bad understanding of the subject they're writing about." [Pastey]

I hope my nephew will be able to suspend disbelief when I give him your book at Christmas. I'm giving books or gift certificates to everyone on my list.

The Best of Me

Romeo & Juliet in Redneck USA.

I saw the ending coming a mile off, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, as did my partner. The two leads are strong, have chemistry and are easy on the eye. Recommended for date night.

GB

The thing with my writing is (I hope) that you don't have to suspend disbelief, that what I write could actually be true.

Even the dragons

I saw the third part of "The Hobbit" last night. After a while, I got tired of one cliffhanging battle scene after another. So many old tropes and clichés that you could see coming from miles away. The bad guy slowly raised the sword and lowers it just as slowly to finish off the hero, and you *know* some other good guy will hit the bad guy form behind just in the nick of time . They pulled this stunt not just once, but dozens of times! Then toward the end of the ultimate battle, eagles swarm overhead, but they don't seem to be *doing* anything.

The orcs look dreadfully ugly, but we never get a chance to see why they are any worse than other groups of ugly people [dwarves, for instance, some of whom are too stubborn and selfish and greedy to deserve any sympathy]. But orcs are ugly, so they must be bad and worth killing, right?

Watched Teen Wolf this morning. Not as good as I remember.

You didn't like the scene where Jason Bateman stood on the roof of that van to the tune of "Surfin' USA"?

Or am I thinking of some other film? I get confused sometimes.

Orcs are definitely the good guys. They have a really effective equal opportunities policy. Not like those elves.

I've not yet managed to get the kids into a cinema to see Mockingjay (I'm happy to wait for the DVD) and now there's the Hobbit as well It all happens at once, and at the busiest time of the year.

Mol

It's not a universally busy time of year. The people who are on vacation from school or college have lots of free time to go to movies. A lot of kids will want to see the witch and the fairy tales in "Into the Woods." "Hunger Games" is aimed at teens, who are mostly students. "Hobbit" should appeal to everyone from teens to retirees.

The people in the middle, who are working for a living while tending to their parents and children, will feel stressed. I feel bad about this.

In years past, new year's Day was my time to catch up on movies and eat in fine restaurants, knowing that the family labors were behind me and there was finally a day off that I could just enjoy.

For the past three years, all the girls from the office have gone together to see the Hunger Games films in the first week it came out. This has also been my birthday present from them as it always came out around that time. So I have seen all three in German, and the first one in English, because part of my present the second time round was the DVD of the first part. I suppose this tradition will continue until next year, then it'll all be over.

Round here, the kids are still at school, and there are shows and concerts and parties going on. And we have two family birthdays thrown into the mix. So finding a free slot to go to the cinema isn't straightforward.

*Especially* as we live in a village, a half hour drive from the nearest cinema. So either the kids have to get one of the rather infrequent buses to get there, or *my* diary comes into play as well and we organise the cinema trip alongside a three-hour trip for me to a supermarket (or to see the film, the case of The Hobbit).

I also had to rearrange our 6 month dental checkup for next Monday (the dentist decided to go on an extended holiday), thus removing *two* potential cinema slots with one appointment.

On the films front, I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix this week. I haven't seen it for ages (we meant to watch all the films again after visiting the studios, but haven't got round to it yet). This prompted me to search out the blog on Buzz Feed by the 31 year old chap who has been watching the HP films *for the very first time* this year. He hasn't read the books, so he is coming to the series as a stranger.

Some of his comments are laugh-out-loud funny, and he has created some brilliant memes using the stills (I particularly like 'but we always wear stripes on Wednesday, Harry'). It's also, if you are an existing HP fan, really interesting seeing his reactions to the films. Recommended.

Mol


Mol

Maybe someday we'll have evolved to the point where "Take an Orc to lunch day" is part of the social calendar.

That would be quite an orc-asion.

Dallas Buyers Club. A great central performance, but for me the film was deeply unsatisfying, with much of the action inconsequential, and some rather tame 'romantic interest' bolted on. But every other reviewer else loves it, so I must be wrong in thinking beyond the admittedly novel central conceit, this was a conventional, formulaic and pedestrian setting for McConaughey's superb acting.