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

I recently bought the book "Chess in the Movies", a labor of love by a dentist/chess enthusiast. His entry on an alltime favorite of mine, "Searching for Bobby Fischer" (1993), led me to rewatch it for the umpteenth time. "... it is also about a boy's (Josh, a real person on whom the script is based) relationship to his father and to his trainer, and about whether a kind and decent kid can make it in the remarkably cutthroat world of children's tournaments." It gets over three pages (three columns each) in this encyclopedic book, and won a "Parents' Choice Award" in 1994. With an excellent ensemble cast including Laurence Fishburne, Joe Mantegna and Ben Kingsley (as trainer Bruce Pandolfini - the real Pandolfini, who coached the real Josh, has a cameo), and photography by the legendary Conrad Hall (three Oscars - Butch Cassidy, American Beauty, Road to Perdition, plus a nomination here), it works at a lot of levels. 7.5/10 at imdb.

Bruce Pandolfini: Bobby Fischer held the world in contempt.
Josh Waitzkin: Well, I'm not him.
Bruce Pandolfini: You're telling me.

Just got back from The Simpsons. It was a lot better than I was expecting.

I'll be singing SpiderPig for weeks. Best bit for me was Maggie versus Mr Teeny.

...and that absolutely worthy cup of hot that Flanders made for Bart



I've been dreaming of that ever since, and determined to get the ingredients together so I can concoct it (including buying a blow-torch)

Cool, I saw it on sky the other night too. Much the same response frankly.
Utter nonsense but good fun none the less.

Oh poop, that was a reply to Daveblackeye's post on the previous page relating to the Da Vinci Code.

Simpsons movie... really enjoyed it. I echo what lago said about singing the "Spiderpig" song for weeks!

HP5 for the second time, this time with the Gruesomes.

Since they have the type of memories only kids have (ie almost total recall of anything they like) they moaned that so much was cut out of the book

We thought Umbridge was perfect as was Tonks and poor ol' lupin.

The size difference annoyed me this time too, I didn't notice it first time - is Daniel Radcliffe really that short?

What I really liked is how it visually connected us back to the 3rd film - and how darned Sirius was in this.

what annoyed me again, and irritated the Gruesomes was the big fight in the minístry: the novel mad a big deal about the other kids really fighting and risking their lives.

Plus the rather fab fight that we saw on trailers between Bellatrix and Sirius was cut completely. One minute he's whipping Lucius () the next Bellatrix pops up from nowhere and kills him. It needed to be much more drawn out and dramatic than that.

but generally

Saw Christopher Nolan's first film Following last night. If you like a bit of noir, and enjoyed the convolutions of Memento & The Prestige, check this out. It's excellent.

Saw Tranformers yesterday.

It was two and a half hours of my life that I'll never get back. I can't describe how much I loathed the film, if I hadn't have been with a friend, I'd have walked out about half an hour in.

The special effects were undoubtedly very special and I was expecting the fact that it was basically a giant toy advert, but they seemed to have gone looking for the worst actors they could find, and the dialogue was crushingly bad. They insulted the audiences intelligence at every opportunity with plot holes you could drive a city through.

The *only* good thing was the Linkin Park song at the end.

I saw , The family stone , last night and really enjoyed this xmas family get together type of film

Watched "The Bride With White Hair" on DVD last night. It was no "Lady Snowblood", but it was rather entertaining. I'd give it 3 1/2 stars.

We recently watched a film that I thought would be good- "The Magus". The book was pretty good. The movie starred Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, and Anna Karina. (And Candice Bergen, unfortunately, though that in itself wasn't enough to put us off.) But man, what a mind-numbingly boring movie. I fell asleep halfway through and didn't bother watching the rest. Hope this warning saves someone else a similar fate.

I just watched the Daredevil movie, which I had only heard bad things about. I don´t think it was all that bad however, even if it was not one of the best superhero movies. It had some good ideas, like Murdock sleeping in a sensory deprivation tank.

Took The Gruesome Twosome to see Evan Almighty yesterday. They thoroughly enjoyed it and I didn't find it too dire.

Last evening I watched The Lake House on TV. Sandra Bullock can only do one character but at least she's had a lot of practice so this one was very sweet. (If you don't think about the time-travel anomolies that it chucks up)

I watched "Children Of Men" on DVD last night.

I seem to recall everyone (OK, not *everyone*, but lots of people) raving about it when it came out. I didn't think much of it - a good idea, but very poorly executed.

Today I saw "The Simpsons Movie". It's good. It's not brilliant, but hey, my expectations were fully met. And yes, the spider-pig song!

RF

I saw Stardust at the theater and enjoyed it very much. Rollicking fun, adventurous, romantic, funny, and sweet. Starred Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Robert Deniro, and Michelle Phieffer.

Surfs Up.

Can't really give a full report as I slept through the beginning...don't think the plot was terribly exciting, but the animated waves and penguin markings qua tattoos were admirable.

A Sound of Thunder - newish film, based on an old Ray Bradbury short story. The story - as I remember - went like this: people use time machine to go back to hunt dinosaurs, but have to be very careful only to shoot dinosaurs that are about to die anyway, and not touch anything at all in case it affects history. Someone steps on a butterfly by mistake and returns to the present to find the cumulative effect has changed everything subtly (and the word subtle is very important here).

The film is similar, up till the point they return to the present. In the film, only evolution is altered for some reason, not the course of history, so everyone still remembers what things were like before the change. Which is already getting a bit tenuous.

The changes don't just build up over 65 million years, in accordance with the normal flow of time. They come in waves, which change stuff suddenly when they pass. And they appear to "pass" in the spatial dimensions too, causing chaos and sweeping cars up like tornadoes.

If that wasn't bad enough, the waves build up slowly, affecting more and more complex life forms as they go. So plants are first, then insects, then mammals and ultimately humans. Not sure why time should be so selective about what species it alters, or why humans are considered so much more "complex" than anything else, except that this awful contrivance allows humans to experience the everything else changing before they are changed themselves (but of course they save the day before the final wave comes).

For the sake of a good story, all the "newly-evolved" creatures are, of course, fearsome predators. All of them. Even the plants. There is no explanation as to why this should be the case, or how such large carnivorous populations could've been sustained without any obvious prey.

In short, another contrived and completely implausible interpretation of a decent sci-fi story. Utter tosh - avoid.

Saw "The Bourne Supremacy" last night - good film, with great pace
However i don't recommend it if you haven't seen the other 2 - you'll probably be baffled

That should be "The Bourne Ultimatum"

Nobody seen a film in 2 weeks?

Just fulfilled a long-standing promise to daughter and took her to Hairspray. Now the original John Waters version is a classic, and one does have to question why a remake is needed....but it is fab.

Loved the dance routines between Travolta and Walken, those 2 old hoofers.

And Elijah Kelley is a name to watch for da future.