Red Riding Hood

Not Bad, For What It Is
Let me start by praising the look of this film, especially its nightmare fairy tale wilderness village and Peter Jackson-inspired sweeping landscapes. The designers create a lush, evocative screen image that captures the imagination without overpowering the actors. Without doubt, I haven't seen a better looking film than this one in quite some time. Even the costume and makeup people keep the actors looking good without forcing an artificial glamour.

I'd rather start that way because I refuse to become one of those critics who savages somebody else's film because it doesn't suit my tastes. I'm not among this film's target audience, and chances are, if you've fallen in love more than once or watched more than seven horror films, you aren't, either. This film reaches out for people who enjoy uncomplicated romances and have a very low scare threshold.

Director Catherine Hardwicke knows her young, wide-eyed audience, and delivers what they expect from a romantic...

An Atmospheric Mystery
Red Riding Hood is a re-imagining of the fairy tale. The film is very atmospheric in creating a medieval village, and the sense of doom is palpable. The lead character, Valerie is in love with an orphaned woodcutter named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) but it has been arranged that she will marry the far richer Henry (Max Irons) who is a blacksmith. The only problem is that the village is terrorized by a werewolf and has been for more than a generation offering up a sacrifice when the moon is full. When the werewolf kills Valerie's sister, the village is galvanized into hunting down the creature.

Into this mix comes a werewolf hunter named Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) who is ruthless in his methods to find and destroy the werewolf. There are limitless possibilities as to who the werewolf could be and Solomon becomes more of a curse to the village than the werewolf does. The filmmakers created a great look for the village and the film was well cast. Gary Oldman is perfect as...

Come away with me...
I just came back from the theater and I loved it! Cinematography, sets, all fantastic. Storyline unique in that it blends the traditional fairytale, a few elements from the earlier and wonderful "The Company of Wolves", and brings it to a more mature audience with a twist. Who done it? Who is the big bad wolf? The movie is fast paced, intricate, cleverly drawing on relationships both new and old, thwarted love, etc. all in a picturesque Grimm-like village and cottages that you are just dying to live in! Well, if you stay in this neighbourhood, that might be arranged! Far from predictable you will be finding yourself switching gears over a dozen times trying to figure it out. And the ending? My what sharp teeth you have! Enjoy as I did! A must see for any fan of fairytales and fantasy movies, or if you are a fan of Tim Burton, for it isn't too far from his style! Now I can't wait for the DVD and hope a soundtrack comes. I love the music from the festival!

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Wake Up Everybody - The Science of Roasting & Brewing Coffee at Home

In depth view of how to make a great cup of coffee
They tell you how to roast coffee using a popcorn popper. They get into every detail of making a great cup of coffee. I think they are correct in all their views. Grinding really fresh beans is the way I've been doing it ... and the way they do it. Picked us some good points in the movie ... like make sure your equipment and cup are clean.





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The Hoax (2006) [HD]

The 70's off to a rollicking start.
A struggling writer discovers that Hughes cannot appear in court to dispute a hoax because the reclusive billionaire is in a nasty dispute with TWA shareholders. So the hoax is born. Soon though, events turn raucous when the billionaire fails to appear to allegedly vouch for the autobiography, and then another hoaxed autobiography appears in print ahead of Irving's release. The mystery of who is hoaxing who surfaces when a box of scandalous files anonymously appears at the writer's home. The frenzied sensation draws the attention of darker forces in America. Apparently, someone has to know what would be included about Hughes and Nixon's brother, Donald, who had received unrepaid loans from Hughes in the 1960 campaign, and may have received more loans in 1972. Then suddenly the hoax unravels. Within within months, Nixon is re-elected, the Hughes-TWA dispute resolves, and Americans begin to learn of a third-rate burglarly called Watergate. The Hoax is an interesting chapter in...

Ramifications of a Hoax
Clifford Irving (Fake, Trial, Final Argument, The Spring) became a sort of national hero when he contrived to publish 'The Autobiography of Howard Hughes', a 400 page phony but well researched book that, while it was never published, did cause enough of a stir among the New York publishing cognoscenti and those surrounding the then President Richard Nixon that it now is recognized as a HOAX of writing that triggered the final discovery of the Watergate Scandal and the subsequent dethroning of Nixon. Those facts alone make this sometimes rather tepid film interesting enough to sit through. Screenwriter William Wheeler has adapted Irving's book into a study of the 1970s and Lasse Hallström gives it just the right balance between soft crime and strange comedy to keep it afloat.

Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) is down on his literary luck, searching for the right kind of story that will set is publisher Andrea Tate (Hope Davis) on fire. Irving wife Edith (Marcia Gay...

Surprisingly Good
Since anyone of A Certain Age remembers how this story turns out, I was expecting more of a documentary than a thriller. But the film does a great job of pacing, and literally races towards the unraveling of Clifford Irving's web of deception.

Richard Gere is excellent, with a smarmy self-confidence that almost explains how so many supposedly intelligent people could have fallen for what would seem to be a patently obvious hoax.

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Denise Austin Fit In A Flash

Not challenging enough
This workout is okay. I was hoping to get something more challenging! I watch this video thru my PS3 and it's very hard to stop and restart that's my biggest complaint.

These workouts are not for people with knee problems.
I really like Denise Austin's style of "coaching," but these workouts were very hard on my arthritic knees. Overall, not a bad choice.



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Blindness [HD]

Awesome movie!
Wow, why does this have such a low rating on IMDB and why does so many people hate it? The only answer that I can come up with is that most of the people that hate it are teens that don't know the meaning of "plot hole". There's no plot hole in this movie. The fact that there's no explanation why people become blind is not a plot hole, it's just not an important detail. Saying that it's plot hole is just like saying that the fact there's no explanation why people become zombies in Dawn Of The Dead is a plot hole. It's not a plot hole, it's just not what the movie is about. It was intentionally not explained. Anyway, it's an awesome movie! It's not only entertaining, it's also sad, disturbing, powerful and I could go on and on and on! I'm pretty sure that it's the only movie that made me go from sad to disturbed to happy and to sad again!

Short review, I know, but I'm just not good at writting reviews. I just hope that it's atleast slightly helpful.

A Blind Bud
It is easy to understand why this film received such terrible reviews. "Blindness" is a very difficult film to swallow; it's largely unpleasant, cynical and even disgusting. But is this portrayal of humanity farfetched, a sloppy exaggeration of human beings' capacity for baseness? One need only look back in history to find the answer. In short, this is not a film which you emerge from feeling "warm and squishy", although if one makes it through the end that -may- be possible.

Many of the criticisms are aimed at the lack of plot development. But this would be like calling "The Ring" a terrible movie on the basis of its inadequacy in explaining how a girl can walk out of a television set. Or claiming that "Mrs. Doubtfire" was awful because Robin Williams' accent was actually Scottish and not English. There are films that are intended to petrify and others which amuse; the purpose of "Blindness" is neither. It is not a well-defined plot which drives this movie, but rather...

Underrated and masterful
The Bottom Line:

Director Fernando Meirelles and his screenwriter Don McKellar actually improve on the source novel with this excellent and intelligent film that expertly portrays what Saramagos' "white blindness" might do to society and enlarges upon the allegorical themes of the book; inexplicably reviled by most critics and a film that some seem to find sordid, Blindness was one of the best and most thought-provoking movies of 2008.

3.5/4

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The Well-Digger's Daughter

Moi je n'aime pas le vin bouché!
"I don't like the corked wine", Pascal said. In the movie it is losely translated as "I don't like the fancy wine" which is not quite the same. This sentence summarizes this movie. The pure mentality of the French villager "à la campagne". He prefers his own wine, (they make and cork their own wine from their own vineyards). He doesn't want to buy somebody else's wine. He doesn't want to be like "les Parisiens". He has contempt for the Parisians. He doesn't want to be part of the city "elite". He wants to live peacefully in the countryside with his family, his rules, and his routine. "Vous savez les imp

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: Remastered Edition [Blu-ray]

S-a-n-t-a C-l-a-u-s, Hooray for "Santy" Claus
It's the kookiest Christmas ever when Santa Claus is kidnapped by Martians in this "you have to see it to believe it" Christmas "classic." Maybe you've seen this movie hilariously skewered on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but you have to watch it on its own to truly appreciate it. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is just so bad that I can't help but love it, and that explains why I am giving this deservedly one-star movie four stars. The Martian get-ups are more ridiculous than Marvin the Martian's normal attire, the sets redefine the very definition of cheap, the acting is over-the-top and generally horrible, and Santa is - well, he's just a little bit weird, if you ask me. Every time the guy starts in with his distinctive laughing (usually for no apparent reason), I am reminded of the fact that Satan is spelled with the same letters as Santa.

Things aren't going so well on Mars. It's bad enough that the Martians are all colored a ridiculous shade of...

The best version on DVD.
This DVD from Intermedia (Woodhaven), is the best version on DVD. The print quality used is much better that that used on other DVD's.

A Jolly Yuletide Classic
Yeah, "It's a Wonderful Life" is a pretty good movie. However, the movie I joyfully watch every Christmas is about martians who, lacking a Santa Claus to bring joy to martian kids, kidnap Santa from Earth, along with two children. "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is almost sublime in its badness, and with painted-green martials in skintight suits, a Santa with a lewd chuckle instead of a "Ho Ho Ho," incredible wooden acting by the cast (one of whom is Pia Zadora), unspeakable special effects, and a horrible theme song, it is a masterpiece of the so-bad-it's-good school of film. Just TRY getting the theme song out of your head.
The DVD from Laserlight looks exactly as one would expect it - awful. The supersaturated colour scheme has not aged well, and looks very grainy. There are many scratches, but that only adds to the film's strange charm. Unfortunately, the first fifteen seconds or so of the film's opening credits are not on this DVD, depriving...

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