My own self

Dexter, out loud: Yeah, I wound up with some unexpected time on my hands.
Dexter, voice-over: Like twenty years to life.

Dexter season 2 keeps up the dry wit, the strong focus on a season plot, and the intensity of season 1, yet is in many ways very different. Where season 1 was the story of how Dexter started to doubt his purpose in life, how his past was dug up and blended into his present, season 2 is the story of how Dexter is changed by these experiences and how he learns to cope with them.

By its very nature, then, season 2 is much less dark than season 1. Dexter, for the first time since he was three years old in some form of touch with his emotions, is not anymore in denial or ignorance of how things are neither with his memories nor with his present life. However, without those he's also finding himself without the certainty of his behaviour and ice-cold and removed way of treating his life and the people in it. Season 2's Dexter is a Dexter in turmoil - a turmoil he still cannot afford to let the outside world see.

The loss of Brian's towering makes the season far less omnious still, and as the focus now isn't anymore on whether or not Dexter will lose the little threads of humanity in him, the focus becomes whether or not Dexter will be put to justice for his actions instead.

Thus, the viewer's position is shifted, from following Dexter's life with a sense of dread and mistrust in season 1, hoping he'll come through and be more human but fearing he won't, to something else entirely - to following his life while rooting for him. In season 2, the moral ambiguity is a rather sudden presence in Dexter's own head, and with that, the ambiguity is ironically slipping out of focus for the viewer. Watching this, we root for him, wish he'll pull through, and have unequivocally positive feelings for him. In season 1, Dexter balanced a protagonist between hero and monster. In season 2, the monster is gradually and effortlessly made acceptable to the audience, and the hero gets the spotlight as the Miami police department and an immensely capable FBI agent starts investigating who's dropped all these garbage bags of human body parts in the ocean.

This works, though. It's a gradual and subtle change, one I only realised had occurred in hindsight as I was writing this post. It lets the plot shift to something new and less horrifying without making it feel like a loss in tension and quality. When the plot is about Dexter being on the verge of capture, the audience necessarily needs to feel certain they want him to evade it.

The supporting cast is improved over the first season. Debra is going through quite the character arc since her trauma with Rudy, and at the end of the season she's a strong, independent person showing nothing of the erratic and uncertain behaviour of old. Doakes really get to shine in this season as his grudge against Dexter becomes an obsession. Angel, who I somehow failed to mention in my season 1 review, is still as amazingly thoroughly fantastically decent as ever, and is probably one of the most heartbreakingly lovable grown male characters I've ever encountered. That man has not a vicious bone in his body, and he truly gets to show it time and time again over the course of the second season.

Most important among the supporting cast, though, is none of these, but one out of two big additions to the rooster, the special agent, Frank Lundy. In an amazing piece of casting, they've in Keith Carradine found a man who looks a little bit like Harry Morgan, sounds very much like him (as, interestingly, does Dexter in his inner voiceovers) and is a law enforcement prodigy for Debra to look up to - and can act the hell out of any scene he's in as well. (And I thought I was impressed with his Wild Bill Hickok on Deadwood!) Obviously, with her gigantic father issues, she falls for him, head over heels, but their building and growing relationship is among the best things in the season, and by far the best thing they've done with Debra's character so far. Lundy was the character making up for Brian's disappearance from the show, and damn it all if he doesn't fill the hole almost exactly.

The other new character with a lot of screentime is Lila (played memorably by Jaime Murray who I know only from her character on Hustle), the English artist slash ex-addict who starts infringing on Rita's territory when she catches interest in Dexter - and he in her, as he realises she sees through his inner turmoil and helps him figuring out who he really is. The character is tailored to be unlikeable, and she really is, but she's an ominous and sort of veiled scary sort of unlikeable and plays a vital if somewhat obvious part in the season. Rita gets far less to do in this season than in season 1, but she continues to be one of the show's most interesting characters, and grows quite a lot over the course of the episodes.

Dexter season 2 is less intense and nerve-wrecking than season 1, but that suits me just fine. It's just as addictive, at least almost as interesting, and probably even a nudge more entertaining. It brought a lot of the supporting cast from season 1 out from the corners to play without shifting the focus from Dexter, by making his present and not his past the main thing about the season. His past was not ignored, though, and his uncovering of new and hidden elements in it is still a very present aspect to the show. Much less original and fresh-feeling than season 1, the reason season 2 works so well is more than anything because it builds on what has gone before. Dexter's inner turmoil is only interesting because of the events of season 1, he's only relatable because of how unrelatable he was before, and so you only root for him because you know what's happened previously. In a very clever way, the show gets away with doing a far more by-the-book story of a charismatic criminal trying to evade a manhunt because it builds on a story which was anything but orthodox. Interestingly, that might be why it works - doing something traditional with this character is rather fresh after season 1.

I'm really psyched for the third season. I have no idea which direction they're going to take this show now, having more or less exhausted his past in season 1, used most of the little frictions baked into his present in season 2, and having the character himself once again at peace - though a new and different peace - with who and what he is. But season 2 has convinced me that odds are they'll have yet another surprising twist of the show done so subtly I only notice once the season is over. I don't like this show more after season 2 than after season 1, it's about the same when it comes down to how much I enjoy it, but I trust it more and feel confident it won't let me down in the future either. Much like as the audience, I don't feel more interested in Dexter, he's still very engaging but not really more so than before, but I trust him more and feel more confident that as the audience, I'm doing the right thing by rooting for him.

Of course, they'll probably pull that second rug there out from under my feet before I knew what hit me.

is a god of pretty, and should draw everything Whedon ever.

People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well. That’s my burden, I guess.

Many people have recommended me this show based on a book called Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsey, but I believe main credit for pushing me past the "will try it out sometime"-block and into the "trying it out now"-zone should be handed to Amras Elensar more than anyone else. By funny coincidence, the day before my scheduled watch of the pilot episode, Shirgaal reviewed it as well, a very positive one that would probably have tipped me over had I not decided to watch it already.


I was strongly skeptical at first mainly due to my lack of interest in and the downright unpleasantness of seeing a lot of explicit violence on screen. Oddly, the show didn't have much of it, and most of what there was happened in the first few episodes. Sure, they don't shy away from it, but they usually cut away from the worse acts of violence, just showing the lead-up and, of course, the results, but even the latter category got a little less horridly vivid as the show progressed. I applaud. No need to speculate, right.

The show, you see, is not at all about the violence. It's about the lack of feeling anything that drives the character(s) to it. The main and title character Dexter Morgan is not just the centre building block of the show, he is its epitome, its foundation and walls both, its carrying pillar, its axis mundi. A quote from Jane Espenson's blog springs to mind - "A House without a House at its centre cannot stand" - nor could a Dexter without a Dexter. With that, as on House, comes a myriad of strengths and weaknesses.

This is, to me, the first of show's two main issues keeping me from unequivocally loving it to, if you'll pardon a quite tasteless pun (and of course you will, you're reading my weblog after all and shouldn't be expecting any better), bits. See, I'm an ensemble cast man. I grew up loving Animals of Farthing Wood and Sinbad the Sailor. I got sold on serialized television in my teens through shows like Friends, Angel, Buffy, Judging Amy and Babylon 5. My present-day top favourite TV-shows are to a one marked by a big family of protagonists, each able to carry an episode on their own if they need to - and they're usually given the chance, too.

That's why a show like Dexter or House M.D. have hard times really climbing the ladder of my list of excellent shows. When this much time and energy is spent on the title character, making him look interesting and give him issues to deal with, the other characters have to suffer, and what's left is only degrees of how much So believe me when I tell you - it's still an excellent show, and you should try it out.

The other issue I have with the show is simply one of genre and premise - it's not really for me. I don't mean I don't enjoy it, I do, but I can never enjoy it as much as I would if this took place in Narnia rather than Miami. It's a mental block, a genre preference, a silly boy's silly tastes, call it what you will, but to me, any premise of a story set in present day in the real world will necessarily be less interesting than something that's not. That need not bother the reader though, and I will not bring that up again in this review. Just keep in mind that this is an additional reason for me to be less-than-excited with the show that's colouring what I think of it.

So, what IS this show? Well, without spoiling much beyond the pilot, it's a show following Dexter, a man shaped by a horrid and suppressed childhood trauma and a freakishly intelligent, hard, caring and morally free-thinking adoptive father into a trained killer. He has no emotions, having only the urge to kill, but he channels his need to do so into carefully planned out and just as carefully executed entrapments and killings of other serial killers on the Code his adoptive father taught him. Simultaneously, he was trained to blend in as a normal person, faking emotions, faking human relations, faking affection and attachment. And he's damned good at it, too, just about everybody loves Dexter. But Dexter, sadly, loves no-one.

Or at least, that's how the season starts out. Dexter is living an emotionless life in the forensics of the Miami police by day, being almost a prodigy at analysing dead bodies and blood splatters. By night he is killing off the scum of the Earth, and feeling good about it too. Then comes along the Ice Truck Killer, an, in Dexter's eyes, true artist of murder, and Dexter gets caught up in his game.

The cast is good for a title-character-focused show. Dexter's sister is lacking a little bit in charisma, but I honestly feel that's mostly because her character is an off-putting combination of insecure and overly sure of herself, and not through any fault of the actress'. The policemen in Dexter's life are all interesting enough, the exception maybe being a character I grew quite the distaste for, the local lieutenant. Thankfully she has a superior officer who is a far more classy brand of jackass (reminding me every so slightly of the awesome Rawls of The Wire) and knows how to put her into her place, which produced some of my favourite non-Dexter scenes of the show.

There are only two truly fascinating characters beyond Dexter himself, though - the Ice Truck Killer, and Dexter's girlfriend, Rita. A long-time victim of spousal abuse and single mum to two, Dexter chooses to spend time with Rita because she is damaged and, in a way, empty like him. The awkwardness and tentative steps of their relationship is beautiful and my by far favourite aspect of the show.

The show is heavy on the season mystery while following smaller episode-by-episode plots as well, much like Veronica Mars used to be, but in that comparison, the mystery is a little less captivating and more predictable than Veronica's was despite (or because) getting more attention during the entire season's run. It's still very good, though, and the show as a whole is incredibly addictive.


Now follows the spoilery part of the review, those who haven't seen the season yet and think they will at some point should skip to the last paragraph.

As the season progresses the Ice Truck Killer keeps attempting to undermine Harry's Code in Dexter's head, keeps trying to open up his suppressed memories to reveal, among other things, his adoptive father's somewhat less than truthful behaviour with regards to Dexter's childhood.

Rudy/Brian was very interesting. The problem was, of course, that I felt pretty confident that he was the Ice Truck Killer the second the character came on scene. You could tell that the man in the white coat was a character actor, and not just some random guy, and that was really enough. It's a sad fact, but, dramatically, they HAVE to make the killer into someone that's already introduced on the show to make the reveal exciting enough, and he was the only character who not only grew from a background-character with two lines into one with as much screentime as any other supporting actor, but who was clearly not cast by a nobody-actor.

When they started heaping on hints on him in addition, I actually started thinking he might not be the guy after all, but an intentional mislead. So that the Big Mystery Of The Season really only ever had one real candidate among the cast was saddening. The character himself, though, was awesome, as was the actor. I have to admit that while I obviously realized he had some connection to Dexter’s childhood, once I saw how young he was (and thus he couldn't possibly have been the killer of Dexter's mum) I stopped thinking about that and thus didn’t see his being Dexter’s brother coming until just a short while before it was revealed. So at least they got me a little there.

As loose ends go, the season didn't really leave many except obvious start-ups for season 2, but I do wonder a lot on Brian's need to kill their biological father. It felt as though there was something there that should've been revealed but never was, which bugs me.

The unblocking of Dexter's memories also leading him to feel a little again, thus starting to care for his sister beyond Harry's Code just as Harry's authority was broken down enough in his head for him to consider breaking it, was a very nice and ironic twist. Brian would probably have succeeded in his scheme had he confronted Dexter with Harry's lies without also unblocking his memories - he would've lost faith in his father's Code without regaining some sense of emotion.

This also lead to a very nice - and long in the coming - turn in Dexter's relationship with Rita, as he is genuinely starting to need company in his life. The season finale is very, very good.



On the whole, the season is a beautifully crafted story with very good visuals and at times very funny little mental remarks from Dexter, and my only real complaint isn't truly valid - as it is that I don't think this particular story could be told much better, but that I think they could have made a story more suited to my tastes in stead. As it stands, it is a very successful and almost equally daring piece of work. The only thing I've seen that's remotely similar to this is the very excellent and thoroughly canceled The Inside, but even that wasn't quite as dark as the mere premise of this show. I might not have heard of James Manos Jr. before (Wikipedia claims he's been involved on The Sopranos and The Shield though), but he's made what's easily one of the best made shows I've ever seen, and certainly one of the more addictive ones. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to the second season - which I will of course be watching right away.

I know. You had it sorted.

- King Edmund of Narnia

Well, what do you know. I liked it.



Turns out I didn't really expect that. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe started out really well, and then turned mediocre at some point around the beavers' cabin and stayed that way. While I did have higher hopes for Caspian - BBC only gave the book two episodes in their otherwise stellar adaptations of the series, so this was the one place Disney could actually look like the better attempt - I still didn't really think I'd go "huh. Pretty good." But I did.

The story is much, much darker than that of the previous movie, and the themes and characters, while still children and aimed at children, are of a much more adult nature. It also feels much more realistic - the human nation of evil looking interestingly realistic compared to the flashy armour of the good-guys brought back from the first movie. In this and other ways, the first movie serves as a backdrop for the viewer of how Narnia could be, how beautiful and safe it used to be, compared to how it is now, in the movie, in much the same way as their memories of their previous stay does the same to the Pevensy-children.

They keep up a decent level of humour, which works very well in the otherwise darker plot. The action-scenes, unlike those of the first one, are quite interesting and engaging. The characters also, though with the weaknesses you have to accept when the story is about children trying to act as adults and with memories of being such.

Speaking of characters - I was again vastly impressed with Edmund. By far my favourite character of the series of books and the BBC-series alike, he keeps it up in these movies. His calm, understated presence, his vast self-control and quick head for one his age in beautiful contrast to his personality before the scarring experience of his own betrayal in Wardrobe. Whenever Peter and Caspian had their (quite understandably motivated if childishly played out) feuds and conflicts, Edmund looks even more the gathered, reasonable grown-up.

I was very happy with what they did with all the four children, actually. This is the last trip of the eldest two to Narnia, and the entire movie was built around how Susan and Peter had various issues and problems with being back there whilst Lucy and Edmund - in very different but equally effective ways - was very much at home and at ease. I'd actually go so far as to say that this was done better than in the book, where their final expulsion from Narnia in the end seems a little out of nowhere. Here, you understand why.

The movie had really only two issues. The least jarring one was the strong sense of a Lord of the Rings-rip-off in the end where we get both the march of the Ents and the washing away for Isengard and the Ringwraiths by Rivendell heavily alluded to.

The other one was the Christian symbolism propaganda. I don't think I've ever seen a movie where the plot was so intrinsically dependent on the viewer accepting certain Christian doctrines and values, foremost of which the blind trust in God. What's worse is, I honestly don't know if I can say that this is a problem with the movie - after all, this only means that it is staying true to the original story. If they skipped this in the movie or toned it down, it'd not be as faithful an adaptation by far. Still, it strongly diminished my enjoyment of the movie - to my mind, the idea of the best option being to sit still and do nothing and trust God to come and help you out is ridiculous and insulting, even if you do believe in Him. Still - in this story He is real, and within the frames of the story, the plot is very well done.

All in all a much stronger movie than the previous one - remember the scenes the first one had with Tumnus the Faun? Well, most of this movie is almost at that level of well done. They've even improved upon the book, primarily by adding a political intrigue subplot in the court of King Miras.

Recommended. I was impressed. A very strong 8/10 if you think you can stomach the Trust In Aslan-plot.

So, what is The Terminal?


Well, it's a cute movie starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It's admittedly hard to place in a genre, so I suppose that combined with a lack of action-scenes and a, usually, low-key humour to the comedy makes it a drama.

The Terminal is blessed with one of the more interesting premises for a movie I've heard - a traveller (Tom Hanks) to NY from an obscure East-European country is trapped in the international-bit of the airport when his country diplomatically ceases to exist while he is in transit due to a coup d'etat back home. His passport thus rendered worthless for the time being, he's trapped outside the system for what turns into months and months, having to get by at the international section of the airport.

Did I mention that he doesn't speak English?

Though the slow-pacedness of the movie at times threatened to get a little boring, it never quite got there. There was always enough sweetness to smile at, cynicism to grin at or funny to chuckle at to keep you interested. Tom Hanks portrays the man lost outside of the modern world's rules and systems beautifully, as he based on sheer force of personality and capability grows increasingly successfully into his new life on the airport.

And through it all, you sit there wondering - what IS this guy going to NY for in the first place, anyway?

A very sweet and very entertaining movie, though at times a tad too slow for my tastes. A very strong 8,5/10, and a wholehearted recommendation for anyone who can enjoy and sit through a movie without action-scenes or over-the-top-comedy. And maybe some of you other people should check it out, too.

So, some weeks ago I finally finished this show's second - and last - season, and on the whole, it had more of the same.

That being said, I think it took things a notch up. Less blatantly obvious continuity-issues, more by the way of character-arcs, and even some action a couple of places to beef up the drama a bit.

The show's not exactly dark, but it's moody. It does little good on my disposition, watching Dead Like Me, which is, I think, both its main virtue and its main flaw in my book. Sure, it's frequently rather funny, and occasionally rather poignant. But mainly, it's a sombre drama disguised as a fantasy-show with quips and sarcasms.

I won't go into a long, detailed review, partly 'cause I watched most of the show several months back and I don't feel like I remember enough details to do so, but also partly because I believe my more general impressions were aptly described in the post on season 1. Had the sombre mood of this not so easily darkened my own, I think I would have liked this show far more. As it is, it was a good show with good characters, on occasion even a laugh-out-loud-funny show, and certainly an entertaining show, but not really a show I'd like to rewatch. I'm to easily affected of the melancholy of a show whose main character is a dead girl.

Still, if they ever get around to getting out that DVD-movie-sequel, I'll watch it.

The first one is okay - classic, yes, interesting, definitely, but the plot is pretty easy to predict and most of the gags aren't all that funny despite Doc Brown's hilarity. So I'm actually going to go against all normative behaviour and say the first one isn't as good as the sequels...
Strong 6,5/10

The second one, I like a lot more. Sure, it's almost as predictable, and at times a little too far on the cheesy side, but it's got more Doc Brown than the first one, and the use of the first movie's highlights in it is simply exquisitly well done. The far more clear villain-part of Alternate 1985-Biff and the actually intelligent 2015-Biff makes for a far more action-filled drama than the much more circumstances-based adversary of the first movie. Still, as always with this kind of movies, the gazillion logical flaws involved in their time-travel-rules bugs me a little too much for it to really shine.
A weak 8/10

The third one I find to be about as strong as the second one. The change in scenery to the wild west is clever, and what it lacks on epicness compared to the second one it makes up for in action. Doc Brown's love-story is also quite well done, and it's funny to boot.
Another 8/10

Not that much to say, really. I felt the first one was a good bit better, but this still wasn't a disappointment. Mainly, it just lacked the main character's insane history-show-off-scenes, which was a drag, and also, well, no Sean Bean. Ed Harris is of course about as good a replacement as you can get, but he doesn't get enough screen-time to really build a character, due to the inclusion of the mother. Still, good arc on him, considering, if maybe a little predictable.

I liked the movie well enough, though it had some annoying little unbelievables, like the Mt. Rushmore mechanism causing a rockslide in the neighbouring mountain. It had a few moments, like the French coppers, Crusade's Galen as the British copper and, of course, the Nicholas Cage "kidnap the President"-scene, which I luckily hadn't gotten spoiled by the insanely spoiler-rich trilaer or a review like this one. Oh, and all the surviving characters from the first movie was in it, which I always appreciate in sequels.

Good, fun action, but hardly on the level of the Indiana Jones-like fun of the original.

7/10

Hm. Interesting. Created by Bryan Fuller ("Wonderfalls") though he dropped out early in the first season after a quarrel with the studio, this series is about yet another young, sarcastic girl with a somewhat peculiar ability/life. Or in this case, ability/unlife. That's right. Georgia Lass is a Grim Reaper.

The pilot, as well as several other episodes throughout the season, is quite sombre, dealing with death, loss and acceptance. Sometimes in poignant ways, sometimes in silly ways, sometimes in insensitive ways and sometimes in cozy ways. Some episodes are funnier and lighter, but Georgia ("George", as she's called) deals with death in some capacity in most of them. A side-plot following those she left behind after her death in the pilot - a well-meaning but horribly poor at parenting-mother, a push-over father, and the little sister who looked up to her but she always ignored - as they cope with her death always serves to ground and make serious the few episodes where George's main plot isn't sad enough.

That being said, the show is frequently funny and silly in individual scenes, even if the general tone isn't the happiest. As mentioned, George dies in the pilot - in a very funny and surreal way, true to the tone of the show - and she's introduced to some other Reapers. She gets assigned to the division for external deaths by acts or events of sudden violence, meaning they get murders, accidents, suicides and that kind of thing, other forms of death being handled by other divisions of reapers. Smart way to keep her reaps interesting from episode to episode.

Her division consists of Betty the daredevil, Mason the drug-using (English) corpse-pillaging wreck, Roxie the aggressive parking officer, and Rube. Rube, Mandy Patinkin, is the leader of the division, and as such somewhat more mysterious than the rest of them - because of course, even to the Reapers, what lays beyond for other people is just as unknown as to the souls they reap. Later the division is joined by Daisy, a self-loving has-been actress.

At average, George has to reap one soul per day, meaning there's lots of time left over. And the job doesn't pay. She's not allowed any contact with her friends and relatives from when she was alive, so, she has to go get herself a job. Something she never got around to in real life. And the job, of course, comes complete with a wacky superior and mind-numbing boredom. In many ways, the show deals with George growing up post-mortem, experiencing things and responsibilities she always avoided in life, and a growing affection and longing for the family she ignored while alive. This first season is stuffed with instances of her doing tiny things for her little sister without actually meeting her or letting her know she's still, sort of, alive.

The main weakness of the season is somewhat episodic plots - the main season-arc concerns her family, not George and the reapers despite their much larger chunk of screentime, and the only character-arc of importance is in George herself, as she very, very slowly and gradually comes to term with her new existance. There is also, however, some plotholes. Mainly dealing with the rules of the more fantasy parts of the show, the technical details around the reaps, etc, but also, sometimes, even more annoyingly, with the actual plots, like when George's roommate in one particular episode apparently, out of nowhere, isn't her roommate, before their situation being back to normal in the next. Still, they're not so big or numerous to provide a serious problem. A nuiscance, though, that it is.

The dialogue is entertaining, and so are the characters, especially George's co-Reapers and her regular work-boss Delores (same actress who plays the demon recieving the vessels with the souls in, ironically, "Reaper", by the way).

While the show was cancelled after its second season, apparently, a direct-to-DVD-movie is on the way, so there is some hope for a fullness of story here still.

I like this show, it's strong and it's decent, but I've yet to love it. It's also a little too much on the sombre side for me - I'm very delicate when it comes to sadness in my entertainment, it gets to my mood a little too easily. Still, I will without a doubt watch the second season as well. In fact, I'm four episodes in, and so far I have a tiny little suspicion that this season is going to be better than the first.

Or something. (My puns pain even me. I'm sadomachopunny.)


Anyway, I recently saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age in the theatre, and then the day after (!) the first movie, Elizabeth, from the late 1990's aired on Norwegian television. So I saw that too. Ironically, I just the day before protested to the idea of a genre of "queen-movies", and, well... maybe there's something to it. Blanchett really pulls off this personal journey of the strong but untested woman in a man's world in the first one as well as the life of a woman cut off from a woman's life such as her time would have it be in the second.

As you've probably gathered by now, I thought they were good! Better than I thought they'd be. I actually preferred the sequel to the first one due to a series of reasons, foremost of which is probably simply the fact of having seen it in the cinema. Then again, the first one also had Elizabeth walk around be all unsure of herself the entire time, and she only got properly cool by the last scene, so I think that might have been a big influence on preferring the sequel - especially after seeing it first and thus expecting her to be cool in the first one only to find that she's not. (With the exception of the very clever treatment of the duke of Anjou, anyway) Because, by comparison, the sequel had Elizabeth go about her ruling very, very convicingly capable manner, and thus she came off as quite cool, though no less conflicted when in private than she was in the first one.

I should add, I love Cate Blanchett when she's in regal-mode, in the end-scene of the first one as well as in key scenes in the sequel she speaks in a certain commanding manner which quite frankly rocks like crazy. I dare even the most inane republican not to get a tiny little closet-feeling of royalism if he'd been in the room with a queen speaking to him like that.

Geoffrey Rush's Walsingham was awesome, but he had, like, no screen-time at all in the first one - and I already thought he had little to do in the sequel and was expecting there to be more of him in the first, not less. This was a huge disappointment. Also, I preferred Clive Owen's Sir Raleigh greatly to Joseph Fiennes' Eal of Leicester as far as romantic interests go, and the plot surrounding it, too, was more interesting in the sequel. However, Owen's Raleigh might have been painted a tiny tad too much the unflawed hero for my tastes, so I'm not exclusively positive.

All in all, two very strong movies. I'd give Elizabeth a weak 8 out of 10 (if I ever do a rewatch, I might retcon this post into showing 7,5) and The Golden Age a fair 8,5/10.

It's been a few weeks since I saw this movie now, but I still remember most of it rather vividly. A very eccentricly done film, but entertaining and kind of heart-warming.

If I have anything to complain about, it was the pacing. The movie didn't really feel like it started 'til a good fifty minutes into the two-hour experience, which is a bit too slow, especially in a drama where there's no exciting action-scenes or hilarious comedy (amusing stuff aplenty, got a lot of smiles from me, but very little that made me laugh out loud) to make the start-up-bits feel more exciting.

A nice, feel-good'y kind of movie which at points is quite funny to boot. 8/10.

Artsy piece of film, innit?

Made for a very interesting watch despite a pretty simple and unsurprising plot. Almost half the dialogue, even the parts of it that aren't sung, are from famous songs and stuff. Weird, but interesting, and at times really funny.

The movie starts out very abrupt and surrealistically told, the sceneshifts and the plot progressions done in a very rapid and seemingly fragmented manner. (Reminded me a bit of "Amélie", in point of fact, a movie I watched last week and will hopefully get around to write a post on sometime not too long from now. Also had some Tarantino-like similarities, I thought. As I said, artsy.) It's also very silly and funny in the beginning, which, as the story progresses, turns gradually into a much more tragic and sombre story - though still with the oddball streak here and there.

I've never been a fan of Nicole Kidman, but she's good in this movie. Ewan McGregor impresses too, though I have higher expectations to him, so... (Random thought, by the way, anyone other than me that thinks that guy has no "little bit happy"-smile? It's always the huge big "I'm sky-high-crazy-cheery" smile. I think it's got something to do with his teeth. It's weird. Anyway.) And Richard Roxburgh and Jim Broadbent both made very good of their performances in the two biggest supporting roles.

A really, really weird movie. I've no clue what grade to give it, I'm realizing. Maybe I would've if I'd seen it more than once, I don't know. I liked it, but I didn't exactly love it or anything like that. A little too artsy for me, but at the same time, the artsy bits are on the whole why I liked it... Somwhere between a 7 and a 9/10 I think. Likely to be closer to the 7 than to the 9, but... I honestly don't know.

Remember Jaye from "Wonderfalls"? Well, before Bryan Fuller co-created that, he created this show, and the main characters in the two seem to have a lot in common.

I've only seen the first episode, and by the looks of it, it'll be a long time 'til I get the chance to see the rest, but I definitely will. It starts out rather depressing and dark, but it has the same queer brand of comedy "Wonderfalls" had, and I've been assured it grows lighter in most of the subsequent episodes.

The plot?

A teenage girl who cares so little about anything at all she is on the verge of apathy gets hit in the head with a toilet seat travelling at an insane speed, falling from the sky, as some old Russian space-station-thingie had been scheduled to fall down into the ocean but shattered on the way down and parts of it, er, missed the water.

Welcome to the afterlife. Where she finally is thrust into a job with a direction and a purpose, and, ironically, her life kinda starts. As a Grim Reaper, or rather, one out of many, her being assigned to the division of deaths by external influences, that is, accidents, suicides, murders, etc, etc. As you can imagine, this should make for all kinds of interesting stories later on in the show.

This is so not a story I should expose myself to. I struggle enough with not angsting about people I care about dying as it is. But hey, it was a really good story, in both media.


"The Fountain" was concieved as a movie, then, when the movie didn't happen, made as a graphic novel, and then it turned out that, hey, the movie happened anyway. Which one is your definite version after that, purists? I challenge you to find one.

Anyway, I much agree with the creator, Darren Aronofsky, they're both definite. Myself, I found I preferred the movie, albeit I must admit, this could be because I read the novel first and thus had a better grip on what the flying frack was going on while watching the movie, which could've made it seem better.

The story is basically identical, with only, as far as I could see, rather minor changes. While the art was rather pretty in the graphic novel, to me, it was also somewhat off-putting. I've never been a fan of comics drawn in a style where every panel looks like a painting. It just doesn't grip me, it feels float'y and fragmented in a way more traditionally drawn comics don't. I feel like I'm staring at a series of pictures instead of at moving characters and scenes, which ruins a little of the illusion. The visuals in the movie, on the other hand, were, well, gorgeous, I don't think that's an overstatement, and with really interesting scene-shifts which mirrored the surreal feel of the comic without adding the downsides I mentioned. Both lead actors, Jackman and Weisz, do very good jobs, which adds to the gripping realism in what's on first glance a pretty fragmented and odd story.

It's a heavy movie, and a heavy graphic novel. It's not a light read and it's not a light watch, and the movie with its 96 minutes in today's 2-hour-blockbuster-environment is rather short, yet if it had been longer, I doubt it would be as good. It's simply too demanding a watch. It's a tragedy, and a philosophical one at that, but it also has elements of a happy ending mixed in, and both novel and film intentionally leaves very, very much up to the interpretation of the viewer, so I doubt any two people will have the exact same experience of what's going on.

I'm not in the habit of giving grades to books, but I'll say I recommend it, though I liked the movie a few notches more, as mentioned.

As for the movie, I give it 9/10. But I'm not sure if I can ever watch it again. I simply get too sad.

The world's seen nastier cops than the ones you'll meet in Basin City.

Like those guys who used to work for Stalin.

- Wallace

Having a hard time accepting this is it, no more, nada, nil, zip, or at least until Miller writes that new story with Nancy he's talking about for Sin City 2. Turns out "Family Values" was chronologically the last volume, and now I'm stuck here wondering whatever happened to Wallenquist and the mafia-families...

Anyway, good story. First one with a hero without Big Flaws like Hartigan, Dwight or Marv have, this new character - Wallace - is a good-guy through and through. Mostly, anyway. As far as we can tell from this story. The Blue Eyes-stories from volume 6 pays off in this one, and Manute and Wallenquist play parts, but other than that, the story holds little connection to the earlier plotlines, having none of the major characters from them play any parts in it. It's still a good story though, one of the series' better ones, and it has a surprising and interesting use of colour compared to the rest of the series.

Here's to hoping this won't be it from Sin City. 'Cause this was a wrapping Miller's writing really suited, and easily the best stuff I've read by him.

Thanks, Mr. Miller. Great read.

Revenge is a loser's game. There's no percentage in it.

You shouldn't have shot that dog

- Dwight

Compared to Hartigan and Marv, Dwight's a pretty uninteresting guy, but he seems to be Miller's protagonist of choice in this series, and by all means, he's cool enough in his own right. This volume is among the ones most heavy on humour in the series so far, but while the plot's entertaining enough, it doesn't match up to 1, 2 and 4. However, what it sets up could be interesting to follow - if indeed the series will do that, what do I know.

"Haw! Listen to this guy! I'm dying here, man!"

"Not yet, you're not."

Well, you already made a big mistake yourself.

You didn't flush.

- Dwight


Well, so we're back to the stories the movie's based on, apparently, and ooh, what fun. Dwight is less boring in this one, starting to actually hover on the verge of being cool, and the story packs a lot of punch even compared to the first two volumes. However, I feel that the story in it is decidedly weaker. Not a disappointment as such, but yeah, the plot in this one leaves a little something to be desired when compared to the two volumes preceeding it.

Guess what? Looking forward to the fourth one. The fourth one has Hartigan.

Deadly little Miho. You won't feel a thing.

Not unless she wants you to.


She twists the blade.

He feels it.