Category: Review

The movie Dolittle

Never have so many waited so long for so …

I was going to say little, but that would do the movie injustice.

Dolittle, the umpteenth variation on the theme of talking to the animals is not all that bad, but my problem I think was that I couldn’t hear what Robert Downey Jr was saying most of the time.

It may have been the attempt to use a Welsh accent if there is such a thing, but perhaps his dialogue delivered with Iron Man force may have resolved that problem.

Perhaps it may have been the start that was the let down for me because it seemed slow and tedious without context.  We do learn why he was that way, later on, but the start needed something extra to drag us in.

Certainly, I liked all the animals, particularly the gorilla and the squirrel who took on the persona of a starship captain without the stardate.  These animals were also the children’s favorites too.

But we needed a bit more humor.

And whilst I realize this film is more for children, all in all, it was three stars out of five.

Come on Robert, you can do better than this.

A book review, “Life at the end of the Rainbow” by Jenny Andrews

Life at the end of the Rainbow, by Jenny Andrews

https://amzn.to/2Xbl4ZX

Poetry is like art, its beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But, while art can be very subjective, poetry often has a special meaning, to both the writer and then the reader.  In turn, for each of us readers, a poem will have a different meaning, some will see what it represents, and others may not.

And, whilst I have not read a lot of poetry over the years, that changed recently when I subscribed to several blogs and discovered this whole new class of literature.

This view was strengthened when I came across a volume of poems by Jenny Andrews, titled Life at the End of the Rainbow.

For me, each poem is an insight into an extraordinary life, where the author sometimes lays bare those raw emotions, which, at times, we will find ourselves drawing parallels.

In a sense, I think we have all been to this mythical place called, The End of the Rainbow, and sometimes need a gentle reminder that it took a lot of ups and downs to get there.

This is, to my mind, a remarkable piece of work.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what the next stage of the journey will be.

 

And yet another Star Wars

Yes, we succumbed and went to the cinema to see the final chapter.

But, Disney on a winner, will it be?

However…

What was I expecting?

A mega weapon in the hands of the bad guys that can destroy planets.  Tick.

The bad guys amassing to destroy the resistance.  Tick.

The last of the resistance amassing to take on the bad guys in a battle they can’t win.  Tick.

The fate of everything put on the shoulders of the Last Jedi.  Tick.

A bad Jedi versus a good Jedi.  Tick.

And, of course, the bad Jedi trying to turn the good Jedi to the dark side.  Tick.

It doesn’t matter what we call the bad guys, whether it’s the Empire, the First Order or the Last Order.  They’re all going to lose; we know that before we stepped into the cinema.  It’s what we came to see.

The internal struggle within those who are the Jedi provides some deep thought-provoking moments along the way, but this ever-pervasive sense of doom and gloom is overshadowed, and sometimes counter-balanced by the comic light relief that the robots, sorry droids, provide.

And the fact no one really dies.  The physical version might disappear, but they always come back, glowing, and with all of their powers somehow still intact.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.

Along with the fact that only the magic of the movies could bring back someone who had died years before, and appear so lifelike.

There were surprised, and a few of my assumptions were dashed, but it was worth it, despite some of the negatives I’ve read about it.  Could it be longer and flesh out some of the disjointed plot lines, maybe, but 140 minutes was long enough for me.

Long enough to prove that good will always triumph over evil.

But I do have one question; going back to the days of old westerns where you could always tell the bad guys because they always wore black; why were the empire/first/last order stormtroopers always in white?

Searching for locations: Hong Kong

This is not so much about searching for a location, as it was for the experience.  Seeing is one thing, but experiencing a different culture, and what it might have been like back in another era made that visit all the more worthwhile.

Not that I’m about to be writing about Hong Kong in the early 20th century, but you never know.

 

I’ve seen in many times when we visited Hong Kong, but never quite made it to stay at the Peninsula Hotel, not until I decided to put it on my bucket list, and, having just turned 65, we decided to spend my birthday there.

 Of course, arriving in a green Rolls Royce helps to enhance the experience. and is, if you are going to stay at the Penisula, a mandatory extra.

It is rather difficult to imagine what the hotel would have been like in 1928 when it was built.  Without the central tower behind the old hotel building, the tall buildings around it, and all the buildings between the hotel and the waterfront, it would be easy to say it had a prime position.

It’s not far from the Star Ferry terminal, the main transport from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island.  Since then, there is the MTR and the underground tunnel for vehicles, but back then it was the ferry or nothing.

Outside, the centerpiece to the driveway is a fountain.  Around the edges are the cars, the Tesla’s, the Mercedes, the Audi’s and a Rolls Royce or two.  There was even a Lamborghini.  I could see myself doing a tour of the island by Lamborghini.

Or not.  The traffic would be very unkind to such a machine.

Inside the front door, the main part of the ground floor foyer stretches from one side of the building to the other, save for arcades of shops at the ends.  High priced goods can be bought here by the rich and famous.

What is interesting is that they have a very smartly dressed porter at the front door to open it for you.  It seemed very appropriate for a hotel steeped in old world charm.

Either side of the entrance walkway that leads to reception and the concierge desk, and two magnificent staircases.  It is all marble floor, marble columns with sculptures at the top and ornate ceilings.

And the endless cacophony of sounds you would expect in such a large space.  Either side of the central walkway is the cafe, elegantly set tables, each with its own flower.

People coming and going, people meeting other people, people arriving, people departing.  Hotel staff bustling from place to place and serving staff moving among the guests dining in the Foyer cafe.

The staircase leads to the mezzanine floor where there are more shops, and then up to the first floor where the veranda cafe and the Spring Moon restaurant is located.  The Spring Moon is where we will be having dinner tonight.

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It’s dark, it’s late, we’re waiting for the rain…

Yes, it’s dark and late at night on this side of the world, and I’m guessing where you are, it’s probably winter, the sun’s gone, the day is cold, even freezing, and you’ve got better things to do than go outside and shovel snow

Here, in the so-called land down under, which surprisingly a lot of people from the other side of the world do not know about…

Now, hang on, that can’t be true, because we all know the world is round and there had to be something or somewhere opposite.  I know that north we have China, and Europe, and further away, the United States.

Been to China, and Europe and the United States, so I know you’re all there, somewhere.

And, as you can see, the impending rain and the rather warm night has amped up the boredom factor and pushing me to do anything other than writing.  I have three jobs I’m supposed to be doing,

  1. Writing the next Walthenson case, the next Private Detective novel
  2. Writing several episodes of a serial story about surveillance going wrong, and
  3. Finishing off the last of the edits for “Strangers We’ve Become” the last before publication (Yea!!!!)

None of them is appealing to me at the moment.

Instead, I find myself looking at what is showing on Winter TV in the US and Canada, trying to find out when Murdoch Mysteries restarts, what’s going to happen next in God Friended Me, and curiously interested in a show called Emergence.

Fascinating, they are, but no Murdoch yet.  Guess I’ll have to settle for Masnifenst, series 2, FBI, and something called Lincoln Rhyme.

Then there’s one of my favorites, Elementary, on the re-runs.  I’m a Sherlock Holmes nut, but what’s getting me is the fact Lucy Liu has blondish hair.  Sorry, it’s distracting.

There’s the InBetween I’m watching again, you know, that spooky place between life and death, much the same as saying I see dead people, hang on, didn’t Bruce Willis say that once upon a time?  It was interesting, but will. there be a second series.

But, the thing I like most about northern winters, the ice hockey.  Yes, we are huge Maple Leaf fans, and even though they are having an up and down year so far, and a change of coach which doesn’t seem to be helping, we are glued to the TV watching the live-action.  Fortunately, that’s on at about 9 am or 10 am here so we can watch it at a respectable hour.

Good thing, then I’m almost retired, except for the writing thing.

There’s more, but I better get back to work.

 

 

Is it possible we can make a better world?

I’m not sure what started me off in pondering this almost imponderable question.

It was probably the endless bombardment of political advertising, leeching out of every form of media, and reaching saturation point.

Yes, down here in Australia, we have federal elections, where one of the two major parties are hoping to be in control, and all of the minor parties are hoping they will be in control.

You see, here, you don’t have to have a majority in the lower house, called the Representatives, you need to have the numbers in the upper house, called the Senate.

And the Senate is where the cunning voters make it so that no major party can go berserk and introduce a whole lot of policies that benefit one group or the other.  Sort of like sticking up for the rich, and keep the poor in their place, or sticking up for the poor and taxing the rich, who, apparently, don’t pay their fair share of tax.  That gem of information comes from one of the parties.  As if any of us didn’t know that to be the case anyway.

Only that doesn’t work out so well, because the leader of the splinter party gets a whole lot of stuff for his electorate, and we, the rest of the people, get shafted.

As for me, I’m sitting on the poverty line, neither rich nor poor enough for either party to help.  Me and about 65 per cent of the rest of the population.  We used to have a middle class, but tax and bad political management have slowly eroded the middle classes so that most are now living hand to mouth at best.

No one can afford to save, and when we do, the interest, what little of it there is, is taxed, so, no incentive to save.  Both parents have to work if they want to have any sort of life, and more so if they have children.  Childminding costs are horrendous, Medicare fees are equally so if you want to have adequate medical care, and the thought of owning one car, let alone two which is a necessity for families, costs a small fortune when you take into account buying the car, upkeep, petrol, and the governments grab for registration.  They say it’s for road maintenance, but let’s not talk about roads, but the maintenance of two Boeing 737’s just to ferry politicians around.

And instead of telling us what they intend to do to make our lives easier, the ads are about dredging up the opposite party’s previous mistakes.  We already know what they are, what we want to know is what they intend to do to fix all the problems.

Sorry, just being a grump.  I know my one person rant doesn’t matter one fig, but I had to get it out of my system.

I also know my one vote doesn’t really matter much in the greater scheme of things but if I could just influence another 500,000 to vote with me, wow, think of what we could do.

Maybe I should run for parliament, or not.  I don’t think I could survive the evenings in the parliamentary bar, the free lunches, or being chauffeur driven.   And flying first class everywhere, I just might get used to it, and the retirement fund, that’s just too much money to think about.

I’ll just stick to being the poor, cynical voter that I am.

 

 

Back to the movies…again

It’s not as if we have nothing better to do but …

Who’s not a sucker for a kick-ass CIA movie, well sort of …

To be honest the premise that a 9-year-old could blackmail a battle-hardened soldier used to taking out bad guys, sounded a little silly.

But..

Hang on, it is a kids movie after all, and it surprised me how many people had come to see it. And it wasn’t all young children, but quite a few teenagers as well.

Was it worth the nearly two hours viewing time?

Yes.

There could be less ads at the start before the movie started but I guess they keep the movies affordable. And allow you to run up to a half-hour late.

So, back to the movie.

It had everything you’d expect, unexpurgated violence, schmaltz, and the inevitable rescue of the 9-year-old and her mother from the bad guys at the end. It might have been predictable, but it was a gentle, and sometimes humorous, journey to get there.

I’m not sure I could write a story along those lines, but I might give it a try. I’m beginning to realize that sometimes there are different ways to tell the same stories.

And for once in what could be called a high action movie, it was a relief to find the dialogue not riddled with endless expletives.

All it takes is a cast who make it reasonably believable, and are not there just to collect a paycheck, or being cardboard cutouts with CGI going off all around them.

I’ll certainly be seeing it again when it hits the DVD stores in which no doubt I’ll get to see the nuances I missed the first time around.

Star Wars, Star Wars, and more Star Wars

To get ourselves into the mood to go and see the final episode of Star Wars, the rise of Skywalker, we sat down and watched all of the previous eight episodes.

Despite the fact our viewing of Star Wars, like everyone else, started with Episode Four, many, many years ago, this time around we started with Episode One.

Now, when this second set of three episodes started, we didn’t go to the cinema to see them. I think at the time, we’d heard a lot of negative comments about them, centered around a character called Jar Jar Binks, and that was enough.

I did hear sometime later some fans had created a version of the movie with that character completely edited out. I’m still yet to find it.

But, this time we started with One, and it didn’t take long to get tired of Binks, and his appearances were a perfect time to get coffee, drinks or a snack.

It was also interesting to see the origins of ObiOne Kenobi, who had been an older version called Ben Kenobi in Four. And we got to see the Clone Wars, another myth in Four brought to reality in Two and Three.

Lets hope, in reality, we never come to see the likes of robots fighting wars on the scale these movies present.

Additionally, we got to see, in the first three, the birth of Leia and Luke, how they came to be separated, and how they finished up where they were at the start of Four. It was just a shame Padme never lived to see them.

The first three episodes were hard work in the viewing, but they filled in the back story for the next three, how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, and how the Senate Leader, who was secretly a Sith, became the charred looking, gravelly-voiced Emperor.

But after seeing the first two of the third series, something became obvious. Jedi were not born Jedi, they were just ordinary people who had that life force that gave them their powers running strong in their being. Annikin was one. Rae is another. I’m not sure about Ben Solo who had one Jedi parent. That was never fully explained.

That should mean, despite all this rambling by the Emperor and others that the Jedi are extinct, that’s completely and utterly wrong. It’s a large universe and there have to be many, many candidates.

This means that Star Wars could run forever.

A bit like Yoda, really. Interesting that he can still move mountains even after death. I guess a Jedi doesn’t die, well not in the sense that we do. But, then, how could you kill off a cute character like Yoda?

So, eight down, we have only one to go. It should run to the formula. The good Jedi faces off against the bad Jedi and good triumphs over evil. Planets are destroyed by Deathstars, Deathstars are destroyed by single fighters, and we have the awards ceremony at the end with much singing and dancing.

I’ll let you know once I’ve seen it. I will not be reading a recap of the movie before going.

Yet another movie…

There are two ways of looking at this, either we rented or bribed our grandchildren so we could see “Frozen II” without feeling embarrassed, or our grandchildren wanted to see it and dragged us along for the ride.

I’ll let you work out which is true.

But having seen the first Frozen at least a dozen times, watched our youngest grandchildren wear out their Elsa and Anna costumes, and endure that song Let It Go, so many times even I could remember the words (but never, never, ever, sing it), it was inevitable that we see the second.

After all, I’d seen the promo at least a thousand times, and it looked, well, interesting.

At the outset, I have to say the animation is amazing. In my time, the animation wasn’t great, but, back then, we didn’t have the resources we do now. Computers have made real-life animation almost perfect.

There are songs. You have to expect that, and I’m still trying to come to terms that the voice behind Anna is actually Kristen Bell, whom I am familiar with in ‘The Good Place’.

And the voice behind Elsa is equally amazing.

Perhaps what made this sequel better than the original was that it had a story, and a lesson to be learned.  In the end, it was well worth seeing.  And I’m still on the fence as to whether these types of movies by Disney are just for children.

What you need to look out for?  The reindeer. Not only Sven, but there’s more, and they’re not the usual run of the mill reindeer, and after seeing one particular song, you’ll understand why.

So, perhaps I’m transitioning into my second childhood, because I thought it was great.

No doubt, once it becomes a DVD it’ll be equally ingrained into my brain as much as the first. I guess worse things could happen.

The year so far, a movie to remember

It’s three days old and I have managed to fit in a couple of movies and start writing the second Walthenson novel.

Guess what was the most important event…

I have been seeing the trailers for Little Women for a while and knew it was going to be a new version of Louisa Alcott’s novel.

To me, it was the American attempt of writing a Jane Austen story with an American slant.

To my surprise, actually not really a surprise, I remember seeing the original version many, many years ago and was quite taken with it, certainly enough to go out and buy the book.

I guess being of English extract, it seems odd to me that I should be interested in American novels, particularly those of the 19th century.  My thoughts often ran to nature and American heroes like Davy Crocket and places like the Alamo.

Certainly, there was any number of stories about the civil war.

But, most of my impressions of Americana came from Hollywood, the wild west, and John Wayne, who was, to me, larger than life.

History dripped from the storylines of many of the 12940’s and 1050’s films that had people like Humphrey Bogart.  My favorite, of course, The Maltese Falcon

But I digress…

Little women was brilliant and taking my two granddaughters one 13 and the other 16, their appreciation of the film was quite interesting, if not very positive.  In a theatre that was filled with a lot of people over the age of 40, it surprises me more teens don’t come along and see what ‘real’ films are like.

Unfortunately, we are inundated with cartoon characters, comic book heroes and remakes of remakes, the sort of rubbish that makes money, but does little for educating a teenage mind.

Perhaps this film should be made mandatory viewing for every teenager.