Many more reviews to do...
Jul. 29th, 2012 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI seem to have a lot of reviews stacked up again, so here goes...
A Study In Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
For some reason, reading the Sherlock Holmes stories never appealed to me, so I came fresh to A Study In Scarlet when I listened to it on the way to and from work last week. It was a Librivox recording, which can be a bit hit and miss, but this one was read by the same narrator all the way through, and it was a good one. It was a little strange hearing such a quintessentially English story read by a soft, female southern American voice, though! I really enjoyed the first half - Holmes' arrogance was just at the right level, Watson was very likeable, and the pursuit of the case was as interesting as I'd hoped. The second half took me completely by surprise, though - we suddenly left Watson's narrative and travelled to Utah for a third person account of how the various people connected to the murder came to be in London and what happened to them there. It was a very abrupt shift, and much less interesting than the opening section, though it picked up again once we returned to Holmes and Watson in London again.
Step Up 2: The Streets:
Still mildly entertaining, which some great dancing, though the plot was even more cliched and predictable than the first one, which I hadn't thought was possible.
The Dark Knight Rises:
I went to a 10:10am showing on a Friday in Enfield - and it was packed! I thought I was going to be the only one there - but either there are an awful lot of people in Enfield who don't work, or they all actually took a day off work to see Batman on opening day. Weird. Still, the film was pretty good, overall. I'm not sure I'd agree with Empire's gushing five star review, but I enjoyed it, it had a reasonable level of depth, and it was great to see Joesph Gordon Levitt in fine form. Anne Hathway did a great job with a tricky part, Christian Bale was beautiful as ever, and Michael Caine had me tearing up at several points. A fitting conclusion to a good superhero trilogy. I shall be interested to see what Christopher Nolan does next.
Hitchhiker's Guide - live show:
It was great to see and hear the original radio show cast doing their thing - I had a major thing for Geoffrey McGivern when I used to listen to the radio show on cassette tape, so I was very excited. The first half was really good, mostly following the original script, but the second half did go a bit awry, which was a shame. Marvin was fabulous all the way through, but the show as a whole didn't live up to expectations.
How's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones:
This was a lot of fun to read - light, quick, and very silly. The introduction of the real world part way through really surprised me, and reading the book made me want to watch the film again.
Trans Europa:
A train game where you have to link together a set of cities on the board with shared track - I lost miserably, but it was quite a fun game.
Iron Dragon:
Another train game involving the linking of cities across the board - however, in this one, you actually draw your track in different colours onto the board, and there's the added complication of having to pick up and deliver different resources for varying amounts of money. It took rather a long time to play, but I really enjoyed it, even though I came last.
Aladdin's Dragons, the Card Game:
This had a lot of similarities to the board game version we played on holiday in April, though it was quicker and simpler. The set up worked well with the cards, and provides a short, easily portable version that still has a lot of the other version's appeal.
A Study In Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
For some reason, reading the Sherlock Holmes stories never appealed to me, so I came fresh to A Study In Scarlet when I listened to it on the way to and from work last week. It was a Librivox recording, which can be a bit hit and miss, but this one was read by the same narrator all the way through, and it was a good one. It was a little strange hearing such a quintessentially English story read by a soft, female southern American voice, though! I really enjoyed the first half - Holmes' arrogance was just at the right level, Watson was very likeable, and the pursuit of the case was as interesting as I'd hoped. The second half took me completely by surprise, though - we suddenly left Watson's narrative and travelled to Utah for a third person account of how the various people connected to the murder came to be in London and what happened to them there. It was a very abrupt shift, and much less interesting than the opening section, though it picked up again once we returned to Holmes and Watson in London again.
Step Up 2: The Streets:
Still mildly entertaining, which some great dancing, though the plot was even more cliched and predictable than the first one, which I hadn't thought was possible.
The Dark Knight Rises:
I went to a 10:10am showing on a Friday in Enfield - and it was packed! I thought I was going to be the only one there - but either there are an awful lot of people in Enfield who don't work, or they all actually took a day off work to see Batman on opening day. Weird. Still, the film was pretty good, overall. I'm not sure I'd agree with Empire's gushing five star review, but I enjoyed it, it had a reasonable level of depth, and it was great to see Joesph Gordon Levitt in fine form. Anne Hathway did a great job with a tricky part, Christian Bale was beautiful as ever, and Michael Caine had me tearing up at several points. A fitting conclusion to a good superhero trilogy. I shall be interested to see what Christopher Nolan does next.
Hitchhiker's Guide - live show:
It was great to see and hear the original radio show cast doing their thing - I had a major thing for Geoffrey McGivern when I used to listen to the radio show on cassette tape, so I was very excited. The first half was really good, mostly following the original script, but the second half did go a bit awry, which was a shame. Marvin was fabulous all the way through, but the show as a whole didn't live up to expectations.
How's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones:
This was a lot of fun to read - light, quick, and very silly. The introduction of the real world part way through really surprised me, and reading the book made me want to watch the film again.
Trans Europa:
A train game where you have to link together a set of cities on the board with shared track - I lost miserably, but it was quite a fun game.
Iron Dragon:
Another train game involving the linking of cities across the board - however, in this one, you actually draw your track in different colours onto the board, and there's the added complication of having to pick up and deliver different resources for varying amounts of money. It took rather a long time to play, but I really enjoyed it, even though I came last.
Aladdin's Dragons, the Card Game:
This had a lot of similarities to the board game version we played on holiday in April, though it was quicker and simpler. The set up worked well with the cards, and provides a short, easily portable version that still has a lot of the other version's appeal.
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Date: 2012-07-29 05:19 pm (UTC)I love Diana Wynne Jones, have done since I read The Power of Three when I was under 10 (though that and a lot of her other books were out of print for a long time until Harry Potter revived the whole children's fantasy market ). Howl's Moving Castle is a fave of mine, though I was a little disappointed with the film. The differences were so marked that I couldn't help wondering why they bothered to adapt the book at all. A shame, I love Studio Ghibli too :/
So jealous about Hitchhiker! Geoffrey McGivern as Ford is one of the best things ever. And seeing all the originals do their thing would be fab.
I was entirely unenthused about being dragged to see Dark Knight Rises but I ended up rather loving it. Wasn't hugely taken by the whole 'big bad' plot, though Bane was pretty awesome, but I loved the supporting characters - Selina Kyle, Gordon, Fox, Albert and Blake absolutely made it for me. And Christian Bale (whether or not he's a bit of a dick in real life (he's never struck me as very nice!)) is certainly a good actor and a fabulous Batman.