Sherlock Holmes

On Friday we watched the new Sherlock Holmes movie.
We had already known that the story and the behavior of the characters are different from the usual Holmes stories.
In fact I really enjoyed the movie; there is lots of fun, action and tension.
I think even if you love the rather stiff and stereotypically british Holmes from the old stories you might like this movie. Yes, it's different but really good.
To be honest I believe that the new Holmes character is much more realistic than the old ones. You see the behavior of a genius when there is nothing to do, and that just being a genius doesn't do the trick. He has lots of problems and the smart Dr. Watson has problems too, so I am sure it's closer to live then it was before.
What I really loved were the fight scenes where her thought of what he will do in slow motion with a pretty cool monologue and realized it afterwards.

Hope there will be a sequel!

Website: Sherlock Holmes

MC is back!

I know it has been a long time since the last post! Life was a bit stressy recently. Beside my studies there was too little time for blogging left, but I will try to post from time to time.

What happened the last months?

Well, I am getting on very well with my studies. Except for some courses it's fun most of the time. Of course the exams aren't too easy and so I was very nervouse, but until now everything went fine. Some colleagues (Joe, Gery, Babs) and I formed a little learning group - some kind of "BRAINTRUST" *lol*.
On friday we had the last test for this term - math. We exercised with several old tests but the professor thought of some 'very nice' examples for the tests. Things that haven't been in tests before and were partly rather hard to understand what he wanted us to do, but I think most of us did at least good enough to pass.

One of last year's highlights definitely was the Bruce Springsteen concert! IT WAS AWESOME!!! hope he comes to vieanna again soon!

There were some movies I've seen recently too - like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Inglourious Basterds, 2012, Avatar, etc. Hopefully I will find the time to post about movies I see again.

I also bought a new tech-'toy' especially for my studies. A Samsung NC10. By now it's more than a year old but still works fine. The battery stamina is super for long evenings at the FH - and the size makes it perfectly portable. Once you got used to it the display size is even enough to write longer documents on it. I love the little "Sammy"! :-)

The last vacations were Prague (Silvester 08/09), Mali Losinj / Croatia (Summer 09) and Bratislava (Silvester 09/10). Each one was wonderfull and real fun. Prague and Bratislava were really cold; Croatia was sunny and warm, only thing we didn't enjoy to much about it was that Mali Losinj is rather tiny and so you don't have too much to see and the whole Island is a mountain, wherever you go it's always up and down and most of the time a bit steep; another thing was the accommodation - we just aren't the kind of people who are made for vacations in apartments, we prefer hotel rooms were we don't have to do to much on our own. But the sea was wonderfull! :-)
What I really loved in Croatia was the fish-variety in the resturants!

I think those were the major points of the last year.

Quantum of Solace

Seen yesterday.

Well, after having heard a lot of bad critics and nearly nothing good about the new James Bond movie, my expectation were rather low.

To be honest I don't understand what all those people are complaining about.
Yes, ok, it's not the cool British style agent we've known for centuries, but on the other hand everything changes sometimes. New actor - new character.
I think it wouldn't have worked if Daniel Craig had tried to be like Sean Connery (in my opinion the best bond ever). He looks more like a man of action and a bit less style, so don't just let him do some serious butt-kickin'?
I would say he's pretty cool.

Who i missed a bit was Q. Where has that cool, sarcastic secret-technology master-mind gone?

I liked the movie. It's definitely not a must-see but I would say a good one anyway.

Website: 007

Wanted

Seen Yesterday.

Nice movie with an interesting idea behinde the story.

The realisation in fact wasn't as good as it could have been.
Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie and all the others were great but that alone can't make a movie a masterpiece. To bad it's much too often tried to put great actors into a f**ked-up story to make people think it's a great movie, but it never does the trick!

The effects are cool and the stunts are awesome but anyway I wouldn't call it a must-see.
To many weird actions and to little depth and background in the storyline.

The story itself is about a brotherhood of people who believe that a loom tells them the names of dangerous people and that it's their calling to take them out.
Could have been a great movie but they messed it up.

Website: Wanted

The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor

Seen on Tuesday.

I hadn't heard anything good about the movie but was still very curious about it. I liked the first two parts and I like Brendan Fraser and Jet Li.

I don't get it why so many people slag this movie.
Of course it's not the best part and partly it seems a bit ridiculous but over all I would say you can really enjoy it!

The only thing I didn't like was the part with the Yetis. Okay, it's no problem that there are Yetis in the Himalayas and not too absurd that they could be friendly and helpful. But to me it was just too much! Although they were made great!

The story itself about the dragon emperor and his power over the elements and his pursue for eternal life is not bad but it could have been made up a little bit more in the movie instead of the O'Connell's family affairs.

It's funny and the effects are great.
Not bad at all, but not a must see!

Website: The Mummy 3

The Dark Knight

Seen today.

Fantastic!
If you like Batman you should really go and see this movie!

Great action and great jokes!

It's a pleasure to watch the Joker (Heath Ledger) doing his job with so much passion. The way he uses other people for his purposes is unbelievable.

Only thing I don't get in the new Batman-movies is the timeline.
I don't know to much about the original comics and witch movies are more fitting to them but in the first movie you see that the Joker (Jack Nicholson) was 'created' by Batman himself by accident.
Now the Joker shows up completely unknown with another storyline and dies again.

But except the new time and storyline the movie is fantastic!

Website: The Dark Knight

Mamma Mia - The Movie

Seen on Thursday.

Well, when I heard about the movie for the first time I was really sceptical how it would be. The trailers seemed a bit ridiculous to me. I really liked the musical and so I wasn't sure if the movie would be viewable or just be sort of painful.

Now I am glad that we gave it a try.
I think they all did a very good job!
Of course the singing wasn't perfect but I never would have guessed what great singing voices some actors have.
The scenery in the movie is of course a lot better than on stage and you are closer to everything.
I am not totally sure but maybe I like the movie even more than the musical.

Everyone was great in his/her role.

Plot:
Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) live with her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) on a small greek island and is about to marry her boyfriend Sky (Dominic Cooper). But Sophie doesn't feel to be ready for this major step without knowing who her father is. So she reads her mother's diary and invites her three possible fathers - Bil (Stellen Skarsgard), Sam (Pierce Brosnan) and Harry (Colin Firth).
When Donna finds out that those three are on the island everything starts to go upside down.

A great movie with a lot of fun and heart!

Website: Mamma Mia

You Don't Mess With The Zohan

Saw it on Friday.

Really cool movie!

Very funny and also a lot of action!

Adam Sandler is great as Zohan Dvir (a.k.a. The Zohan, a.k.a. Scrappy Coco) a counter-terrorist. He is the best. Some mix between Rambo and Superman - simply unbeatable.
But he's fed up with war and fighting, all he wants is to be a hairdresser. So he goes to the USA to make his dream come true. After some hurdles, when he finally made it, his past catches up, and Phantom, his archenemy, comes for the final show down.

Great movie with a lot of laughs!
Partly insane but extremely funny!

You won't regret it!

Website: You Don't Mess with the Zohan

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

Seen on Friday.

To be honest, I had expected a lot more.

It's a great thriller with suspence a action, but it's just not 'The X-Files'.

I stopped watching the TV series when the whole story started to become to complicated inside the FBI; I loved the older episodes with lots of mystery and aliens and other supernatural stuff.

Can't really remember the first movie - but I don't think it was so special either, when I can't remember anything.

This time there is to much about Scully's and Mulder's past - don't even know if they really had a common past with a deeper relation or if the just put it in to make the movie a bit more interesting.
Only mystical thing is that there's a priest - a sentenced pedophile - who has visions of kidnapped women, because of his spiritual connection to one of his past victims.

If you want to see a thriller, it's a great movie.

If you want 'The X-Files', you should at least save the money for the cinema and rent the DVD later.

Website: The X-Files: I Want To Believe
----------------
MC listened to: Dixie Chicks - Long Time Gone
via FoxyTunes

Get Smart

Seen Yesterday.

Sooo damn funny! Partly I nearly laughed my head off!

It's some time ago - about 18 years or so - since I saw the old Maxwell Smart played by Don Adams, but as far as I can remember it was one of the funniest secret agent tv series I've ever seen so far.
Steve Carell is fantastic as Maxwell Smart a.k.a. Agent 86.

Together with the CONTROL-Agents 99 (Anne Hathaway), 23 (Dwayne Johnson) and the chief (Alan Arkin), Smart has to save the world from KAOS' latest plans, after the CONTROL-headquarter was attacked and all the agent's identities were revealed.

A lot of slapstick comedy and fantastic and funny action make this movie a great pleasure to be seen!
I would nearly go as far as to say it's a must-see.

Website: Get Smart
----------------
MC listened to: Meredith Brooks - Watched You Fall
via FoxyTunes

Kung Fu Panda

Seen yesterday.

A very nice and funny movie!

Po's only dream is to be a Kung Fu fighter. But that's rather unlikely for a panda with some extra pounds - until kismet makes him the dedicated Dragon Warrior.

I love the 'design' of the characers. All together very funny.
The animation of the martial arts movements is fantastic and extremely smooth. During the training and fight scenes they included slow motion sequences - pretty cool!

Again a movie with a good message. You can be whatever you want to be as long as you believe in yourself.

'There is no secret incredient!'

Website: Kung Fu Panda

----------------
MC listened to: The Rolling Stones - How Can I Stop
via FoxyTunes

Hancock

Seen yesterday.

Starts extremely funny with a drunk, filled with self-hate not so glamorous hero Hancock (Will Smith), who of course helps people but what he leaves behind after his help looks like the aftermath of some terrorist attack .
People hate him, the city is fed up with paying the devastation he causes.
But all this will change when he rescues the PR executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), who want to help Hancock to polish up his image.

I like the movie really a lot!

Only thing I missed was some kind of explanation who he really is and where he came from.

Website: Hancock
----------------
MC listened to: Black Sabbath - Killing Yourself To Live
via FoxyTunes

Nim's Island

Seen on Monday.

A very good movie about the everyday fight for courage for everyone - young and young at heart.
Can't remember having seen Jodie Foster in a funny movie and she's is in that genre as great as always.
She plays the author Alexandra Rover who writes the adventures of 'Alex Rover' (Gerard Butler) - a male adventurer in the kind of Indiana Jones - who is Nim's greatest hero.
Nim (Abigail Breslin) and her father Jack (Gerard Butler) - a marine biologist - live on a secret Island. When Jack is missing on the open sea Nim gets an email from Alexandra about the volcano on the island with the sender name Alex Rover. Nim is totally beside herself with joy and climbs up the volcano to get the information Alex requested. As the volcano starts shaking she hurts her leg on the way down. Bad luck continues as she sees 'pirates' landing on the island.
Nim begs Alex - who is in real life just a coward - to come to the island and help her. Alex starts the odyssey of her lifetime.

The movie is fun and suspense from the start to the ending. Slapstick and sweet and funny animals keep you smiling all the time.

I really liked it!

Website: Nim's Island
----------------
MC listened to: The Beatles - Here Comes The Sun
via FoxyTunes

The Happening

Seen Yesterday.

All I knew about this movie - which was nearly non-advertised - was that some strange power forces people to act very strange and kill themselves.

It's not too bad but definitely not a must-see. I guess some will say the movie is fantastic others will say it's a piece of crap.
I would say partly both are right.

The idea of nature's payback - by emitting toxicities which attack human's neural system, turns off our instinct of self-preservation and forces us into suicide - is not bad.

But the way it is pictured is a bit ridiculous. Of course it's claer that the plants would need wind to bring the toxicities into action, but that the wind is always coming up on small locations just to get groups of people (decreasing in amount) seems a bit over-the-top.
Well, wind is one of nature's mightiest powers and so the thought fits in the plot but wind is not such a precise instrument as pictured here.

The part about plants becoming poisonous is in my opinion very plausible. We know that plants can do that without any advance warning - for example when the population of animals in an area hits a dangerous amount for the plants, some grases become poisonous to preserve themselves. And plants are able to communicate by emitting several messenger substances.

Overall I don't regret having seen the movie but I wouldn't have missed it if I hadn't.

Website: The Happening
----------------
MC listened to: The Doors - People Are Strange
via FoxyTunes

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Seen on Friday.

Against all expectations I liked it very much.
I hadn't heard anything positive about this movie before and so I didn't hope for too much - but it turned out as a good sequel of the story.

Of course I have to admit that there are some not so cool parts. Especially the ending is in my opinion not fitting. The last showdown is pretty cool with the effect inside the temple and the creatures but I think the should have stopped it after the collapse of the pyramid.
The the end of the movie was out of the line of the previous parts and not typical.
I don't write to specifically because I don't want to spoil anybody to much, I think you will know what I mean when you see it.

Right at the start I was a bit disappointed too. I missed the fantastic original I.J.-lettering. The title was just written in the same letters as the cast. And there was also different music instead of the I.J.-Theme.

Overall I really liked the movie! I think there are more jokes and much more fun in than in the other parts. Maybe it's only because times have changed and my so did my sens of humor but I laughed a lot.
And the effects were excellent!

There is one thing left to say: Respect to Harrison Ford for doing most of the stunts by himself!

Website: Indiana Jones
----------------
MC listened to: Johnny Cash - In Them Old Cottonfields Back Home
via FoxyTunes

Jumper

Seen on Sunday.

To be honest, I didn't know anything about the movie besides what I saw on the trailer. But I am sorry that I have to say this movie was a bit disappointing.

Maybe I didn't understand it - things like that can happen - it just doesn't make to much sense.
Ok I have often watched movies with a rather flat storyline, but there was a story at least.
Here I missed some background for all the action. Why are the paladins hunting the jumpers? Are they just religious freak who think that only god should be able to be anywhere anytime? If so, why is there not a single trace of religious symbolism?
To me it seemed like an old hillbilly-style family feud, where after decades of war nobody can remember why they started fighting.

I also missed an explanation for the ability to jump. In most movies where somebody is able to do something special, there is at least some sort of reason. Is it genetic? Is due to the accident at the river?

And the end of the movie just screams for a sequel.

Besides the rather unreasonable storyline the effects are really great! It looks fantastic when the jumpers break through different locations!

Don't think that this movie is bad. It's just not what I had expected.
If you just want to see cool action it's ok.

Website: Jumper
----------------
MC listened to: Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers
via FoxyTunes

U2:3D

Seen last Thursday.
(sorry was caught in an online quiz -
really addicting but terrible)

What a show!
A great experience in 3D!

The U2 concert in Argentina during the Vertigo Tour was really fantastic!
The stadium was shaking and the audience was singing along nearly every single word.


A few years ago I didn't care to much about U2's music, but I have to admit, that I like it very much now!

It was not just a concert for fun. U2 seems to be on a nonviolent crusade for peace and freedom!
Bono and the others are real life heros of the present time. The concert was bit like a huge and loud mass for peace. After this show I would say the whole world should be sent to a concert like this. If just a few more people - and of course some of the so called 'important' people - would show the same believe in the power of change and the possibility of coexistence of all religions, races and origins like the argentinian audience did during the show, mankind could eventually really be able to achieve world peace.


Websites: U2:3D, U2
----------------
MC listened to: U2 - Beautiful Day
via FoxyTunes

Horton Hears A Who!

Seen on Friday.

I had expected more, but it was very nice.
It's really a movie for young kids - not like 'Bee Movie', 'Monsters, Inc.' or 'Ice Age' which are fun for everyone.

The animals are made up sweet but not as loveable as they could have been.
What disturbed me most was the narrator - I don't like rhyming narrators. Don't know if his text is in rhymes in English too, but in the German version it is.

What I found extremely funny was the scene where everything was made in manga style. It is as ridiculous as most of those stupid manga shows (like Pokemon, Digimon and all the other sh*t) flooding our tv screens.

Anyway, the message that every live has a right to be is very good.

For kids this movies is really nice, people who are just young at heart should stay with 'Ice Age' and movies of that type.

Website: Horton Hears A Who
----------------
MC listened to: Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers - Swing The Mood
via FoxyTunes

John Rambo

Seen yesterday.

This movie is not an action movie, even if some people may think so.
I can imagine that the only fiction part of the movie is the figure of John Rambo and that a few man can eliminate an army. The rest of the story seems like it could be real life. The terror, the humiliation and killing of innocent people. Just take a look at the daily news on TV.


I guess most people know who John Rambo is, or have at least heard of him before. So I will not tell to much about the story, because it's rather similar to other parts.
People get in trouble - Rambo gets them out.
The only differences this time are (besides of his age) that he isn't going alone - small group of mercenaries is on his side - and that it is much bloodier and really affecting.

Website: John Rambo
----------------
MC listened to: Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell
via FoxyTunes

Sweeney Todd

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Seen on Saturday. (Sorry that it took so long.)

Amazing!
The basic story reminds a bit of 'The Count of Monte Christo' because of the fact that a innocent man is deported for something he didn't do and lusts for revenge when he comes back.
But 'Sweeney Todd' is much bloodier and has, in addition to the baseline, a macabre sense of humor.

Johnny Depp, who plays Sweeney, has a fantastic voice as singer too!

I liked the movie a lot!
It takes you to the deepest parts of the human mind, as the story and the deeds is easy imaginable in those hard times back than.

Website: Sweeney Todd
----------------
MC listened to: Guns N' Roses - Knockin' On Heavens Door
via FoxyTunes