Entertainment – Page 89 – Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog

Coraline

First up – Coraline is pronounced like Caroline with the “o” and “a” swapped around. Something that is emphasised as the film progresses. Secondly, it’s creepy. Don’t take anyone too young or you will inevitably have episodes of “monsters under the bed” for the next few bedtimes.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: girl moves into new house, finds secret doorway in wall with lovely “other” mum and dad through it… only things aren’t as nice as they first seem and she ends up having to become more the heroine than the loved daughter.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the see the film in 3D as the showtimes didn’t suit, which is a shame as it looks absolutely beautiful in 2D. Without a shadow of a doubt, Coraline wouldn’t have been half the film had it been realised in any way other than stop motion. This method lends an automatic creepiness to any story, which goes hand in glove with the subject matter here.

A personal highlight to hear Dawn French (her character with enormous boobs, naturally) and Jennifer Saunders playing off each other again.

I guess two people need to be thanked: Neil Gaiman for such a great children’s story and Tim Burton for making big-screen stop-motion fashionable again with Nightmare Before Christmas.

Definitely one to see, but as I said – be a responsible adult as to how young the nippers are that you take.

Monsters vs Aliens

At long last I finally caught Monsters vs Aliens yesterday. I was hoping to take my little cousin to see it about a month back, but she had already been invited to see it for a classmate’s birthday and we ended up seeing 17 Again instead.

As with every major cartoon these days, the voice “talent” is impressive. Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen and Kiefer Sutherland amongst others in this case. The only problem I had with the voices were that their synchronisation seemed a little off with the mouth movements in the earlier scenes. Visually it’s up there with most other films of this ilk, though Witherspoon’s character Susan/Ginormica seems to be built like a Barbie doll – all legs and no torso.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Army secretly hordes monsters. Aliens invade. Monsters are granted their freedom if they destroy the aliens.

There are plenty of cookie characters to please the kids, and a lot of slapstick. Explosions and destruction is as prevalent as in a mid-budget Michael Bay offering. The plot’s about as complicated as any large summer event film, as well. What sparkled for me, though, were the subtle jokes and references that most kids won’t get.

Without giving a spoiler, watch for the missile with “ET GO HOME” written on it. Listen very carefully and you’ll hear a few bars from that film’s title music in the background.

Overall, it was fun but not a classic. Given this came from the same stable as Shrek (see if you can spot a very small cameo appearance from him!), I was expecting a little better but I have no major complaints. It was certainly an entertaining 90 minutes.

Oh, and don’t leave too early. After the first 60 seconds or so of the credits, there’s an extra scene!

Star Trek (2009)

Someone pinch me, I must be dreaming. Hollywood have finally taken something old, turned it into something new and – somehow – made it utterly freaking awesome at the same time. Star Trek has to be the single best “reboot” (I bloody hate that phrase) of any franchise so far. By a country mile. And then some.

Plot in a nutshell: Imagine a kind of Star Trek: Origins with some lovely tweaks and you’re there. If you don’t know the history of Star Trek, find a spotty person with no friends at a convention. They’ll be happy enough to spend the rest of your life explaining it to you.

What makes it so good? Well, pretty much everything. The story’s well done. The characters are as familiar as they could be… and yet subtly changed just enough so they don’t appear their old, dated selves. The cast are superb – Karl Urban could be DeForest Kelly and Zachary Quinto is the perfect Spock. The dialogue’s awesome – there’s a “phasers to stun”, a couple of “live long and prosper“s and a “dammit Jim, I’m a doctor not a physicist!” Sadly there’s a lack of “She cannatak it” from Scotty, but we’ll forgive them that one. It comes close.

Above all, it’s damn entertaining. The humour level is spot on and the effects are bang up to date without being the focus of the film. What I think I liked most, though, is that we already know the characters. What we’re seeing is the formation of a team that most over-30s have a great knowledge of. Finally we’re seeing exactly how they came together – or one version of it. The plot allows the creative team and the scriptwriters to tinker with previous versions, but they’ve done so subtly.

I will be amazed if they can follow this with a sequel even half as good. I know I’ve thrown a lot of hyperbole your way, but believe me I was grinning like a loon after the first 15 minutes (the opening sequence isn’t exactly humourous). I didn’t even punch crap out of the two idiots next to me who kept repeating bits of the dialogue and pointing out the characters to each other. I must have been immersed.

See it. If you’re a sci-fi fan or Trekker/Trekkie then please just go if you’ve not already got a ticket. If you’re not a fan, go see it anyway. If this doesn’t convert you then nothing will.

Waste-of-time site of the day

OK, I admit I have a lot of spare time at the moment but this site may interest a lot of you – especially those with kids and spare printer ink. Conceptis Puzzles is a free site with loads of logic and classic games on. Layout is good and the varierty of puzzles is excellent. You have the option of printing the games out for play in your own time, or in some cases you can play online. This seems to be being rolled out with some available and some not as yet.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of them available online, and as your progress is saved in your account (free registration and virtually no information to fill in – even the Ts&Cs take up less than a quarter of a page) you can come back to a partially completed puzzle any time. Instructions are well presented with sample videos for some of them as well.

There are, at present, twelve types of puzzle available – five picture and seven number. So if you’re bored of sudoku, have a look and see if there’s a new type that takes your fancy.

I might print out a few of the join-the-dots puzzles for my little cousin. Even they come in three different varieties including multi-coloured ones. A shame they’re not online-enabled as yet (the puzzles and my cousin’s family!).

Dragon House

Blue Dragon Children's Foundation

I’ll be cross-posting this to the other blogs shortly so apologies for duplication. I just heard from Mike at Blue Dragon about an author, John Shors, who’s written a novel based on street kids in Vietnam. Mike read the draft and has approved it – which is impressive given the usual stereotypes of street children. Apparently Shors has avoided all of these and Mike should know, given the fact he’s been working with these kids for so many years.

The book, Dragon House, is published by Penguin and available pretty much anywhere. You can order an autographed copy direct from John at the official web site… or if you go to Blue Dragon’s page and donate upwards of $100, John will send you a free one! Either way, part of the proceeds from the novel will be wending their way to the kids in Vietnam.

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