Thor

Thor. 

Thor the son of Odin, a familiar name that we have all heard about in school or on various tv shows. Here's the deal with marvels version. Odin is a all powerful humanoid from an alternate dimension where magic and science are the same. Anyone living in the dimension of assgard is immortal, which Odin can take away.  Frost giants, another humanoid race from another dimension, tried to conquer all other dimensions but was defeated by Odin.  

Odin had two sons that were raised together. Thor and Loki, unknown to them Loki is actually a Frost Giant orphan that Odin took to raise as his own. Thor was the chosen successor to the throne and given Mjölnir, a hammer that has various powers least of which is the ability to summon lightening.

When first we meet Thor he is arrogant, self centered and infaluable and the people love him. He makes the mistake of attacking the frost giants and shatter the peace they've had for decades.

Odin banishes him to earth and removes his immortality. The hammer follows to earth but a stipulation was added, only someone with a pure heart can wield it. 

The rest of the movie is basically a fish  out of water scenario. With Thor claiming to be the son of Odin and a great warrior and everyone else thinking he's nuts until Loki turns on Odin and Thor and sends a indestructible robot to kill Thor. 

This movie was fun and fast, but had the feel of just introducing us to the situations and not so much on story. 

I was never was a huge fan of Thor and if need be I wouldn't be that mad if he was left out of the avenger movie. However I have known people that are obsessed with him. I even knew somebody that tried to dig up their parents basement thinking Thor's hammer could be hidden under the dirt. 

7 out of 10

Train: Save me San Fransisco

Train:  
Save me San Francisco
Cd

This will be short. 

I have never heard a more commercial album.  Every track should sound familiar to anyone with a tv or a radio because they use it on every advertisement. The rhyming sounds like it was done by an idiot and is overused. 


1 out of 10. 

The Silmarillian.

The Silmarilian
By Jrr Tolkien 
Book. 

I love lord of the rings, that being said, the Silmarilian is dry and hard to read. Published after Tolkien died and before he finished the book. 

The Silmarilian is the complete story of middle earth, from it's foundations to it's end. 

It does explain all about Sauron and how he became so powerful, also about Gandalf and all the other wizards. Where the elves come from. More about hobbits, orcs and rings. 

The Silmarilian itself would be better served as a reference guide to the published series instead of the stand alone book people want it to be. 

There is a overwhelming urge for people to declare everything that Tolkien touched a masterpiece. When in actuality a lot of it is hard to read and unfinished. His published works is great and definitely a masterpiece. 

If you can find a copy of the first print of the Hobbit it has a lot of differences. Tolkien rewrote parts of the book to fit into Lord of the Rings for the 2nd printing. For example, when Bilbo gets the ring, Golem agrees he was bested a wishes Bilbo a safe journey.

4 out of 10
Taylor

Shrek forever after.

Shrek Forever after.
DVD and BLU-Ray,

It’s been a long time since Shrek first came on the scene.  Computer animation has changed a lot; it makes me wish they would remake the original with the new tech.

Shrek longs for a simpler life without all his responsibilities and his swamp back to its original state. The plot of every Shrek movie by the way. Making a deal with Rumplestiltskin, he ends up never being born alter the world and everyone else for the worse.

The fat alternate reality Puss is one of the funniest parts of the movie.

Eddie Murphy’s voice acting sounded very unconvincing.

Cameron Diaz seems to have just phoned it in.

Mike Myers seems to have better luck with his voice then he does with his physical acting.

The story wasn’t so great and seemed like just random filler.

This is supposed to be the final Shrek movie. But they all have been worth a few laughs and made a ton of money so we will just have to see. I doubt it will be the last.


6 out of 10
Taylor.

Star Wars: X-Wing: Wraith Squadron.

Star Wars: X-Wing: Wraith Squadron. 
By Aaron Allston. 

(Previously published on Goodreads.com.)

Wraith squadron is one of the worst Star Wars books in the series. Allston is one of the least original authors currently writing books. It is a shame he is still writing star wars books.

A good author tries to continue a series, adding to the overall narrative. Allston tries to rework the series to be his own. 

A lot of his characters and stories are flimsy reworkings of characters from tv shows or movies. A particularly obvious example that I like is his latest books and the almost scenario to scenario similarities to Doctor Who episodes.

I still read his books but I consider them at the same level as good fan fiction and not part of the official Star Wars cannon.

This author is what killed my obsession with Star Wars years ago. I used to buy anything and everything Star Wars. I had a collection of over 45 thousand pieces. Now I maybe have 100 pieces left, and no longer buy things.

1 out of 10
Taylor 

Toy Story 3.

Toy Story 3. 
DVD and Blu Ray

Let me start off by saying always read the fine print. Commercials and the movie box advertise that Toy Story 3 is the 1# animated movie of all time. That's all well and good, but it isn't. 

If you read the fine print in the commercial or on the sticker it reads " according to movieguide.com". 

This kind of advertising trickery really makes me mad because it wasn't even the best of the trilogy let alone the 1# money maker. Most people read this and assume it's true. 

But on to the movie. 

This is actually the second Toy Story 3. Disney decided to make 3 without Pixar who didn't want to do it. The story involved the Buzz Lightyear toys being recalled and sent back to the factory in Mexico and the group of toys go on an adventure to rescue him. 

I know voice recording was done. But I am not sure how much animation was made. 

Toy Story 3 was a good movie, but not the best. Tim Allen's voice sounds a little aged. The story seemed a little bit forced, being that its animation you can keep Andy young forever. So why make him grow up. It had some minor problems but worth watching. 

Little known fact: In high school I was offered college and a job at Pixar. I turned it down, thinking that computer animation was just a fad. 

6 out of 10
Taylor

Diner for Schmucks.

Diner for Smucks. 
DVD and Blu ray. 


Man I wanted to like this movie. The previews showed it to be a laugh a minute comedy, it was not. 
 
The main story of the movie was about a guy played by Paul Rudd who tries to get a promotion and marry his girlfriend and about 30 minute into it he accidentally hits Steve Carrel with his car, who tries to be helpful but ends up screwing up Rudd's life. 

The actual diner didn't even happen until around the hour mark and was full of extras and  cameo stars that have been overplayed in other movies. 

Zack (insert name here) played (insert name here) who comically controls people with his mind. A role which could have been really really funny fell short of expectations. 

Paul Rudd's girlfriend runs an art gallery and works exclusively which an artist named Keiran who think himself sort of a artistic god. Creating pictures where he is half man half goat, or demon like. His character actually works in this movie, his persona is so over the top that's it very comical.  

I hate when comedy movies try to teach us lessions. Are we supposed to walk away and think "I guess we know who the real schmucks are, the people who judge others too harshly."

Dinner for Schmucks seemed like someone had a good idea but it wasn't long enough or funny enough so they kept adding elements different from the main theme. This is a not unheard-of technique in hollywood. It happens all the time. 


Taylor 

4 out of 9. 

Knight and Day.

Knight and Day. 
DVD and Blu Ray


Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz star in a comedic spy movie. Sounds like a hit. Yet when I saw a advertisement for the DVD release I was a little stumped it seemed funny and action packed. But why hadn't I heard of it. 

After reading online that the movie went through 5 directors and a series of rewrites and casting changes, I suspected it was terrible. I still sat down and watched it. 

Tom Cruise plays a secret agent who supposedly went rouge stealing a perpetual energy source the size of a battery. Cameron Diaz gets involved by forcing her way onto a airplane filled with agents and Tom Cruise. She doesn't know who to believe because Cruise acts totally insane for the majority of the movie. 

This movie is really fun, packed with a lot of decent jokes, funny sayings, satire and espionage. Like when Tom Cruise shoots a fireman in the leg and tells him he'll be a hero and probably get a promotion, and that it's just a flesh wound.

Peter Scarsguard plays protagonist to the two main characters but had no real character development and his whole character seemed to be a glorified extra.

It really is too bad that this movie didn't do so well in the theaters, a sequel would have been fun to watch.

I don't really know why it is called knight and day though. 


7.5 out of 10
Taylor

Blythe Watch 2.

Rom Howard to appear in the movie. Read this article.

http://m.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a299085/ron-howard-could-appear-in-arrested-movie.html

Doctor Who: Christmas Carol.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol. 
TV Special. 

The 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special, for those of you that don't know, marks the half way point between the last season and the new season of Doctor Who, dating back since the 2005 series revival. 

Sometimes a new character is revealed, who later appears in the series or the Doctor regenerates into a new actor. 

This year's saw Amy Pond and Rory on their honeymoon aboard a spaceship that is starting to crash into an alien planet. The Doctor arrives in the TARDIS and discovers that the planet is protected by an electromagnetic machine that is controlled by an old miser Kazran Sardick. Despite the fact it's as simple as pushing a button, he refuses to save the ship. 

The Doctor decides to travel back in time to change Kazran past to make him a better, more caring person. The Doctor shows an old home video of Kazran to himself. As Kazran watches himself as a child The Doctor suddenly appears in the video from his childhood. 

This is a typical Doctor Who story, but lacked a lot of what is expected in a typical Who episode. There wasn't a lot of adventure just a straight forward story which was very predictable with no real surprises. 

It felt that Amy and Rory were in it as an afterthoughts and didn't really add much to anything except to add to the continuity. 

It was kind of a let down. But worth watching. 

6 out of 10
Taylor 

Futurama volume 5.

Futurama Volume 5. 
DVD

Futurama is the brain child of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. It was marketed as the Simpsons in space and appeared on TV in 1999. Sadly it was pulled from the air around the same time as The Family Guy.

Years went by and Futurama continued as a comic book and a lackluster video game. Occasionally, Bender would appear in a Simpsonís episode but never for very long.

Family Guy was brought back on the air and soon hopes that Futurama would return soon filled fans heads.

No network seemed to want to take the reins and bring it back, even though in reruns it did very well on several different stations.  

Soon a series of four straight to DVD movies were released a few months apart and were split into 12 TV episodes that aired on Comedy Central.  The success of the DVDs and the newer split up episodes had Comedy Central order 13 new episodes.

The new series is a continuation of the original series and the four movies. In fact the last movie ends with a cliff hanger which is where the first episode starts off. Episodes take on modern subject as evolution, politics, iPhones, Twitter and robots/humans marriages, with some episodes making a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci and time travel amongst other topics. 

Fry and Leela now know how each other feel about the other and are dating. We see Amy Wong finishing school and having relationship problems with Kiff. Other than being a little short of episodes Futurama volume 5 fits into the Futurama series like a missing puzzle piece.  It was a little hard to start in on new Futuramas after so many years, but after a few episodes the new writing and episode flow seemed like old hat. 

There was a rumor for a while that a new series would be called "Fry Loves Leela" and that it wouldn't be a continuation but a 2nd series with not all of the characters returning. 

I didn't like the carbon neutral box that the series came in. I'm all for saving the environment, but these are paper cases and do not hold up very well.

Definitely pick up this set if you're a fan or if you just want a good comedy to watch. Plus, good DVD sales will help keep it on the air for several more years.

There is a sticker on the cover tha reads, "Back by popular harassment."
8 of 10.
Taylor