Movie review: Moon

Earth is now using helium-3, harvested from the moon, as a primary energy source. In order to harvest it, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the only employee at the lunar base. His job is to rocket the fuel back to Earth, as well as keeping the machinery working. The computer's AI, GERTY (Kevin Spacey), is there to protect him no matter what.

Against my wishes, my husband rented Moon from one of the local Redboxes. I had no interest in watching a science fiction movie along the lines of 2001. Luckily, I was completely wrong about the film. While it is a drama (not usually my thing), it is eloquently executed. There is little sound and almost fewer characters. Yet this solitude is what makes the movie so emotionally moving. You feel bad for Sam and his predicament. (No, I won't tell you what it is. It's a big spoiler!) I'd almost like to see a sort-of sequel to it, but I think that would completely ruin the uniqueness of this one. This is a movie that I can definitely recommend to anyone.

JDorama review: Kisarazu Cat's Eye: The Movie

Title: Kisarazu Cat's Eye: The Movie Release date: 11/2003 Genre: Comedy Cast: Okada Junichi, Sakurai Sho, Okada Yoshinori, Sato Ryuta, Tsukamoto Takashi Plot: Bussan (Junichi) is dying. His doctors continually tell him that he has six months left to live. Instead of being depressed, he lives life normally with his friends. What is good: There are some very funny moments. What is bad: The beginning of the movie is rather confusing. Letter rating: C+ Overall: I should start out by confessing that I have not watched the 9-episode drama that goes with the movie. This was just something I plucked off of Netflix without any expectations. As such, I was terribly confused for the first 45 minutes. Perhaps, if I was familiar with the series, I might have understood what was going on. Either way, the movie really picks up in the last half of the film. Once you can piece everything together and see how each event relates to other events, the movie is quite fun! I actually found myself staying up way past my bedtime just to find out how it ends. (I rarely stay up past my bedtime. I like sleep.) Now I need to track down the series so I can see what other adventurous mishaps this gang gets into!

TV review: Demons

On Saturday, February 6, BBC America aired the final episode of the series Demons. At a mere six episodes, the show was extremely short. Especially considering the content.

Luke Rutherford (Christian Cook) is the last of the Van Helsing men. According to Rupert Galvin (Philip Glenister), it is now his job to hunt down demons known as "half lives" and smite them. With help from Galvin, Mina Harker (Zoe Tapper), and his best friend Ruby (Holliday Grainger), he faces vampires, harpies, demons, and more.

The show started off slow, which isn't promising considering how little time the writers have to get the story out and wrap it up. There were a few really good episodes in there. I think "Smitten" was my favorite. However, the writers spent a lot of time building up to something spectacular for Luke, only to end it without giving it to us. Instead, they give us a bit of a cliff-hanger. Unfortunately, it has been confirmed that there will not be a second season so we will never get the resolution to the climax. That would be why I can't really recommend it to anyone. It just doesn't go anywhere.

On the good side, both Christian Cook and Holliday Grainger gave some good performances. I hope to see more excellent work from them in the future.

Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards aired last night on CBS. I normally don't watch award shows, but my husband is a Lady Gaga fan and he wanted to see if she would win anything. Luckily for me, Green Day performed so that made up for having to sit through the lengthiness of an award show. (Seriously - fewer commercial breaks and just shut the hell up.)

I found most of the performances to be rather dull. Mainly because, for some reason, whoever was in charge of mixing the songs decided that the lead vocals weren't nearly as important as the background vocals or the horn sections. I spent half of Beyonce's performance going "What is she singing? I can't hear a word she's saying!" The other half was "Huh. Is she singing an Alanis song?" Green Day's performance had the potential to be amazing, but, yet again, the mixer screwed everything up. Isn't this the reason they have rehearsals?

On the awards side, I was stunned that a country music band (Zac Brown Band) won Best New Artist. They were up against some tough competition. I guess this shows that this particular award was given out on merit instead of popularity. Otherwise one of the pop girls would have been a shoo-in. I was also a little surprised that "Single Ladies" won Song of the Year. It's not really a great song. Sure, it's catchy and it gets stuck in your head, but that doesn't make it great. Ah, well, award show...popularity contest and all that.

So, as usual, I was an unimpressed with the Grammy Awards as I have ever been. Will I watch next year? I don't know. I guess we'll see what rocks the music world this year. Maybe next year will be more interesting.

TV: Cougar Town

One of the new shows that I have been watching this season is Cougar Town. To be honest, I never heard about the show until my husband recorded it for me one night. The show had me laughing my butt off right from the beginning.

Here's the premise: Jules (Courtney Cox) is a recently divorced woman with a 17-year old son. With a bit of help from her best friends - Ellie (Christa Miller) and Laurie (Busy Phillips) - she tries to put a little excitement in her life and, maybe, find a good man along the way.

At first glance, it doesn't look like it would be anything spectacular. However, the writing and the cast are absolutely perfect. None of the characters are overbearing (or at least they aren't for very long) and you always feel like you are in on the joke. I know that some people are put-off by the title. Look past the words and let the laughter commence!

TV review: Alice

Wow. This review is extraordinarily late. Back in December, 2009, the SyFy channel aired Alice, a re-imagining of the Alice In Wonderland story. My husband and I enjoyed their version of Tin Man so we gave Alice a fair chance. (Unfortunately, we took so long to watch it because my daughter wanted to watch it with me and, well, she's a very busy girl.)

As usual, there were things I absolutely loved and hated about it. The Mad Hatter (Andrew Lee Potter) was brilliant. I think that watching the entire show was worth it JUST for him. Matt Frewer also gave a wonderful performance as the White Knight. I also liked the little touches that made Wonderland...Wonderland. On the down side, the flamingo aircycles were odd. They served a purpose but it seemed like they could have used something better. Also, the White Rabbit pretty much disappeared after the beginning of the show. I would have liked to have seen him just a bit more.

In comparison, I liked Tin Man much better than Alice. However, Alice wasn't a waste of my time. I didn't feel cheated or anything like that. Then again, I blame the Mad Hatter. He was just too awesome for words.

Movie review: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel

Like many children of the 80s, I watched a lot of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" cartoons. When the first movie came out, I was, like almost everyone I knew, hesitant to enjoy it. Would a live-action/CG Chipmunk movie be anywhere as good as the cartoons we so fondly remembered? I enjoyed it, but it felt like something was missing.

What was missing....was the Chipettes. In the 80s, there weren't a lot of good female characters. Sure, there was She-Ra and Jem, but that was about it. While the Chipettes weren't particularly strong girls, they were good counterparts to the Chipmunks. Whatever the boys could dish out, the girls could too and that was what made them loveable.

So the Chipettes have now entered into the live-action world of the Chipmunks. I loved the Chipettes singing, but their personalities seemed a little off. Britney was always a little more selfish than she was in the movie. Yes, she looked out for her sisters more than Alvin did for his brothers, but in this version, she was just a little too altruistic for their sakes. Jeanette wasn't quite nerdy enough. She should have been able to match Simon fact-to-fact. Yet it was Simon that had to help her when the girls were in trouble. In my opinion, only little Eleanor fit her original personality. She was a tad shy with a heart just as big as her tubby body. Perfect.

One of the things that surprised me was that Zachary Levi, of Chuck fame, played the lead live-action male in the show. I don't remember seeing him in any of the commercials. We all know that good old Dave Seville got laid up in the hospital thanks to Alvin's antics, but we never saw who was taking care of them while he was out of commission. There is no better nerd boy than Zachary Levi. Dave will always be the number one guy in the Chipmunk's lives, but I really hope that the writers find a way to get Toby into the third movie.

Both my sister and I enjoyed the movie just as much as my daughter did. There are some really funny jokes and, as usual, the singing was fun as well. I can't say that it is absolutely worth the money to see it in the movie theater, but it is definitely worth a rental once the DVD or Blu-Ray hits shelves.

Movie review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

The animated movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" appeared in theaters on September 18, 2009. Unfortunately, we were not able to watch it in the theater. Luckily, the Blu-Ray version came out on January 5, 2010. My 7-year old daughter had been bugging us to rent it as soon as she saw the Coming Soon sign on the local Redbox. We ended up renting it through Netflix instead.

I wasn't expecting a lot from the movie since I loved the book when I was a child and, as I recall, there isn't much of a plot to it. Surprisingly, the movie is quite good. The writers managed to take the thin book and turn it into an intriguing story with believable, yet funny, characters. Not only were the characters awesome, but the animation was also very good. Most people, nowadays, are looking for cutting edge "realistic" animation. While "Cloudy" isn't particularly cutting edge, the animation is clean and, to put it simply, pretty. The cherry on top is the crop of recognizable actors that were brought on board to give life to the characters. (My favorite is Neil Patrick Harris as Steve the monkey.)

"Cloudy" is definitely a must-see movie. The kids will enjoy it and I think the adults will love it as well. Good fun for everyone!

Jmovie review: Lupin III: Strange Psycho-Kinetic Strategy

Title: Lupin III: Strange Psycho-Kinetic Strategy Release date: 1974 Genre: Action Comedy Cast: Yuuki Meguro, Hideko Ezaki, Kunio Tanaka, Shirou Itou Plot: Hijinks ensue when Lupin (Meguro), the world's greatest thief, meets Fujiko (Ezaki), a female thief. What is good: Lupin versus Zenigata (Itou) is always funny. What is bad: Too much slapstick. Letter rating: D+ Overall: For some reason, when I added this to my Netflix queue, I thought it was an animated version of Lupin. I was a little surprised when I popped in the disc to see a live action version instead. Regardless, it's still Lupin and I always enjoy Lupin movies. Well, now I can change that line of thought. Where Lupin tends to be silly, he always has a serious side. This version failed to show his serious side. We saw "Funny Lupin," "Horny Lupin," a little tiny bit of "Clever Lupin," but never once was there "Serious Lupin." In my opinion, this is where the movie failed. They relied way too much on "Funny Lupin" to carry the movie. Perhaps this would have been satisfactory in 1974, but it just doesn't stand the test of time.

Game review: Artist Colony

Since we were snowed in all weekend, I decided to waste some time playing Artist Colony. It looked a lot like Virtual Villagers. Since I really enjoyed that series, this should be fun too, right? Well, it's mostly fun. As with most simulation games, there is a set of goals that the characters need to finish. The story is about a group of artists coming together to rebuild an old artists' colony. (There's a backstory about friendship and love, but it's not really all that necessary to the game play.) You get money to complete tasks by selling the artists' works. Since you begin with only two artists, it's a little difficult to raise money. However, once you start attracting new artists to the colony, things can really get moving. Then it ends up being a little difficult to keep track of everyone. On top of that, I found myself getting bored with the tedious task of training the artist and having them create masterpieces to sell. Perhaps if the selling part went a little faster, the creating part wouldn't be so dull. As it was, I ended up with artists that couldn't create anything because I filled up my gallery yet no one was coming to buy anything.

Overall, it was a decent game. There were little annoyances, but I could easily overlook them. If nothing else, I wanted to see what the end result was.