Welshrogue

A guy visits New York to stay with his friend but when he arrives, his friend is missing and he is being mistaken for his friend by two groups of gangsters who want money from him. Did I mention the high class assassin who is also involved?

This is a witty movie, with sharp dialogue, cool acting and perhaps some of the most horrific wallpaper ever to be featured in a movie. The sets, while looking very convincing, are generally decorated in ‘hip 70′s’ style which will turn your stomach if you have just eaten. The strange thing is though, that the wallpaper does go well with the movie.

While the plot is a little obvious, its fun to watch and features many a well known face, including Sir Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman, Josh Hartnet, Lucy Lui and of course, Bruce Willis. All the actors perform will and give performances that fit the movie.

The prologue does look more like a classic car show than a flashback but I guess thats life.

A fun movie with predictable but still enjoyable twists, well acted and witty. What more could you ask for?

An expert on Russian History is attending a conference in Moscow when he hears rumors of a document linked to Stalin. As he delves deeper into the story, he is unprepared for the discovery that lies at the end of the trail.

Archangel is a very Russian tale, with the surroundings of the country merging with the attitudes of its people. It deals with the changes that Russia is facing as it becomes more open and public. It also gives the reader background on how it was a few years ago before the changes began.

The main character, Kelso, while not being particularly heroic or adventurous carries the story with ease as he struggles to discover whats going on. Other characters are varied from bland and forgettable to someone who reminded me of Renko from Gorky Park.

The tale tells of a brutal way of life in Russia, either in Moscow or in Archangel. After reading the book, you feel as if you have been there and understand the harshness of it all. A very enjoyable book!

Evil alien robots try to take over the world by finding a cube from their home planet. Luckily there are good alien robots who would prefer that it didn’t happen. Caught up in the middle is a teenager with a car that is actually a good alien robot and a girl with stunning eyes and ermm…..

I personally believe that this movie doesn’t even get talked about being made if it wasn’t for that iconic Citroen commercial in the 90s where one of their cars becomes a robot and starts dancing. You can easily see the similarities between the alien robots (both good and bad) and the Citroen!

This is a fun movie, full of explosions, action, and slow mo shots that remind you of every other Michael Bay movie, which generally contain explosions, action and erm slow mo shots. The lead actors are good without being outstanding although it must be said that Megan Fox is a very distinctive and lovely young lady. The alien robots (more fun to say than Transformers which make me think of boxes plugged into the wall) are well done although they almost have too much detail in the end. Its hard to focus on the ‘facial’ expressions of Optimus Prime when you have to first work out where his face actually is. The humour and personalities that the good alien robots exhibit surprised and impressed me, they were generally funny without taking away the menace of giant alien robots.

I do have a couple of ‘issues’ with the movie though. Yes, this is a Michael Bay movie but when you become known for a certain style of shot, when you use it in one movie after displaying it in another it distracts from the movie you are watching. There is a scene when the delightful Ms Fox is getting up from the floor after an explosion that is filmed in slow mo as the camera moves around her. This is identical from a scene with another distinctively eyed beauty (Tea Leoni) in Bad Boys 1 (directed by… wait for it… Michael Bay). If that wasn’t bad enough, there is the shoot out under Hoover Dam between the secretary of defense, and some other people, against a bad alien robot that made Jar Jar Binks sound like Tom Hanks. While the shoot out is happening the camera spins around the action, capturing events from both sides, just as it did in Bad Boys 2 (which was… yeah you know the rest). In their respective movies, the scenes workedwell because one hadn’tbeen seen before and the other was used to good effect. In Transformers, it just reminded you of Bad Boys 1 & 2.

I understand product placement but it makes it hard to focus on a movie when ever single vehicle you see appears to have been made by General Motors. Not only were the good alien robots all GM cars and trucks, but any vehicle that might have been seen in a close up was either a Cadillac or another part of the GM corporation. Its a little too unbelievable but I guess thats how movies get made these days.

I had the same problem when you had the prominent product placement of a Mountain Dew dispenser, a Microsoft X Box being carried down the street for some unknown reason and an aforementioned Cadillac Escalade all become dangerous creatures! I understand that nearly every computer you see in movies these days are Macs because they do look better than PC’s but if movies were reality, owning an iBook would instantly mean your life would become endangered by evil alien robots, spys, or mad killers.

Another ‘if real life was like the movies’ moment. If you are an alien robot called Butterfly, or something nice, you will become a good alien robot, but if your name is something like Skullcrusher, Dreadnaught or Deathbringer, chances are you are going to grow up as a evil alien robot.

As the Animals once sang, Please don’t let me be misunderstood, I liked Transformers a lot, and it had a lot going for it. I loved the way Bumblebee communicated at the start of the movie, even if the old, and I do mean old, car stereo managed to pick up XM Radio (product placement) when he finally tries to talk to the humans. A lot of when the good alien robots are acting like humans is funny and enjoyable. The action scenes while a little hectic are well done, and Josh Duhamel is almost convincing as a soldier if it wasn’t for watching Las Vegas every week.

I know my 2 1/2 yr old will love it as it has both a Camaro and robots, two of his favourite things and I did enjoy it, its just not as good as I hoped it would be!

The Hollywood Division goes about its everyday work while investigating a violent jewelry robbery, watched over by the sergeant everyone refers to as the Oracle.

This is an amazing book, one filled with anecdotes of police life and stories of life on the line which are layered around a crazy plot about jewelry robbery that goes right before everything goes wrong. Each of the characters are so well filled out and detailed as to be totally believable. The anecdotes are sometimes funny, sometimes very sad, but always interesting and help to flesh out the book into something real.

Its almost magical how the story goes from one incident to another, all the while weaving this tale of tweakers and Russians, money and jewels, and keeps the reader engrossed. With eleven other books for me to discover and read, Joseph Wambaugh is most definitely going on my top authors list!

When a underwater volcano begins to grow under the Antarctic, millions of lives are threatened as the Ross Ice Shelf is broken free and begins to move into warmer waters. If the natural threat was not enough, Russia looks to use the broken off shelf as a way to get America to surrender.

Not only do you get a natural disaster, you get a Soviet invasion as well, and in the middle are a group of characters that the reader should care about. Given the correct treatment, this would be a great plot of a classic thriller. This book is not a classic, nor is it really a thriller. The main characters, a confuddled love triangle, the father in law who just happens to be the be all and end all of all stuff Antarctic, just doesn’t matter to the reader. The fact that the world is facing an increase of 22.6 feet of oceans doesn’t really mean much. The effects are very quickly mentioned but because you don’t have a point of reference to who the disaster is happening to, lets face it, who cares?

I like books with good ideas, and to be fair this is a good idea, but rather than being gripping and exciting, it was a struggle to finish it because I didn’t care if everyone died. Everyone was way too two dimensional and cardboard cutout-like. Likewise the Russian plan to take over the big floating iceberg seemed to have been drawn up by someone who owned an Action Man or GI Joe once.

If you are really bored and only have one book to read, make sure it isn’t this one.