Movie Review: The Tale of Despereaux

There is both something very right yet something very wrong with the Tale of Despereaux. It’s just that I cannot rightly pinpoint it.

Here is an epic tale about… about… about… well, that’s just it – I can’t pinpoint what its about either. And that’s the biggest flaw of the film.

The Tale of Despereaux is a beautiful film, full of well acted roles (by superior actors) written beautifully with a literary-worthy script, and music that can take your breath away… but it tried to achieve so many things at the same time, that it ended up convoluting the script and the pace. The film, rare from its kind, is written like a beautiful prose (narrated by the equally beautiful voice of Sigourney Weaver) – it doesn’t travel with a straight line, but moves almost like a stream of consciousness, following nothing but the words before them and where the tale takes them… no matter where it is.

Animation Review: Wolverine and the X-Men

Wolverine and the X-Men, if it follows through with its great first season, has the potential of being the premiere X-Men animated series around. Time will tell.

Let me put it simply.  If you like western animation, you should try this.  If you like X-Men, you should to watch this.  If you like Wolverine, you MUST watch this.

Any fan of the X-Men would instantly see the quality given to this series by Marvel.  And it is by far, one of the best (if not the best) written and the best animated Marvel flick out there.  This animated series gives everyone, fans or otherwise, a healthy dose of action, drama, and superheroics.  I was honestly surprised at this series, since I did not expect much from an animated series titled “Wolverine and the X-men.”  (They could honestly have done better than that… it sound so UGH!)  But the series was surprisingly mature, well-written, well-paced, and quite faithful (yet remaining original) to the source material.

Writers On-Watch: Rich Baker (Novelist)

A well-written work by Rich baker, albeit with some bland uninteresting characters...

Someone once told me, “Sometimes I like to drink British Milk Tea, and sometimes I just wanna drink some Coke.”  And that simple comment really explains just about everyone’s need to read both popular fiction and high-lit value fiction.  I read high profile writers like Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, Orson Scott Card – and some geniuses like Rudyard Kipling and Isabel Allende.  But occasionally, I just want to just relax, and I then take up that most reviled of book series by literature enthusiasts… the realm of shared universes.

And among these, Forgotten Realms is particularly infamous.

TV Review: Legend of the Seeker

I have been directed to this new Fantasy series by a friend, both as a warning and as a recommendation.  I also heard that it was written by novelist Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth series) – and I see his books quite often each time I stumble upon the bookstore.  Eternally curious at what makes fiction tick, I gave it a go.

Come on, who doesn't feel a tingle of their inner fantasy geekness in seeing this poster?

Legend of the Seeker has visuals I’ve previously thought impossible in TV however, sporting graphics that can immediately make you relate it to the fantasy masterpiece Lord of the Rings.  Kahlan Amnell, a ‘confessor’ (a band of holy women dedicated to pursue truth wherever they saw it) is charmingly played by the beautiful Bridget Regan, who was, according to fans of the novel,portrays her as true to the book as possible.  And in the pilot, she was the only one worth watching.  Honestly!  Richard Cypher, who begins the series as a ordinary woodsman… but with abs of steel ( I kid you not!  The starting sequence made me feel icky, like I was watching a fangirl’s dream) soon becomes revealed to be the ‘chosen one’  – the one called The  Seeker destined to defeat the evil sorcerer-tyrant Darken Rahl.