Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron – Equine Excellence

Well we’re at the penultimate review and we are delving into the world where traditional
and computer animation start to collide with Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Though Jeffery Katzenberg called this, stupidly in my opinion, “tradigital animation”, the idea of blending the two styles together is not unheard of, being used in Don Bluth’s somewhat forgotten film Titan A.E and the much more successful and fondly remembered Disney film Tarzan.

The Wind Rises – Making Something Beautiful

Well I never intended for these DreamWorks reviews to be a biweekly thing, but that’s how it’s somehow turned out. I was about to break this cycle and put up my review of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron today, but something prevented me and, if you read the title, I think you can guess what it was.

It’s the first time I’ve reviewed a film that is still being shown in the cinema at time of reviewing since About Time and what a film to bring me back from reviewing films from years gone by. I’m a bit of a Studio Ghibli fan and when I heard that Hayao Miyazaki’s possibly final film The Wind Rises was screening near me I knew what this Wednesday’s review was going to be.

Fez – Retro, Puzzling, Brilliant

For those of you that are perhaps uninitiated in the world of gaming, Fez may have passed you by and that is forgivable. For those who do consider themselves gamers and have not at least heard of Fez, then shame on you. For Fez is, for lack of a better description, wholly immersive.

Fez, a retro-styled puzzle platformer, is the story of Gomez, a little blob person with a head that really shouldn’t be supported by his body, lives in a peaceful 2D village with other blob people. However, Gomez sees the breakup of a massive golden hexahedron which causes the very fabric of his world to begin tearing itself apart.

Joseph: King of Dreams – Appropriately Sleep Inducing

So yeah… can I just say that this is a DreamWorks film that we should probably just forget about and move on from? I mean Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is after this film and I’d much rather be reviewing that than this alternative to sleeping pills. I think we’d all like to be reading about that than this.

Hell I’d like to be writing about that right now. But I’ve said I would review it so I’ve guilt tripped myself into sitting down and finally reviewing it. So here we go with obligatory overview time. Just for those who haven’t heard of this two thousand year old story, this review is going to have spoilers and damn right it should if it’s been out in the public domain that long.

The Crimson Field: Episode 6 – And The Build Up For Series 2 Starts Now!

So I think we can all certainly say The Crimson Field is definitely getting a second series and if it doesn’t, well then it has ended light but ended with many questions left and many stories to tell.

Before we get into this, I’ll just say that this review will, I repeat WILL, have spoilers in. It’s the very last episode and if you are not caught up on the series by now then why are you reading a review of the last episode? That aside let’s get into this review!

At last, this tepid relationship finally reached the climax

Let’s start with Kathryn Trevelyan (Oona Chaplin) and Thomas Gillan’s (Richard Rankin) relationship story-arc. It finally happens. They kiss. Now don’t you feel bad about not watching the episodes before I told you that? Well you shouldn’t really as, for those who’ve been watching it; you’ll know that their relationship has not always been brilliant to watch. In fact at times it plays out more of the boring screen time compared to the other story lines going on.

The Moon is Down – Precision Propaganda Prose

Now I know you were expecting Joseph: King of Dreams as my next DreamWorks review, but right now I really could not give a toss about that film. I’m really tempted not to review it at all because it’s just so bland and tiresome. But for now I’m doing something different which will make me a bit happier I hope.

Now many of you may not know this but I apparently profess to review books. I can feel your stunned-ness. But I assure you that I do, I even say so in my About Page. However I feel I’ve been really poor in that respect since I’ve only ever written two: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, both of which I did in October last year so it’s been quite a while.

The Crimson Field: Episode 5 – Defying and Defining the Darkness

Well it’s the penultimate episode so it’s pretty damn obvious that things are going to happen for our main protagonists that’ll happen for the next episode, but this episode ranks as good, if not a little bit better than the last episode.

So here we go with the obligatory overview. The commander of a Sikh regiment, Major Jocelyn Ballard (Peter Sullivan), arrives at the hospital and it soon transpires that he would rather be with his men than at rest within the calm sanctuary of the wards. It is only when Matron Grace Carter (Hermione Norris) reveals her knowledge of the Punjabi language, does the Major appear to calm. Yet there is more to both stories than merely the Punjabi language, with unanswered questions and a lingering soldier, Private Gorman (Jason Maza), making the situation more complicated and dangerous.