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I forgot to write this up the other day after watching it, but fortunately I remembered this morning.

When Mo Folchart (brendan Fraser) reads a story, the characters leap off the page.  Literally.  And that’s a problem.  Mo must somehow use his magic powers to send the interlopers back to their own world… and save ours.  If ever a task was easier read than done, this is it.  Mo and his daughter Maggie, aided by friends real and fictional, plunge into a thrilling quest that pits them against diabolical villains, fantastic beasts and dangers at every turn.

Sounds full of possibilities and a great premis for a fantasy adventure full of twists and turns.

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I sat and watched Twilight last night, for the second time this week, and I have to admit I was quite impressed.  I’m not quite sure what I expected as I’d not even heard of the books, let alone red them, but it’s safe to say I must be the only person in the Western World who didn’t really realise that it involved vampires.

It’s not that I have anything against vampires as such, but so many vampire tales do tend to be a bit heavy on the occult.  Fortunately in Twilight the fact that several of the characters were vampires was secondary to what is essentially a love story.

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There’s been a terrific amount of hype about this new show, “Britannia High”.  They spent weeks advertising it at every available opportunity, but apparently it’s not doing anywhere near as well as they had hoped.  The thing that says it all, at least to me, is the amount of money and time they have spent on advertising and hype, yet the main discussion on-line seems to be regarding the new hairstyle sported by Mitch Hewer, one of the lead cast members…

The show is set in a Performing Arts School (called Britannia High, shockingly), so there’s lots of singing and dancing, so it’s a bit like Fame of the Noughties… Which can’t be a bad thing, Fame was incredibly popular back when it came out.

I think this is where the problem lies…

It appears that they want it to be totally different to Fame and High School Musical, but it seems to fall somewhere between the two.  The writing is more High School Musical, but the overall feel and concept is more Fame… But of course, Fame did it first, did it bigger, and ultimately did it better, which seems to be the crux of the problem.

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I finally got my mitts on the new camcorder, and it looks pretty good. They do three versions, all identical except for the colour. They do Silver, Wine and Blue. QVC didn’t have the Blue so I went for the Wine as a change from the bog-standard Silver that everything seems to be at the moment.

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There’s two things I really dislike about getting American Imported DVD’s, the silly double clips they have on so many of their DVD cases, and those stupid security seal stickers they have over every edge, but underneath the cellophane.

Am I the only one who thinks that’s a bit of overkill?

But that’s kind of off the point… Stardust

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I had high hopes for this film, I enjoyed the first one, but it could have been so much better. I’d seen a few clips on the trailers for the second one, and it looked far more interesting.

After re-reading the review of the first one (can you believe it’s a year already?) I was left with similar feelings of disappointment with this one too.

As with the original, it’s not that there was anything particularly wrong with it, it just didn’t really seem to pull together, and it could have been so much better had they put a bit more effort in to making it.

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I’ve been slightly addicted to American Idol this year.

Normally I watch record it and watch it back at high speed, cutting out the judges mindless garbage (do they really think anyone cares what they think?) and usually scuttling though half the contestants whining too. All in all the show, plus results can normally be watched in this manor in about 15-30 minutes (depending on the theme that week).

This year it’s been taking me a lot longer. Finally they seem to have some lively contestants, just about all of them can sing pretty well, most of them seem to have some great personalities…

All in all, the show is finally worth watching… It sometimes even takes me a whole hour to watch the entire thing

It’s still a shame some of the good singers went out in earlier rounds, leaving some of the weaker singers to get into the final stage. Had some of the earlier evictee’s still been around it could have been a whole different top 16.

Since I was watching it last night (yes I know we’re a bit slow to get it over here in England) I thought I’d do a little fraggle review of the whole thing.
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I’ve been watching a fascinating programme on television the past couple of days called “The Verdict”.

They’ve set up a mock trial, a rape case, with the defendant, witnesses and accuser played by actors and actresses. All the court staff and experts are real though, and I’m assuming the evidence is real, just collected from other actual cases.

The jury is then made up of various celebrities; although I have a feeling that’s more to do with them being used to cameras and the media rather than a forum to build/rebuild their careers.
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As mentioned yesterday, I have a weakness for a good musical, so I had high hopes for this film. It’s been a long time since there’s been any new musicals made as a movie, and this one has supposedly given a whole new generation the urge to learn to sing and dance and perform.

I have to say though, as much as I was looking forward to it, I ended up being pretty disappointed. It’s not that it was awful, because it actually wasn’t, it just wasn’t all that good either…
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This was one of those “what the heck” purchases. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the first two films, both being the usual all action, no plot kind of thing… Although admittedly the second was more enjoyable than the first (although the long hair did not work!)

Fortunately he’s back to his clean-cut, short hair for this third instalment, which suited the character much better in my opinion.

Still, the first two had kind of put me off the whole thing, and I wasn’t planning on buying this third one, but it was a slow week for DVD releases, and I was both bored and desperate, so “What the heck…” and I bought it.

Strangely I’m glad I did.
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