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The Hunger Games, a review by GSyren

Title	The Hunger Games (7-332421-042370)
Director	Gary Ross
Actors	Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, Jennifer Lawrence, Willow Shields, Liam Hemsworth
Produced	2012 in United States
Runtime	142 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, English DTS 5.1
Subtitles	Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Overview
My thoughts	I've been holding off watching The Hunger Games, but now that the sequel is playing in cinemas I thought it was time to watch it. And quite surprisingly I actually liked it a little bit better than Battle Royale. It's long (well, so is Battle Royale, but this is 20 minutes longer) and it has lot of CGI. Those are two things that usually put me off. I think the reason I liked it better than BR is that I came to this one with very low expectations, while the opposite was true for BR. I liked Jennifer Lawrence. I had seen her before in X-Men: First Class, but she didn't make much impression there. She did now. I was never very impressed by Josh Hutcherson, and I'm still not, but I didn't think he actually hurt the movie. I usually like Stanley Tucci (especially in Undercover Blues), but the Flickerman character was just a little too much for me. I'm actually confused as to why I didn't hate this movie. Everything indicates that I should have. I can only attribute it to me having a good day and very low expectations.
My rating	3 out of 5

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on December 5th, 2013)

Driving Miss Daisy, a review by Tom

Title: Driving Miss Daisy
Year: 1989
Director: Bruce Beresford
Rating: U
Length: 95 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Stereo, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles:

Stars:
Morgan Freeman
Jessica Tandy
Dan Aykroyd
Patti LuPone
Esther Rolle

Plot:Extras:
Commentary
Featurettes
Scene Access

A very enjoyable movie. It is great how the friendship between the characters deepens through the years.
I like they don't show all the development but only hint at them. For example we do not see how Miss Daisy teaches Hoke to read. We only see how she learns that he cannot read and then, in a scene which is years later, she gives him a book about how to write properly as gift and he obviously can read fairly good now.
And the ending is great, too. Really touching.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on May 21st, 2009)

Angel Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

I watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" at the end of last year and then ordered "Angel". It arrived shortly into the new year. "Buffy" was a blind buy for me but I enjoyed it a lot. "Angel" is also a blind buy which I am going to watch for the first time now.

Synopsis: Angel left Buffy and Sunnydale because he can't be with her. After he moved into his basement apartment in L.A. he encounters Doyle, a half-demon. Doyle gets visions from "The Powers That Be" that show him which lives Angel must touch to find true salvation. It isn't enough to save lives, he must save the souls as well. During the attempt to help a waitress who is terrorized by a former friend of hers he meets a powerful vampire...

My Opinion: This "The Powers That Be"-arc comes a bit surprisingly because we've already known Angel for three years. But they had to find a way for being Angel not just a Buffy-replacement.

Synopsis: A serial killer haunts the single bars of L.A.. It's a demon who needs a new body on a regular basis until he finds the right one. Angel decides to stop him.

My Opinion: I like this new female cop. It remains to be seen when she will find out who/what Angel really is. But that depends on whether she is a recurring character. I'd like that.

Synopsis: After Buffy took the "Gem of Amara" (a ring that makes a vampire invincible) from Spike she sends it to Angel. But Spike doesn't give up that easily and he follows the ring to L.A.

My Opinion: Love to see Spike bad-ass-phase again, before he became "Hostile 17", before the chip. I alos liked the decission to willingly destroy the ring instead of simply getting it lost somehow.

Synopsis: Angel helps a young woman who is stalked by her ex-boyfriend (strictly speaking they never were a pair). But this man is a surgeon with a very unique amputation technique.

My Opinion: Freak of the Week. Nothing exceptional.

(From Angel Marathon on February 12th, 2008)