April 23rd

Hello everyone, today it is a very special day for literature, (Shakespeare died today many in 1616 and Cervantes did die on April 23rd too) so, for that reason I have something for you. I wrote a novel, in spanish, which is the first part of a planned trilogy and it's free today in amazon, so here's the link, and I hope some of you will give it a chance!

http://www.amazon.es/La-Reina-de-Ilihen-ebook/dp/B009GLSYOS

Once upon a time

Once Upon a Time

Finally, there was another chapter last night, so today I have something to review that is recently enough for you to remember it as fresh as possible. 

 So, let me just say that hopefully whoever decided that Once Upon a Time is so cool that people will be just waiting 4 weeks after an absolute random episode to watch another one, is now fired and will never have that idea again. You know that I am not a big fan of Season 2 and I think that I am not the only one who is disappointed with the direction the show is going, but we are no one but a bunch of audience members, so who cares, right?

So, in last night's episode we see Belle (who went to the Hairdresser in the hospital, to make things more real, of course), we see Anton (Hurley) again and the magic bean plantation and all that. We get some Regina, which is always good, but this time it felt like too careless, there was a moment between Emma and her that could have been amazing, but it just wasn't… too bad.

For some random reason, back in the enchanted forest we saw Robin Hood, who stole a wand from Rumplestinskin (which created a sort of confrontation between him and Belle-- that was the best part of the episode, by the way) And well… It was interesting to see how Gold is trying to get Belle back even after Regina's dark tricks, but I don't think that will save the season either. 

A rather disappointing ending made me think, again, "why am I still watching this"…. Whatever, I will end the Season, and hopefully the show will end.

MadHatterSays: 2/5 -à If this was a film, it would be a "don't bother"

Trailer: Catching Fire

TRAILER: Catching Fire

I didn't want to do this, but I've been watching this 3 to 4 times a day since it came out (last sunday), so I think I have to make a quick review of the trailer of "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" which  obviously is the sequel to The Hunger Games.

The trailer starts with the victory tour in Rue's district (If I remember correctly from the books) and it more or less shows what happens there, which happens like it does in the book. We have a parallel situation with President Snow, (part that due to the First person narration is not in the book) in which we can more or less see what the capitol intends to do: get rid of Katniss.

What is really cool about the whole thing is that it doesn't give much away and that -THANK GOD- they didn't show the games. Personally, the games of book 2 are 1000 times better than the ones in the first book, so, good think they didn't spoil anything!

As for what I could tell from the trailer, the direction seems very neat, similar perhaps to that of Gary Ross in the first film, but what clearly stands out was the cinematography, I don't know if they changed the cinematographer, but hell this one looks darker and scarier!

As the trailer says: "every revolution begins with a spark", every box office hit begins with a good teaser, and they got it right!

MadHatterSays: Watch it!

                               5/5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyPnQw_Lqds

Harry Potter and the Half blood prince

Harry Potter and the Half blood prince directed by David Yates

Hey there, I have like 5 minutes to write, and since I have 3 more Harry Potter films left, I'll go with one of them. The sixth one!

Harry is back at Hogwarts, Sirius was killed in the last fil/book and Harry is not in his best moment. Suddenly, Dumbledore needs him for a mission that will help destroy the dark lord. They have to find the Horcruxes, which basically are objects that have pieces of Voldemort's soul, which makes him immortal.

This is the beginning of the end, because from now on the main goal will be find and destroy those horcruxes. There are some nice moments in the film, but overall I thought it was the worst adaptation of them all, which really bothers me because it came from my favourite book from the entire series. 

It seems to me, that they went for the "romance" between the characters rather than what was really important. I really didn't like this film, the only thing worth watching was its last part, even though it was too different from the book and I am still mad at them for not including the last chapters in the book (I'm not telling what happens, in case someone doesn't know it). 

Basically, this is to me a bad adaptation, that is nothing but disappointing, which is not at all like the source material it is based on. 

MadHatterSays: Obviously, you will have to watch this if you watch the entire series, but this is the worst one, by far.

                2/5

Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris directed by Woody Allen

So, I was going by my film collection and I found myself staring at Midnight in Paris, and then I thought it would be an interesting film to write about.

As I said, this is a Woody Allen film, and I know that there are some "haters" out there that won't give his movies a chance and all, but nonetheless, to me his films are (most of them) great, and that's why this is probably the first of some Woody Allen's films reviews.

The film tells the story of what to me is a perfect alter ego of Allen himself, wonderfully played by Owen Wilson. He plays a writer that is in need for imagination so to speak, he is trapped in his life even though he seems to ignore it at first, so, when he gets to Paris, the city of dreams comes to his aid. The film is a fantasy tale, that leads Wilson's characters back in time so he can meet writers like Hemingway, or artists like Dali, which of course is very interesting, not only to the character but to the audience as well.

Then you get the Woody Allen love story, which is basically a great succession of anecdotes taking the main character to the most bizarre situations and making him realize that the life he thought he had, is nothing but a big piece of nothing. 

The acting in the film is amazing, and there is an A list cast in here, from Wilson, to Kathy Bates, Michael Sheen, Adrien Brody, Tom Hiddleston and many, many others (even Carla Bruni). The writing... I won't even say, I mean, what Woody Allen does, even in his bad films, is beyond what regular writers can do, and he won an Oscar for this one, so you can figure! Paris is the perfect setting for this great story, and old Paris makes you want to go back in time, which apparently you can achieve, if you wait patiently enough until it's Midnight, in Paris...

MadHatterSays: Watch it!

                               4/5

Micro tale

Hey there! this is not another review, but today I got an interesting email: Some months ago I entered a micro tale in a competition, and today they told me that it has been selected to be part of an anthology that will be published with all the selected tales, which is VERY exciting!!!

The tale is in spanish, but I'll upload it just in case some of you want to read it.

Cada noche, el fantasma de Lady Ángela abandona su morada. Cálida y esperanzada sale para continuar la búsqueda de su amante perdido. Cada noche vuelve a casa sola, gris, fría, derrotada.

It is, as you can see, micro.

Thanks!

War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds directed by Steven Spielberg

Hey there, I know that this one is an "oldie" but I had a really low afternoon and I watched it, so I'll drop a line or two about it and that will be all for today, I'm exhausted of a "hard rock week of exams", so to speak.

So, here, we have Tom Cruise playing a "careless father, or if you will, a disaster of a father. His children 

have to stay with him for a weekend and guess what there's an Alien invasion that screws up the plan of doing nothing. This aliens are "driving" huge tripods that are killing absolutely everyone on their path. The world is at chaos and Tom Cruise has to take his children back to their mother, because it's pretty obvious that if they are with their mother, and the aliens get there, they will think: "what a beautiful family that is, let's let them live". 

There's great CGI in this film, as one would expect, and it's packed with action which is good because it makes the film less boring. It's not that I hated it, don't get me wrong, but I feel somewhat disappointed because the first 20 minutes are actually amazing (with the apparition of the aliens and all), but then it feels like it just loses it and it's an entirely different thing, which is not that interesting.

I got the DVD for like 1 euro and the review states: "Steven Spielberg at his best", well, obviously whoever wrote that has not seen any other Spielberg film, I wouldn't say this is the worst, but definitely not his best work. I didn't pay much attention to the music, and the writing was pretty stupid overall. What I really liked was the art direction, particularly the part with Tim Robbins and all, that was cool.

Basically, this is a "Family drama, with kids that don't get along with his father, + giant killing machines", with one of the most disappointing endings (or more accurate to say: one of the most random) I've ever seen.

MadHatterSays: Meh…

                      2.5/5 (I feel bad giving a bad grade to Spielberg)