A crazy thing

Every year there is a crazy song that makes its way up the charts. This year in Germany it's Schnappi the crocodile.

Go to :

http://www.schnappi.tv

Click on hören and sehen and click on the first song.

Either it's really funny or a sign that the apocalypse is upon us.

The Incredibles

I saw that movie during the Christmas break. I had to go to Berlin to see it since it was not shown in English in Hamburg. I was waiting for that movie for quite a long time. I had seen the trailers and the previews and since it was a Pixar movie, I was expecting something good.

I was not disappointed. It is a great movie! Here’s a short overview of the plot, I will try to say has least as possible in order not to spoil your pleasure if you did not see the film. Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl are a super hero couple that were forced into retirement. (Note: The reason why they are forced to retire is so funny, I laugh so hard that I cried in the theatre, so I will not tell you.) They are trying to live a normal life and to raise there family of three kids (Dash, Violet and a baby, I do not remember the name). Out of the blue Mr. Incredible is called out of retirement for one last job. However, there is something fishy about this job and then the whole family gets dragged into the mix.

The film is a homage/parody of all the possible super-hero films that were made. It also includes the super-spy films (James Bond, Mission Impossible) in the mix. Just the powers of the Incredibles is a mix of some of the most popular super-heroes, Mr. Incredible is a Superman that does not fly, Elastigirl is Mr. Fantastic, Dash is Flash, Violet is Invisible Girl and the baby as no powers. The fans of the super-hero/super-spy genre will be please to see their favourite film given a semi-serious treatment. The film is also greatly paced, there is action all the way through the movie but the film also finds a way to advance the plot and give us pretty funny moments. It also avoids rude language, obvious violent and sexual references. The jokes are intelligent, OK for kids and great for adults. The villain is also great and has pretty deep motivations for that kind of movie (and a great Island secret base straight out of Dr. No). This film also goes away from the traditional star packed roster of voice. The voices of the movie are provided by stars, not super-stars. Craig T. Nelson is great in Mr. Incredible, Holly Hunter southern drawl gives a unique personality to Elastigirl and Samuel L. Jackson proves that he is THE cool voice around playing Frozone (Iceman), Mr. Incredible's buddy.

But THE greatest character in that movie is Edna Mode, voiced by the director. Edna is a character with an important and often overlooked role, she designs super-hero costumes. A crazy mix between Karl Lagerfeld, Yoko Ono and General Paton, she steals every scene she’s in. (The one in which she explains why costumes should not have capes is hilarious and alone worth the price of entry!)

The recent not so good Shark Tale showed us that the reputation of the studio and the actors alone can’t carry an animation picture alone and Shrek 2 showed that some ideas can only go that far before looking and sounding silly. I think that Pixar did the intelligent thing focusing on the plot and the character instead of getting major stars to play them. Like in Finding Nemo the greatest secondary character is played by a non-actor (Crush the suffer bum sea turtle in Nemo was also voiced by the director of the movie.).

You must see that movie! I give it 5 tentacles out of 5 and it’s now the #1 animation picture with Shrek on my top 10 list.

David Copperfield

I just finished David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I did not have the chance to do it before, I knew the general storyline but I must say that I did not expect that my reading would turn into a duel.

I read relatively fast. I took speed reading classes and I can go through a 200 pages book in an evening. Recently I’ve been reading in the train (I have to commute daily to Hamburg), so I’ve been reading anything that come within reach. I was looking forward to D.C. but it turned out to be a deception. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great work, the writing is rich and beautiful, Dickens manage to make paragraph long sentences that make sense, do not seem to long and are beautiful. But it was the story and the characters that were a problem. I did not like David or any of the other main characters (apart from David’s aunt that I found funny). I found that David was a pathetic dumb boy that probably deserved that things that were happening to him. I found that the story did not have any punch and lack imagination since all the same characters keep popping up in David’s life all the time and they do not seems to evolve committing the same mistakes and stupidity every time. It took me forever to read the book, my girlfriend keep saying: “You do not like that book, why do you continue to read it?”.

I do not have a good answer to that, it became personal. I was locked in a wrestling match with the book and I had to defeat him, and I did…

Anybody interested can find the book at the Guthenberg Project web site, since it’s now a public domain book. I do not recommend it, but maybe reading one chapter or two will allow you to appreciate the talent of Dickens, but the story is such a bore……