{"id":94,"date":"2001-11-18T00:26:47","date_gmt":"2001-11-18T05:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/2001\/11\/18\/\/"},"modified":"2005-10-27T17:41:46","modified_gmt":"2005-10-27T21:41:46","slug":"miscellaneous-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/2001\/11\/18\/miscellaneous-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscellaneous Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Miscellaneous reviews and comments:<\/p>\n

The new PPG cd: Not as good as the first one. But then, I’m not a huge fan of BGM over vocals. It’s very much what I expected, though, and if I was looking for BGM this would be just perfect.<\/p>\n

Best Buy: Well, they didn’t have the TV we wanted (online or at the store), nor did they have the game Okina wanted to get. But I’ll tell you what they did<\/i> have. Mary Kate and Ashley’s Crush Course for PSX. Gyaaaaaaar. In theory, I do not object to this sort of game — I am rather a fan of the dating sim concept, actually. But while I don’t have any problem with the idea of marketing these games towards guys with the enticement that the girls are hot, I am offended when they’re marketed towards girls with the idea that girls won’t play any other type of game. I haven’t played the game (and I won’t) so I don’ t know… maybe the guys will take their clothes off. But somehow I doubt it. <\/p>\n

Iron Chef USA: This show was SO SCARY. Overall, I think they did a pretty good job of transferring the idea of Iron Chef to the US perspective. I don’t like the new rule that each Chef has to prepare at least 5 dishes. I also don’t like their floor reporter, Sissy Biggers, aka the annoying lady from Ready Set Cook. She wants to chat with the people, like she used to do on Ready Set Cook, but that’s not really the way it’s supposed to work on Iron Chef. Plus, I don’t want to hear anyone chatting with Todd English. That<\/i> was the biggest problem with this show that I see. I don’t like the Iron Chefs! (Admittedly, I’m not that familiar with 3 of them, and they could be okay.) Iron Chef American was the first one up and he was SOOOOOO obnoxious. He needed a serious beating. I would be curious to see him go up against Bobby Flay if only because I think the entire stadium would implode from the sheer amount of attention sucking arrogance concentrated in one place.<\/p>\n

And last but not least, Harry Potter movie: 7.5\/10 — a passing grade. It was good. The casting was really excellent — I’d been worried about how Alan Rickman was going to be as Snape, but he came off just perfectly — and some choices were just beyond excellent. (Wood. Damn.) The script<\/i>… not so much. I understand the need to compress plots for time and to keep the story more linear. But I’m extremely iffy on two or three of the bits that were left out, considering them to have been essential or redeeming points.
1. Snape and Harry. Harry was a lot more worried over Snape’s intense dislike of him in the book. It was part of the reason why he was suspicious of him in the first place — their mutual distrust and hatred. And Dumbledore didn’t get around to pulling his Obi-Wan moment and informing Harry that James had saved Snape’s life.
2. Harry’s scar. They made way too big a deal over it aching — Harry was flipping out in the fourth book because of the pain, and he’d hardly have done that if he was getting migranes practically every single day.
3. The obstacles on the way to the stone. By having Ron be the one who panicked and Hermione single-handedly defeat the plant, I suppose they felt they could eliminate an obstacle and save some time. But they completely changed the whole incident by arranging it the way they did. In the book, Ron reminded Hermione to get hold of herself and so they defeated the plant as a team. Then there was a challenge for Harry, a challenge for Ron, and finally a challenge for Hermione. The movie, by having Harry tell Hermione to stay with Ron, lowered her status quite a bit: she wasn’t good enough to continue with him (because how could he know there weren’t more obstacles ahead), so he had to protect her by making her stay behind. And she let him. On the flip side, by eliminating Snape’s challenge, we lose valuable information about his character. Such as proof that he really was<\/i> helping to guard the stone.
4. The uniforms. The uniforms are cute. Adorable even. And given the way the movies are probably going to sideline the supporting characters, this probably isn’t an issue, but there’s no way you could mistake a Ravenclaw for a Slytherin.<\/p>\n

Beyond those issues, the other main problem I had was with the bad CG effects. I mean, come on, these people had a hundred million dollars to play with, but the scene where Neville fell off of the broom had effects worthy of Xena. They were SO fake. Since Neville’s fall was nowhere near so spectacular in the book, they didn’t have<\/i> to add his ride in, so the least they could do was make it look good. But they didn’t. Blech. <\/p>\n

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Miscellaneous reviews and comments: The new PPG cd: Not as good as the first one. But then, I’m not a huge fan of BGM over vocals. It’s very much what I expected, though, and if I was looking for BGM this would be just perfect. Best Buy: Well, they didn’t have the TV we wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,3,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}