Doctor Who: Legends of a Time Lord, Christmas Special 2010 - "Blackbird"

I'm subscribed to this great DW podcast, which I've actually been listening to longer than I've been watching the show, and this is, to my knowledge, the most recent episode. It was really interesting, what with the witchcraft and the ravens (crows? I cannot remember) that killed people. The problem was that at the end, there was no "to be continued" despite a cliffhanger, and the episode was not called "Part One". What happened? What happens next? What I do recall is an ad for a Star Trek podcast. It sounded good: I never watched any ST show, but I saw the 2009 movie and it was awesome. Speaking of J.J. Abrams, I ought to post a review for Super 8 soon. I need to watch it again - my mom hasn't seen it yet - and then I should be posting my critique. I'll say this: I really liked it. Really beautiful movie.

On random side notes, I'm listening to Elvis Costello for the first "official" time now. I like the music. I've been going back to my childhood by watching Avatar: The Last Airbender here. I never watched all of them in order, but I've seen many bits and sort of know the story. It's a good show. Finished watching the six-hour epic adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand - also quite good, though not as much as the book, as is usually the case. A couple of exceptions I can think of are Twilight (not a huge fan of the movies, but I can at least bear them more than the books), Iron Man comics (good stories but really cheesy dialog), and two books by Neil Gaiman - Stardust and Coraline (I loved both the book and movie for both Gaimans, but the movies were slightly better in my opinion).

This is the longest post I've done in a while!

Movie Review: Thor (2011)

I loved this movie. I've seen Kenneth Branagh act (not live, as my parents did before my lifetime), but I believe this is the first movie I've seen which he directed. For those of you not familiar with Norse myth, Thor is the god of thunder. In this movie, he is not precisely a god, but he, his brother Loki, and their father Odin (played by Anthony Hopkins, who is brilliant, and who, by coincidence, my parents also saw live, but at a different time) are revered as such. When Odin defeated the frost giants, he sealed the gateway between his home world of Asgard and the land of the giants, and for years the people lived in peace. When Thor is a young man, he lusts for war and blood, and in his arrogance he causes such. His father takes from him his power and sends him to our Earth. He must regain his honor and therefore his power, and defeat a traitor (no spoilers here).

I never read a whole lot of superhero comics - a few Iron Mans, and that's about it. This movie urged me to read the Thor comics, however. In the case of  Iron Man - and I have heard this is often true - I liked the movies better, because even though I liked the comics, they were kind of cheesy. I still might look into these - just maybe the individual ones instead of one of the huge Essentials collections.

I'd give this movie a B - nothing really wrong with it, it just wasn't the greatest film of all time. I loved it, however, and I hope for a sequel (they'd better, seeing as after the credits was a bonus scene with a cliffhanger).

What do you think?