Reviews by Al

No Gandalf or rings of power here.  This is more of a Shakespearean — or as Wikipedia says: Greek — tragedy, especially when compared to LOTR’s generally upbeat though solemn ending.  Still a very engaging, interesting, and well told story.

Christopher Tolkien says that he just edited and organized and wrote very little — mostly the words are from the elder Tolkien.  I realize now that the younger Tolkien is now 83 years old.  Hopefully, he can edit a few more full length bits of prose about Middle-earth.

I’ve always been puzzled at the J.R.R. Tolkien seal which looks like a Chinese character, but it is a nice looking representation of the author’s initials.

With an interface changing to be more similar to Dungeon Siege in its second incarnation, NWN2 is quite a good game, but I wish you could move faster in it.  I don’t think it’s my computer since I tried dialing down the graphics a lot, and even then it’s still really slow to move around.  The storyline is a typical quest type, but only mildly holds my interest.  It is nice to look at especially with the graphics dialed up on full.

Reminded me of a film called The Blue Max which depicted the German side of the developing WWI air war.  Blue Max holds up well in the comparison.  It seemed to me that Flyboys was rather too obviously Hollywood formulaic to really transport you into that world.  Still, the visual effects were pretty good.

It seems funny how a few short years makes a difference in terms of acceptance of gays and lesbians.  But this movie portrays an insular and conservative (not gay friendly) town which I think could exist today.

Eastwood almost succeeds in getting Paul Walker (The Fast and the Furious) to play a serious role.  And Ryan Phillippe succeeds in faking a genuine smile.  Okay, maybe not, as he seems to always be angry, or sad, but pretty much never truly happy.  A true smile is said to be the most difficult to fake.  But the script is a good fit, since war can be really maddening and sad.  The movie has a certain realism, Paul Walker aside, and it tells the story of the flag raisings (yes, that’s plural) at Iwo Jima quite well.  There is a certain good old fashioned style to the film and the period it depicts.  A comparison to Saving Private Ryan might come to mind, but actually I think I like this film better.  Something about Tom Hanks and his faked post trauma stress disordered shaking hand didn’t ring true about SPR.

I don’t think I’ve heard many or any string quartets live before tonight, but they were quite good.  Their music selection was fun, and they preceeded each piece with a little explanation of the composer etc.  Strangely I liked the Haydn and Britten better than the Beethoven pieces, though the Beethoven was still nice.  The pieces were all written specifically for quartets which is something I never realized.  I mean I knew about concertos which highlight a single instrument accompanied by an entire orchestra, and symphonies which are for a full orchestra too, but didn’t really know music was composed specifically for quartets.