Taken didn't end up grabbing me, no. Despite my massive Eric Close love. I think that Dakota Fanning killed it for me. Yeah, let me blame it all on her.

i've seen several buffistas express dislike for Dakota. i guess i'm alone in loving her. i think she's adorable and very talented.

There are very few precocious kid actors that I like. Preternatural gravitas and maturity in little kids makes me sad and uncomfortable, and she can act it in spades.

Pullman on the HDM adaptation:

As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms. In Lyra's world, that power is wielded by a mighty and corrupt church, which differs in some ways from the church in our world just as the everyday lives of the characters do. In our own world, that sort of power has been wielded at various times in the name of religion as well as in the name of 'scientific' atheism. It's wielded politically, and it's wielded culturally; sometimes it`s a religious police force that beats women who aren't wearing the correct dress, and sometimes it's a cowardly press, cringing in front of corporate power, that cackles and jeers whenever it sees something it thinks it's safe to criticise.

tiggy, you're not alone. I adore Dakota, and quite admire her talent.

Huh. While I've never heard Chow Yun Fat be anything but gracious (and funnily dominated by his wife) in interviews, I'm not suprised by the 'get me away from the dirty round-eye' potential.

I wish I were a bigger person and could say that this revelation reduces the volume of drool he inspires in me but it just doesn't.

I'll second that one, Beej.

tiggy, you're not alone. I adore Dakota, and quite admire her talent.

yay! she was the first little kid i saw that inspired me to say that if i was to ever have a kid, i'd want one like her. for me, that's saying a lot.

The Chow Yun Fat quote--at least what I could find from looking around:

"I can't stand talking English every day or the lifestyle there ... not to mention the food," the Hong Kong-born film star was quoted as saying in Friday's editions of Chinese-language newspaper The Sun.

"I only go to America for work," he said. "When I finish work, I leave immediately. I won't stay one day longer."

This sounds like he defintely hates it here, but not that he hates Westerners. So, cranky but not racist. Still a curmudgeonly thing to say, but no worse than, for example, a friend who moved to London five years ago to direct, saying he couldn't stand living in New York or the politics of the theater scene.

I saw "A Series of Unfortunate Events." OK, I guess, but Jim Carrey was too much "Ace Ventura." Count Olaf has to be really menacing for the story to work. I thought Jim Carrey was too over-the-top in parts.

Also, the We Are Family Anvil was distracting.

Liked the kids, Sunny in particular. However, if they are putting everyone else in Victorian-era-type clothing, they should have done that with Klaus as well. Maybe they were afraid that the boys in the audience wouldn't have related to to him dressed that way, but sweater and slacks was just too out of place. He should have been wearing a vest at least.

Just finished The 25th Hour. I made the mistake of reading reviews of it, that promised some shocking ending (to spare those from my error). Never really happened. And I just despise the idea of an apparently god-fearing man espousing avoiding the responsibility of going to jail for a crime of which is son is patently guilty, and it's not even a crime you'd think Pops would argue wasn't actually one.

So I felt all judgy towards the end, and broke away from any emotion Spike had earned.

totally agree with you about the ending, ita. i really like the movie, but the ending made the whole movie seem kind of pointless to me.