Pfangirl Through the Looking Glass

The best way to describe The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is that it's like a more realistic version of Forrest Gump. It seems strange to bring up the issue of realism when you're talking about a film where the title character is born a withered old man and ages backwards to infancy, but it's pretty accurate. While Forrest Gump's far fetched exploits saw him changing the course of history, and interacting with presidents and assorted pop culture icons, Benjamin Button stays well out of the limelight, privately leading his life. This said, Benjamin Button's life that isn't much different from Forrest Gump's. Both Benjamin and Forrest are kindhearted "freaks" from the American South. Both have feisty, loving mothers who insist on raising their son as normally as possible. Both meet the love of their life in childhood. Both have a big, dramatic "walking" scene. Both are drafted into a major war. And both seek adventure on the open water...

Aren't you lucky? After a day slaving away in front of a computer screen I'm sitting down behind one in my free evening to give you a nice little bonus blog update. Mostly because I didn't have time today, and probably won't have tomorrow. *Sigh* Anyway, this would have been an online first today if IMAX hadn't finally updated their South African website this afternoon with the new showtime schedule for its Gateway (Durban) and Menlyn (Pretoria) cinemas. Why is this important? Because Watchmen is coming out on Friday. And for those of you who don't know, Watchmen, based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's seminal 12-part series, is to comic books what The Lord of the Rings is to traditional fantasy. Fans have been waiting almost 25 years to see this masterpiece realised on the big screen. And this Friday is finally that day. Anyway, Watchmen is being touted as a jaw-dropping visual spectacle as director Zack (300) Synder faithfully replicates the look and feel...

Right, following up from where we left off in the 22 minutes, 22 seconds screenshot series, we get to the second installment in the Lord of Rings movie trilogy, The Two Towers . Not only was The Two Towers my favourite of the Tolkien books, but it also emerged as my favourite of the films as well. By far. The awesome siege-battle at Helm's Deep, Shadowfax, Ent attacks, Gollum's schizophrenia and the minimal amounts of Sam and Frodo making goo-goo eyes at each other. Combine this with intelligent cross-cutting between the different events, and it's cinematic perfection. Much better than Return of King with its seven different endings. Anyway, 22 minutes, 22 seconds into The Two Towers, hobbits Merry and Pippin are making a dash, or rather a crawl, for freedom as their orc captors turn on one another over the issue of food. This scene is one of the few in the LOTR trilogy where the orcs (both the generic kind and their enhanced super brethren, the Uruk-hai) get to do more t...

I'll be honest upfront. I probably won't be going to watch family movie Marley & Me , based on the bestselling memoir of the same name (by John Grogan). You see, animal movies, especially dog movies, are my kryptonite. I bawled the whole way through Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Babe and King Kong, and even Bolt brought tears to my eyes. And yes, I flat out refused to watch huskies-stranded-in-Antartica film, Eight Below. I honestly don't think I'll cope with this tale of a hyperactive, impossible-to-discipline Labrador, who is adopted by a couple of yuppie reporters (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) in order to give them a taste of parenthood. As badly behaved as Marley is, though, over the years he becomes an irreplaceable part of the family. Our Golden Retriever, the "baby" of the family, has just turned 14, and her back legs are going (life expectancy for Retrievers is traditionally around 10-12) so I'm particularly sensitive to the thou...

After a frustrating day of work on Friday, compounded by having to complete a dull but urgent task, and being tortured with only intermittent Internet access, it was a relief to finally get out the office, enjoy a delicious meal of creamy spinach and chicken pasta at Musgrave’s Circus Circus, and then head off to the Elizabeth Sneddon theatre at the University to watch Pieter-Dirk Uys ’s latest touring one-man show, Elections & Erections. It was actually my third time seeing this legendary local satirist in the flesh, and once again it was a highly entertaining, thought-provoking evening. The first half of the show sees Uys talking about his life-changing experiences in Apartheid South Africa, stressing the importance of the coming April elections, and impersonating a host of famous figures including Hillary and Bill Clinton, PW Botha and Thabo Mbeki. A couple of Uys’ less famous, but reoccurring characters pop up as well, including hypocritical kugel Nowell Fine and a coloured Mus...

Long before it came out – in fact while it was still filming – World War II thriller Valkyrie was attracting a lot of bad buzz. Much of this negativity though had less to do with the film itself, directed by X-Men and The Usual Suspects’ Bryan Singer, and more to do with leading man Tom Cruise, whose strangely effusive off-screen behaviour, and well-known support of Scientology, has turned him into the media’s favourite celebrity whipping boy in recent years. Frankly, I refuse to judge a film’s merits based on such irrelevant factors. As it turns out, Valkyrie is just a so-so film. But it is nowhere near the massive flop that some film commentators have been making it out to be. Just as WWII drama Defiance shatters the stereotype of European Jews as passive victims during the War, true story Valkyrie deflates the misconception that all Germans were supportive of Adolf Hitler. From the outset of the film it’s made clear that many of Germany’s top military commanders, including Colonel ...

Company Internet is crapping out for the second day in a row so my apologies for the late, necessarily short update. Anyway, it's now officially just 1 week to the release of Watchmen, based on the greatest superhero-focused graphic novel of all time. And I have no shame making that claim! Today, though, the big news in South African cinemas is the release of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which landed the most Oscar nominations this year, but could only take home a few measly technical awards on the big night. Based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, Benjamin Button focuses on a man (played by Brad Pitt) who is born in his eighties, and ages backwards to infancy - and how this strange situation impacts on his life and relationships. I'm off to see the film this weekend.

If your testosterone level is higher than your oestrogen one then it’s safe to say upfront that Bride Wars probably isn’t the movie for you. Bride Wars is not a slushy romantic comedy, but its emphasis on girlie friendship and feuding means that it is very much a film for female audiences. This said, if you’re a guy who finds Anne Hathaway irresistible, then you may be willing to endure the 90-minute running time if only to see the actress perform a decidedly raunchy dance routine in hot pants and knee-high boots. As it stands, Bride Wars is superficial fluff that makes little to no cerebral demands of its audience. And if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve seen most of the film’s funniest moments. The movie’s plot is straightforward – for the past 20 years best friends Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) have shared a dream of one day getting married in New York’s opulent Plaza Hotel. When both friends are proposed to almost simultaneously, they turn to legendary wedding planner,...

The following strip is based on a true story. It all stems back to mid-2008 when fellow Durban pop culture blogger Lord Spaceman wrote a preview piece on the highly anticipated but as-yet-unreleased fighting game Mortal Kombat VS. DC Universe . As the title suggests, this unusual game pits some of DC Comics' most celebrated superheroes and villains (Superman, The Flash, Catwoman etc.) against various iconic characters from the Mortal Kombat series of games (Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Kitana etc). In his blog entry , Lord Spaceman was especially enamored with the new character model for Sonya Blade - Mortal Kombat's original female ass-kicker. The thing was, the more I looked at the posted pics, the more I realised that Sonya Blade didn't look sexy. She looked butch! Almost exactly like a man in drag. Of course, to be fair, if the character of Sonya Blade was real, and was a highly skilled Special Forces operative able to best most guys in a punch-up, then she probably wouldn...

We'll give Trailer Tuesday a miss this week (or maybe a postponement to tomorrow) seeing as it was both the Razzies and Oscars this last weekend... and I love these specific movie awards shows. The Razzies, as I'm sure you know, seek to "honour" the year's worst films, performances and cinematic trends. The nominees were announced a month ago , and on Saturday, the "winners" were revealed. And it was Mike Myers and Paris Hilton who came out on bottom, with 3 wins apiece for the apparently awful comedies The Love Guru and The Hottie and the Nottie . 29th Annual Golden Raspberry Award “Winners” Worst Picture: The Love Guru Worst Actor: Mike Myers - The Love Guru Worst Actress: Paris Hilton - The Hottie and the Nottie Worst Supporting Actress: Paris Hilton - Repo: The Genetic Opera Worst Supporting Actor: Pierce Brosnan - Mamma Mia! Worst Screen Couple: Paris Hilton and either Christine Lakin or Joel David Moore (The Hottie and the Nottie) Worst P...

Well, this weekend was quiet, and occasionally quite lonely for me. Friday evening went pretty much according to my tweet at the time - "wine, WOW and 30 Rock ." In terms of World of WarCraft, Friday marked the first time in a good few weeks that I got to put in some serious playing time. Mostly I stuck to the daily quests I've been doing to build my reputation with 2 factions, and one of these daily quests involves a memory game with a time limit. WOW expansion Wrath of the Lich King promised greater quest variety (i.e. you're not necessarily just running around killing x number of things) and the "Alchemist's Apprentice" quest is a refreshing if challenging change. You assist an undead scientist by bringing him various ingredients, each within 30 seconds. This involves remembering exactly where each of these ingredients can be found on 12 multi-level shelves in 2 different rooms. It obviously gets easier the more you do it, but it certainly demands ...

Seeing as it's the Academy Awards this Sunday evening (very early Monday morning, South Africa time), the local distributors are finally starting to unleash the nominees and other critically acclaimed fare on local audiences. Today sees the release of 3 notable films: Right now it looks like The Wrestler has a very good chance of landing its star Mickey Rourke (Hollywood's big Comeback Kid of the moment!) the coveted Best Actor Oscar. Rourke's only real competition in the category would seem to be Sean Penn in gay rights drama Milk. Anyway, The Wrestler comes from director Darren (Requiem for a Dream) Aronofsky, and focuses on a burnt-out pro-wrestler who puts everything on the line for one last shot at success. Released early in the Fall Awards Season Changeling , from Clint Eastwood, wasn't quite the Oscar bait it was intended to be. However, Angelina Jolie has been nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her role here - as a mother who comes up against police and p...

Just as a heads up, my gaming and pop culture web comic Girlz 'N' Games now has its own official Facebook group . It's an open group so please feel free to join, and invite your like-minded friends. Speaking of Girlz 'N' Games I'll be working on a new strip this weekend so a new comic should be online sometime this coming week.

I haven't done one of these since the beginning of the year... so let's get back into the swing of things with Part 1 of an award-winning fantasy trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic tale . 22 minutes and 22 seconds into The Lord of the Rings ' first installment, The Fellowship of the Ring , there is an important sequence about resisting temptation, and general hobbit hardiness. Bilbo Baggins, has just made a dramatic exit from his birthday party (I'd love to do something like that one day, complete with the subtly derogatory speech), and is finding it a tad difficult to part with the One Ring, despite his plans to leave for the Elven outpost of Rivendell. Having just accused Gandalf the Grey of wanting to steal his "precioussss", Bilbo has had sense knocked into him by the first revelation that Gandalf is actually a lot more than a doddery old illusionist with a fondness for fireworks, pipe-weed and halflings. Still, though, the Preciousss won't ...