gwynyth-liss-travis Reviews

Lost Luggage (2022)

Who is there for you

[10/10 · 29 April 2022]

This one is a thank you for all the people out there during and after the attacks at BAZ and Maalbeek. It's a bit dramatized and incomplete, but that's okay. This isn't the story of what happened, nor who is to blame. The choice of a Muslim main character may very well have been to show not all Muslims are behind the attack, but it doesn't bother me. She isn't portrayed as a Muslim, for all we know she isn't even practicing. It's not about religion. People of all religions were helping out when it happened.

This story is about "us", the ones who were there that day and the following days. Who saw those first-line victims running away from the airport, listening to their stories about the attacks. Helping them to find their stuff, or their way home. They were the first to tell us something was going on, and we were unkowingly their first contact after it happened.

I was working in a nearby trainstation that day, and to me, this series captures the way we felt and still feel when meeting people who were at the Airport or Maalbeek that day. Some of us ran off, others stayed and tried to help where we could, each on his own level, with what possibilities we had. It's an honest portrait. This is an appreciation for all of us who have been in similar situations, trying to help.

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)

Great Ghoststory

[8/10 · 7 August 2021]

When a young couple is getting ready to get married, people arrive and have a good time. One of the guests starts telling a ghoststory and given I like ghoststories, I was ready for this one.

I mean to say that some parts are quite predictable, like when the music changes to warn you, but more so the behaviour of certain characters. Maybe I have been spoiled by The Others or The Sixth Sence, but I can smell a ghost when I see one. Somehow, it feels like some parts don't seem to match. Let me explain: one of the characters is dead when another character arrives on Bly Manor. As we don't know this yet, this dead character is able to touch and be touched by both others and items. Yet other dead characters can't. So what's the story there? Untold possibilities? The laws of the dead don't work the same for everyone? You're loosing me here... Another example: a same scene played out two times, in the first one the dead person drinks and speeches, while in the second it's like she was never there at all. Which of the two was real? Was it only real for her? Why did no one go look for her when she went missing and we watched from their point of view? Yet another example: the "unknown" dead character has been dead for days when her body is discovered. One of the characters was there when she died, yet he doesn't act like he knows it. Is his memory playing tricks on him, or is there another reason he won't act upon it? When they do find the body, noone seems to notice the body has been dead for much longer than they last saw this person. I hope I will never hear anyone say "perfectly splendid" the way the girl keeps repeating this. Although it would make sense for her character to do so, they overused it to my liking.

Apart from this, I really liked this series. It's a story not only about ghosts, but even more so about people battling ghosts in their minds. About solving your problems and growing up. About caring, loving and letting go. As ghoststories go, it's a story filled with both sadness and hope, tears and laughter, human nature and the beyond.

MacGyver (2016–2021)

"Not always. Good things don't. Don't you ever change, MacGyver."

[2/10 · 5 August 2019]

When I heard a remake of MacGyver was about to happen, my heart got warm and cold at the same time. Warm, for I remember watching MacGyver and wanting to be like him. I fell in love with his soft nature, his way of getting out of trouble, his jeans and leather jacket and his haircut. I fell in love with the way he spoke, with the unbelievable trust he had in people and the chances he gave them. I fell in love with the mystery of his first name, with the "how is he going to get out of here?!?" situations. He was my childhood hero! Could my kids get the same with this MacGyver? But my heart also got cold, for I know most remakes can't live up. Things must be different, because we're not living in the '80's or '90's anymore. But could the heart of MacGyver still be the same, in a new jacket?

For me, I'm so sorry to say, the answer is no. The first thing that bothered me, were his looks. The MacGyver I knew, didn't care about his looks. He was him, plain and simple, and that was enough. Even though the series had his name, it wasn't really about him. He cared about people, about things, and he tried to do good. The focus was on doing good, on living a decent life and standing up for the one's in need, fighting legally against evil. He hated guns and found a way around them. The focus wasn't on him, it was on the situations. Here, I got the feeling that the focus was on the new MacGyver. Look how smart I look, look how clever I am, look at all the places I've been, the people around me! That's not MacGyver at all... That's just borrowing his name and using it for profit.

Second thing that bothered me quite a lot was how they instantly killed the mystique by saying his first name like every five minutes throughout the first episode! Why? Because if they didn't, no one would believe this was MacGyver? The charm of not knowing, of only knowing about his first name in just a few episodes, and being happy you didn't miss those at the time, was not instantly killed, but was continuously killed. The MacGyver I know didn't like his first name all that much, this one can't get enough of it. It's not the same MacGyver...

Even the way they explained how things were solved, after solving them, wasn't like it used to be... Where's the fun, the camera focusing on the items, you wondering "how?!?" and then MacGyver showing you, without the needy explaining of how great he is doing that. He just did it, and you watched with wonder.

Watching one of the old episodes, it ended a bit "too much" for me, but yeah... At the time I wanted to be the kid, so there you go, there was this little dialogue between Pete, asking MacGyver to stay, and MacGyver telling him no for now:

Pete: You know, I can't even imagine what it's going to be like without you around here. MacGyver: Well, it was bound to happen. Things change. Pete: Not always. Good things don't. Don't you ever change, MacGyver. MacGyver: Don't you either, Pete.

And that's how I imagined a sequel should be. Things change, as MacGyver said. But good things don't change, as Pete said. I will show my kids the old MacGyver. When you change the nature and heart of your lead character, and you take away the mystique of what made the first series so interesting, how can you live up to the name?

I'm not discussing the show for what it is. Had they given their main character a different name, maybe it would have been a different story. It could be decent on its own. But they decided to name it MacGyver, and to be honest, this is nothing like MacGyver.

De brief voor de koning (2008)

Nice movie - spoilers

[7/10 · 31 October 2009]

Having read the book as a kid, I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, and because I couldn't watch it immediately, my anticipations were only rising.

Checking the list of actors in here, I stumbled upon some bad reactions this movie didn't entirely deserved in my eyes.

First of all, this is a film of a children's book, you can't expect all blood and gore. Second of all, like mentioned in one of the reviews above, it's a 2hour movie! You can't expect the characters to get a hold on you the very same way they did in the book you were reading.

This movie was more true to the book than Crusade in Jeans (which I really didn't like because they've modernized it so much, that they deleted a main character for the sake of having a leading woman for the leading man), from beginning to end. There was no need to make Piak a girl, or for a deep romance between him and the other knights daughter... This is a book of adventure, go watch romance if you want romance. This was about bravery, not giving up, and dangers among the way.

The landscapes, castles and costumes were great, the choice of actors was a bit less good: some actors looked like they loved to be there, just because now they'd be more famous. But others were really well cast and they all looked the part. The reason why I checked this site in the first place, was because I recognized a lot of voices, but not the faces. Congrats to the grime indeed! Things I didn't really like, but I understand why they did is, is the intro: I wanted the movie to start, and instead I got a history lesson! But then I knew the story already. Other movies start like this, like The Golden Compass, and I disliked it all the same. But I can understand people would probably appreciate to know a bit of the setting where the story would be, before it started.

The movie rushed a bit at times, for no apparent reason except maybe to save time and keep as much from the book as possible. So yeah, maybe I felt rushed from one scene into the next at times, but it followed the book, so I wasn't too unhappy about it. What I was a bit unhappy about, was a scene in the beginning, where Knight Edwinen's helper just sends him out, without giving him the password that I so loved from the first time I read it (and memorized ;) ), and the scene at the end, where the King doesn't shake his head in disbelieve because he can't understand a word of Tiuri's gibberish, and Tiuri tells him he also memorized the spelling, in case his pronunciation was wrong. So OK, it would have made the movie a bit longer, I know, but for me, I wanted those 2 scenes in there as well.

So I'm giving it a 7 out of 10: my childhood memories are mainly in the movie, great costumes, settings, scenes, some great actors and fantastic grime, this movie was everything my memory told me and so it stayed in tact. But the rushing through scenes, the sometimes bad acting and the lacking of the 2 scenes I really wanted to see, made it a 7.