Cinema twice in one week

I couldn't get into the book, not that the story isn't gripping, more that I wasn't keen on the writing style, so I did what I often do in these situations, I listened to an unabridged audio version - and I'm very glad I did.

The Life of Pi is an amazing modern fairy tale, and was asking to be filmed, and now it's been done by the direct Ang Lee. Erica had free tickets to a preview showing at the Odeon and I got one.

When we arrived we discovered it was 3D, not something I'm usually very fussed about, but free tickets.....

WOW! I can honestly say it is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. If you've read the book you'll be pleased to hear that they've really done it justice, if you haven't read it you'll just enjoy the incredible storytelling.

The 3D isn't over done, and I can honestly say its the best 3D film I've seen, the director didn't seem to feel the need to make scenes just to justify the 3D, and therefore I ended up forgetting the effect and just enjoying the film.  One of my favourite scenes was where the reproduced the image from the front cover of the book!

Last night, was my second visit to the Odeon, this time to see the long awaited Hobbit. I'm a big fan of the book and so having very much enjoyed Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film I was looking forward to this.

My first disappointment was to discover that greed seems to have set in as they've split the story into three films (perhaps having something as 'precious' as the LOTR franchise had begun to affect common sense?).

If you've read The Hobbit (and if you haven't you really should), you'll know it's not a long book, a children's book even. It became obviously that a lot of padding was going to be needed to drag the story out - even for one feature length, but THREE?

Many of the scenes could have been cut by at least half, the fight between the dwarves and the trolls was long enough to wander away and have a wee and get an ice cream and you'd still not have missed anything!!

I was left feeling cheated in some way. Yes the scenery was amazing, and the characters are fantastic, but the whole thing was bloated and over done - what a shame. The only thing I came away thinking was that I must read the book again.