Still getting over the weekend...

Back home now after my brother's wedding. Everyone had a great day, my speech went down well I think but I'm still playing catch up at home and work so I'll leave you with another video for today and will look to stick up a review of Toy Story 3 tomorrow or Thursday

See you soon

One day and counting

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I've not been too active this week, but I've been in final preparations for my Best Man duties.

In the mean time, I'll leave you with this.

Germany v Spain...what do you think?

Are Spain that much better?

Germany are 2.14 to qualify (46% chance), Spain are 2.34 (54% chance), so the value bet based on this is Spain.

Shrek Forever After in 3D 2/5

Image via Wikipedia

Myers, Murphy, Diaz and Banderas return as Shrek, Donkey, Fiona and Puss In Boots for the fourth and perhaps final adventure in Far, Far Away. Whilst not descending to the grim depths that Shrek The Third reached, it is still a long way off the standards set by Shrek's initial outing.

Shrek, feeling that he has gone soft, long to be a 'proper' ogre for just one day. Throw in Rumpelstilskin who can make this wish come true and you have the basis of a plot. When Shrek's dream becomes his worst nightmare, he has to find a way to get Fiona to fall in love with him again before the day ends or he will cease to exist.

Now suspend your disbelief for the second and forget that if Rumpelstilskin succeeded in his plan then the previous films couldn't have existed in the first place and try to take this film on its own merits. To be honest, that is difficult as it only has a couple, namely Donkey and Puss In Boots.

The comedy is still there in patches, although not as geared towards adults as in previous films. The film looks amazing and was made for 3D and some of the effects are fantastic, but the plot and Shrek himself left me feeling a little cold and disinterested to the point of boredom by the time the 3rd act was starting.

It felt as if the makers were trying to fit every character they have used previously in somehow and this meant that some were underused whilst a lot were overused. I can understand that this is the last film in the franchise and you want to pay tribute, but they are CGI characters, they don't have feelings.

As previously stated, Murphy and Banderas carry the film through their comic moments, and there are a few genuinely laugh out loud moments, but they are too sparse and not long enough.

I think Dreamworks are right in putting this to bed now, and start on some new ideas. Dispicable Me looks a jump in the right direction in my opinion.

Watch this of you've seen the other Shrek films, but don't shed a tear if you miss it.

See you soon

The Engine

Related articles by Zemanta

• Shrek Forever After, review (telegraph.co.uk)

Wimbledon Men's Semi Finals

Image via Wikipedia

Today sees the semi-finals of this year's Wimbledon with 3 of the top 4 seeds in action. The line up is strange without Federer but the tennis on offer will still be of the top drawer variety.

Berdych 2.06 v Djokovic 1.93

Berdych, Federer's conqueror in the semis has been threatening a in a Grand Slam event for a while now, and perhaps was a little unlucky it didn't come in this year's French Open. His huge serve will cause Djokovic a lot of problems and if he can keep composed as he did in the quarters, then he has every chance of progressing.

Djokovic is seemingly in good form and will be World No 2 at the end of the tournament. Djokovic seems to have it all the majority of the time but he does have a tendancy to blow up, feel pressure and really doesn't like to be taken out of his comfort zone. However, he also has a big serve, and if that starts to fire then he shouldn't struggle too much on his service games. I feel that he's a better returner of serve than Berdych too.

Overall, I can't see there being much serve and volley, and for this game to be dominated by service and for the rallies to be consisted from the baselines.

On balance, I think Djokovic @ 1.93 is the pick.

Murray 2.5 v Nadal 1.66

Do I think Nadal would win more than 60 out of 100 games with Murray? Yes I do. Do I think Nadal is as hungry as ever for Wimbledon and to consolidate his World No 1 spot? Yes I do.
Do I think the crowd on Centre Court is worth a set against anyone? Yes I do, Henman relied on it for years. Do I think Murray is as confident in his game as he's ever been? Possibly, although some comments to the press yesterday weren't really of a man at the top of his game. Do I think Murray is capable of winning? Mmm...tricky one that.

This game revolves around how Murray plays. Nadal is Nadal, we know what to expect. The fact that it has been so dry also plays to Nadal's strengths as it's almost like a hard court. If the first match runs long, that will be in Murray's favour though as the dew point will be reached and the skiddy surface will help Murray out.
If Murray can start well, and win the first set then I think Nadal will be in trouble. If he starts slowly, Nadal won't give him a look in.

All being said, I think Murray has got it in him to win today

See you soon

The Engine

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nadal Get Murray Rematch in Wimbledon Semifinals; Djokovic v. Berdych (tennis-x.com)

The Tooth Fairy - 3/5

I caught this film a couple of weeks ago when I was dragged along by my nephew on a hungover Sunday morning. I base my experiences of family friendly films of this ilk on Home Alone (just the first one) and Elf. Both of those would get 5/5 from me just to give you a point of reference into my psyche.

Without giving away any spoilers, although to be honest, if you don't predict what will happen in this formulaic piece I pity you immensely, it's fair to say that this qualifies as an easy to watch and easier to enjoy film. My nephew also enjoyed it, but he is a massive fan of Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson so he is a little biased. To be fair, so am I. I remember several years ago waking my wife to be at around 3am to excitedly inform her that finally, The Rock had come back to Monday Night Raw! She wasn't best pleased, especially when I dropped the People's Elbow on her for falling back to sleep.

The story revolves Derek 'The Tooth Fairy' Thompson being punished for making people not believe in their dreams. Predictably, the tough and bitter minor league hockey player sees the light and changes his ways. Now this film isn't going to win any awards, but it's not going to be the worst film you'll see this year (the honour for that surely goes to Daybreakers).

The set pieces are fun in parts. Stephen Merchant provides a comic turn in the form of Tracy, the fairy guide and Johnson plays the slap stick roles very well. Julie Andrews plays a bit part as Lily, the head of the fairies and on the whole she phones it in, but it's Julie Andrews, and she's still better than 95% of people even when she's not trying.

So while the film is predictable, it still made me laugh in parts, made me feels for the characters and was an enjoyable way to spend 2 hours hungover on a Sunday morning. It's still showing in some cinemas at the weekends, or wait to pick it up on DVD.

See you soon

The Engine

Rating system

Hi again,

Just a quick note to let you all know about the rating system I will be using I'm my blog to grade everything from films, meals to nights out.

Simply, it's out of 5. So things can score 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. Easy eh?

No half points, no random percentages, just a beautifully subjective 6 rankings.

My first review will be up tomorrow and it's going to be a review of the last film I watched which was The Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Hope you come back to see it.

See you soon

The Engine

Ladies and Gentleman, please allow me to introduce myself

Happy Tuesday and thanks for stopping by.

I'm using this post to introduce myself a little, tell you a little bit about what I'm going to do here and just to say hi really. So, I'm The Engine, I'm almost 30 and I live in the North West of England, in a smallish industrial town called St Helens. I'll reveal more of my likes and dislikes as the blog grows rather than rattling off a wall of text here now.

My blog is going to be exactly what the title says. I'm not going to concentrate on any one area for the time being. There will be some poker hands and results, film/music/book/tv reviews, betting tips, and general rants. I think I'm more than qualified to do all of those things and I hope to offer a valued and possibly unique insight into certain things, be a bit contrarian in other things and be massively unreasonable in other things too.

So that's where we are heading in a nut shell. If you are coming to this blog later on, then where have you been? If you are in at the beginning, I think this moment is like the first Sex Pistols gig, like the Moon landing and like when Frank Lampard scored the goal that never was

Enjoy

The Engine


Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone