DVD: The House Of Wax

What a load of old rubbish! Apart from the special wax effects and the wonderful demise of Paris Hilton, this was as enjoyable as a limp banana. Why do these people have to remake old classics and then add a mixture of bad dialogue, gruesome murders and dreadful acting? The guy from the fabulous Television series 'Supernatural' is in this and I think it was a bad decision on his part. One he should forget rather quickly. He was the only one of the cast who got waxed alive in the end, and he ended up melted. In fact the whole film melted. Who on earth let Paris Hilton in on the act for heaven's sake? The girl can't act to save her life (which she failed to do in this film) and the only part that she did with any conviction was wander around in her underwear, something she is used to doing in real life I expect.

The actual House Of Wax was quite brilliant though, everything was made of wax, the walls, ceilings, beds, food, stairs etc. and when the house went up in flames the actual melting was quite good. It was all real too, lots of artists had sat for days making all this stuff and then it got burned into a pile of goo!

Apart from that it was poop.

Score Board: 3/10 Avoid unless you want to see Paris in her smalls.

BOOK: Race Against Time - Ellen MacArthur

We all need heroes in this world and I think that Ellen MacArthur is one of them. What an amazing woman. There shouldn’t be anyone who doesn’t know who she is, but in case you have been living under a stone for the last few years I will remind you that she is the little lady who single handily whizzed around the world in her funny looking sailing thingy with B&Q written on the side. The book is basically her sailing log and because she writes in such an honest manner you feel yourself living her voyage. And what a voyage it was. At one point she was 5 days ahead of the world record, then as the weather worsened and the boat suffered set backs, she slipped back to just 5 hours lead. It was all edge of your seat stuff. Some of the things she endured were incredible. Winds, waves, hot sun, freezing ice and the loneliness of being out there on those huge oceans. When she was cold, wet and exhausted you felt for her, when she was ecstatic you were happy for her and when she managed to live her dream and win you cheered for her. Not only that but she was also a first rate engineer. Anything that went wrong with her boat she would have to fix it no matter how tough the conditions were, at times she was climbing masts in force 8 gales, at others she was pumping out freezing water. I can’t imagine how she managed to survive it all in one piece. Fantastic book. We should all read this just to understand what it is like to really achieve something the hard way.
Score Board: 10/10Amazing woman. You have my respect.

DVD: KES

I haven’t got much to say on this film except I hated it. It was depressing, grime ridden and grey. I remember attempting to read the book that this film was based on and I couldn’t get past the first chapter. I don’t know why I gave up on it as it was a long time ago but it must be the same reason that I almost gave up on the film.
For a start the main character is an obnoxious little brat who takes a baby Kestrel from its nest and keeps it captive. For that alone I disliked him immediately. His training of the bird just made me more mad. A wild creature should be flying free not being trained by some dirty little tee leaf. Half the scenes aren’t needed and the Yorkshire dialogue is so hard to understand I had to use subtitles. When the bird gets killed in the end I switched it off and almost chucked the whole thing in the bin, but I won’t. The DVD will end up in some charity shop somewhere and hopefully do some good by making a bit of cash, but I certainly wouldn’t give it house room.
Score Board: 0/10 A shocking waste of my time. Burn it.