Movie Review: **^Scary Godmother: The Revenge of Jimmy (2005)

 http://mmboebillywardle.blogspot.com/2014/10/tv-movie-review-scary-godmother.html
After last years fright Jimmy is determined that Halloween should not take place this year.  He comes up with several different schemes, such as destroying all the pumpkins, or getting rid of all the candy and costumes.  In every case, he is thwarted by his cousin Hannah.  He even tries to destroy the Halloween party, but aain is thwarted, and in the end wins the award for the best costume as he scared the Bug-A-Boo.  This show has the feel of the Magic School Bus, but other than that is very good. 
The voice talents include Tabitha St. Germain as Scary Godmother, Gary Chalk as Harry the Werewolf, Alexander Ludwig as Jimmy and Britt McKillip as his cousin Hannah.
I must admit, the characters are growing on me.

TV Movie Review: **Scary Godmother Halloween Spooktacular (2003)

I was going to write a review of how this movie was not any good; however the ending did make up for some of it.  I  had a bit of a hard tie with the kids and their characters.  They seemed a bit much.  Then add the monster party, and it all seemed just noise.  However, the monsters did grow on me.  And the ending was really pretty cute.  The point of the movie is older cousin and his friends scare their younger cousin by sending her into a haunted house.  She find the Scary Godmother, who taks her to the monster party.  When they realize they trick that has been pulled on her, they decide to get even with the older kids.  She thought her flashlight would keep monsters away.  This is just something her father had told her.  However, the flashlight is party of the revenge scene and is rather well done.
for the sequel
http://mmboebillywardle.blogspot.com/2014/10/movie-review-scary-godmother-revenge-of.html

Book Review: Ghoulish Song

Ghoulish Song by William Alexander, Margeret K. McElderry Books, NY, 2013.
 I picked this book up looking for something Halloweenish.  This book gave me that.  It is about a girl who dies, as she becomes disconnected from her shadow.  She is cast out by her family.  She has to figure out how to get her shadow reattached.  This has to do with a song that her flute insisted on playing.  The song can bring things together, or it can tear them apart. 
I liked this book.  It makes characters of shadows, and asks that we respect them and not trample them through puddles and such.  It also talks about being in harmony, not chasing things away with our negative attitudes.  In doing so the main character Kaite is able to save the day. 

Music Review: Cat Stevens: Tea for Tillerman

Cat Stevens Tea for Tillerman (1970)

 

The most popular song form this album is "Wild World."  This is my favorite song of the album.

It is a very interesting song and often replayed. 

Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world
It's hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world
I'll always remember you like a child, girl

 

I also like “Where do the Children Play?” in which Cat Stevens sings about building and building but maybe we miss some things in doing so.  He sings this with a nice baritone voice which is very effective. 

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

 

Cat Stevens had talent for song writing and singing as demonstrated by this music.  It has an almost Seals and Croft feel, but not quite.

Cat Stevens did his own artwork for the cover.

Movie Review: The Host (2013)

This is the movie based on the Stephenie Meyer novel of the same name.  This movie combines a couple characteristics of Robert Heinlein books I have read, aliens inhabiting a human body, and two personalities being inside the same person.  It is hard to make something entertaining with two people inside the same body, but it is done effectively here.  This is a movie about sacrifice, and sometimes finding your true home where you don't expect to find it. 
Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) has been running free with her brother, Jamie (Chandler Canterbury) and boyfriend Jared (Max Irons).  However, the invading hosts are determined to capture everyone, and they come up to her.  However, the human host is strong and remains inside, while the alien soul, Wanda, is divulging all of Melanie's secret, with the goal of finding the other humans.  This leads to a conflict, which is finally a bit resolved when they take off and find the human refuge, headed by Melanie's uncle (J.D. Evermore).  Being hosted, your eyes shine differently, so everyone knows she is not human.  Their are conflicts and suspicions with the group; and even romance, Melanie and Jared, but also Wanda and Kyle (Boyd Holbrook).  Also in the cast is a seeker, Lacey (Diane Kruger) who will not give up, who herself is torn by her host's personality.  She finally finds their hide out, which  creates a dilemma with an interesting solutions.
Like some of Meyer's books, this movie is a bit slow at times as the story deals with the romantic parts, but over all very well done.

Movie Review: **The Haunted Pumpkin of Sleepy Hollow

This animated feature movie was produced in 2003 the Porchlight Entertainment.   It is less than an hour, made for t.v. special.  It is along the genre of the Magic School Bus or Skooby Doo.  It starts with a retelling of the Washington Irving Story, and then carries on from there.  There are a couple thieves who steal the original manuscript, and another couple of kids looking for the best pumpkin, and unknowingly pick the pumpkin where the manuscript was hid.  However the manuscript turns the pumpkin into the haunted head, and the headless horseman is looking for it.  Lots of ghost flying around, and scaring of each other.  A couple of scary song spice up the show.  The main feature of this short is that it is noisy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQPzyP2Pc1c

Movie Review: ***^The Range War (John Wayne 1931)

This movie is pretty good.  John Wayne is in a supporting role as Clint.  His brother (raised by his father) Sheriff Buck Gordon (Buck Jones) is caught between two feuding families.  The are arguing about range rights, and have had a recent squabble.  For his part, Clint has a girlfriend, Judy (Susan Fleming) who is daughter of the man with whom Clint's father is feuding.  Add in a cattle rustler, and then the murder of Judy's father, for which Clint is accused and condemned to hang.  It seems everything is pretty much going the wrong way when Sheriff Buck is shot. 

I really enjoyed this Wayne movie, everything except for the leading lady's acting.  She doesn't seem worried enough about Clint and his being hung.  Nor does she seem overly distraught about her father's murder.