Megamind

Maxim and I went to the cinema yesterday, in hopes to see “Tangled”.  But unfortunately it was in Greek only.  We checked both Rio and K-Cineplex cinemas.  Since we were out anyway, we decided to go for “Megamind“.  Which, despite the 3D advertising, was in 2D.  (Maxim prefers 3D, while I am a 2D man).

“Megamind” is a cartoon about superheros and about the fight of good an evil.  It is somewhat original in the story though.  While most other stories accept the fight between the good and evil and spend most of the time on the details, “Megamind” takes a different route.  It explores the world after the fight of good and evil.  And not just that, but the world where evil won the fight.  I thought it was an interesting twist, even though it required slightly more talking than usual.  And, as every kid knows, talking is boring.  Bring on the fight!

The story is well balanced though.  Surprisingly, there is still plenty of fighting and other types of action.   Bonus points from me are for having a geek (wearing geeky t-shirts) and for the soundtrack that included AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, and Guns-n-Roses.  I think that’s the first mainstream animation to ever do that.  Kudos!

And while this flick wasn’t a jewel that by now everyone expects from Dreamworks, it is still a pretty good entertainment choice.  Overall rating from me is a 4 out of 5.   Not bad.

Day in brief

Day in brief

Pages of history

Yesterday I came across this collection of nostalgic photographs that bring back memories from the USSR times.   I was too young to see some of those images in real life, but they still have meaning to me.  Most though are as they were back then.

Yet, these are staged photographs of some every day items.   Today I came across something much more real and something much more dramatic.  It is again a collection of images, but in a video form.  The video shows the staggering difference between the modern day Saint Petersburg and Leningrad (as it was called back then) during the Siege.  As Wikipedia puts it: “It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and one of the most costly in terms of human casualties”.  It lasted for 872 days and it took lives of millions of people.  As per Wikipedia: 1,017,881 were killed, captured, or missing and 2,418,18 wounded or sick from the Red Army forces.  Civilian casualties are in the numbers of 642,000 during the siege and 400,000 at evacuations.  These are only those numbers that were verified.  In reality that was much more.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ9LGdamU20]