LOL! I so enjoyed your reviews this week! You’re writing is fun!

Pity about “Thor”. Well, maybe not but those Australians are the best looking blokes on the planet. Hemsworth does not disappoint in that dept.

Loved your thoughts on that nasty Kate Hudson. Without nepotism, she’d be a 4 child mama with 4 different dads “gimme girl”.

That Dutch films sound like my “cuppa”. On my “to see” list it goes!

Thanks for the Herzog review. I did not know that about him. Jeez. I will always keep that in mind, but he is German and those Western Europeans always unfortunately think like that, to my chagrin. I do love his movies madly (I love “My Best Fiend”) and I know I will love his narration as I have always been so enamoured with it. He’s got such a unique way of speaking…I just love it.

I just love it! Too good! Another week of good reading!

Skunky on May 6, 2011 at 9:15 pm

Lighten up! Thor was very entertaining, there was nothing boring about it. A good movie for anyone.

Mike on May 7, 2011 at 1:04 am

“Thor”: I’d see it because IT IS FREAKING THOR!

Everything else: MEH. I’d love to see a movie about how a group of French North African Jews were left to fend for themselves during the Algerian “War of Independence” in the 60s. We’ve seen enough of partisan-saves-Allied-soldier flicks. Any film-makers want to take on a challenge of documenting the damage created by Islamofascist ethnic cleansing? Step up to the mother-f***ing plate!

Final verdict: TORRENT!

The Reverend Jacques on May 7, 2011 at 2:00 am

Thor was my favourite comic book when I was a kid, but this movie like pretty much every superhero movie looks woeful. The really bad and dumb superhero movies Hollywood cynically churns out are symptomatic of a deeper malaise in our culture, but that is a whole other thing..

This Dutch World War 2 drama looks good, it’s worth remarking that whilst kids today may not have the courage in the main to tackle Muslim fanatics, whose fault is that? Their parents, people my and your age Debbie. Whose bad pathetic example are kids today following? Their useless dhimmi parents, that’s who. I see brave Europeans and Americans being charged with ‘hate crimes’ for speaking out against the cancer of Islamic tyranny and hate and the vast mass of people are either indifferent, clueless or in fact supportive of ostracising and criminalising the Thilo Sarazzins, Allen Wests, Elisabeth Sabaditch Wolfs and now Lars Hedegaards of the world.

Look at Holland, who like the rest of the West have learned nothing from the Nazi occupation, they have criminalised Geert Wilders (who is on trial for hate speech) and Hirsi Ali (who was hounded out of Holland) and welcomed anti-Semitic Muslims with open arms, Amersterdam and Rotterdam are ‘culturally enriched’ to a degree that is shocking and terrifying. Dutch Jews are getting out or going dhimmi (like self-loathing Jew kapo Jeb Cohen, leader of the Dutch Labour Party and the worst thing to happen to European Jewry in an age). Most Dutch people going to see this movie won’t make the connections between the Nazi occupation past and their dhimmified present, hardly. It would be funny if it wasn’t so terrifying.

Larry in Tel Aviv on May 7, 2011 at 2:14 am

So Marvel went with aliens instead of “God of Thunder”, cowards. Wasn’t looking forward to it anyways, seen enough bad guys in metal suits to last a lifetime. Seems focus groups and political correctness will control and ruin all movies forever.

ender on May 7, 2011 at 2:20 am

Just wait… Marvel needs to churn out a couple of more bores so that they can tie everything together for the Avengers movie (with another actor [the third one now] to play Bruce Banner/Hulk in this movie). Yep. I can smell the forthcoming winner coming down the Hollywood crap shoot right now. Doesn’t it get you excited?!?

Pats on May 7, 2011 at 6:59 am

Whenever I hear the name “Thor” these days, I think of the 1994 episode of “The New Red Green Show” titled “The Owl Project” where the members of “Possum Lodge” were shooting stuffed animals placed in strategic places all over the forest, and one of the stuffed animals from a local taxidermy shop was “Thor, the Mighty Polar Bear” – which was actually a dead raccoon that was bleached. The priceless line was when Red’s (Steve Smith) nephew Harold (Patrick McKenna) intoned, “Thooor? That mangy yellow lump that’s been hanging in [the taxidermist’s] front window for the past 20 years? . . . And he’s rancid. Just one bullet and pffff!–” That one bit seems to elicit more interest than the entire “Thor” movie combined.

ConcernedPatriot on May 7, 2011 at 7:49 am

Heard you on Mike Church yesterday. Nice. As you continue to speak favorably about Winter in Wartime, you might want to mention that there is a remarkably similar book for children 10+. It is “The Winged Watchmen”, by Hilda von Stockum. (ISBN 1-883937-07-8) Exciting, engaging, with a great moral message of courage and sacrifice.

Geoffrey Parker on May 7, 2011 at 8:55 am

Debbie….please repost your review of “Winter In Wartime” when the DVD is released to remind your readers to watch it then. Where I live (and most likely everywhere else), every screen is showing Thor and Fast & Furious 5, so I have zero chance to see it at a theater.

IM4Israel on May 7, 2011 at 10:48 am

Jews who created the comic book industry loved to garb themselves in every culture except their own. I always wondered what the hell Stan Lee was doing with the character Thor. Shakespeare might of gotten away with writing about the Danes when mass communication didn’t exist, but a Jew from NYC really could not get a feel for Vikings. The only Jewish Superhero in the Marvel Universe is “The Thing”. Let’s face it, the Thing AKA Benjamin Grimm is a thug loser who sounds uneducated. What is more Ben is not sexy (often the biggest insult in Jewish “SECULAR” culture) and doesn’t hook up with the likes of the Invisible Woman. If I remember correctly… The Thing is stood up by a Hollywood actress and his girlfriends always seem second rate… they never last while his pal is married to a Barbie Doll. One feels that Stan Lee has a low opinion of the American Jewish community… and of himself. The Thor is the Marvel Megastud of Gentiles. I wonder if he is circumcised in outer space. Probably not.

Natalie Portman’s stupidity in being charmed by Queen Rania of Jordan… probably because oh wow… real life Aristocracy… the same reason global femmes went nuts over a recent royal wedding in the U.k..

I have not seen Thor yet, but I will be looking at it differently then you do Debbie. …but then it could just suck. The problem with self hate is that nothing good can come from it.

Noah David Simon on May 7, 2011 at 11:43 am

Oorlogswinter reminds me of a book I read as a kid,”Snow Treasure”

“It is 1940 in Norway, a neutral, peace-loving country that is invaded by Nazi Germany. A gang of Norwegian children do what Norwegian children like best – ski. They are actually rescuing Norwegian gold from the nazi invaders. The Nazis search all adults but don’t suspect children playing. The children carry the gold, one bar at a time, across the mountains to a fishing boat. It is a race against time, it is spring and the snow is melting. So they ski from dawn to dusk every day”

Great book and they evidently made a movie of it in 1968.

ebayer on May 7, 2011 at 12:10 pm

If you knew anything about Norse Mythology you may have like the movie. But if you’re not a fan of comic book super heroes, why the hell are you watching the movie to begin with? Fanboys are going to complain about it too,but at least they have a reason.

That’s like somebody saying that Queen of the Damned and Interview with the Vampire are FANTASTIC movies when anybody who has read the actual book knows how much the movie sucked. Perhaps you should, I don’t know, read a comic book before you go see a movie based on a comic book.

M: I know a lot about Norse Mythology and read a lot of comic books. “Thor” still sucked, though. DS

Miseree on May 7, 2011 at 12:51 pm

Movies based on comic books should be aimed at children. That is the target for the comic book.

Adults need real drama, real conflict in a movie to make it something more than boring. Children don’t suffer from this malady.

What makes the Nazi movie more appealing to an ADULT is the fact that there is real conflict in the story. People could die, and it creates tense, real-world drama. And subsequently, it engenders more respect for the characters’ strength or moral fortitude to do the right thing even in the face of potentially deadly consequences.

Unlike comic books, where superheroes shoot lazer beams from their eyes or read minds or fly, all with no effort. No cost. No conflict. No real drama. That stuff is fine for children.

Where these movie companies screw up is that they try to make these comic-book based films appealing by dazzling sound effects and target “adults” by putting in sex or something. Boring.

pitandpen on May 7, 2011 at 4:17 pm

This movie will be nothing like the comic book I read. Just where is Dr. Donald Blake, Thor’s alter ego, his limp and walking stick which when struck upon a hard surface changes him to Thor? Where is the bridge to Asgard?

In other words…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q631uZ6DQzg

These cartoons, despite crude animation were seen even into the early 1980’s on channel 5 in NYC.

Bob Porrazzo on May 8, 2011 at 6:41 am

LOL “god of slumber”

Bonzer Wolf on May 8, 2011 at 10:49 am

I’m a bit concerned that the Dutch are getting a whitewash. Caroline Glick thinks they were the Nazi’s most ardent collaborators, outside Germany.

A: In fact, the movie does NOT whitewash them. Yes, the Dutch were collaborators with the Nazis. But that’s a fact that is well known (remember, Anne Frank?) and has nothing to do with the irrelevant opinion of an also-ran commentator, Caroline Glick, who sided with pro-Hezbollah Iranian protestors and sold Israel down the river as an Oslo negotiator, and who also is a paid employee of Frank “Islam is Peaceful, just not Islamists” Gaffney. She also claimed “The Hurt Locker” is a left-wing, anti-war movie, a conclusion exclusive to morons. You need to wake up on her. DS

Adam on May 8, 2011 at 11:03 am

The showing of Thor I went to suffered from bad projection and bad sound – although listening here it might be just that the sound is too loud on the whole movie and it blows out the tuning of the speakers wherever it is played.

I got the feeling of missing scenes from it – stuff left on the cutting room floor that would have explained certain happenings better whereas without them one is left to guess at how it happened. It made it choppy and hurt the flow.

I thought that Hemsworth did an amazing job of portraying a simple, powerful airhead. And the way his character responds without pause in his speech seems very natural and conversational even considering his mildly stilted dialogue. To converse in that way across from Natalie Portman who is trying to portray a modern woman can’t have been that easy.

As a martial artist and aficionado of fight scenes I liked the cleverness of the more magical and superpowered fight scenes in the beginning but I disliked the more human fights where were oversimple and insulting – perhaps they should have taught Hemsworth more than 1 or 2 moves.

luagha on May 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm

As a child I was a big fan of Thor comics, watching the previews of this movie I knew it wouldn’t hold a candle to the comic. Hemsworth is not right for this role, I thought someone like the Green Bay Packers’ linebacker Clay Matthews jr. would be great. Most writers today don’t have the depth of character it takes to create a character of depth so what you see are underdeveloped films that were rushed through so we start production of the Avengers movie which will also suck, like the Fantastic Four and the Hulk. I do believe Spiderman is put together well.

Anthony on May 8, 2011 at 6:07 pm

What does it say about Kate “I need to bang A-Rod for attention” Hudson when most men would still rather do her mom Goldie Hawn 25 years after she is relevant.

Anthony on May 8, 2011 at 6:20 pm

Hi Debbie,

I saw Thor yesterday and I honestly really enjoyed it. Now I will admit that I watched the cartoon as a kid and have always loved the Norse myths. Seeing the warriers three and Sif fighting on screen (and done right) was awesome. I think that they got the fight scenes perfect. The basic story about Thor needing to learn self sacrifice was good. However, I agree with you that they left alot out and the story was way too simple.

I think that this is basically a fun “popcorn” Summer movie.

jimmyPx on May 9, 2011 at 11:38 am

Debbie, a little late, but I saw “Fast Five” this weekend.

LOVED IT!!!!! I agree, even better than the original.

Odd, I saw one of those promo thingies they show on HBO to promote this and Jordana Brewster (VAVOOM!!!!) and Paul Walker actually looked younger than they looked in the movie.

One thing I disagree with you big time (sorry my honey!). I think The Rock stole the movie. I loved his character. I felt it added a bunch.

I always stay till the very end credits, so I saw the “stinger” you mentioned….interesting. One other thing, I hope this means Eva Mendes (Double VAVOOM!!!!!) will be in the next movie.

Jeff_W on May 9, 2011 at 3:22 pm

Thor seems like it would be interesting but I was immediately turned off when finding out that awful Natalie Portman is in it. Why in the world must every third movie made these days include that overrated, horrible disaster of an actress??? So sick of the media trying to shove her down my throat. I couldn’t stand her when she was a no-name lefty hanging out with Hillary Clinton and I definitely can’t stand her now that they are trying to claim she is a star.

No wonder the only decent movies made these days tend to be made outside of the U.S.

Brian R. on May 9, 2011 at 11:42 pm

Actually, Ms. Goodwin’s parents named their daughter Jennifer- she changed her name at some point to reflect the way her name is pronounced where she grew up- Tennessee.

Robert on May 10, 2011 at 4:23 pm

I personally enjoyed Thor–and I am an adult who enjoys comics, in full disclosure. It tended to run too fast, and therefore crammed too much into a short running time (it could’ve stood to have been a half hour longer). Natalie Portman did sleepwalk through this movie, though; Debbie’s right in the lack of chemistry with Hemsworth, who did a superb job as the arrogant but ultimately heroic Thor. It’s a shame: I once had some pretty high hopes for Portman, but since the Star Wars movies she just has not done well.

After reading Debbie’s review, I wonder if she fell asleep at the beginning, as the Frost Giants are explained quite well. Maybe it’s just not your kind of movie, Debbie–and that’s okay. Comic book flicks are not for everyone. (I am interested in what you’ll write on Captain America.)

And I will have words on some, at least, modern Americans not standing up to Islamism. I see these heroes every day; it is my honor and privledge to work with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. If these men and women have not destroyed radical Islam as of yet, it is not their faults, nor the fault of their generation–no more than the failure in Vietnam was the fault of the Vietnam veteran.

Sentinel on May 11, 2011 at 3:51 am

The Jew loves the Nazi movie, what a shocker! Thor (a part of the larger Norse mythology movement) is designed to wean Christians away from Christ.

Greg on December 8, 2011 at 5:18 am