liessa Reviews

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Simply the best

[16 December 2003]

I just came from the marathon, and I have to say it really got better and better. Even after sitting in a theater for 8 hours, ROTK kept me absolutely spellbound for 3 and a half hours. A big groan went up as the houselights came on for the intermission, that should say enough. It neatly ties up all the loose ends, with effects that stun and amaze. The whole scale is much greater than one and two, but all this is handled with obvious care and craftmanship. All in all, a worthy end to a great trilogy.

De Fabeltjeskrant (1968–1992)

Cute and cuddly

[12 June 2002]

De fabeltjeskrant is a series about a whole bunch of animals. They were originally stories from the fables by Lafontaine, but they evolved to a series of their own. All the characters have their own little quirks, and they combine into a lively forest which is not unlike our world. As Meneer de Uil says in the intro: Animals are just like people, with the same human wishes, all of this is in the paper, in Fabeltjesland. The animals are all cute and their interaction is often funny, not just for kids, but for grown-ups too. The series actually spawned a new saying, still used today. When children go to sleep, a lot of parents say: oogjes dicht en snaveltjes toe, which means shut your eyes and close your beak. This is the last sentence of each episode.

Floris (1969)

Funny, adventurous and a lot of laughs.

[12 June 2002]

I grew up with Floris, it's one of the first things we ever had on tape at home. Even now, every time I watch the series, I see new things and laugh at the same jokes. It's a romanticised version of the Middle-Ages, and it has it all: a dashing nobleman (Rutger Hauer, who else), his sidekick, a love interest, an arch-enemy and all the swash-buckling they can cram into an half an hour show. It's all very funny, especially the scenes where Sindala shows that he's the brains in the outfit. It's really too bad that the tapes are only available in black and white, even more so, because they were filmed in color. The color-tapes were then reprinted to B/W, and the originals were lost. Even so, the B/W gives a nice feeling of age, and it's not bothersome or boring. Everyone should just watch it for themselves!