Eragon & other holiday stuff

We went to see Eragon - the movie today. Mum liked it a lot, and actually so did I. It wasn't half bad for an extremely shortened and dumbed-down movie version of a fairly mediocre fantasy novel. Granted, the fact that I didn't really care for the source made it easier to enjoy the movie (although I was a bit insulted that they took out the Dwarves entirely). But the casting was good - somehow all the characters were likeable, well, except the evil ones, of course, but we loved to hate those - the Elf woman didn't look like a cloned Barbie doll (although I missed the pointed ears, source or no source), and the dragon was cute.

Mum, who's not into fantasy stuff, liked it because the plot was so simplistic that she didn't need looong explanations afterwards to understand the motivation of the characters - and because she didn't have problems to make a difference between the different guys. They looked different enough. And, of course, the massive Hungarian cooperation (see: crew list in the end credits) made it even more valuable for our ailing patriotic pride (LOTR only could produce Márton Csókás, and he's not even full Hungarian, not to mention he was given the false role, IMO, but let's not fight about that now...)

In any case, it was a nice, simple little movie. Not one I'd ever wish to watch again, but not half as bad as I've feared. Apparently, it's a lot easier to make nice, enjoyable movies out of mediocre books than out of great ones. Earthsea being another proof for the opposite, eh?
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Due to Mum-related programmes, I made no headway with "The Young Knights" today. Two more chapter left, in only three days. In which I've got to visit the frigging cemetery on the other end of the city, and Budapest is a damn big city, I tell you.

Despite my serious efforts in the last fifty years, Mum still doesn't seem to realize that holidays have been invented for people to, you know, rest.