Wow, I can’t believe we’re already halfway through the year! I haven’t been that great with reviews the past few months though, so I thought I’d catch up at the halfway mark covering all the things I’ve watched/played/read but hadn’t had time to blog about. In the next days I’l be posting the different mini reviews for movies, games and books!

The Cabin in The Woods

If you haven’t seen Cabin In The Woods yet, go and watch it when you can (the DVD is out on September 24th). It’s a horror about a bunch of college students who drive out for a vacation to a remote cabin in the woods (obviously). It’s co-written and produced by Joss Whedon, so it’s not your typical horror movie. It was shot in 2009 and then got stuck in limbo for 2 years, and it’s funny watching some actors we now know before they were popular (Chris Hemsworth from Thor and The Avengers, Jesse Williams from Grey’s Anatomy). I really enjoyed it and it’s definitely in my Top 5 of this year so far.

Men In Black 3

I still can’t quite believe that the first Men In Black came out when I was 13… that’s more than half my lifetime ago. I loved that first movie though and it was great to see the characters return to our screens. This time around K (Will Smith) has to travel back in time to save his partner J (Tommy Lee Jones, and Josh Brolin as his younger version) from the evil alien Boris (Jemaine Clemant). Even though the time travel doesn’t completely make sense (but let’s face it: when do movies ever get time travel right?), it’s a fun story with a couple of entertaining actions scenes.

Snow White and The Huntsman

I should have known what I was getting into with this movie, when I found out one of the tag lines for it was “From the producers of Alice In Wonderland”. I feel quite similar to Snow White and The Huntsman as I did with that movie. Visually it’s gorgeous: the set design, the costume design and the awesome special effects, it all creates a magical and slightly creepy world. Plot wise though it’s lacking emotion; you never get to connect and feel for any of the major characters. With the movie being called Snow White and The Huntsman I was expecting for it to, you know, actually be about these two central characters, about their relationship and their journey. Instead their relationship never amounts to anything satisfying or meaningful.

The Avengers

I’ve been waiting for this movie for 4 years and it’s lived up to its high expectations! The Avengers is a great action-filled movie finally uniting the Marvel movie superheroes from the last few years: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye and The Hulk. It was great to finally see them working as a team, and the action scenes really highlighted each of their skills and how they could be combined. I wasn’t expecting there to be so much funny dialogue though, but with Joss Whedon writing/directing I should have seen that coming; there are so many great one-liners, I was laughing throughout most of the movie!

Battleship

Ehm, yeah… before you start, let me explain myself: I’ve got a Cineworld pass. I was already at the cinema having watched Cabin In The Woods and Salmon Fishing In The Yemen and thought: why not? And it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Yes, the acting sucks. And the story doesn’t make sense at all. And the characters aren’t likeable at all. Hmm, it doesn’t have a lot going for it, I’ll admit. However I really liked most of the action scenes with the battleship sequences and ship maneuvers, and for me that was fun though to sit through the rest of the movie.

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey

I finally got around to seeing this documentary last week. It’s a look behind the scenes of the Jim Henson studio, specifically about the guy who “created” Elmo, Kevin Clash. I grew up with Sesame Street and all the other Jim Henson TV shows and movies, but I was young enough to never know that Elmo wasn’t originally part of the main puppets. Elmo was never one of my favourite characters; in fact after my ex Spanish housemates decided to get a Tickle-Me-Elmo (and would play with it for HOURS and giggle in the most annoying way) I really started disliking the character. The documentary really shows the story behind Kevin Clash’s journey into puppetry and made me appreciate Elmo in a way I hadn’t before.

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen

This was a cute little movie about a salmon expert (Ewan McGregor) who gets hired by consultant (Emily Blunt) to help a sheikh fulfill his vision to introduce salmon to the desert country of Yemen. I’d sort of describe it as a romantic comedy-drama; it doesn’t have all the usual cheesy romantic comedy suspects, plus it also has its serious dramatic moments.

The Hunger Games

I read and loved the books (well, I loved the first one, the rest were a bit meh), so I was curious to see what they would do with the movie. If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what the movie is about, think Battle Royale meets American Idol: a reality tv show about teenagers fighting to the death. It’s been done before, but the unique thing in The Hunger Games was how you get to see (== read) Katniss’s ideas and thoughts on how to survive and how she needs to manipulate people. I thought it was going to be tricky to express those emotions and motivations on screen, but I think they succeeded quite well in that. Katniss is such a complex character and it was great seeing Jennifer Lawrence in that role.

Fright Night

If it wasn’t for David Tennant, I don’t think I would have given this movie a chance. But he’s in here as the over-the-top stage musician Peter Vincent who helps teenager Charley (Anton Yelchin) deal with his vampire neighbour (Colin Farrell). It’s cheesy as hell, but, hey, it’s got a shirtless David Tennant, what more do you want?

The Muppets

As I said above, I grew up with all the things that came out of the Jim Henson studio. My absolute favourites still remain Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, although The Muppet movies all come a joint third behind those. I was really happy to see them bring back The Muppets this year and I enjoyed most of it. Our protagonist is a new muppet character Walter and he basically represents all the muppet fans: he’s the ultimate muppet fan and wants to see The Muppets all together again, performing as they used to. The Muppets have all gone their separate ways and it’s both funny and depressing to see where some of them end up. I also loved the new and the old songs they performed in here. What I thought didn’t work though were the human characters; I normally love Jason Segal and Amy Adams, but I didn’t like their characters at all and I thought their story didn’t contribute much to the overall movie.

Attack The Block

I finally got to see this movie a few weeks ago and it’s so much fun. Set on a council estate in London, it follows a bunch of kids in a street gang who need to defend their “block” from aliens. I liked the design of the creepy aliens (even though I’m pretty sure they used adapted gorilla suits, which makes them slightly less creepy); they’re not your usual movie aliens. The story is a bit simple, but it’s definitely quite enjoying to watch.

This is such a cool idea: a Peter Pan shadow on your wall. I came across it on Pinterest, but I can’t for the life of me figure out where it’s originally from (if anyone know who I can credit let me know). Can you buy this somewhere or did someone just make it for themselves?

It’s time for another Trailrrific Thursday! I know, I know, it’s not Thursday anymore, but my internet connectivity sucked yesterday and Trailerrific Friday just doesn’t have that same ring to it. I am really getting annoyed with some of the release dates for the UK though compared to the US! It’s mainly PIxar/Disney where the wait in between is so massive: 2 months for Brave and 4 months (seriously?!?) for Wreck-It Ralph.

Sidenote: I’m really loving Cineworld‘s Unlimited pass! For only £14.99 per month I get to go unlimited times to the cinema. I initially thought that means you have to at least go twice a month to the cinema, but with ticket prices getting more and more expensive it actually works out more like 1.5 times. If you want to get an Unlimited pass, use the promo code RAF-30GT-14RT-24MV-41CX to get a free month!

Dredd

This looks awesome! I know Twitter was all abuzz about this yesterday, and not everyone agrees with me, but I really think this looks good. Release Date: 7 September 2012 (UK), 21 September (US)

Monsters University

I only saw Monsters Inc. last year, it’s again one of those movies that I missed seeing in the cinema (most probably cause that was my final year of high school and didn’t have the time for it) and then never got around to watching. I loved it though when I finally saw it, and this prequel looks great! There are actually 4 different teasers, but the only difference is the joke Mike makes while he’s dreaming. Release Date: 21 June 2013 (US), 12 July 2013 (UK)

Anna Karenina

It’s yet another Keira Knightley costume drama. To be fair though this does look pretty epic, and it seems to have a great cast! Release Date: 7 September 2012 (UK), 9 November 2012 (US)

Taken 2

In the first Taken it was Liam Neeson’s daughter that was kidnapped, now in the sequel it’s his wife’s turn. If they ever make a third movie, I wonder: which family member would be next? Release Date: 5 October 2012 (US/UK)

The Watch

I wasn’t that impressed by the first teaser trailer, but this looks great! I’m loving the sci-fi element to this. Release Date: 27 July 2012 (US), 29 August 2012 (UK)

Wreck-It Ralph

This pretty much looks like Toy Story but with video game characters. The cameos in this trailer alone are awesome, I can’t wait to see who they add in the actual movie! Release Date: 2 November 2012 (US), 15 February 2013 (UK)

Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino does a Western… this could be epic. Release Date: 25 December 2012 (US), 18 January 2013 (UK)

The stage musical version of Rock of Ages holds a special place in my heart; I got to see it the day after my final thesis presentation, a day which I had been preparing for and anticipating for months. For me, that day was one day of no stress, no worries and no problems (that all ended again that evening when my cats knocked over a glass of water over my laptop… hello again, stress, worries and problems). Rock of Ages was the prefect musical to go watch; it’s hilarious, sing-a-long-able and so over-the-top silly. Sadly the movie version is lacking a lot of what made the stage version so great.

Rock of Ages is about small town girl Sherrie (Julianne Hough) who moves to L.A. to become a singer. After getting robbed the moment she arrives, she meets Drew (Diego Boneta), a fellow wanna-be singer, who works at The Bourbon Room, a popular night club. Drew helps Sherrie to convince his bosses, Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) and Lonny (Russell Brand), to give her a job as a waitress. Dennis and Lonny are preparing the club for rockband Arsenal’s last performance, hoping that the popularity of its lead singer Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) will help them save the club from unpaid taxes. Meanwhile, Mayor Mike Whitman (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Patricia Whitman (Catherine Zeta-Jones) want to clean up the city and shut the Bourbon Room down.

As you already might suspect, I can’t review this movie without considering and comparing it to the stage musical (just as you would also compare a movie based on a book with its source material). I loved the stage version too much to completely ignore it here, and the movie is quite disappointing when you know what it was based on.

My main disappointment with Rock of Ages is how funny it is. The stage version is so hilariously funny, and almost ALL those jokes have been removed. And replaced with a monkey. I think I laughed maybe once or twice, while with the stage one I was laughing constantly. The stage Rock of Ages was very tongue-in-cheek and made a lot of fun about the fact that it was a musical. The movie version sometimes reaches that tongue-in-cheekness, but still takes itself too seriously, especially with how it deals with the budding romance between Drew and Sherrie.

The movie also replaces the main two villains. In the stage version it’s German father and son architects, Frantz and Hertz, who have to deal with protester, Regina (who has been completely left out of the movie). In the movie version, it’s the mayor and his wife. I can understand why they rewrote this, but for me it just somehow didn’t work. By adding them, they also had to shift around some of their songs, which now completely don’t make sense. Especially Hit Me With Your Best Shot, which normally is sung by Frantz to his father, is now sung by the mayor’s wife to… I’m not really sure, a portrait of Stacee Jaxx?

That’s not the only song that doesn’t work. A lot of the songs are taken out of the context they had in the stage version, making them feel almost randomly chosen. The one I’m most annoyed about is Don’t Stop Believing. In the movie version, it’s the song that Drew is writing about Sherrie and early on in the movie you already hear snippets of it before it’s grand finale (of course). It’s overused and done before. The stage version knows that though and practically makes fun of it. Throughout the musical little hints are given that the song is about to come, and when it finally does you realize they’ve been dropping breadcrumbs the entire time, adapting the characters to the song (for instance, Drew each time mentions he’s from Detroit, Michigan and when that line is finally sung, they also stick “Michigan” behind it). Another good example is the opening song “Sister Christian”: why the hell in the movie is that sung by the entire bus? In the stage musical, it’s sung by Sherrie and her parents, whose last name is btw Christian… then the lyrics make waaaay more sense. I was also disappointed that they cut the longer versions of “We Built This City” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It”; those were two of my favourites!

Acting and singing wise I wasn’t disappointed. Even the actors that usually don’t sing, didn’t completely embarrass themselves in that awkward Pierce Brosnan way. Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta are great as our two leads, and they handle the songs great. I just wish their on-screen romance was a bit more over-the-top like in the stage version. That’s mainly though cause there Lonny is constantly narrating it and telling us about their troubles. Lonny has the most awesome one-liners and I wish they had expanded Russell Brand’s role to give us the Lonny from the stage version. Alec Baldwin is okayish as the ageing club-owner, but I feel as if he wasn’t the best person for the role. I loved Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx, and while his singing isn’t the best of the cast, it’s much better than what I expected from him. Stacee Jaxx’s character and storyline is much more likable than in the stage version, but I guess that was to be expected with Tom Cruise producing this.

In short, my review is: if you can see the stage musical, go see it cause it’s so much funnier than the movie (you can find tickets here). The movie is enjoyable, and the songs are great, but they just don’t make as much sense as in the stage version. It’s still a lot of fun though, I just wish it had been better.

These posters from etsy store Rowan Stocks More are just gorgeous! My favourite is the Peter Pan one; I can so imagine having this framed in my living room.

Source: 9gag.com via Lydia on Pinterest

It’s been 5 days since I saw Prometheus at the IMAX and a part of me can’t stop thinking about it. Prometheus is one of those movies where the opinions seem to be quite diverse, and I thought I should jump in with my take on the movie. This will be one of my split reviews where I first give a spoiler-free review and after a big enough warning sign go into some more detail.

If you’ve seen my blog posts from the past month, you’ll know that I only saw Alien and Aliens for the first time a couple of weeks ago… They’re just movies I somehow never got around to seeing, and I’m glad I finally did. I loved Aliens, but I’m not as a massive fan as some people I know, mainly cause I haven’t had as much time to invest into it as some.

Prometheus is a sort of prequel to the Alien franchise, set 30 years earlier, but in the same universe. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are archeologists who uncover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, which leads them to the unexplored moon LV-223. Joining them on their mission are David (Michael Fassbender), an android, Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), a Weyland Corporation employee sent to oversee their mission, and a bunch of scientists (I just *love* writing plot summaries, I’m so good at it).

The first thing that comes to mind when discussing Prometheus is how drop dead gorgeous it is. It’s got some of the most stunning visuals I’ve seen this year, and it looks awesome seeing it on a huge IMAX screen (I had a lot of problems with the 3D though, but I think that was more of a problem with my contact lenses). Everything seems so well designed and looks sleek and suitably sci-fi-y; the interior of the space ships, the space suits, nothing looks out of place (well, almost nothing. The one thing that ruined it a bit for me and jerked me back to reality was seeing my own kitchen tools in the background in one of the scenes.)

I think the weakest part of the movie is its plot. I won’t go into too much detail here (read on after the spoiler warning for more), but it’s not the smart, intelligent sci-fi movie that I was hoping for. Half of the story feels predictable, the other half feels contrived; there are some plot jumps that depend on stupid character decisions that feel forced. Prometheus does raise some interesting, worth-thinking-about issues, but I just wish it dealt with them a bit better.

Noomi Rapace is great as Shaw, bringing the right balance of a strong yet vulnerable woman. There are parts of her character that I didn’t like, but that’s got more to do with the plot than with her acting. I constantly had a feeling there was more depth in her character that we didn’t get to see. I feel pretty similar about Charlize Theron’s character. She’s great as the bitchy ice queen, but I can’t help but think they could have delved much more into her background. The highlight of the movie though is Michael Fassbender. He’s awesome as the android, David, and has some of the best moments in the movie.

Regardless of the weak plot though, I did really enjoy Prometheus. It’s not the sci-fi I was hoping it would be, but it’s still an interesting movie and one that’s worth seeing in the cinema. It’s one of the most gorgeous and well designed movies of recent years. Despite all that’s wrong with Prometheus, it did make me think and I can’t help but like that about this movie.

Scroll down past the photo to hear my spoilery-y thoughts about Prometheus.

Beware! Here Be Spoilers

As I said above I’m not a huge Alien fan, so I’m not as invested in the continuity as some other people might be. In general, I think Prometheus almost did a pretty good job with being a sort of prequel: it’s set in the same universe, on a different planet, with different aliens. And up until that very last scene, it made perfect sense. Showing the Alien in that last scene though kind of ruined it for me. I might be wrong and this might be actually explained in whatever Ridley Scott has planned for a sequel, but how I see it is that they’ve now implied that Aliens are part “weird beige monster”, part Engineer and part human. That would mean that somehow the Alien from Prometheus ends up being on the planet of Alien and Aliens, or there was another combination of monster + Engineer + human. If it wasn’t for that final scene though, I think I would have been perfectly happy with the continuity of Prometheus (I’m open for anyone pointing other stuff out though).

My main gripe with Prometheus is how weak the story is. The more I think about it, the more holes I keep discovering. Not considering the continuity aspect, a lot of the plot seems flimsy and predictable. Shaw’s pregnancy, Weyland being on board the ship, Vickers being Weyland’s daughter; you could see those plot twists coming from a mile away. Which would have been okay if they then had any impact, but each of them get handled in too quick a manner which didn’t feel right.

Besides that the underlying motivations of each character seems off; they all make decisions that don’t follow what we know about them. Why doesn’t Shaw get angry with David about her pregnancy? Some meaningful glances between them show that she clearly knows that he was behind it. Why is Vickers even on the ship? She’s mentions something about not wanting to be stuck in a board room, but wouldn’t it have made more sense if she was forced to be on the ship because of Weyland? And don’t get me started on the so-called “scientists”. They make some of the most idiotic decisions in the movie, jeopardising their own mission. Taking off your helmet in a complete alien environment? Trying to pet a weird worm-like creature? Yes, they’re scientists and they’re supposed to be on a ground-breaking, brave expedition. That doesn’t mean that they should throw caution in the wind and act like complete dumb-asses.

Finally, let’s talk about the “aliens”. I like the whole concept of initially having a virus as the monster, but I never got that claustrophobic, scary feeling that the Alien movies were so good at. It touches on it lightly when Shaw finds out she’s pregnant and tries to operate on herself to remove it, but after that one scene we go back to as it was before (and she seriously recovers that quickly?!? Okay, it’s a super special medical operating device, but that quickly?!?). Viruses are interesting, but that’s mainly when you see how paranoid and scared the characters become when dealing with a virus. In Prometheus it’s mainly the viewer who is aware of the virus and how dangerous it is, but I don’t think that’s enough for it to be truly terrifying.

Then in the last act we also get the Engineer. In theory he sounds scary: here’s one of the creators of mankind and he now wants to destroy us. It’s like finding out your parents want to kill you. And yet… why? It all feels hollow without there being any explanation of why the hell they now want us dead. Also: if this Engineer was “frozen” for the past couple of centuries and this planet was a super secret military base, why didn’t his home planet respond? I understand that this might all be explained in a sequel, but without this explanation the threat of the Engineers feels meaningless.

What did you think of Prometheus? Did you love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between? Let me know in the comments; I’m curious to hear what everyone else thought about it!

A couple of days ago I posted an awesome short called Spoiler (watch it here if you haven’t seen it yet). The director and writer of it, Daniel Thron, kindly agreed to answer some of my questions about it!

Can you tell me a bit about your background – how did you get interested in filmmaking?

I’ve been a film nerd since I was a kid.  Stuff like Star Wars obviously blew my mind, but I also used to stay up late to watch The Movie Loft on TV38, where they used to put on movies like Serpico, The French Connection, Sorcerer, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, etc – all uncut.  Really set a groove in my head as to what movies should feel like.

I didn’t pursue film immediately though, even though I always talked about it. Instead, I started doing freelance illustration, and sort of stumbled into videogames as a texture artist.  It was a while before I really got my act together. But I ended up doing more and more concept work, and was soon storyboarding sequences for in-game movies. Finally I ended up directing them – I did the cinematics for the Eidos’ ‘Thief’ series and some others. And that gave me enough of a reel to get into the VFX industry, where now I’m primarily a matte painter and concept artist for Digital Domain.

It was here that I met Karl Denham (Spoiler’s producer and cinematographer), and we’ve worked on a ton of projects together, including the feature film he directed, ‘The Waver,’ which is in post now. He also shot Ben Hansford’s hilarious ‘Tron: Reboot’ web series that I star in, in some sadly tight spandex.

Where did the idea for Spoiler come from?

Spoiler came to me when my wife and I were house-sitting for Karl while he and family were vacationing. At the time they lived in a large apartment – a great place, but the complex itself had a really strange sort of fortress-like flavor, and it had some problem with its alarm system – night after night the whole place would start ringing for no reason. I had some really bizarre dreams out of this, one of which turned into the basis for the script.

Karl and I are both big zombie movie fans, but that genre is definitely stuck in a rut. There have been some amazing breakout novels that take a different tack – World War Z, which is fantastic, or The Forest of Hands and Teeth – but movies all seem to break down into repeats of 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead — so it seemed like a real opportunity. We wanted to make something that could essentially be an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, only a little zombified. Our favorite films work like this, Blade Runner could be a Dashiel Hammet story easy. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a love story that happens to be sci-fi.

Can you tell us a bit about what went into creating Spoiler?

The production of the film itself was strung out over a number of weekends; we had a very, very small crew and almost no money (the budget was around 4 thousand bucks); everyone was working for free, donating time we could never afford in a million years. Luckily, working in VFX, we got a lot of great folks on board — Dan Platt, who did the makeup for our zombie, worked with Karl on Tron: Legacy, and did a lot of the practical effects for Exorcist III (the unsung great Exorcist movie!), and the my friend David Bryant, who played the trapped husband, has also been doing VFX for years. Much of the settings were utterly stolen, guerrilla style stuff — including a lot of the apartment exteriors. It was pretty amazing that we had guys running around in HAZMAT gear, and no one gave us a hassle, but there it is. The actors are all friends of ours, as well — I’ve known Michael Faradie and Luke Albright for many years, and have been dying for a chance to work with them.

The technical stuff: We shot almost everything on Cannon 7ds, though some of the interiors were shot with Panasonic HVXs with lens adapters. The 7ds are amazing because they are so portable and light-sensitive that you can pretty much shoot anywhere with a skeleton crew. We lit some of the scenes with ipads — no kidding. Chris Stack, our godsend of an editor, cut on Final Cut Pro, and the color work was done by Karl in After Effects.  But all of this is for nothing without great sound design, and I owe Robert Flynn a case of whiskey for saving our bacon.

Will you return to the world of Spoiler?

We are so excited by folks response, it’s hard to describe, but yeah Karl and I are looking at both a feature and TV development, and have had a lot of serious interest in both. We’re really proud of the world we built out for this thing, and this short only shows a fraction of it, so we’re anxious to expand. We’ve talked about the possibility of a Kickstarter campaign as well, so hopefully we’ll be sending you some good news shortly! But in either case we are so psyched that you dug the picture, and can’t wait to start shooting some more stuff.

Los Angeles coroner Tommy Rossman is the man they call when things go wrong.

This so reminded me of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh series! I really like the idea of a post-zombie attack world that isn’t completely rundown and apocalyptic; it’s just our world, but with extra contingencies in place to deal with zombies.

Les Miserables is one of those musicals of which I know the words of its most famous songs, but have never actually seen in its entirety. I am really looking forward to it though; the cast looks amazing. Ever since the 2009 Oscars, I’ve wanted to see Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway do a musical together (on a sidenote: I found out that Hugh Jackman’s opening number that year, which I keep on watching over and over again, was actually written by Community’s Dan Harmon! Awesome!).

Anne Hathaway sounds great! It’s not the prettiest version I’ve heard, but I’ve always found that this song doesn’t necessarily have to be sung prettily; Hathaway brings the right type of distress and sadness into it. I can’t wait to see the final cut of this!

Another song I’m really looking forward to is On My Own. They wisely cast Samantha Barks in the role, and she can definitely sing this song:

The Avengers is finally out today! I know I should call it with the actual name it came out under here (Avengers Assemble), but it just doesn’t sound right. I’ve been looking forward to a movie called The Avengers, not a movie called Avengers Assemble.

I was lucky enough though to see the movie 2 weeks ago, and it’s awesome! It’s exactly what I was hoping it would be. I loved the banter between some of the characters, and there are some brilliant one-liners and funny dialogue. Plus of course the action scenes are amazing.

To tie in with The Avengers opening Mondo has created some gorgeous character posters. All of them are sadly sold out already, except for the Iron Man poster which hasn’t been released yet. They’re a bit pricey, but I so would have loved to have these hanging on my walls. I love the colour scheme of the Hawkeye poster, but my favourite is the Iron Man one. Which one is your favourite?