Episode 155: “It’s love, not Santa Claus”

1 Year, 342 Movies:

I’ve blogged about one of these type of bookcases before, and I still love the idea of a bit of personal space within the shelves where you can curl up and read you book. Also, loving the little coffee mug shelf!

Via The Blog on the Bookshelf

My discovery of 2009 was Lush and their wonderful products. I’m so addicted to their stuff now! So I’ve decided to give a couple of their products away to one reader!

Now I know not everyone likes the same stuff, so my question to you dear readers is: What type of scents do you like? I love honey, jasmine and strawberries, so Lush products like Flying Fox and American Cream are my faves. To enter leave a comment behind with your favourites scents, and I’ll try to put a nice sample of Lush products together for the winner based on what you like. Also let me know if you have a bath or not! You’ve got until January 1st 18:00 to enter. Btw, if you re-tweet you get an extra entry!

Anybody is free to enter, but there shouldn’t be any weird delivery costs or restrictions (like I have to be able to ship liquids etc to your country).

Episode 154: “On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me”

The Muppets perform on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:

And then there was this Muppet video a couple of weeks ago which I hadn’t shared with you yet:

I received a pair of World of Warcraft books a couple of weeks ago that I knew would be a prefect Christmas giveaway!

The first book is a World of Warcraft Master Guide (from Brady Games) with tons of tips, useful lists and maps.

The second book is an Atlas with hand-drawn maps of regions, dungeons and towns.

To enter, leave a comment behind answering the following: How did you get into gaming? You’ve got until 1st January 2010 18:00 to enter. Btw, if you re-tweet you get an extra entry!

Anybody is free to enter, as long as there are no weird delivery costs or restrictions.

Have a Merry Christmas, everybody! Thanks for coming by and reading Miss Geeky the past year. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Kick-Ass: I already showed you one trailer, but a new red band one has just been released focusing on Hit Girl. Wow, this movie looks even more awesome than I thought. It’s got that Kill Bill/Wanted vibe going (although leaning more to Wanted) and looks, well, kickass! Release Date: 2nd April 2010 (UK), 16 April 2010 (US)

The Karate Kid: Set in an exotic Asian locale, the new film will borrow elements of the original plot, wherein a bullied youth (Jaden Smith) learns to stand up for himself with the help of an eccentric mentor (Jackie Chan). Some films just shouldn’t be remade and I still think Karate Kid is one of those. This doesn’t look as terrible as I imagined it could be, but I still don’t see the point of this movie. (plus correct me if I’m wrong here, but that isn’t karate shown in the trailer, right? And it’s set in China, not Japan?) Release Date: June 2010 (US), July 2010 (UK)

Knight & Day: This movie is about a lonely woman (Cameron Diaz) whose seemingly harmless blind date suddenly turns her life upside-down when a super spy (Tom Cruise) takes her on a violent worldwide journey to protect a powerful battery that holds the key to an infinite power source. Kind of getting a feeling of Mr and Mrs Smith with a touch of True Lies. Release Date: 2 July 2010 (US, UK)

Cop Out: Two longtime NYPD partners (Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) on the trail of a stolen, rare, mint-condition baseball card find themselves up against a merciless, memorabilia-obsessed gangster. I’ve been hearing a lot about this movie lately, but all in regards to the title change (it was called A Couple of Dicks first). Not sure about it though, doesn’t really look that funny. Release Date: 26 February 2010 (UK, US)

Sex and the City 2: To be honest, I couldn’t care less about this Sex and the City movie. I never got into the tv show and sure as hell didn’t go to the cinema for the first movie. But I know I’m an exception and that (Twilight aside) most girls have been dying for this movie. Release Date: 28 May 2010 (US, UK)

Repo Men: Take the world of Repo! The Genetic Opera, cut away the singing, and you’ve got Repo Men. Set in a world, where you can buy expensive mechanical organs from a company called the Union. If you don’t pay, the repo men are sent to take back what’s theirs, no matter the cost. Jude Law plays Remy, one of the best repo men around, until he suffers a cardia failure and is fitted with a heart from the companyWhen he can’t make the payments, The Union sends Remy’s former partner Jake (Forest Whitaker), to track him down. Release Date: 2 April 2010 (US)

Furry Vengeance: This. Looks. HORRIBLE. A real estate developer (Brendan Fraser) moves his family from Chicago to Oregon when his job calls for him to oversee the building of a major housing development. But when his latest project threatens the homes of the local forest creatures, the animals seek revenge by turning a peaceful cul-de-sac under construction into a battlefield of epic proportions. Release Date: April 2010 (US), May 2010 (UK)

Frozen: A typical day on the slopes turns into a chilling nightmare for three snowboarders when they get stranded on the chairlift before their last run. As the ski patrol switches off the night lights, they realize with growing panic that they’ve been left behind dangling high off the ground with no way down. Release Date: 5 February 2010 (US)

Valentine’s Day: The second trailer for this movie. I know it looks quite cheesy, but I’m hoping it has that Love Actually vibe going on. Release Date: 12 February 2010 (US, UK)

Shrek Forever After: There really milking this series, and it’s looking even as more annoying than ever. Release Date: May 2010 (US), July 2010 (UK)

The Bounty Hunter: a bounty hunter (Gerard Butler) who is hired to track down his own ex-wife (Jennifer Aniston), who has skipped out on bail. Release Date: March 2010 (US), April 2010 (UK)

Thanks for all the entries to the Dollhouse giveaway. I had a lot of fun reading everyone’s comments on what their favourite Joss Whedon moment was. Alas, there can only be one winner though, so I’ve randomly picked one person to get the dvd.

And the winner is…

*drum roll, please*

Adrian!

With the comment:

This is a bit of a cheat, but for me it’s got to be the entirety of Ariel in Firefly – to me, that ep really fulfilled the promise of Firefly, and it was great to see the diversity of the world that he’d created. Ah well, poor Firefly!

Enjoy the dvds, Adrian! As for all the other people who entered, I’m also doing a giveaway of the dvd of Moon right now, which will stay open till the 27th. Besides that I’ll be doing another contest on Christmas Day and two more next week!

I started off this TV season with trying to review whatever I watched weekly, but I quickly fell behind with that. I’ll try to keep it up a bit more when the shows come back in January, cause I do like writing about the shows I watch this way. For now, I’ll just review what I’ve seen so far: we’re halfway through the 2009/2010 season, with most shows going on a break for the Christmas holiday (or longer). I watch a quite a bit though, so I’ll be doing these reviews in multiple parts (at least 3 I think).

Warning: it should be pretty obvious, but there will be spoilers. Mainly for seasons prior to the current one, but also some stuff about the current season. I’m trying to keep spoilers to the current season at a minimum though.

Glee

This has got to be my new favourite show this season! I love the musical numbers they do each episode, and some of the guest stars they’ve had are amazing (loooved Kristen Chenoweth). So many of the songs have been added to my music library, of which most of them I like more than the originals. Highlights for me were Don’t Stop Believin’, Maybe This Time, Somebody To Love and Defying Gravity. Here’s the Glee version of Defying Gravity:

While I love the songs, the story lines don’t always work for me. I think it’s mainly because I’m liking the side characters more than the ones they are focusing on. I want to see more of Kurt, Mercedes, Artie and Tina! I loved the one episode focusing on Kurt and Artie (Wheels); we finally got to see a softer side to Sue Silvester and Kurt’s story with his dad was just touching. But why don’t we see what happens with Artie and Tina? They just left us hanging there, and it hasn’t been revisited since.

I’m glad the two main “secrets” were finally revealed, maybe they can focus now on some other things. I really liked the one-off pairing of Puck and Rachel, and I hope maybe the writers go in that direction again. Plus I like Puck’s voice way better than Finn’s who seems to be getting most of the main guy vocals (even Kurt’s and Artie’s voices I prefer over Finn). One final thing: yay for Emma and Will!

Glee returns on April 13 in the US (eek, that’s a long wait!) and will begin airing in the UK on Monday January 11th (re-airing the pilot at 9pm with the second episode straight after it).

The Vampire Diaries

This series had a rocky start for me, cause I was constantly comparing it to the books they’re based on. They are loosely, very loosely based on the books, with characters and events kind of inspired by them. Around episode 4 I accepted that they weren’t like the books and started following it with a more open mind. It reminds me a lot of Roswell, which weirdly enough were also based on books I loved and which turned out nothing like those books, but was still enjoyable. Mysterious stranger comes to town, girl-next-door falls for him, attacks on people in the town are being made, alien/vampire boy knows it’s someone like him, girl finds out he’s not “from this world”, they team up to find who is behind the attacks. Both Roswell and Vampire Diaries fit this description, right?

Is it great TV? Well, it’s not the type of show to win awards or stuff like that. But like Roswell, it’s so enjoyable. Ian Somerhalder (Damon) is hot in this and is deliciously arrogant and funny. Nina Dobrev’s Elena is a much kinder and identifiable person than how she was originally written, and I’m warming up to her. This series wouldn’t have worked if Elena remained the stuck-up snow queen, icy bitch she was in the books. I like how they’re actually expanding Bonnie’s role more with her witch powers being much more fully developed. I’m really curious as to how the second half of this season will be and if it will stick to the main plot of the original story (especially in regards to the antagonist), but even if it doesn’t I’m hooked now!

Vampire Diaries returns on January 21 in the US with episode 11. In the UK, it will air on ITV in the new year.

Fringe

I loved last season’s finale and was surprised to discover how much they revealed. Peter being actually from the other world (at least it was strongly implied), Walter having crossed over to the other world and stolen him, finally meeting William Bell. The finale was awesome! This season started off with just as a great episode: more reveals, more surprises. Great season, right? Well, kind of. I adore the archy bits of the show, and, while still entertaining, the stand alone episodes can be a bit of a drag. I understand they can’t make it too archy, that would scare off viewers and be difficult to keep up, but for me the archy episodes are just more interesting (and often less predictable).

I tried the Spot-the-Observer in every episode (if you hadn’t noticed yet, The Observer appears in every single episode in the background, just search for the YouTube video of that), but after like 5 minutes my brain forgets and isn’t paying attention to that anymore. I did like the Observer-centric episode, but it only left us with more questions: are there more Observers? What are they each specifically observing? Are they time travelers? Why was he named August? Argh!

I’d love to see more of the other world and William Bell; they are so key to all the mysteries. Also why haven’t we seen anymore of Olivia’s psychic abilities? I thought they’d revisit that this season? Anyhow, it’s still an interesting show and one of the more watchable sci-fi-ish stuff on TV right now.

Fringe will return on January 11th in the US and is currently airing on Sky1 in the UK.

Grey’s Anatomy

This is one of the shows that has had lots of ups and downs the past years; it started out great (loved season 1 and 2), but after that it got a bit meh. I still watched it, I love the characters and the cases every week, but you could see it didn’t feel as good as the those initial two seasons. I’m glad I continued watching though, cause I’m really liking this season so far. There have been quite some changes for the interns and residents of Seattle Grace, and most of them for the better.

Mer and McDreamy are finally peacefully together and although there is still drama in their life, that drama is not about their love life. And it’s refreshing. It’s good to see them both in such a good place, with Mer being way more stable and the optimist, not more the dark and twisty one. I think there are enough interesting stories for them as a couple, without the drama being the never-ending loop of them splitting up and getting back together again.

Then there’s Christina and McArmy. Loving their tormented story. Although the addition of Teddy has me slightly worried. Not another triangle! Another good change in my eyes is less Izzy. I used to like her with Alex (and Denny in the 2nd season), but so far every episode without has felt better. There are so many other interesting stories this year: Mer and little Grey, Callie and Arizona, little Grey and Marc and Marc’s pregnant daughter, the new interns vs our old interns, the Chief’s downhill slide; so far I think this season has been much better than the the previous two. Grey’s Anatomy is once again a show I’m really looking forward to every week.

Grey’s Anatomy will return on January 14 in the US and will start airing season 6 in the UK in January.

Desperate Housewives

Wow, season 6 already. Desperate Housewives hasn’t been “must-see” TV for me for ages (it’s had good and bads per season though), but it’s one of those shows you can easily watch while doing other stuff (be it folding up laundry or reading papers). The mysteries of this season are pretty intriguing: who strangled Julie and what is the new family on the block (the Bolen’s) hiding? Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos and Joey) as Angie Bolen is pretty interesting as our new ‘housewife’, kind of replacing Edie as the not very polished, says what’s on her mind character. But with a much more mysterious past. So how about the other housewives? Nothing really that pops out as “Ooh! That was exciting and such a great episode!”

Desperate Housewives return on January 3 in the US.

That’s it for this first part of the TV series halfway season review. Except the next ones in the next two weeks; haven’t reviewed loads of shows yet, like Flashforward, the new Melrose Place and the Big Bang Theory.

One of the best movies of this year for me was definitely Moon. Here’s a bit of what I had to say about it in my review:

Moon takes place sometime in the near future, where scientists have discovered an alternative energy resource harvested from the Moon. Astronaut Sam Bell is an employee for Lunar Industries stationed on a lunar base to extract this resource and send it back to Earth. He is almost at the end of his three year contract, having spent the past three years without human contact, and only his robot Gerty as a companion.

…

Moon is very much an intelligent sci-fi story about the moral consequences and dilemmas of a “What If” situation. It moves pretty slow, and harks back to those sci-fi movies of old, like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Outland.

If you’re still in need for a present for someone and that person likes intelligent movies (being a sci-fi fan is not a must), get this movie. It’s a brilliant, low-budget movie with stunning effects and an interesting plot.

And again thanks to Zavvi.com, I’ve got one DVD to giveaway of Moon! To enter the competition, leave a comment behind on this post with your favourite sci-fi movie.

You’ve got until Sunday 27th 18:00 (UK) to enter. Again sorry to disappoint, but this competition is only open to those based in the UK. For those of you overseas, keep an eye on the blog tomorrow, there will be a giveaway open for everyone!