Episode 161: “Once upon a time there lived a young prince”

Creepy short movie. Made me jump a couple of times:

Interesting links for February 10th through February 15th:

• ‘Love Actually’ Interconnections – Diagram showing all the relationships between the characters of Love Actually.
• Wonderland: Escher lego – I love staring at Escher drawings, my logical mind always wants to make sense out of them while realizing that's not really possible. How to make Escher better? By adding Lego of course!
• ‘Library Loft’ Condo: 100+ Built-In Wall Cabinets & Shelves – Ooh, I've always wanted a house with built-in bookcases, but the nooks and crannies in this design are awesome!
• Toy Story 3 Trailer Easter Eggs Revealed | /Film – Awesome hidden easter eggs! If there are so many already in the trailer alone, how many will be in the actual movie?
• Minimalistic Posters – Brilliant minimalistic posters for shows, like 24, Macguyver, Twin Peaks, and Battlestar Galactica. I love the ones for Scrubs and Friends!
• Sin to Win?: Video Gaming’s Most Ridiculous Marketing Stunts – List of 5 marketing stunts to promote video games.

Last week when Siany at A Change of Dress blogged about a cute little skater dress from New Look, I just knew I had to go in to try it on. So on Friday I had a look at New Look’s new Oxford Street store (where Borders used to be… bit depressing to see how different it now looks) and the dress fit perfectly!

It’s available in 5 different colours (black, alabaster, grey, peach and mint green) for only £16. I ended up getting the black one, mainly because that’s the only one of the 5 colours I could actually find. But even then, I’m not really sure whether the other colours really suited me (especially not the peach or the green… alabaster maybe). I love how simple this dress is; it’s not perfectly made (there are a couple of sewing faults near the waist), but it falls in a flowy fun way. It’s a bit thin for winter, I think, but with spring coming up it’s perfect!

Check out the New Look website for the full details.

I’ve tired wearing hairbands with stuff on them, like roses and butterflies, but they also end up looking silly. But this hairband could look super cute!

You can get it from the V&A online store for only £14!

GelaSkins has added a new artist to their ever growing collection of skins: Frank Miller! These skins look awesome:

There are six designs in total, some available for iPhones, others only for laptops (depending on the shape of the image).

Take a look at the artist page on GelaSkins.com to see all of Frank Miller’s available designs.

The Last Airbender: We already saw the Superbowl TV spot last week, and I was hoping to see a bit more of the acting in this one. I still think this looks amazing in the visual effects department and the martial arts. Acting wise though… still not convinced; it doesn’t seem promising that they’re not showing any proper acting scenes with Aang. I want to like this and I’m still excited for it, but I’m scared this could turn out to be a disappointment. Release Date: July 2nd (US), August 13th (UK)

The Losers: This looks like fun! The Losers centers upon the members of an elite U.S. Special Forces unit sent into the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. The team find themselves the target of a lethal betrayal instigated from inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max. Presumed dead, the group makes plans to even the score when they’re joined by the mysterious Aisha, a beautiful operative with her own agenda. Release Date: 9 April 2010 (UK, US)

Killers: Spencer Aimes (Ashton Kutcher) is just your average, undercover, government-hired super-assassin accustomed to a life of exotic European locales, flashy sports cars and even flashier women. But when he meets Jen Kornfeldt (Katherine Heigl), a beautiful, fun-loving computer tech recovering from a bad break-up, he finds true love… and happily trades international intrigue for domestic bliss. Release Date: 4 June 2010 (US)

The Ghost Writer: When a successful British ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), his agent assures him it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start—not least because his predecessor on the project, Lang’s long-term aide, died in an unfortunate accident. Release Date: unknown

Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec: Directed by Luc Besson, an adventure set in the early party of the 20th century and focused on a popular novelist and her dealings with would-be suitors, the cops, monsters, and other distractions. Release Date: unknown

She’s Out of My League: An average Joe meets the perfect woman, but his lack of confidence and the influence of his friends and family begin to pick away at the relationship. Release Date: 12 March 2010 (UK, US)

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps: When Gordan Gekko (Michael Douglas) comes out of prison, he essentially has to redefine himself, redefine his character, he’s looking for that second chance. Shia LaBeouf portrays Jake Moore, who is the fiancé of Gekko’s daughter, played by Carey Mulligan; Josh Brolin as the head of an investment bank; and Susan Sarandon as Jake’s mother. Release Date: 23 April 2010 (UK, US)

MacGruber: The long awaited movie about America’s most awesome hero. Ehm, well, no. This doesn’t look as bad as it could have, but it’s still not something I’m interested in seeing. Release Date: 23 April 2010 (US)

Cemetery Junction: A 1970s-set comedy centered on three upstart professional men working at an insurance company. Directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Release Date: 14 April 2010 (UK)

The final Secret Santa present I got was a beautiful necklace from Colleen of Lavender Lines:

Thanks, Colleen!

Episode 160: *purr*

Awesome cat:

Roger The Cat from Goro Fujita on Vimeo.

Slowly working my way through reviewing the rest of the movies I watched last year. I also still need to do some proper reviews of the movies I’ve watched this year. I can’t believe it’s February already!

9

Great concept, bad execution. 9 takes place in the future, where mankind has been wiped out by machines. When a small burlap doll, called 9, comes to life, he has no idea what has happened to this world. Together with a group of other dolls, he tries to figure why they were created and were meant to do.

Visually 9 looks gorgeous; the doll designs, the apocalyptic world, the monster robots, it all looks superb. But the story behind it was just too weak. There’s no real answer to any of the questions raised and the plot just jumps from one encounter to the other. It kind of feels like a bad video game, with the plot taking a back seat to the visuals. Such a shame because this could have been amazing.

High School Musical

Yeah, I finally went ahead and watched this. I always find it a bit hypocritical to completely trash a movie if you haven’t seen it. Was it as bad as I expected? Yep. Did I enjoy it? Ehm, honestly? Yes. It’s so cheesy and predictable, but it’s a fun movie that never takes itself seriously. And some of the songs are pretty catchy.

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Staying in the realm of musicals for a bit, I had wanted to watch Repo for ages.  The movie is set in the year 2056, where GeneCo rents out organs to people. If they can’t pay though, the Repo man is sent to collect their organs…

A horror opera in a futuristic world. Awesome idea! In reality though, I didn’t like the movie as much as I had expected. I didn’t like any of the songs and the story just wasn’t that interesting. I loved the comic book snapshots throughout the film though and adored all the actors singing (Anthony Stewart Head!!). I just wished they had better songs to sing.

Next

I should have expected how bad this was, seeing as Nicholas Cage is in it. It’s loosely based on a Philip K. Dick story, but plotwise it really isn’t that impressive. Cage stars as a man who can see a couple of seconds into the future and is wanted by the FBI because of this skill. A waste of time: avoid.

Eragon

I love a good dragon story, but Eragon was just aweful. The acting was bad, the story was boring (and completely ripped off from Star Wars of course) and just didn’t make sense. The dragon was pretty though.

Eagle Eye

I watched this straight after Next and Eragon, thinking I’d do a bad movie afternoon. Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) and Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of dangerous situations, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move. Surprisingly it was more enjoyable than I had expected. It’s not the greatest action or thriller ever made (no by far), but it’s a good fun movie for a rainy afternoon.

The Escapist

Frank is a convict fourteen years into a life sentence without parole. But when his estranged daughter falls ill, he is determined to escape and be with her before it’s too late. He develops an ingenious escape plan, recruiting a bunch of other inmates escapists, each with specific skills to make their escape work.

I really liked this movie. It was a bit slow going, but the way the story unfolds was pretty cool. Instead of just a normal narrative, we get to see two stories simultaneously: the preparation of the escape and the escape itself. I was expecting some weird scifi twist (mainly because I had seen glimpses of a London underground station during the escape in the trailer and was trying to figure out why they were underground, but that’s actually never explained), but even without that it’s an interesting movie.

City of Ember

Another underground movie. For generations, the people of the City of Ember have lived underground. But Ember’s once powerful generator is failing… and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Two teenagers must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city’s existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever.

I wish I had read the book first, but it’s still a great movie. Yes, it’s a kids movie, but the way the fantasy world has been built up is charming. Bill Murray is good as the unlikable Mayor and Saoirse Ronan is sweet as the young heroine.

Vantage Point

I always love slightly different narratives in movies. In Vantage Point we see an attempted assassination on the American President from several vantage points. Instead of just repeating the same exact period of time from different points of view though, we slowly get more and more parts of the story. I had expected it to become a bit tiring after a while, but the movie manages to keep you interested and intrigued without repeating too much of what you seen already. Some of the ‘twists’ were a bit predictable, but even I hadn’t figured it all out.

Oscar

I wonder how many of you have even heard of this movie? Oscar stars Sylvester Stallone as Snaps Provolone, mafia boss who promises his dying father that he’ll turn into a honest businessman. On the day that he’s supposed to ‘go straight’ all things go wrong, starting with his accountant announcing he wants to marry Snaps’ daughter.

This is one of those movies I remember loving as a kid/teen, but it had been ages since I had last seen it. Was it as good as I remember? No, but that never is the case with movies you worshipped as a kid. It’s still a funny movie and has some hilarious mixups in it.

When we moved to our new apartment a year ago, the one major thing that was lacking was shelf space. Now I’m not the best person when it comes to interior design. Somehow I’m a little bit too logical and practical and always go for the solution which makes sense space and money wise. And of course the same happened here.

I bought a huge bookcase from IKEA (120cm wide, 40cm deep and 192cm high) which could fit 3 rows of books on one shelf. Awesome, I thought. Very space efficient and the maximum cost vs shelf space solution. But it was really way too large and bulky; it took too much space up and actually only fitted on one spot in the entire house. Plus there were 2 rows of books which I couldn’t see or reach! I’m enough of a book addict that I want to SEE my lovely books.

So when we realised that we needed a new mattress we thought we might as just as well order a couple of new book cases. I actually went for the same IKEA system, but ones that were half as deep (only 20cm vs 40cm):

These are perfect for my books! I need a couple more shelves, but I love how flat these shelves are. I’ve got 3 bookcases now in total (the 2 you see above and exactly the same one against another wall) and there’s most than space for all my books.

The bookcase is £35 on IKEA and comes in 4 colours.