It’s Oscar time tonight! If all goes right, I’ll have seen all Best Picture nominees this year; the only one I’m still missing is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and the plan is to see that in the cinema this afternoon. Besides the 9 Best Picture nominees I’ve tried to watch as many of the other movies with nominations, but there are still a couple I wish I had the chance to see. I won’t cover all those here though, just the 8 Best Picture noms that I saw.

The Artist

Plot: A silent movie star has to deal with the rise of talkies. Oh, and the movie is actually a silent black-and-white movie too.

I thought this was going to be such a gimmicky movie, and it turned out it was. Only: I don’t care. It’s beautifully shot, has a great (although somewhat predictable) story, and the characters are so likeable. Jean Dujardin is charming as the silent movie star, and Berenice Bejo is so sweet and adorable as the bright young actress. It also made me actually want to watch more old movies!

The Descendants

Plot: Hawaiian guy’s wife is in a coma. Guy finds out about secrets the wife had, while dealing with his kids and his family’s trust of 25,000 acres of land.

I did not like The Descendants. I can sort of see what people like about it, but it just wasn’t a movie for me at all. Yes, George Clooney is great as the troubled guy whose wife is in a coma, but George Clooney is great in almost everything he does. The plot is just slow and boring, and I came out of the movie feeling as if I just wasted two hours of my life.

The Help

Plot: It’s 1960s, Mississippi. A young white woman tries to write a book about the perspective of the black maids working for her friends’ families.

I really like the movies Emma Stone chooses lately. I loved Easy A and Crazy, Stupid, Love, and she’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to The Amazing Spiderman. The trailer makes it seem like she’s the main character (and it makes it look like this is a upbeat cheesy chick flick, which it isn’t) and even though she’s great, this is really Viola Davis’ movie. She’s great as the quiet maid, who decides to share her story with this young optimistic journalist.

Hugo

Plot: The story of an orphaned boy living in a Paris railway station and the mysterious grumpy toy maker who works there.

Hugo is I think one of my favourite movies of last year. It’s so much more than just a kids movie, which I wasn’t expecting. I should have, cause it is Martin Scorsese, but he can be a bit hit-and-miss for me lately (I really didn’t like Shutter Island, and fell asleep during The Departed). The movie is loosely based on some real life events and people, which I didn’t know before going into the movie, but afterwards I spent a couple of hours reading up on the history behind it and it’s a fascinating read.

Midnight In Paris

Plot: During a midnight stroll through Paris, a screenwriter ends up meeting his heroes.

I loved Midnight in Paris! I don’t want to say too much about it and spoil certain stuff (although I’m not sure if it’s really spoiling if it happens that early on in a movie and actually is referred to in most summaries), cause I went into it completely blind and really enjoyed it. It’s just such a quirky and sort of romantic movie.

Moneyball

Plot: Baseball + Maths = Money

This was the movie I was least looking forward to, mainly cause I thought it was just another sports movie. It is, but it’s a sports movie with maths! And it’s very relevant to what I’m working on at the moment: they’re taking large sets of data and discovering useful, valuable patterns.

The Tree of Life

Plot: Let me get back to you on that, I’m still not 100% sure what this was about.

I finished watching this movie last night and I’m still not sure what I thought about it. It’s definitely a gorgeous movie, and for that alone I would recommend seeing it. The first hour though feels like a weird mashup of a nature documentary, a music video without the right music and an artsy stage monologue (“hack-y sack”, bonus points if you get my reference), with lots of “quiet” moments giving you time to reflect on what you just saw. After that first hour it feels a bit more linear, but there’s still that almost pretentious feeling of “this is a deep and profound movie, and you can interpret it however you want”.

War Horse

Plot: Boy meets horsy. WWII. Horsy becomes War Horsy. War Horsy makes friends.

I was really looking forward to this movie; I had heard so many good things about the play it’s based on and was expecting the movie to be great as well. There are apparently some people out there who thought this movie was great (otherwise it wouldn’t have been nominated), but I wasn’t that impressed by it. The entire first act with the boy and horse felt too sentimental, and we’re constantly told how “special” this horse is (without the horse having done anything yet). I did like most of the almost stand-alone type stories in the second act, even though they continue the “he’s a special horse” spiel. I didn’t completely hate the movie, but it just felt too soppy.

This is such a great idea, if you don’t have a lot of space: store your books in the rafters.

I’d love to do something like this in my living room. The only problem would be: I’d be too short to reach those books!

Via Apartment Therapy

It’s Valentine’s Day! It’s a bit late to send these awesome geeky cards today, but why not get them and send them any other day than Valentines? It doesn’t need to be Valentine’s Day to tell someone you love them!

You Are The CSS To My HTML – $4

Fezzes Are Red – $5.50

Nyan Cat – $2.50

You’re My Type – $3.00

Eye Chart – $5.00

Love Equation – $4.00

If Else – $3.75

Not Sent From My iPhone – $4.00

#iloveyou – $3.50

My Love For You Has No Bugs – $3.75

Ooh, this jewelry is just so gorgeous (and pricy, but let’s forget about that for now and just drool at the pretties):

Silver and gold wide multi wave cuff with three butterflies

Feather Earrings

Silver drop wave earrings with single butterfly

Lace collar necklace in silver with 18ct Gold links inspired by orchids, fractals and the Chaos Theory

Via Domestic Sluttery

I always like getting my hands on the newest gadgets in most cases, but when it comes to phones… I can’t really be that bothered. The problem is (and yes I know it’s a bit weird in this age) I just don’t make that many phone calls. Why? A) Most of my friends I’ll contact through other means (email, Twitter, Facebook, etc) and B) I hate phone calls. So why would I bother getting a expensive gadget whose main purpose is making calls?!? Yes, most smartphones will do a whole lot of stuff next to it too (and quite well), but still why pay so much money for something that inherently I don’t like doing?

For the past few years, my setup has been this: an iPod Touch, a mifi, and a cheap mobile phone that does what it does best: making calls. My current phone though is more than 4 years old, and it is on its last legs. So I’ve been looking around for a replacement, which will survive the next few years. If possible, it would be cool if I could use it as a wifi hotspot too (cutting out the MiFi), but this isn’t completely necessary.

So when I got contacted whether I wanted to try out a Samsung Galaxy Fit for a couple of weeks, I thought “sure, why not?” It would be great to try out an Android for the first time, and see if it suits me.

What I liked about the Galaxy Fit was how simple and sleek the design felt, yet it still felt sturdy. I even dropped it quite hard a couple of times (by accident, I swear! I’m just pretty clumsy) and it survived each time: no chips, no back panels or batteries popping off/out, no front panel major shattering. The front of the phone has a glossy metallic finish, while the back has a ribbed plastic panel. For a phone on the lower end of the price spectrum it surprisingly doesn’t feel like a cheap phone.

On the front the Galaxy Fit has one real physical button, and two touch-sensitive ones for “menu” and “back”. It comes with Android 2.2 (Froyo) installed, and to me it was sometimes a bit confusing what button did what (and when you weren’t supposed to use a button, but the touch screen).  On the left side the Galaxy Fit has two simple volume control buttons and a microSD card slot. The microSD slot felt a bit finicky, but this isn’t something I would be opening/closing on a daily basis anyway. On the top is a mini-USB port with a nice sliding door cover (much much better than the finicky microSD card slot cover). Finally, on the right is the on/off button.

Battery life was interesting. I never properly kept track of how long it lasted, but when using it as my main communication device (so also checking emails, Twitter, etc.) it would easily last the day. Using it as a wifi hotspot drastically cut that down to only a couple of hours. What I loved though was that it lasted a full week without charging when I was only using it for calls and text messages (bear in mind though, I’m a very “light” user, so it won’t last this long for everyone).

The one thing I didn’t like about the Galaxy Fit was the screen. It has a low resolution at 240×330, but quite a large display, causing the screen to look grainy and fuzzy. The first time I turned it on I wasn’t sure if it was broken or if it was meant like that. It’s meant like that. It’s not too much of a problem, especially if you’re just going to do basic stuff with it, but it is something to bear in mind if you’re thinking of getting one.

I need more geek jewellery! I realized that even though I often blog about these awesome geeky necklaces and earrings, I never actually end up getting them. That needs to change!

Here are 5 awesome necklaces I’ve come across, now I need to decide which of these to get (well, which of these to get first, eventually I hope I can just get all of them). Plus it’s my birthday soon…

1. HTML Glass Pendant – $23 on etsy

2. Portal Necklace – $16 on etsy

3. Pacman Ghost Necklace – $18 on etsy

4. BSG Pilot Wings – $32 on Her Universe

5. Caffeine Molecule Necklace – $85 on ThinkGeek

So which one of these should I get? I think my favourite one is the Portal necklace, although the html one comes closely behind that. I also really like the caffeine molecule, but I think there should be cheaper options out there.

Which one is your favourite?

These drawings from viria13 on deviantart are awesome! They’re exactly how I imagine animation princesses would look in real life 🙂

My favourite is Belle (of course), although I would have loved to see a version of her blue dress too.