It’s been more than a month since I’ve done a trailer roundup! With the final Twilight movie finally being released, most of those trailers seem to be aimed at the Twilight crowd; which movie will be the next angsty teen paranormal box-office hit?

Now You See Me

A magician heist movie? Count me in. This looks like it could be a lot of fun, and it’s got an awesome cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson, Melanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. This could be a lot of fun indeed.
Release Date: 7 June 2013 (US), 21 June 2013 (UK)

Beautiful Creatures

One for the Twihards. This paranormal teen romance is about Lean, a 15 year old witch who will need to choose between Light and Dark on her sixteenth birthday. It looks like a weird and gorgeous world, albeit a bit goofy.
Release Date: 13 February 2013 (US, UK)

The Host

This looks good! I know it’s written by Twilight’s Stephanie Meyer, but it’s directed by Andrew Niccol and I’ve always enjoyed his movies.
Release Date: 29 March 2013 (US, UK)

Dark Skies

As the Barret family’s peaceful suburban life is rocked by an escalating series of disturbing events, they come to learn that a terrifying and deadly force is after them. Ooh, aliens! I used to watch a ton of alien abduction TV movies, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen one.
Release Date: 22 February 2013 (US)

Jack The Giant Slayer

This looks cheesy as hell, but I kind of want to see it. Ewan McGregor’s hair! Those giants! It looks ridiculous and so-shiny-it-can’t-be-real fake, but part of me doesn’t care.
Release Date: 1 March 2013 (US), 22 March 2013 (UK)

Epic

I like the look of this movie, even though it does seem a bit like an updated version of Fern Gully. I’m not sure about the title though; it doesn’t seem that “Epic”.
Release Date: 24 May 2013 (US, UK)

The Heat

I didn’t like Bridesmaids at all, so it doesn’t surprise me that I’m not liking this new movie from the same director. If you liked Bridesmaids, chance are you’ll like this.
Release Date: 5 April 2013 (US, UK)

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

I’ve got the books lying around, but I still haven’t gotten around to reading them. It looks like it could be fun, but the acting and effect don’t look that promising. Still it can’t be as bad as Twilight.
Release Date: 23 August 2013 (US, UK)

Writers come in all different flavours. You’ll find the ones that create one interesting series and stick writing only for that series for the rest of their lives. Then you have the ones that will try and write something else, but fail, and end up returning to their most popular work. And finally you’ll have the ones who can create intriguing world after world after world, never failing to come up with something interesting and new.

Sharon Shinn is definitely of that latter group. I had read books from 3 of her series before realizing they were all written by the same person. I’m still making my way through her Samaria series, but I love how she’s combined angels and sci-fi. So imagine my surprise when I found out Shinn’s got an anthology book, where she returns to four of her worlds…

Here’s the description from Sharon Shinn’s website:

The four novellas in Quatrain are set in worlds I’ve created for Archangel, Heart of Gold, Summers at Castle Auburn, and Mystic and Rider.

“Flight” follows a former angel-seeker who used to be in love with the Archangel Raphael and now is determined to keep her beautiful niece from making her same mistakes.

“Blood” is the story of a fierce young gulden man who comes to the city to seek his mother, whom he hasn’t seen since he was a boy and she ran away from his abusive father.

In “Gold,” a crown princess escapes the hazards of war by hiding among the fairylike aliora, where she encounters an altogether different sort of danger.

And in “Flame,” the mystic Senneth uses her magic to save a little girl, an act that wins her new friends but puts her own life at risk.

I’ve read books from three of the worlds; the only one I haven’t read yet is the Heart of Gold series. All the new stories sound like great additions though and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!

Quatrain by Sharon Shinn is available on Amazon.co.uk for £4.98 and on Amazon.com for $9.12.

Yesterday I got invited to the premiere of Four Stories, the result of a world wide competition to give aspiring screenwriters the chance to bring their vision alive and turn their scripts into 10 minute short films. The four winning scripts were chosen by Roman Coppola and a panel of judges from over a 1000 submissions. The brief: each story had to take place at one of the W hotels and Intel’s Ultrabook had to be a central plot component.

Yeah… that doesn’t sound contrived at all. But I actually think they’ve made it all work. The four winning scripts do all feature a W hotel and an Ultrabook, but in almost all of them it does feel as if they belongs and not something tacked on for the sake of it.

There’s also a funny fifth movie called “Die Again, Undead One” which was directed by Roman Coppola and stars Jason Schwartzman, but it will only be released once the YouTube page gets 3000 shares.

Here are the four winning short movies:

Eugene

Eugene was written by Adam Blampied from London and filmed at the W Washington D.C. with director Spencer Susser and actors Michael Govier and Karolina Wydra. This one turned out to be my favourite of the four!

Modern Love

Modern Love was written by Amy Jacobowitz from Los Angeles and filmed at W Doha with director Lee Toland Krieger and actors Robert Schwartzman and Naomi Scott. I really enjoyed this one too, it’s sweet and romantic:

El Tonto!

Written by Ben Saveg from Brooklyn, N.Y., it was filmed at W Mexico City with director Lake Bell and actor Kyle Mooney. I’m not sure I “got” this one. It was funny-ish, but didn’t seem to have a real point to it.

The Mirror Between Us

Kahlil Joseph from Los Angeles wrote and directed “The Mirror Between Us,” filmed at W Retreat & Spa Maldives with actors Nicole Beharie and Dan’ee Doty. I honestly didn’t understand this one at all. Is it just me?

I still love writing in old-school notebooks; there’s just something about them that makes me organize my thoughts and ideas much better than when I’m just typing on a computer. I mustn’t be the only, right? Who else out there still loves notebooks?

Now how better to show off your love of notebooks than with these adorable knee highs? They’re $18 on Sock Dreams:

Sock Dreams also has two other pairs of knee highs that are quite geeky. The first is this cute pair of Pencil knee highs ($18):

The second are these knee highs with Van Gogh’s Starry Night ($8 but sadly currently out of stock):

Alicia Keys was on Jimmy Fallon’s show last night and this is what she performed:

Awesome. Any other artists out there who want to rendition of old TV show theme songs? I’d love to hear a ballad version of Mysterious Cities of Gold…

Via The Mary Sue

I didn’t think switching from an iPod Touch to an iPhone would make such a difference, but as I’ve said in previous posts I’m finding that I’m using my iPhone way more now. Seeing as I use it every day and almost every hour, I’m still looking for the perfect case to protect it. Well, my perfect case. I do think that everybody requires something else depending on how they use their phone.

After trying out the Slim case and the Open Moulded case from Knomo, I was quite curious to see how their Leather Folio case would be. I had a feeling this one would suit me more than the other two would…

Like most Knomo products the Leather Folio case is sleek and well designed. The iPhone snaps into place in a shock-resistant plastic casing, while the back and front flap is made of a nice smooth leather. It also has an elastic band to keep the leather flap secure. You can get it on the Knomo website for £45 and comes in two colours: Black and Cognac.

I liked the Folio case and it indeed suit my needs much better than the previous cases I’ve tried out. The iPhone snaps easily into the casing and you have open access to all buttons and switches. I quite liked that the case protects my iPhone completely. It’s not the sleekest of cases and it’s pretty obvious you’re using a case, but I prefer that then having the front of the phone naked and unprotected (especially when in my bag).

I didn’t end up using the elastic band at all, at least not for what it was intended. I want the flap to cover the front of the phone, but I don’t want to go through the trouble of messing around with the elastic each time I want to open it. Unless you have a lot of cards or other stuff in the inner flap’s pocket, the Folio normally closes quite nicely.

What I did end up using the elastic band for was to keep it more secure on my hand while I went running. I don’t like using an armband during running, cause you can’t really see what’s on the screen or easily change settings. But holding your phone just like that in your hand also doesn’t feel right. With the elastic band on the Folio, I quite felt at ease running with my phone. It’s not what it was intended for, but it gave me that extra confidence that it wouldn’t just slip out of my hand.

My main annoyance about the case was taking photos with it. Most of the time when you’re using the phone in that case, you flip the flap around so that it’s against it’s back. But when taking a photo that of course doesn’t work: you’re covering the camera. So you have to awkwardly hold the flap sideways while trying to take the photo. And rotating the phone to use the camera horizontally (so that the buttons are on the top) is even more annoying. You finally get the hang of how to deal with it, but you still look like an idiot each time you take a photo.

The main reason why I don’t want to invest in one yet (cause it is on the pricier side of cases at £45) is the range of colours. There are only two colours so far: black and cognac. Which would be fine if the entire case was that colour. With both of them though the plastic casing is an olive green and I’m just not digging that colour combination. I’d so be in love with this case if the leather was red or pink or purple or blue and the plastic casing was black (or the same colour as the leather). Maybe even if the entire thing was just plain black. But the current colour combinations? Not really digging those.

All in all, the Leather Folio case is a great case, although it won’t suit everybody’s needs. If you want a case that protects the front of the iPhone, the Folio is great. I just wish they had a nicer range of colours, otherwise this would have been exactly what I wanted.

The Leather iPhone 5 Folio Case is available on Knomo’s website. Knomo provided me with a review copy for the purpose of this review.

I love everything about this dress from Louche. The funnel neck and slightly flared skirt looks trendy and pretty, the criss-cross pattern is not your standard type of pattern, and the colour combination of dark green and black is gorgeous. It’s definitely a dress that will make you stand out!

It’s available in the JOY store for £59:

I’d pair it with a cute black cardigan or a black long sleeved top, red shoes and a red hair band. What would you wear this dress with?

What do you get when you combine Marvel and Bond? These fantastic designs by deviantart artist Bill Walko.

My favourite writer this year has got to be Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant. Both her urban fantasy Toby Daye series (written as Seanan McFurie) and her zombie Newsflesh trilogy (written as Mira Grant) are awesome, and I love the unique worlds she’s created. I love that she’s made a zombie world where people actually have grown up watching zombie movies, etc (unlike most movies and TV shows where somehow nobody has even considered anything like a zombie before).

So I was quite excited to hear that Grant would return to her zombie world with When Will You Rise. It turns out though that it consists of two stories: Countdown, a prequel novella set in the same world which takes place in the early days of the zombie apocalypse, and Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box, which isn’t set in the Newsflesh universe. Countdown was previously available only in e-book format.

It turns out though that the book will have a limited run with only 1000 signed numbered hardcover books, and will cost $38 (you can order one from the publisher’s site). This would make a perfect Christmas gift…

I feel old: it’s been more than 8 years now since the Friends final. It’s still one of my favourite TV shows though, and I’ve been wanting to get a boxset of the entire series for a while now. Well, now it might be finally time to invest in one: it’s being completely released on Blu-ray in one big awesome boxset!

Thanks to Warner Bros I’ve been given a Limited Edition Friends prize pack to giveaway to one lucky reader! The winner will get:

• Two oversized cappuccino mugs
• A picture frame just like the one on Monica’s door

How awesome is that? All you have to do is leave a comment behind with your favourite Friends moment. It’s only open to US residents and entries must be in before November 27th 17:00. The winner will be contacted via email on the 28th.