Just like the past few years, I’m trying again to watch all the Oscar nominated movies. I’m pretty sure I’ll get all the Best Picture nominations done, but it’s always quite the challenge to watch as many movies I can from all the other categories. I always end up failing on the Best Foreign and Best Documentary categories, but even if I don’t succeed I like the push it gives me during January and February to watch as many movies as I can.

So far I’ve watched 6 of the 9 Best Picture nominations and today I’ll do short reviews for the first three of those.

Les Miserables

I’ve been excited for Les Miserables ever since I heard Tom Hooper would be directing and Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway were cast. I loved Jackman’s and Hathaway’s duet during the 2008 Oscars and I’ve been hoping they’d do a musical together ever since. I never got around to watching the actual stage musical of Les Miserables (I still need to go), but I know and love a lot of the songs.

I ended up loving the movie. I liked how the actors were recorded closeup actually singing on set rather than in a studio, allowing for a much more powerful performance. Hugh Jackman is great as Jean Valjean; it’s awesome to finally see him in a musical role, his voice was perfect for Who Am I? and some of the other songs. Anne Hathaway’s rendition of I Dreamed A Dream is amazing. It’s so full of emotion, you can see her going from hope to despair all in one single take.

The rest of the cast is equally awesome. Despite what others have said, I quite liked Russell Crowe as Javert. I wasn’t that familiar with his songs though, but I’m guessing if you do know those songs, his versions won’t match up with them. Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried are sweet as the young lovers Marius and Cosette, while Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are great as the comic relief.

Life of Pi

I wasn’t expecting to like Life of Pi as much as I did. I had seen the trailers and was expecting it to be a pretty movie, but not much more. I loved it though. The gorgeous visuals and cinematography complements the beautiful story and I think it might be my favourite movie of last year.

If you don’t know what it’s about, Life of Pi tells the story of Pi and how after a shipwreck he gets stranded on a life boat with a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker. It’s a story of survival, hope and strength.

I loved seeing the relationship between Pi and Richard Parker unfold, and I wonder how much being a cat owner helped with that (I constantly noticed bits in Richard Parker that my own cats will do… although my cats won’t be able to take me out with one swipe). Real tigers and visual effects were combined to create Richard Parker, but you never quite know which of the two you’re looking at; it blends beautifully.

Argo

Argo is based on the real life story of the 1980 secret operation to extract six U.S. diplomats from Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis. The film stars Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez, a CIA specialist, who comes up with a fake scifi movie to use a cover story for the extraction.

I wasn’t that impressed by Argo. It’s an interesting story, but I was expecting more suspense and more cleverness somehow. I know it’s based on a real story and they couldn’t embellish it too much, but I never got invested in any of the characters allowing me to root fully for them.

My NY’s book resolutions seem to be going good: I’m exactly on track for my 52 books challenge and I haven’t bought a single book yet. I am allowing myself to buy 12 predetermined books this year though, and one of those will be Midnight Blue-Light Special.

It’s the second book in Seanan McGuire’s Incryptid series, again starring Verity Price, monster hunter/protector and professional ballroom dancer. I loved the first book; Verity is such a fun character. Plus the talking mice are awesome!

Here’s the description from Amazon:

The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity–and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she’d rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and when her work with the cryptid community took her to Manhattan, she thought she would finally be free to pursue competition-level dance in earnest. It didn’t quite work out that way…

But now, with the snake cult that was killing virgins all over Manhattan finally taken care of, Verity is ready to settle down for some serious ballroom dancing—until her on-again, off-again, semi-boyfriend Dominic De Luca, a member of the monster-hunting Covenant of St. George, informs her that the Covenant is on their way to assess the city’s readiness for a cryptid purge. With everything and everyone she loves on the line, there’s no way Verity can take that lying down.

Alliances will be tested, allies will be questioned, lives will be lost, and the talking mice in Verity’s apartment will immortalize everything as holy writ–assuming there’s anyone left standing when all is said and done. It’s a midnight blue-light special, and the sale of the day is on betrayal, deceit… and carnage.

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire will be released on March 5 and will be £4.94 on Amazon.co.uk and $7.99 on Amazon.com.

I only played Bioshock a few months ago and still need to finish Bioshock 2, but I’m so looking forward to Bioshock Infinite! I loved the style of Rapture, Bioshock’s underwater city, and Columbia looks just as unique and interesting.

I don’t think I’ve ever done an eye exam with this type of tree chart (they always use slides with rows of 4 letters at my optician), but I still love these tights from Nylon Journal. They’re $27 and come in black on white or white on black.

Their barcode tights are also quite geeky, but I wonder how many people would try to “scan” you if you’d wear these ($24):

The last pair that I really like are these New York subway tights ($44):

I just wish they’d be for the London Underground! Hmmmm, I wonder if those maybe exist already? *goes off to google* Pillows, yes. Aprons, yes. Quilt, yes. But no tights it seems…

Olympus Has Fallen

Die Hard in the White House. This looks awesome. I think it will be a bit over the top and ridiculous, but it looks like so much fun. It stars Gerard Butler as the ex secret service member who’s the only one not captured when the White House comes under attack. Aaron Echkart plays the President, while Morgan Freeman plays the Speaker of the House.

Release Date: 22 March (US), 19 April (UK)

Red 2

I loved Red. It was a great combination of action, humour and great casting, and this sequel looks like more of the same! This time around Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Mary-Louise Parker are joined by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Byung-hun Lee and Anthony Hopkins.

Release Date: 2 August (UK, US)

Emperor

As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) finds himself the de facto ruler of Japan. He turns to General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox), an expert in Japanese culture, to investigate whether the Japanese emperor Hirohito should be hanged for war crimes.

Release Date: 8 March (US)

At Any Price

A farming family’s business is threatened by an unexpected crisis, further testing the relationship between a father (Dennis Quaid) and his rebellious son (Zac Efron).

Release Date: 2013

I had heard a lot of good things about Brent Weeks’ Night Angel trilogy, so I was quite happy to discover the boxset was one my Christmas presents this year! I just started the first book The Way of Shadows and so far it’s been good. I’m only 100 pages in, but I’m liking it so far even though the world is a bit harsh.

Here’s the description of the first book (The Way of Shadows) on Amazon:

The perfect killer has no friends. Only targets.

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art. And he is the city’s most accomplished artist, his talents required from alleyway to courtly boudoir.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he’s grown up in the slums, and learned the hard way to judge people quickly – and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins’ world of dangerous politics and strange magics – and cultivate a flair for death.

The Night Angel trilogy consists (obviously) of three parts:

• The Way of Shadows (£5.93 on Amazon.co.uk, $7.99 on Amazon.com)
• Shadow’s Edge (£7.19 on Amazon.co.uk, $7.99 on Amazon.com)
• Beyond The Shadows (£5.99 on Amazon.co.uk, $7.99 on Amazon.com)

Last Sunday I had a great day with friends attempting to sledge with cardboard boxes in the park near Alexandra Palace. We weren’t that successful, cause it turns out: cardboard boxes make very bad sledges. Despite our utter failure to go fast, it was a lot of fun!

My favourite photo is of me pretending to go fast:

Here are a couple of other photos of that day:

Doctor Who meets Pulp Fiction. Awesome. It’s only available for the next five hours though on TeeFury, so get it while you can!

After yesterday’s serious post about being a geeky girl (read it here) with the promise to write about that type of stuff more, I wasn’t quite sure what post would follow next. This blog has always been a place where I’ll share the fun stuff I come across online, be they geeky or girly, and I don’t ever want to loose that angel. Yet I also didn’t want to succeed that serious post with something completely unrelated. And then I came across this video about Bronies…

These are snippets from the upcoming documentary BronyDoc about the adult fans of My Little Pony and it’s sung by John de Lancie and Tara Strong. Bear with me, and watch the video till the end and you’ll get why it is related:

I’ve never watched an episode on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic before, but I kind of think I should…

I’ve always been a geek. I’ve always been a girl. Neither of those two things will ever change.

I’m not really sure why, but I’ve stayed away from blogging about being a girl in the tech/game-blogging/movie-blogging industry, leaving it to those that can write more eloquently than me. But I shouldn’t. I still experience weird situations that leave me puzzled as to why they happen, and I should be blogging about those.

Throughout my entire life I’ve had to prove that I am a geek, encountering men and boys that didn’t believe a woman could know about or would be interested in geeky stuff.

I remember being seven years old, having just discovered a new TV show: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At school, I overheard a couple of boys discussing the theme song. They couldn’t remember the lines, though, so I jumped in and sang the entire song for them. They were so baffled that a girl would watch that show that they didn’t believe those were the real lyrics.

I remember in high school being told that math and physics were too difficult for girls. That I should choose something more appropriate like biology or history.

I remember being at university, studying Computer Science and finishing a tricky assignment which the student assistant had just approved. I was quite proud of myself until I overheard that same student assistant say to another student “If SHE can do it, you definitely can.”

I hate that those things happened. I regret that I didn’t have more guts at the time to turn around and say “You. Are. Wrong.” But those experiences made me who I am today. My response to all those things was to be the best I could be — and to prove to everyone that I was smart enough to do anything a guy could do.

All of the above events happened more than ten years ago, so I can forgive most of those remarks and hope those people know better now. But these type of things STILL happen. I still experience prejudice just because I’m a woman.

A couple of times now at Forbidden Planet, a massive comic and sci/fantasy book store in London, I’ll be browsing and guys will approach and hit on me. The hitting on random girls at bookstores is a separate issue, but why do almost all of them start with “Are you buying a present for someone?” Seriously. You don’t think that just maybe I’m there because I’m interested in it myself?

At tech events, I’ve noticed that what I wear really makes a difference. If I’m wearing a geeky T-shirt and jeans/shorts, everything will be fine. When I’m wearing a pretty dress and nice makeup though, then the comments start. I’ll be at a hackday and someone will ask “Are you doing the marketing for this team?”. Or I’ll be at an event for bloggers and someone will assume I’m one of “the PR girls”.

A few months ago I was at a PR party and I met a girl who was wearing the standard geek uniform of jeans and a t-shirt. She remarked to me that she wished she had put on a dress — but she had to go to a Facebook developer event earlier that evening, so needed to wear jeans and t-shirt or else not be taken seriously. Do we truly still work in an industry where it matters what we wear? Are jeans and T-shirt our industry’s suit and tie, and are we really ignoring those that don’t conform to the industry’s uniform? Whatever happened to geeks allowing you to be whoever you wanted to be?

From what I’ve experienced so far, the games industry is a whole lot worse. No, let me get that right: the game blogging industry. At almost every game blogging/press event I’ve gone to, I’ve had male attendees (bloggers/PRs/game developers) stare wide-eyed at me and exclaim: “OMG. You’re a girl. Girls don’t like games.” They’ll either try to dissect how this strange creature got into gaming or disregard everything I’m saying. I can’t get over the fact that some people still don’t realize that, yes, girls play games too. And, yes, we like the same games guys like too. Girls are part of your readership/consumer base/target audience. Don’t ignore them.

All these incidents happend to me within the past year. I tend not to react, to “ignore” them, but actually? They annoy the hell out of me. And I’m not the only one that they happen to.

So I’m going to write about them more. And I want to hear from you all what you’ve been through.

I am “Miss Geeky”. I am a geek. And I am a girl. I’ll have moments of extreme geekiness, but I’ll also have moments of extreme girliness. I like makeup and pretty dresses and jewellery, and me liking those does not make me any less of a geek. I will not change what I like or what I wear purely to fit in and conform to people’s idea of the “geeky girl”. I will write more about this stuff, because everything I’ve talked about here shouldn’t be happening. Geeky girls have always been around. Just because you didn’t notice us doesn’t mean we weren’t there.

And it doesn’t mean you can ignore us now.