The first full length trailer of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 has been revealed! It looks pretty awesome! I’m struggling to remember what exactly happened in the final book; somehow nothing in the trailer seems familiar, but it seems epic. I think the two movies will give this entire series a worthy ending.

Wow, this looks awesome! I had heard about it some time ago, but that was ages ago when there wasn’t any footage available yet. Now… wow.

Initially announced as a Nintendo DS game, Ni no Kuni: The Another World is the first partnership between animation studio Studio Ghibli and game developer Level-5 (the guys who did the Professor Layton series and the Dragonquest series). Then last week it was revealed there would now be two games: Ni no Kuni: Shikkoku no Madoushi for the Nintendo DS and Ni no Kuni: Shiroki Seihai no Joou for the PS3.

Here’s some footage from the PS3 version:

Both versions are being developed from scratch, and each will feature different artwork, graphics and story developments, while only “retaining the same story axle”. That story is about a 13 year old boy Oliver, whose mother suddenly dies. He’s given a book by a fairy that allows him to go to the parallel world of ‘Ninokuni’, where he might be able to revive his mother.

I love the footage of the PS3 version, but the Nintendo DS version already has me intrigued. That game comes with an elaborate 350 page book that is needed to play the game. It’s part tutorial, but also part strategy guide, featuring instructions on how to draw runes to cast magic in the game, enemy weaknesses and other info, and encrypted codes to unlock secrets in the game.

I’m definitely going to get both games when they’re released there (if they’re released here, but I think they will be). And you? Are you a Studio Ghibli fan? Do you want these games?

I love the idea of these! Blackboard brooches!

I’ve never really been into brooches at all, but I can imagine using these for all the events that I go to. Much handier than those stupid white stickers, where you have to scribble your name on. The downside though of these brooches? The £72/$105 pricetag. Way too steep for me!

Via swissmiss

I loved The A-Team as a kid (who didn’t?) and once I heard there would be a remake I’ve been dreading this movie. I mean, on one side I thought it was awesome that they were bringing it back, on the other side it wouldn’t be MY A-Team, it just couldn’t be the same, right? So now that I finally got to see it, what did I think?

For those of you that have been hiding under a rock the past 25 years or have recently developed amnesia, The A-Team is a remake of the TV series of the same name about a group of ex-Special Forces imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit. Liam Neeson stars as the leader and brains behind the team, Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith; Bradley Cooper as Templeton “Faceman” Peck, a smooth talking ladies man; Sharlto Copley as H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock, an insane pilot; and Quinton Jackson as Bosco B.A. Baracus.

The original TV show was set 10 years after the A-Team’s allegedly committed crime, with the team being on the run from the military and hiring out their services to people in need. This movie acts much more as an origin story. It opens with how the team got together 10 years ago, providing some nice background history (like why BA is scared of flying). Then it jumps to the present day setting up the whole “crime they didn’t commit” story.

And it’s because of that origin story that I think this movie works. It’s a great way to give these characters a new slate and create them from scratch. Kind of. I mean, each character has still the same traits from the TV show, but by giving them an alternative background story they’ve managed to bring it into the current day. And we get to see the reason why the A-Team eventually goes on the run and turn into mercenaries.

I enjoyed The A-Team much more than I expected to. It’s a summer action flick with loud explosions and unbelievable stunts, but it’s fun. This isn’t MY A-Team, but it’s not a complete disgrace to the old show as I was dreading. It captures the spirit of the original show and multiplies the over-the-topness somewhat.

Liam Neeson as Hannibal still doesn’t really work for me. He’s believable as the team’s leader and master planner behind their mission, but somehow I still think they could have found a better Hannibal (for the life of me I couldn’t imagine who though, and this is one tricky bit of casting).

After finally having seen District 9 (AWESOME movie btw), I was looking forward to see how Sharlto Copley would be as Murdock. Murdock has always been my favourite character and up until the casting was announced I didn’t believe anybody could succeed Dwight Schultz. Copley though is perfect as Murdock, bringing a convincing craziness and levity to the character, and my favourite moments in the movie all come from him.

Bradley Cooper is great as Face, although in my mind he’ll always be Will from Alias. I never thought he’d ever be an action hero type, but he pulls it off great. He doesn’t get to show his con man skills as much as I liked and if we get a sequel I hope we get to see more of that. Quinton Jackson as BA is a as-good-as-you-can-find fit. It’s hard to step into the footprints of Mr T, but he does an okay job.

As I said above the action is a bit over the top. There’s one scene with a tank which is completely ridiculous and shouldn’t work at all, but still a lot of fun (even though a bit too blue screeny for my liking). I liked the heist like sequences where the action scenes were intertwined with flashbacks explaining “the plan”.

All in all, The A-Team is a great summer action flick, capturing the essence of the old TV show. If you go, make sure you stay seated till after the credits. I didn’t (grumble, grumble, I usually always stay until the end), but I’ve heard you might see some familiar faces…

It’s actually only a teaser trailer, but I know plenty of you who’d be interested in seeing the first glimpse of ‘that Facebook movie’. We don’t actually get to see anything yet, it’s only audio, but it does sound pretty intense:

The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, and Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin.

I’ve been meaning to write about the Elephant Parade for weeks now! And now they’re almost gone…

For 2 months 258 elephants livened up the streets of central London, each painted, decorated and designed by a different artist. The Elephant Parade is a campaign to highlight the cause of the endangered Asian elephant, urging people to sign a petition to help save these elephants.

Last weekend was the last chance to see all the elephants on the London streets, and I have to say it seems emptier with them now gone. The elephants are now almost all at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, while a couple are at Westfield Shopping Center. Monday will be your final chance to see them!

I got a bit addicted to these elephants and got the urge to photograph them all (Gotta catch em all…). I came pretty far with the final tally coming to 238 (although I still have to see if I’ve got all 238 photos). I only missed 20 of them! I’m going to try to make it to the Royal Hospital on Monday to see those final 20.

I loved seeing all the different elephants, and some of them are truly special. Most are painted beautifully, but there are some unique ones with a twist. For instance, there was one near Tower Bridge which had a miniature Elephant & Castle city within it, with viewing bubbles, so you could look inside. And there was one completely covered in pennies. And another covered with Swarovski crystals. There were so many gorgeous designs, it was definitely worth checking out all of them.

I’ll do another blog post later this week, once I’ve uploaded all of the photos, with what my favourites were. Did you enjoy the elephants? If so, which one was your favourite? And have you signed the petition yet?

Aren’t these cute? I’m not really sure I’d ever use it for proper letters though… hmm, maybe for Christmas?

The address stamps are available on Primele’s Etsy store and are $62-$64.

They also do a personalized name stamp which I quite like for $43. I’d so use this to stamp all my books! (which I do already but with a butterfly stamp)

As usual, my blog goes a bit quiet whenever I leave London for a few days. And this time around my trip was even more hectic than normal!

The idea was to go a week to the Netherlands for yet another visit to the optician and the dentist. Then 2 weeks ago I got an email from WOMWorld/Nokia asking if I wanted to go to Helsinki for a couple of days for the LikeMinds conference. Yes! Of course this conference was exactly in the middle of my trip to the Netherlands, but Nokia was so kind to arrange flights for me from Amsterdam.

This meant though that the past week has been hectic, crazy, tiring, but pretty amazing. Within 48 hours I was in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Finland (spending at least an hour in each of those countries)!

Now that I’m back home my blog posts should appear more regularly again. And expect some posts about LikeMinds!

If you’ve started reading this post, I’m assuming you’ve just seen this season’s penultimate Doctor Who episode: The Pandorica Opens. If not, stop right now, turn the telly on and settle in to watch this episode. Unless of course you don’t like Doctor Who… but that would just be silly.

So this week’s episode: Wow. Lots of things happening, some I saw coming, some… not that much. Let’s start at the beginning: before we’ve even gotten past the opening titles, Moffat brings back some familiar faces. Vincent Van Gogh. Churchill and his scientist friend. River Song. And Liz 10. I liked the throwbacks to the previous episodes, except for the Liz 10 one; the rest worked for me (Van Gogh having created the painting, Churchill and friend staring at the painting, and then accidently calling River about it), but the Liz 10 appearance just felt out of place. Why have her show up? Or will she have a larger part to play in next week’s episode? (I doubt it)

The two main mysteries that have been plaguing us this season were the Cracks in Time and the Pandorica. It always seemed the two were thoroughly linked together, and in this episode we are shown that they kind of are, but not quite as we were led to believe. From the previous episodes it always seemed as if the Pandorica was the cause of the Cracks in Time. Even though we had no idea what the Pandorica was, the obvious hints were making us believe that the Pandorica was the Big Bad. And it is. Sort of.

All the Doctor’s villains are joining forces to create one gigantic trap for the Doctor, who they think is responsible for the end of the world. For once, the Daleks, the Cybermen and all the other bad guys are the ones being the “heroes”, stopping the Big Bad from destroying the universe (or so they believe). The Pandorica is only a reaction to the Cracks of Time, with them thinking that the Doctor will bring it about.

Which brings us to the next question: if the Pandorica didn’t cause the Cracks, what did? By the end of the episode that is answered: the TARDIS exploding. Only what caused the TARDIS to explode? I still have a feeling it’s got something to do with Amy. The TARDIS started acting weird the moment Amy started to remember Rory. I’m not sure how, but my gut is saying that’s got something to do with it.

By the end of the episode the Doctor is trapped within the Pandorica, Amy is shot by Robot Rory, and River is stuck inside the exploding TARDIS. It’s a proper 3-part cliffhanger. I hope Moffat doesn’t go for a easy solution, like the villains realizing pretty quickly they’ve made a mistake and just let the Doctor out. Or having a surprise good guy show up to save the day, like Liz 10 or Jack Harkness.

So here’s my guess for the next episode: I still think that the theory of the Doctor (or somebody else) traveling back to previous episodes and telling Amy what to do has merit. I think we’ll at least see someone go back to that moment where a young Amelia is sitting on her suitcase waiting for the Doctor to show up. Amy is key to the episode and my guess is that it will be a bit of a predestination/time loop paradox. Not sure how, but I think Moffat has the skills to come up with a complex circular story. Something like that by using Amy’s memories of things that were erased, the villains created a situation where she remembers stuff anyway, causing a paradox?

What do you think will happen? Did you like this week’s episode? Discuss all your theories in the comments!

I’ll often come across an Etsy designer with some cute stuff, but today’s one has so many lovely items! I’ve posted my favourites here, but there are so many more cute designs:

The Secret Place – $16.00

Mrs Owl – $30.00

A Pack of Cards – $28.00

I Love You – $15.00

Check out Grigio’s Etsy store for more designs.