Episode 165: “We are young, we are strong”

I loved Kick-Ass, and can’t wait for everyone else to see it (see my review here)! The red carpet premiere is in a couple of hours at London’s Leicester Square, so in honour of that, here’s the music video from Mika’s Kick-Ass title track:

I kind of like the song, but I hate the clip. When I first heard it during the end credits after watching Kick-Ass, it felt as if it fit with the movie. But this clip?? Nope, not liking it at all.

These notebooks are so cute! They’re only 8.25cm by 11.5cm, so whether they’re practical is another question. But they are cute.

There are 15 different notebooks in total: Words about Love, Cheerful Thoughts, Sweet Nothings, Those Wonderful Books, Friends, Children, Travel, Fishing, Encouragement, House and Home, Cooks – On Food, Eating and Cooking, Incomplete Book of Cat Names, Incomplete Book of Dog Names, Retirement and Growing Older, and On Gardens and Gardening.

I wish these came in larger sizes. I love the design and would so use these for blogposts and notes! But with such a small size, I just don’t think I’d use them.

The notebooks are available on the V&A website for £4.

I’ve told you here before about how my family watches tons of sports: football, tennis, Formula 1, skating (speed and figure), darts, basketball, cricket, the list goes on and on. I never really got into watching any sports at all, putting all my spare time into movies, TV, games and reading. But there’s one sports legend I wish I could have met: tennis star Jacques d’Azur.

I think that’s mainly because Jacques d’Azur isn’t only a tennis player; he’s so much more. Chess master. Actor. Director. Producer. Backgammon champion. Waterskier. He’s amazing. For the past 30 years he’s been a bit of legend at the Cannes Film Festival, having starred in, directed and produced a number of the festival’s biggest hits (read more about him here). I’ve always wanted to go to Cannes, if only just to meet him and get an autograph.

But now it seems that won’t be possible. A month ago he and his yacht ‘Bridgette et Anne’ both vanished near Tahiti last month. There was one last reported radio contact from him, but since then nothing has been heard. It’s been over a month now and none of the searches have found anything. Where is Jacques d’Azur?

I hope this is all just a silly mixup and that he’ll appear at the Cannes festival end of next month acting as if nothing is wrong. But I’m scared it isn’t; I’m scared that we might have lost one of the most talented individuals the world has seen.

In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, she is destined to council kings. In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.

I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I picked up this book. ‘A story set in Ancient Greece’ was all I thought, but slowly I started realizing it was more than that. The fall of Troy, black ships, Prince Neas aka Aeneas… this was a retelling of the Illiad! I was already invested in the story, but somehow knowing what this story was based on, made it all the more fascinating (plus the puzzle geek in me revels in the fact that I figured it out myself).

Graham manages to weave a tale out of the different sources we have about that Greek period; it’s partly based on the Illiad, but also on archaeological discoveries of what we know about Troy and its fall. For instance, Troy is never mentioned in this book; it’s Wilusa as what the people of that time would have called it. Another cool change I found was that in the Illiad Aeneas and his fleet travel to Carthage… but Carthage wasn’t founded until 400 years later. Graham solves this by having them visit Egypt instead, yet still maintaining the story line of what happens in Carthage.

The main character (and narrator) is Gull, who as a child is chosen to serve the Lady of the Dead and soon becomes Pythia, the oracle of the Lady of the Dead, receiving visions about the future. Her story is what makes this so compelling to read; instead of a dry boring narrative of the Trojan war and Aeneas’ escape (what the Illiad basically is), we get to see everything through the eyes of this girl Gull and everything comes to life.

One thing I also liked was that while it was set in a more ‘real life’ Greece than the Illiad, there were still hints of divine guidance. Gull has visions of the future, and hears the Lady of the Dead council her. But everything is through her. We get to see how she believes she has visions, but it’s all in her mind. I kind of liked this ambiguity in our main character; is it real or is she just crazy?

Black Ships was a surprisingly good read; if you like ancient Greece and it’s mythology, or fantasy without too much magic and elves, this book is for you. There already is a followup book coming out called Hand of Isis, but like Black Ships it’s a standalone book.

Black Ships by Jo Graham is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.99 and on Amazon.com for $7.99.

Lately I’ve been addicted to Castle, mainly because of the brilliant Nathan Fillion. I was delighted to discover that his in-show character’s latest book Heat Wave has actually been published!

Awesome! Must get my hands on this. It’s available on Amazon for $12.97 (US) or for £9.49 (UK).

Episode 164: “That’s actually the last thing she’s ever going to post to Twitter”

Great talk from Tom Scott at Ignite London 2:

Loving this table with a corner specially for books and magazines:

It’s available on ExclusivelyHome.com for $1900.

Via double takes

Do you know what the short nickname for Melinda is? Mindy. I’ve always hated that; it’s such a cutesy I-like-ponies-rainbows-and-cupcakes type of name and I’ve always refused to let people call me that. After watching Kick-Ass though, from all the random thoughts I had during that movie, the one that will always stick with me is: “I’ve never been more proud that I can call myself Mindy”.

I’ve been excited for Kick-Ass ever since I first heard about it. Stardust was one of my favourite movies of the past 3 years, so naturally I was curious to see what director Matthew Vaughn and co-screenplay writer Jane Goldman would do next. After seeing the first two trailers, it became one of my Must See movies of 2010, especially after the trailer dedicated to Hit Girl. To my delight I was lucky enough to see Kick-Ass a month before its release… and on my birthday. So was Kick-Ass everything I hoped it could be? YES.

Based on the comic from Mark Millar, Kick-Ass is about Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a teenage boy, who decides to become a real-life superhero after being inspired by the heroes of comic books. He soon encounters a mysterious vigilante called Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), and his daughter Hit-Girl (Chloë Moretz), who are working to bring down the local drug baron Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong).

Kick-Ass is one of the funnest movies I’ve seen in the cinema. It’s not the greatest movie ever made, it’s not even the greatest comic book movie ever made, but it’s been a long time since I had so much fun at the movies. I came out of the cinema grinning like crazy and just wanted to jump right back in to watch again. Everything in this movie just comes together: the story, the cast, the action sequences, the music, everything just works.

The main story isn’t exactly one we haven’t seen before: ordinary boy becomes a superhero. But unlike some of the more familiar superheroes tales, this one is slightly more grounded in reality. There is no radioactive spider that gives him powers overnight. He isn’t a multimillionaire with the coolest gadgets and gizmos. Dave Lizewski is just a normal teenager who has read too many comic books and thinks that if he puts on a costume made out of a wetsuit, he’ll be a superhero. He’s one of us, a fellow geek with a crazy idea, and that’s what makes this story so compelling. Nothing special happened to this guy, he just decided he’d become a superhero.

Aaron Johnson is great as the titular character, delivering a believable performance as the geeky and gangly Dave. As expected though Big Daddy and Hit Girl completely steal the show, and they should. They are the real superheroes in this movie and it’s through them that Dave realizes that he’s only doing it for pretends. I was a bit nervous about Nicholas Cage as Big Daddy, and was scared that it would go too over the top. But he’s cast perfectly in this role, and his Big Daddy “voice” is spot on (just wait until you hear it).

Chloë Moretz is amazing as Hit Girl aka Mindy Macready. This character is a weird blend of a cursing leg-severing assassin and sweet little girl, and in another actress’s hands it could have gone terribly gone. Moretz manages to balance both sides perfectly, bringing us some awesome action and bad-assness in one scene and yet making us care about her as a small girl in the next. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do in the future; at only 13 I think she could have an amazing career in front of her.

There are a couple of beautifully choreographed fight sequences in Kick-Ass, all accentuated by the great soundtrack. One in particular stands out for me where Hit Girl makes her way down a corridor with the song Bad Reputation from Joan Jett playing in the background. And there are more moments where it almost feels like Hit Girl and Big Daddy are in a dance with their opponents, gliding smoothly from one enemy to the next.

Kick-Ass is an awesome movie and one I’d recommend to anyone who likes the big action-y superhero movies. I was hoping I’d like it, but wasn’t expecting to have this much fun. Everything from story to music works in this movie and I guarantee you’ll have a great time. I so want to see it again once it’s released!

Kick-Ass is released in the UK on the 26th of March and in the US on the 16th of April.

I’m not really a Scrabble player; I like the occasional game, but I can’t say I’m really any good in it. Still these simple Scrabble necklaces are just gorgeous:

You can get it at Heist’s Etsy store for $45.

Episode 163: Inspired by a million true stories

Where great ideas come from:

CL!CK: A LEGO Short Film from Lego Click on Vimeo.