Thanks for all the entries to the Kushiel’s Dart giveaway. Alas, there can only be one winner though, so I’ve randomly picked one person to get the book.
And the winner is…
*drum roll, please*
Rosevibe!
With the comment:
My favourite fantasy series would have to be the Riftwar saga by Raymond E Feist.
It has everything you could wish for in a fantasy series; politics, colourful characters you can empathise with, compelling story with intertwined tales and supportive subplots, magic, time and space/ dimension travel romance and adventure and of course what saga would be complete without epic battles?
It’s the lord of the rings of my time.
..only better.
Enjoy the book, Rosevibe! As for all the other people who entered, I’ll be holding a couple more contests during the next two weeks, so keep an eye out!
Iron Man 2: Really this trailer deserves a complete post of its own, but it only came out yesterday (so perfect timing for my Trailerrific Thursday). In the sequel, Mickey Rourke plays Whiplash while Sam Rockwell is Justin Hammer, a multi-billionaire businessman and a rival of industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr). This looks awesome! Release Date: 7 May 2010 (US)
The Runaways: A coming-of-age biopic about ’70s teenage band The Runaways, with Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Curie. Release Date: 2010
Alice in Wonderland: Wow, this second trailer looks even more amazing! Definitely one of my MUST-SEE movies for next year. Release Date: 5 March 2010 (US, UK)
Hot Tub Time Machine: This is one of those movies that looks funny, but yet at the same time pretty awful. It follows a group of best friends who’ve become bored with their adult lives: Adam (John Cusack) has been dumped by his girlfriend; Lou (Rob Corddry) is a party guy who can’t find the party; Nick’s (Craig Robinson) wife controls his every move; and video game-obsessed Jacob (Clark Duke) won’t leave his basement. After a crazy night of drinking in a ski resort hot tub, the men wake up, heads’ pounding, in the year 1986. Release Date: 19 March 2010 (US)
Clash of the Titans: I wasn’t that impressed by the first trailer, but this second trailer has me some what more interested. I don’t know why, but I just can’t seem to get too excited for this movie. It looks fun and I’ll most probably end up seeing it, but I can’ find that ‘ohmygodhmygodIhavetoseethatmovie’ vibe. Release Date: 26 March 2010 (US, UK)
Youth in Revolt: I had seen the normal trailer of this, but it just didn’t seem funny. This Red band trailer explains that though: most of the jokes are R-rated. While his trailer trash parents teeter on the edge of divorce, Nick Twisp sets his sights on dream girl Sheeni Saunders, hoping that she’ll be the one to take away his virginity. Release Date: 8 January 2010 (US), 5 February 2010 (UK)
Brooklyn’s Finest: Burned out veteran Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere) is just one week away from his pension and a fishing cabin in Connecticut. Narcotics officer Sal Procida (Ethan Hawke) has discovered there’s no line he won’t cross to provide a better life for his long-suffering wife and seven children. And Clarence “Tango” Butler (Don Cheadle) has been undercover so long his loyalties have started to shift from his fellow police officers to his prison buddy Caz (Wesley Snipes), one of Brooklyn’s most infamous drug dealers. Release Date: 5 March 2010 (US)
Saint John of Las Vegas: An ex-gambler (Steve Buscemi) is lured back into the game by a veteran insurance-fraud investigator. Release Date: unknown
Did You Hear About The Morgans?: I only saw the trailer for this last week, but (in the US) it’s coming out tomorrow! Is that a sign that this movie is really bad? I kind of liked the trailer, it’s not the obvious rom-com. Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker are a married couple with problems on the brink of separating, until they witness a murder and have to go into witness protection. Release Date: 18 December 2009 (US), 1 January 2010 (UK)
Death at a Funeral: Okay, now this trailer isn’t completely horrible, there are some funny things in it… Only it’s an exact copy of Frank Oz’s Death at a Funeral from a couple of years ago. This film is literally an American copy of a UK film. Some funny stuff in it, but you could just as well check out the original. Release Date: 16 April 2010 (US), 4 June 2010 (UK)
I was sent a review copy of this book a couple of weeks ago (hmm, actually it might have been months ago, now I think about it), and I’ve only now finally had the chance to write my review about it. I had never came across Lenore before, but when hearing it was like an “unholy union between Tim Burton and Dr Seuss” I just knew I had to try it.
Lenore: Noogies is the first volume of Roman Dirge’s Lenore the Cute Little Dead series. It’s a collection of 1-3 page mini stories, starring Lenore, a 10 year old dead girl who lives in a mansion with her creepy friends. The stories are delightfully dark and twisted, with a weird dark humour. A part of me knows some of the jokes are just gruesome, but I can’t help but find it funny.
Some of the comics are twists on known stories like children’s songs, games, and nursery rhymes, turning them into something more macabre, like the Raven and the Crooked Man. Other stories just have unexpected dark endings, like Little Bunny Foo Foo. Here’s an example:
It’s a great book for those of you that are dark and twisty. It’s not everybody’s type of humour, but if you liked the above example, this might be something for you.
Orange/Blue Contrast in Movie Posters – After the Floating Head syndrome and the Trajan lettertype overkill, now another trend has been discovered in movie posters.
When I first heard that Ridley Scott would be doing a Robin Hood movie with a twist, I thought it would be awesome. Around that time the main plot was reported to be much different though and it was an interesting take on a well-known story. I’m not sure how much of that original twist is still in that movie, but none of the descriptions seem to mention it at all. It’s just another Robin Hood movie.
Now maybe that’s just because the twist is actually meant as a shock surprise twist ending that you don’t find out about until halfway (or something like that), which if that is the case would make the film awesome. Seeing this trailer though just makes me think: Gladiator in medieval times. Russell Crowe plays Robin Hood, Cate Blanchett plays Maid Marian.
It’s that time of the year again that I’m listening to Christmas music, but my playlist always has some non conventional choices. This year I thought I’d share them with you! I love Nightmare Before Christmas, so (of course) most of the songs are in my Christmas playlist.
My favourite though is What’s This? And it has the most Christmassy feel to it. I really like Danny Elfman’s voice; I’ve tried searching, but does anyone know if he has sung any other stuff? Enjoy:
I should have blogged about this gift idea a little bit earlier, cause the deadline for Christmas delivery of domestic orders was yesterday. Ehm, well, anyway… these still make great birthday presents!
The xkcd comics is one of the geekiest (in the techy sense) around. I gave Cristiano these posters last year, and (even though he still hasn’t hung them up) they are brilliant:
Besides posters they’ve got a couple T-Shirts of some of the comics and just recently they published a book! It features a selection of the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favourites.
I got my first Secret Santa present a couple of days ago for one of the Book Bloggers Secret Santas I’m participating in:
The Lion of Ireland from Morgan Llywelyn! Thank you, Secret Santa. I have no idea who sent this to me, but I know I’m going to like it. I can’t wait to find out what my Secret Santa person thinks of what they’ll receive.
The past couple of years I haven’t been gaming that much; besides the occasional small game on the Nintendo DS, I think the last real proper games I played were Kingdom Hearts 2 and Final Fantasy XII on the PS2. A couple of months ago I borrowed a Wii, but I haven’t actually “played” anything on that besides EA Personal Trainer. There are however a lot of games out there that I want to try, but just never got around to getting.
Also so far it hasn’t seemed like a good idea to invest in a PS3 or an Xbox 360; I know what type of games I like, and nothing that has come out so far seems worth getting a new console for. Especially with the amount of PS2 and Wii games I have yet to try out. But looking at the titles to be released in the next couple of months, I think that’s going to change. For starters Final Fantasy XIII is coming out in March and that for me is finally a game worth getting a PS3 for.
So here is a list of the games I’m interested in getting. Some are pretty old, some aren’t even out yet, but they all look like fun.
Final Fantasy XIII (PS3 & Xbox 360)
As I said above, Final Fantasy XIII is a must-have on my wish list. I’ve been addicted to this series ever since VIII came out, and I still can’t get enough from them. I’ve actually only finished 2 of the games I’ve played properly (from the 8 I own), but with “properly” I mean unlocking all items, all secrets, etc. I think I’ve put in at least 50 hours per game (with some of the extreme ones topping at least 150 hours). It’s one of the few games I know I will play exhaustively and the price-to-hours-of-gameplay ratio has kind of spoiled me for most other games. Release Date: March 2010
Dante’s Inferno (PS3 & Xbox 360)
I got to play this last week at a demo day from EA and I really like the look of it. I’ll try to post a full review of what I saw later this week. It’s based on, well, Dante’s Inferno, the first part of Dante’s poem Divine Comedy. The levels in the game actually correspond with the 9 circles of Hell mentioned in the poem and it’s interesting to see how they’ve interpreted the different aspects of the poem. Release Date: February 2010
God of War I, II & III (PS2 & PS3)
I’ve never played any of the God of War games, but they look awesome! You know how much of a sucker I am for Greek mythology, so God of War shouldn’t disappoint. Release Date: March 2010 for III, I and II are out now.
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel (PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
I was addicted to Sacred when it came out 5 years ago, but the game was so buggy I got stuck and never finished it. I’ve been eyeing it’s sequel since it came out, but was never sure if it was worth getting or not.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (Nintendo DS)
I’ve played all the previous Kingdom Hearts games and it’s another series I just love. It combines Final Fantasy with Disney! How could you not love that!
Scribblenauts
I’ve heard so much about this game, but have yet to play it. You basically have to solve puzzles by summoning objects by writing their names. You can write down anything you can think of which might help you, like ‘ladder’ but also stuff like celebrities, animals and internet memes.
What are the games you are hoping to get for Christmas? Any suggestions of games I might like?
