shinydinosaur | Entries tagged with movies

...wherein I attempt to watch new movies this year and see how far I get.

Definitely less intense than the television meme, and I've got a better structure for this one, even, because listing by the day I saw it is pointless.

For the sake of argument, TV movies count (otherwise I would be shelling out ridiculous amounts of money), miniseries do not, and I'm thinking about letting film adaptation of plays count, because they're long enough and also because of the Tennant/Tate Much Ado About Nothing. (Tennant's Hamlet was on stage but filmed as a legitimate movie so hey).

Also, it's my meme and I'm allowed to make the rules.

SO.

* movie that was/will be released in 2012
italics movies I plan to see this year

January (2)
Black Swan
Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet

~~~~~

*War Horse
*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
*Sherlock Holmes 2
*The Hunger Games
*The Hobbit
*Tintin
* The Avengers
*Cabin in the Woods
?Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing
Melancholia
The Muppets
Beastly
V For Vendetta
Thor
Tree of Life

..the rest of Star Wars which is probably like over half of them um.

I'M MORE THAN OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS FOR MOVIES GUYS. Or play along with your own LJ and I'll come check it out! Movie watch-alongs are especially fun so if you feel you have the need to be the first person ever I watch a specific movie with, let me know.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: http://shinydinosaur.livejournal.com/46914.html

My computer cord finally died on me so I had to wait like 10 days for the replacement to be mailed to me. SO SLOW GAH. And it finally arrived this afternoon. x___x

What have I been doing in the meantime?

1. Finished my finals for first semester - and for the record, I got 2 Bs and 3 As. I'm freaking excited! My parents don't even know since I first saw my grades yesterday at like 11pm at a party.

2. Made tons and tons of things, kinda. Here's a TARDIS and lots and lots of Pokemon: Pikachu, Shuckle, Mew, Charmander, Squirtle, Clefable, Ponyta, Lugia, Articuno, and all four original Pokeballs. With plans of waaaay more on the way, it's just what I've done according to the colors I have, and when I had them. Lots of blues and reds and yellows, not so much greens or pinks. Hence lack of Bulbasaur. (Which is now a total of 71 different ones, so I could probably make Six's coat if I didn't mind the eystrain.)

3. Set up my Etsy store again. Only has three items right now, but this is my fave one and apparently the internets agrees. It's so lovely and I had fun putting it together and experimenting.

4. Dyed my hair red today. It was brown with reddish tint to it (not in that pic much) but it grew out like whoa, so now I'm more of a red/auburn!
Spent like four hours today doing it (and by that I mean my little eleven year old sister put gloves on and did the whole process herself which was about three hours worth of work - she did it last time too and it was fantastic, and this time she cut my split ends off for me and it looks nice)

5. Watched movies + caught up on House, Ringer, and much more QI. So for movies, I've seen Winter's Bone, which was brilliant and made me way more excited for Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games, and Gattaca which is now my #1 fave hardcore science fiction movie ever. I didn't expect to cry at the end so all of a sudden tears was whoa. And then I watched the extras on the DVD and the 'epilogue' that they cut out at the last second just took my breath away and sent chills down my spine at the end. I need a version where it's left in. Omg. Could probably write a whole post on how fantastic Gattaca was in every sense. It's from 1997 and I swear it was written for 2010, it's so, so relevant and I'd love to see it be in curriculum for genetics classes if it's not already.

6. Went to the most amazing Christmas party that a friend hosted. I was with old and new friends for 12 straight hours and made so many more inside jokes and moments that we'll never forget. Had tons of homemade foods and desserts, watched Muppets Christmas Carol, played a rather action-packed game of Spoons (it isn't fun until someone gets hurt) and lots of just wonderful socializing. Met my evil twin who is crazy awesome. She's an English major, we spoke with British accents for an hour or two. she looks very much like me down to the hair and glasses, ships the same alt!ships for Harry Potter fandom, and even recognized my cross-stitched TARDIS which surprised me. :D

7. Finally achieved my goal of getting one million NP on Neopets. Yeah, you heard me right. The games are addicting and free, and I have friends who've stayed on as long as I have (seven years now) so it's nice to reconnect. Totally used other computers to do it of course, for maybe an hour or two a day, but it's nice and relaxing and I've always wanted a million points in their game currency and now I have it. \o/

8. I also saw a very dear friend of mine in a great production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and had about five other mutual friends come too. He was the most hilarious Malvolio ever and I had to keep covering my mouth because I couldn't keep a straight face. Every time I turned around to hide my laughter, at least one of my friends had tears running down her face or had their heads hidden. It was great. :D

Of course, I'm still sending out cards in about a month, complete with personalized awesome if you'd like it, so sign up already! :D

~~~

First off, Reasoning With Vampires at Tumblr.
I'm an English grammar dork, and I've read all four Twilight books and thought they were a bit rubbish, but great for helping kids realize how not to write sentences/plot/characterization. Reading the entries is such a time-eater but in a great way, and I got through about two pages before some of them made me laugh SO hard. My 11 year old sister and I had tears in our eyes and were gasping for breath by some of them around page eight.
Some particular favorites: here, here, here and here.

Bonus: Part 1 of Alex reads Twilight. I love good snarkage.

Then, there's The Hobbit Blog.
Anyone who's a LotR/Hobbit junkie like me, is in love with the films, and/or interested in every aspect of behind-the-scenes from filming to directing costumes to sets to whathaveyou will love this. The production videos are so wonderful and fun and the last five seconds of video #1 had me tearing up from I'M SO HAPPY THIS IS REAL.

Fun story #1: I got a package today from MTI (Musical Theatre International) and freaked out before realizing that it was because I won a contest and then forgot about it. You had to answer the question about something in this particular book and then if it was right, you're put in a drawing for two versions of the hardback~ special 50th anniversary addition PLUS another hardback illustrated book by the same author. TL;DR: I won. XD
If anyone is interested, it's called The Phantom Tollbooth. I'd heard of it before but now I have no excuse but lack of time to read it. XD

Fun story #2: I was looking at the scifi/fantasy section of the bookstore before work today and passed two women talking about how to define science fiction vs fantasy books. tl;dr I spent about 10 minutes talking with them, one of them was a Joss fan too which was totally awesome. She showed me a book series she was reading with a female werewolf who takes charge and becomes the leader which is cool and more female-empowering and different all that. Not my type of book, really, but yay. :D
I'm currently bewildered as to why there is an authorized sequel to I, Robot. It's just sitting on my desk and I'm wondering if I should actually read it. And I was so tempted to buy another book and had to just stop myself.

brb signing up classes for next semester.
Sociology, US History, Ballroom Dance, Public Speaking, Theatre Appreciation (online, boooo)

I have no idea what I just watched.

Yay, Netflix! Maybe I'm just too tired from how late it was when I finished, but I figure if I understand very little about the plot of the movie by the time the credits roll, either I should go to bed or the filmmakers need to be more concise or something,

It's from like 1991, and it's a really small-budget film, I can tell. it's somewhat slow-paced but generally well-done to suit that style (the cinematography was great and the way certain scenes were shot avoided what would otherwise be a really cheesy or fake-looking moment). David Thewlis is in it with a minor role, but what made me totally sit through it was a yoouuung Paul McGann. With a really pretty voice. And face. :D

Apart from that, nothing really made much sense at first. It's also almost 2am right now. Thanks to IMDb boards I understood a bit more about the interesting mindtrip I just went on. It's definitely creepy but has a two-tone feel to it that I don't even know if it's supposed to reconcile or not. There's this whole thing between seeing/not seeing, imagination vs reality, and his view of the world vs everyone else. It's very bizarre and unsettling and incredibly cerebral, but I think I liked it well enough.

I can understand that it's not listed on TV Tropes but it doesn't even seem to have a Wikipedia page. That's how unknown this thing is.
EDIT: Well, actually it does but it tells you like literally nothing about it other than it's a French-British drama film with PMG listed as the third-main actor in it. Here's the trailer, please excuse the awful voiceover. Paul McGann shows up around 0:19 seconds in with a line, at 0:46 for a second although he's rather..different in that one, and another line at 1:11. <333

I'd definitely watch it at least once if you like mind-trippy, psychological horror, slower-paced, cerebral movies. Other ones that remind me of this as far as pacing and style (just more famous) are The Sixth Sense, The Good Son, Donnie Darko, eXistenZ (only that one's incredibly graphic and gore-fest), and Hitchcock movies.

The next movie I'll probably watch tomorrow night is another recommended to me as psychological thriller. It's called Dark Harbor, with Alan Rickman as a lead character.

Current Mood: sleepy

It is also 1:50am now so I am surprised at how well i am being coherency stuff. Tho I wrote lots of this like maybe some hours ago and now it's been like 20 hours awake on like 5 hours sleep why am I still ~~awake~~ alive even

My second day of job training was excellent. (I have a badge now you guys. I'm LEGIT.)

My boss gave me instructions on how to use our huge studio camera and gave me like 10 minutes to play around with manual settings to get the feel of it, then set it to default (as far away as it goes as high up as it goes) and timed me on like four different shots, defaulting the camera each time. It's a monster to operate especially as I'm left-handed and so I can't use it like I normally would to take pictures. My time went down from like 36-42 seconds to about 14-20 by the third drill and she was ridiculously impressed with how great the pictures of her were cropped and shot.

( cutting )

----

Also progressing nicely on my cross-stitching. I estimate about 13 hours have gone into what you see here, although right now it's about 15 hours total and I've got the top of the head filled in. Pleeenty more to goe before I'm any where near done.

(this isthe bit I am writing at almost 2am how did I stay up this late like 22 hrs now i am a zombie)

In other news, Tucker & Dale vs Evil is FINALLY FREAKING FINALLY getting a release date of something like september 26 or 27 or something around then. Totally excited just hope it's in a theatre near me. been waiting like over a year and a half for it or something and it's like the best or most anticipated movie never released XD

And... I am going to bed why haven't I already I feel like I'm gonna just fall asleep right he

Current Mood: there should be one for zombie

Man, my life is busy as heck lately.

So here's a quick update before I get my 5-6 hours of sleep. (EDIT: Quick? Lawl, took me the better part of half an hour to write all this. So I'm categorizing, cutting, and chronological-izing to save you all the trouble of trying to decipher my jumbled thoughts.

( The Past: )
( The Present: )
( The Future: )

Saw the movie with my sister for the first time today (yeah yeah, I'm seven years late), not knowing much about it or what to expect.
Acting was really good (omg omg Ewan McGregor's accent was fantastic even if it wasn't American), and I quite liked Marion Cotillard in it too (and lolwut hi there Miley Cyrus?) and it wasn't effects-heavy, which was nice, and the storyline was very unique. I loved seeing how his fantastically tall tales weren't so tall after all.

The monologue and scenes at the end are what really got to me though, when Will tells his dad the story of what he saw in the witch eye, and everything after that. ;___;
"A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal."

It's a good non-mainstream film for me, not quite up there with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but it's on that list somewhere.