First week back and a movie

School has started again!

It's not too bad so far.

But in movie news, I saw the American version of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last Sunday.

It was awesome. Like I said in my earlier post, I was worried they would ruin the movie, since the American version is a remake.

There was some random arty something or other in the beginning credits of the movie, which was weird, but tolerable.

The rest of the movie was just... it was great. It was on par with the Swedish movie, if not slightly better than it.

One of the reasons I think this version of this movie was better, for the North American audience at least, because from what I understand Swedish humor is very dry humor. This movie had the type of humor that is typical of American movies. Although it did keep some of that dry humor.

You can't see it, but her shirt has a lot of expletives.
http://www.moviefanatic.com/2011/11/new-images-from-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/

Rooney Mara made an excellent Lisbeth. She pulls off a bit mentally unbalanced very well. Which is pretty hard to do without actually being a little bit off.

Daniel Craig also plays Blomkvist very well. I wasn't too sure about how he would work in this role; not because of his acting skills but because I couldn't reconcile his appearance with the one the books describe of him.

While there were some changes to this version of the movie, they weren't too bad, not did they alter the story line in  an unforgivable way.

I would suggest this movie to mystery lovers, as long as they don't mind violence, sexual content, rape and vulgar language.

Nighty night all!

End of a Semester

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: Huge success.
I cannot overstate my satisfaction.


Aperture science. We do what we must because we can.


School is almost over for my class for this semester (one more exam Monday), and I am truly happy. I'm not happy to be leaving our class though (I'll miss you, Section 1 D= ) I'm just happy to get a chance to slooooooow down (Powerthirst reference anyone?)

Also, during the break there are two movies that I am planning to see come hell or high water.

The first is Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which officially comes out on December 16th, but they're doing a 22 o'clock (that's 10 p.m., if you don't read 24 hour time) showing at the Empire Theater at Grant Park Shopping Centre on the 15th. Since school's done by then, I think I might have to mosey over and see that.

I haven't seen the first Sherlock Holmes movie (of this incarnation) since it was in theaters, but I remember it was really, really good. It has good acting, keeps you guessing, and it's pretty darned funny.

In A Game of Shadows they also have Noomi Rapace playing a character.

For those who don't know Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish version of the Millennium Trilogy. I've only had the chance to see the first movie from that series (in Swedish), but the one thing I've asked for for Christmas is a box set of the movies they have at McNally Robinson book store. Even if that doesn't happen, I think I'm pretty willing to spend a little bit to get the box set on my own.

Dun dun duuuuuun

And that brings us to the next movie! The American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is being released December 21st.

I'm a little aprehensive about it, since they're remaking a movie that's already fantastic. But it looks like it will be on the upside of decent.

They've got Daniel Craig playing Mikael Blomkvist, and Rooney Mara playing Lisbeth Salander. 

Both versions of the movie are rated R, due to violence, nudity, and rape, among other things.

It doesn't look too bad.

Another thing to look forward to is the fact that Trent Reznor was part of creating the soundtrack. I'm a fan of Nine Inch Nails and their music, so I'm very hopeful for the soundtrack as well.

For those who haven't read the books in the Millennium Trilogy, I would suggest you get on that. Though they're very long (about 750 pages per book, if I recall correctly) they're worth the time. When I was reading the first book it took me a year to get it done, partially because I'd just picked it up on a layover in Amsterdam,  and partially because the first 100 pages or so are really slow, and talking about Swedish economy. Once I got past that though, I finished it in a week.

I then picked up the second one to read on the flight to Greece to visit my father that summer. I finished it in about a week as well.

Leaving Greece that summer, I found the last book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, in English, at a little kiosk by my gate for about 7 Euro. I didn't hesitate in buying it, and I finished it in less than two days.

Now I think I'll go read them again!

Talk to you all next week.

Movies missed

I have had it pointed out to me on several occasions that I need to watch more movies.

"Watch more movies!" They say.
"But I don't have the time to dedicate to sitting down and just watching a movie." I say
And then they threaten to smack me. In a funny way, because I don't tolerate people hitting me willy-nilly.

I've come to realize that at a lot of these times they're right.

There's something going on right now where a t.v. station is broadcasting Disney movies frequently. (I'm not sure how frequently, since my mom's the one PVRing the movies).

So far we have Mulan. Which I've seen in several languages actually, but it loses something in Greek.

I actually still have a Mulan Barbie doll, although I've lost the hair extension piece that was supposed to be before she cut off her hair to join the Army in her father's place.

Secret Hero Mulan!

We've also PVR'd Beauty and the Beast... which I can't ever remember watching. I've read the book, and seen  it performed at Disney On Ice... but I don't think I've watched the movie.

I kind of feel like I may have missed part of my childhood never having watched it.

My teapots never dance =(

So I'm making a list of movies I need to watch (or need to watch again, if the only time I saw them was before I could form memory).

Thus far, I have:

Beauty and the Beast

The Lion King

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Up

Robin Hood

Sleeping Beauty

Mary Poppins

Brave (which isn't out yet, but it must be seen)

Pocahontas

Nightmare Before Christmas

The Sound of Music
Dark Crystal
Labyrinth
Battle Royale
Goemon
Dragonslayer
Ong-Bak
Braveheart
The Patriot

Some of these have been suggested by friends, so they might just be them messing around.

I won't deny that I watched a lot of T.V. when I was younger. I was an only child until I was 10, and even then I couldn't really play with my siblings.

I think I might have enjoyed shows that weren't typical. Things like Mumies Alive.

Mummies Alive

That's probably not the best example of why the show was good... since that was pretty terrible. It's so cheesy. To me it's actually so bad that it's good.

The show is about a boy who finds out he's the reincarnation of a Pharaoh, and he's being hunted by... someone, for some reason. It's been a few years since I've seen it, and I'm going off memory. Anyway, he's being hunted, but luckily some mummies are there to protect him.

Like I said, so bad it's good.

Dark Oracle


This is one of those offbeat shows. Dark Oracle is a Canadian show about fraternal twins, Callie and Lance Stone, who have their lives basically taken over by a comic book (it's the best description I can give).

That's the intro to the show, as well as a commercial for it that was run on YTV. I've been a fan of this since I was in elementary school (so about six years). Being a little more... dark minded than others, you could say, it was a good semi-dark show.

Actually, Alex House, who plays Lance, has been filming the show Todd and the Book of Pure Evil in Winnipeg.

Here's the IMDB for Dark Oracle:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437711/

And here's the IMDB for Todd and the Book of Pure Evil:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1558128/

I'll be posting again later, bye all!

The cats meow

This past weekend, Puss in Boots came out.

Thank you Puss in Boots blog

And, oh my gosh, was it adorable.

Kinda like this... Well, exactly like this.

There was a surprising amount of innuendo though. I know they through innuendo in so that adults can enjoy it as much as the children the movies are intended for do, but with Puss in Boots, it almost seemed like it was more for adults.

We find out about Puss' past in this movie, and meet "Kitty Softpaws" (played by Salma Hayek)

"That's a lot of heel for a guy."

It's not too bad a movie, it appeals to both children and adults... but be prepared for awkward questions from the kidlings if they're old enough to understand that something inappropriate has been said, but not know what it was. 

In Other News

If anyone reading this is a fan of the Inheritance Cycle, happy days are here again.

For those who have never read the books from the Inheritance Cycle, it is made of the books Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. It will also finally, finally, have the last book in the series, Inheritance coming out in four days (from this post).

Finally. FINALLY.

It might be hard for people to see how happy I am that Inheritance is finally coming out. So I'll explain. The first book in the series, Eragon, came out in 2002. I would have been about eight or nine. Originally the Inheritance Cycle was called the Inheritance Trilogy. When Brisingr was released in 2008, I thought there would finally be closure on the series. But no. It didn't wrap it up, and I've been wondering since then if Christopher Paolini was ever going to end the series. And he finally is. Finally.

If anyone is interested in finding out more, here's Christopher Paolini's website: http://www.alagaesia.com/index.php

On that note, I'm off! Bye!

I would Rather Be online than on TV

Hello Hello,

Today is a blog for an assignment in class, so it's not about a movie (not that this week’s blog post wasn't going to be about a movie anyway, but c'est la vie).

From a list of 21 topics to choose from, I have chosen "I would rather be online than on TV".

Here's the thing, as people who know me in real life will realize, I am terrified of speaking in front of people or on camera.

When I say terrified, I mean nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, the whole shebang.

Not being able to be seen or heard helps a lot with the nervousness I find. I'm still fairly nervous because there are some people reading what I'm writing, but not to the point where I might faint.

A few times I've been asked why I'm in Creative Communications if I'm so afraid of speaking in front of people. There's a lot to that answer, I'm hoping that being in Cre Comm will help with the nerves, for one thing. I also want to improve my writing skills, and become comfortable with people reading what I write. Finally, for a long time, I've wanted to be a radio host, or DJ, and Radio Broadcast is one of our classes.

I don't understand my fear though, and it's getting to the point that it interferes with my ability to deal with life on a day to day basis. Though, to be fair, that's not all fear, some of it is the fact I'm an introvert, and like to keep to myself in public.

I've been told by a few of my friends that I "can't be an introvert" because I do talk to people, but I can explain that too, I get nervous around people I don't know and start talking more. That's right; I'm one of those awkward people.

To make one loooong explanation simple, I'd prefer to be online blogging than on TV as a reporter or something because I'm afraid to speak in front of others, even friends and classmates.

Hope you all have a good day, and I'll probably be back Saturday after I see the new Puss in Boots movie.

Drive

This is the Canadian poster as far as I can tell

.

So, I went to see Drive with my classmate Sam (from Sam Unconstrained). I won't lie, I'm pretty sure we mostly went because of Ryan Gosling.

For you Sam.

The film however is rated R.

And I can completely understand why.

The is mature content, and foul language.

And then holy gratuitous violence Batman.

The movie started off alright, albeit a little aimless. And then things went wrong. Really, really wrong. Sometimes there is the cliche line of "an orgy of violence". That would not be an overstatement here.

There were parts of this movie that almost made me throw up. And there will be spoilers here, so stop reading or skip the underlined paragraph.

Two words. Curb Stomp. That's right. Curb stomp. In what was one of the grosser parts of the movie, Ryan Gosling CURB STOMPS some guys head in. Albeit he had self defense on his side, it still was so very, very gross. I would have been fine never having heard the sound of some guys head going squish while Ryan Gosling had a very Jack from The Shining look on his face.

Kind of like this.
On a side note, in my search for this picture, I found pictures of people who have this tattooed on their arms.

I don't want to seem too critical of the movie, because I did enjoy it. But there were some bad things, like the font. I can't find a picture of just the title, but if you look at the poster you'll see it. The pink. The terrible, terrible font. That font made up the opening credits, and the whole time I saw it I was thinking "That would make us fail an assignment in Electronic Publishing Layout and Design." (You know what I'm talking about CreComm readers).

For those who aren't in Creative Communications, let me explain, in Elec. Pub. if any of us used that font for something in an assignment, we would probably have failed.

Anyway! Back to the movie.

Like I've said before, I work at a theater, and sometimes I see people when they are leaving a theater. I must say, the most surprising people I've seen that went to see Drive were these two nice little ladies who I'm guessing are in their late 60's, early 70's.

They stayed for the entire movie, and when I asked them how they liked it, they told me that

"It's a very good movie, but very violent."

That was the best part of my day that day.

On more extremely violent movie news, I saw a poster for the movie The Hunger Games today.

Excuse me while I jump up and down with fan girl glee.

I don't want to give anything away, but I recommend people go read this book. It's really, really, really good. Catching Fire (the second book) and Mockingjay (the third) are also pretty good. I got my mom to read the first one, and she could hardly put it down.

So, when this comes out in March (if IMDB is correct) I will be seeing it. Come hell or high water, I will be seeing it.

But that's all for now, Goodnight!

50/50

                                                          Warning: May Contain Spoilers


I'm well aware that the movie 50/50 staring Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been out for a few weeks, but I've been sitting on this post. I actually saw it with my cousin the weekend it came out .

I was a little nervous going to see it however, because I was worried it would cross the fine line of things that are acceptable in a movie about cancer.

It didn't though. It was undoubtedly funny, and occasionally crass. It's probably not a movie to watch with  you parents if you'd feel awkward watching a sex scene with them, or hearing crude sexual language with them.

The main point I found though is that, yes, there are jokes involving cancer, things like having Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character using it to pick up women, but the movie didn't make fun of cancer.

It was also sad at parts though, since this is based on a real story, we know that Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character lives, but it's still very emotional. I won't lie, I cried when I watched it.

I personally think this is a great movie, and would recommend it to most people (not people who are easily offended by foul language), it's not a family film though.

Night,

Emily

Page One

Alrighty, hello hello

This blog will actually be about a movie (finally). Last Friday all of the students in first year Creative Communications went to see the movie Page One: Inside The New York Times.

None too shabby

Personally, I enjoyed the movie, it's not flashy and full of action, but for an information junkie (like me) it's great. It's also great if you're interested in journalism. 

Unfortunately in my case I was completely exhausted during the movie, so I didn't absorb parts of it. I would see it again though if it was still here.

Here's the link to the IMDB page in case anyone is interested:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1787777/

- Emily

Movies, Dungeons and Dragons and Introductions

Well, many of you won't know what's going on with this blog, at least not yet. I'll start with introduction, you (the readers) can call me Emily, or Em, anything really, just try to keep it respectful. I'll occasionally use chat speak, or emoticons, because I find that the tone I'm using (example: when I'm being sarcastic) won't always translate well in my typing, but I will try to avoid it.

Fig. 1

                                                                           
I work at a theater (which is awesome), so I decided to make use of the fact and have part of this be a movie review. If there aren't any new movies out that I want to see, I'll probably look at a movie that's on DVD to review.

Unfortunately I will not be doing a movie review this week, since I'm still getting used to handling a blog.

Dungeons and Dragons


I haven't been playing D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) for too long, if my memory serves me correctly my first session was in early February of 2011. In matter of fact, the campaign I'm currently in is getting near its end, but D&D is always an interesting creative trip.

For those who don't know, Dungeons and Dragons is a RPG (Role Playing Game). Basically, you create a character, and then get to roll dice to give them some characteristics. The numbers you roll are put into things like dexterity, strength, and intelligence (that's not all of them, but it gives a general idea). If you give a higher number to dexterity, but a lower number to strength, you would be more nimble, but not as strong. Then, depending on what your character is like, you get to give them skills. I play an acrobatic rogue, so I have a high dexterity, and my stealth and acrobatic skills are higher than most of my other skills.

The group you play with (oh yes, this is a group game) will have a leader who makes the story as you go along, and generally does not have a set character that they play (though that might be only in the games I've played). They are basically the master of the world you are playing in, and they can through some interesting challenges at you. Things like exploding crystal hedgehogs, though I think that's not as common.

I'll get a summary of the campaign I'm in up next week, I doubt anyone wants to keep reading about D&D today.

Fig. 2
This is a D20 (twenty sided dice), it is your friend, it can also destroy you.

Odds and Ends

If I have something else I feel like, I'll put some odds and ends into a post, from something interesting I saw, to special events, to questions I have for you all. It probably won't happen every post though.

With that, I bid you adieu, and hope to see you this time next week.

- Emily B