300th Blog!

It's my 300th blog post! My first blog ever was on the 17th of September 2008. So it's been about 5 and a half years! Which averages out to be about 55 posts a year or over 1 post a week! That doesn't even seem realistic since I had a few hiatuses that lasted several months... but anyway that's supposedly how it is!

According to the Blogger stats, my all time page views is 19,388, last month getting 210.

They also track page views by country, browser, device etc.

Apparently I had 48 page views from Internet Explorer in the last month. Who are the poor souls using Internet Explorer these days?

Also, apparently my blog isn't viewed just in Australia either. Supposedly in the past month I've attracted views from the United States (60), France (13), UK (13), the United Arab Emirates (2) and others. I'm pretty sure these ones are just like spam sites or something. I used to have a comment box and that was just filled with spammers all over the world getting me to check out their blogs.


Anyhoo, let's get back into some blogging!

I've got a few movie reviews (The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Wolf of Wall Street), some drawings I did and book reviews (The Divergent Trilogy - Divergent, Insurgent and Allegiant)!

The Grand Budapest Hotel

8.4/10 on IMDb
92% on Rotten Tomatoes
This movie was so amazing that I have to put it up there on the list of amazing movies.

Firstly, the cast.

Just look at the film poster, it's got such a great cast! Every actor/actress was amazing, and even though some famous actors only had about a minute on screen, it just added to the novelty of the film. I seriously loved Ralph Fiennes in this, I don't think I've ever seen him in a comedic role before. Alongside him, Tony Revolori, who I haven't seen before but was so amazing even in this cast of awesomeness. Other notable main actors were Adrien Brody, whom I haven't seen in quite a while, Willem Dafoe, Jude Law, and Saoirse Ronan.

If that doesn't convince you to see the film well then the second great factor was the humour.

The humour and plot of this story was so ridiculous and comical that it was just spot on with the whole quirkiness of the film. A lot of the humour came from the editing and what shots were used, but the actors and the script were also fantastic and everything just meshed together extremely well.

But lastly, and I think this is why I loved it so much, the actual picture!

I don't think I would be exaggerating if I said that every scene of the film makes a good picture. Every movement of the camera was so meticulously thought out and planned to add to the storyline. The whole film was so clever. And also, the film was pretty much square! The aspect ratio went from 1.33 to 1.85 to 2.35:1. Not only that but the colours were amazing; some scenes of the film looked like a painting. As I said, everything was just amazingly crafted, every little detail and hand gesture was thought out and for that reason, this has to be one of my favourite movies. Definitely give it a watch!


The Wolf of Wall Street

8.4/10 on IMDb
77% on Rotten Tomatoes
So this was the extremely hyped up Martin Scorsese film with Leonardo DiCaprio and veneered-Jonah Hill with a record-breaking count of 569 f-bombs. It breaks the record for the most number of f-words in a film, but according to this Wikipedia page, a documentary appropriately titled 'Fuck' holds more f-words than The Wolf.

So anyway, the idea of this film is pretty interesting. We follow the rise of Jordan Belfort through Wall Street via many illegal scams and frauds, illicit substances and numerous prostitutes, followed by the fall of Jordan Belfort as he gets caught by the FBI for his crimes. And it's based on a true story, so it definitely sounds extremely interesting.

Unfortunately, this three-hour film dragged on for far too long. There were just way too many scenes of him gulping quaaludes, sniffing cocaine off breasts and shouting at his employees on a stage with a mic... in his workplace. Of course the movie still had its good moments, like 'that one quaalude scene', Matthew McConaughey's humming and chest bumping, and when it dons on you that his first wife is also Ted Mosby's wife.

But that's about it. The rest of the movie is ridiculous and repetitive, and could have easily been cut down to two hours. After about the first half of the movie, you start counting down the time to the credits.


Since it's getting late and I've been watching too many movies for my own good lately, I'll draw the line at two for now.

Anyway, I started getting into drawing something in my 642 Things to Draw book again, so here are some (click on them to see them in a new tab):


A Puppet

(What else would I draw besides POTTER PUPPET PALS!!?)

A Melting Candle

A Box of Fried Chicken

(Yes, I took the easy way out; fried chicken is too hard to draw realistically)

A Dragonfly

Sunglasses

(Yes, yes, I know, he's slanted way too much in the guy's left lens)

A Campfire

(This is going to segue great into what I'm about to talk about)



What's that fire that's not a campfire?!

WELLLL....

Just last week I finished reading the Divergent trilogy (after seeing the Divergent movie trailer and thinking it looked pretty cool).

It's supposedly the next Hunger Games since it's set in a dystopian futuristic world, so obviously I wanted to check it out.

I can only really tell you about the plot of the first book/movie since I would spoil things if I talked about the other two books, so here goes.

In a futuristic Chicago, five factions exist, each representing a personality characteristic: Abnegation (Selflessness), Erudite (Intelligence), Amity (Peacefulness), Candor (Honesty), and Dauntless (Bravery). Obviously Dauntless relates to the last of my drawings.

Citizens of this neo-Chicago get born into a faction, but when you turn 16, you do an aptitude test to see which faction you belong to, then you can decide whether to stay where you are, or leave your family and faction forever to truly belong.

So the main character, Beatrice Prior (later known as Tris), is a 16 year old girl (as they always are in these dystopian action movies) from Abnegation who decides to change to the Dauntless faction. However, her test results show that she actually belongs to more than one faction, which is a rare and dangerous trait. Such people are called Divergent. She needs to be careful not to let anyone know she is Divergent, because the leader of Erudite sees these Divergents as threats and essentially kills them off.


I actually really liked the series as a whole. I like this idea of choosing where to belong and of course after The Hunger Games, I still love the idea of an overlooked 16-year old girl being pushed to the limits when life and death are at stake. I also love the idea of being courageous despite fear. Being courageous in the midst of fear. It's a really great morale to live by (which the Dauntless do).

However, I didn't really like the first book until the very end. It didn't really have a plot to it. Most of the book was the initiation phase (after changing factions), which are quite intense but nothing in terms of bad guys really happens until the very end. That being said, the ending did make me want to read the next book, Insurgent.

Insurgent was, to me, the best book of the series. It was a lot more fast-paced and there was actually something happening all the time. The last book, Allegiant, was great but there were a lot of plot holes and illogical story lines going on.

Some downsides from the first book (such as my questioning of how can people just belong to one personality characteristic) were answered in the last book. Basically you just have to imagine that these people, while human, are just living in the future where things aren't the same and then you'll be happy. So just pretend for now that they're in a separate world where most people only have one defining characteristic. It doesn't make much sense, but just think of it like that.

Another downside of the last book was that, since it had two perspectives, it was a pretty confusing read. Not confusing in terms of the plot, but confusing in terms of the writing styles. Eventually, both perspectives started sounding more and more alike, resulting in me being very very confused as to who was actually talking - the boy or the girl?!

There was also some controversy over the ending of the series, but I quite liked it.

In saying that, I can't wait to see the first movie, even though reviews look bad (probably because the first book itself wasn't that great). Another thing to note: Kate Winslet is the villain! I don't think I've ever seen her play a villain role before, so that will be interesting.


That's all for now.

Until next time!

More Movies!

Let's kick things off with a good ole movie trailer!



I don't think I've ever been so excited about a non-sequel/non-book-based film before. It just looks so cool and it's coming out this Thursday!


Anyway, so it's been a while but here's another blog! I've been watching a few movies in the past week so here are a few reviews:

Gravity

8.1/10 on IMDB
97% on Rotten Tomatoes
So I can see why this film wasn't really nominated for many awards. Even when I saw the trailer, I was like "So... is that pretty much the whole movie? Someone gets lost in space?" Obviously the film delves a bit deeper, with the main character (Sandra Bullock) actually trying to get to a space station and landing pod/ship to try and get back to Earth, but there wasn't that much to it.

So the plot is something like this. Russia blew up one of their satellites or something, and so the debris caused by the explosion starts orbiting Earth in the same orbit as the space shuttle that the main characters are on. The debris is travelling at such a high speed that this in turn damages their space shuttle, causing more debris to add to the already catastrophic herd of flying debris. They need to get to the next space station and try to fly and land back in Earth within 90 minutes, which is the time it would take the debris to orbit back and cause more damage.

So, sure, there were elements of suspense, as we try and root for her to get to the next space station while only have 6% of oxygen, but it was really repetitive. The film's only 90 minutes but we see pretty similar stuff happening over and over again (she gets to the station just in the nick of time, but not fast enough to avoid the debris, then she's got to travel to the next station again).

Of course, the special effects were amazing and I really do credit Sandra Bullock for getting into the shape she needed to film this, but besides CGI and all that, it wasn't an amazing film.


Noah

6.7 on IMDb
76% in Rotten Tomatoes
Say what you will, I actually really enjoyed this movie. Let's just first put aside the fact that it's based on a biblical story. It's amazing. It's so artistic and the scenery is absolutely beautiful. The CGI with the animals is crazy; they didn't film a single animal, it was all digital 'tweaks' of existing animals now. Even the meaning and the metaphoric symbolism of the characters and the plot line was just incredible. And the way they kind of made it seem sort of fantasy-like... truly truly amazing. Also, the acting was really great. And seeing Emma Watson on the big screen is never going to be a bad thing.

Now let's move back to the fact that it's a biblical story. Okay sure, it wasn't exactly on point, but I mean it's a Hollywood film that's acting similarly to any other book-adaptation film. I think their take on it was pretty good, it added to the suspense and the drama. I mean we all think we know the story about Noah, some old dude who gathered up two of each animal, built a boat and avoided the flood. But no one really knows the story about Noah and who he was and what he felt and thought. I thought this was a good spin on things; don't go in expecting to know the ending.

Some interesting IMDb trivia:

Darren Aronofsky had been fascinated with the character of Noah since childhood, seeing him as a "a dark, complicated character who experiences real survivor's guilt".

According to Emma Watson, the film has an ambiguous setting: "It could be set in any time. It could be set sort of like a thousand years in the future or a thousand years in the past... You shouldn't be able to place it too much."

According to Darren Aronofsky, the Watchers' designs were inspired by three images: the six-winged Seraphim angels, a seagull trapped in oil and by ballet dancers with blocks attached to their feet. "These are angelic forms captured, malformed imprisoned by the earth; winged creatures who got encased and had to use their wings as arms and legs. "

Russell Crowe explained his characterization of Noah as not necessarily having to be nice: "The funny thing with people being, they consider Noah to be a benevolent figure, you know? Because he looked after the animals. Are you kidding me? This is a dude who stood by and let the entire population of the planet perish!"


Pacific Rim

7.1/10 on IMDb
71% on Rotten Tomatoes
Yeah, yeah, I'm a bit late, but I finally got around to watching it. At first I really did not want to; it just looked so lame. Like a cop-out of Transformers, Matrix, Avatar and Godzilla. Pretty much just think about combining all these things together. What do you get? Some huge robot controlled by two people fighting some huge monster. But hey, it was alright. I mean it was nothing fantastic, but it was still alright.

The acting was cheesy, the plot was slightly unique but not really, and the Aussie accent... just... stop. I don't understand why they always have to exaggerate the Aussie accent; it sounds like they got someone straight out of the outback to do this role!

But yeah, so it's good in the sense that it was entertaining and quite action packed, there were a few comical relief characters and scenes, there was a good mix of ethnicities (yes to a female Asian lead) and it was set in random Hong Kong.

Another bit of trivia is that apparently it was one of those rare films that didn't do so well in Hollywood, but did really well in Asia. And I kind of get that, because that sort of storyline isn't really that interesting for Western culture, but I think Asians are really into huge robots fighting each other and stuff. Even the soundtrack made it seem like we were just watching some crazy hyped-up Japanese reality show, like it was all just some video game footage.


Well, that's it for now. I was planning on talking about a few more movies but it's getting late and unfortunately we can't just rewind the clock again. So, until next time kids!