Getting Hyped

YES MOCKINGJAY TRAILER!!


It came out on Tuesday and man oh man am I excited! I seriously cannot wait until November 20th!


And also I finally got my Cinebuzz VIP card!

About time though, honestly. Even last year (and possibly earlier) on my account it said that I had VIP status, but I never got my card until I complained to them. I only got it about a week ago, which sucks since their new points system means VIP members can't get extra points =[

At least I have free popcorn refills (which are pretty much useless as it requires me to buy popcorn in the first place) and other VIP promotions...


Anyway this blog I think I'll take a break from reviewing movies. I've been watching a few here and there but right now I'm just super excited for the upcoming month!

Firstly, mid-sem break is coming up soon and I can finally take a break! Usually I have all these assessments due the week after mid-sem break, but this semester is pretty good in that most of my assessments will be done by mid-sem break, allowing me to actually HAVE A BREAK!

So me and some friends from high school are heading out for an overnight camping trip, which I'm super excited for, because I haven't been out camping since 2009 Duke of Ed.

So that's the Sunday to Monday planned, and then on Tuesday I'm heading to a training day for SPARK, which is a volunteering service that partners with Vinnies helping refugee children with their homework in an after-school care centre. The training lasts for the whole day, but I'm pretty excited to start getting some psych-related stuff done as well as have a break from just tutoring English students (although this probably won't be that much different).

Then on the Wednesday of mid-sem break I'm watching Gone Girl at Chicks at the Flicks! I've never been to Chicks at the Flicks, but I've heard some amazing things about it. It's a bit more expensive than usual ($27) but it's in V-max and also includes sparkling on arrival, as well as a meal! They've also got gift bags where they give out some good freebies to everyone. I think it'll be similar to the Mother's Day event that I went to with my mum earlier this year, so I'm pretty excited for it.

Then I've also booked tickets to climb the Harbour Bridge with my mum! It's going to be in mid October and I honestly am looking forward to this the most because for some time it's been a lifelong dream to climb it. I'm praying it won't be raining, but I guess it'll just add to the experience even if it is! Hopefully I won't get too nauseous (knowing me I would still freak out heaps though), but even if I do I guess once you start there's no stopping, so maybe it'll help me overcome my fear of heights...?

And lastly for the month of October I'm going whale watching with my mum and dad near the end of the month! We're going on the Soren Larson, which is this really nice tall ship, instead of the typical ferry or boat. It's really expensive ($250 pp), but we got this Adrenalin deal that's only $99pp. It even includes morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, as well as the opportunity to climb up the mast and literally learn the ropes and how to set sail.


So that's pretty much what I've got planned for the next month! Diwan and I have also booked tickets for Cirque du Soleil at the end of November, but the hype for that can come after all of this...


Anyway, I wanted to end by talking about a few games.


The Last of Us

So my brother's been playing this game for the past month or so every now and then when he gets back from work and my mum and I have been watching him play it as if we were watching a movie.

Might I say, I love watching this. Most of the games he plays look weird or uninteresting, but since this follows a man who has lost his daughter in a zombie-apocalyptic future, I absolutely love it. The actual plot is surprisingly interesting; you've got different types of zombies and different friends/partners along the way. You can also see the character development quite well across the different chapters. Also, the fact that the main character keeps reminding me of Gerard Butler (and the main female sort of reminds me of Ellen Page) might be a reason why I am so entranced by it.

I played a bit of it when there was no action going on, but I couldn't control him properly and he was riding his horse around really retardedly, so I stopped before anything legit came up! I much prefer watching my brother and telling him what to do (because at times I'm right about something and get really smug about it all).

Apparently there's also a movie in the making based on this game, which I'm pretty keen for. I really hope Gerard Butler does it, but he'd have to have a southern American accent for it to be really legit, but I guess that doesn't really matter. There's also a rumour going around that Maisie Williams is going to be Ellie, but I'm not sure how legit this is. I think she could play it well, but once again they'd both need to have American accents since it's set there and her character will be quite different from Arya Stark. Hopefully it all turns out good though.


Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

Yup, we're back to board games. My brother's been buying way too many for me to keep track of, but recently he bought this game and it's so fun!

The basic premise is that you're helping Sherlock Holmes solve several crimes. There are ten booklets for ten crimes. Each booklet will have an introduction on the basic premise of the crime, and after you read the introduction, you decide on which leads you want to follow. You search up the leads by looking at the phone directory that's used for all ten crimes, but you go back to the booklet to find more information from these leads.

Once you decide to stop following leads, you turn to the end and answer the questions they ask. The first set of questions are related to the crime (like who did it and why), while the second set of questions are quite random. The first set of questions total to 100 points, while the second set totals to max 40 points.

Sherlock Holmes always scores 100 points, and the aim of the game is to beat Sherlock's score. For each case, you will be told how many leads Sherlock used, and so with every extra lead you took to solve the case, you take away 5 points.

It's pretty hard to beat Sherlock, but they said it was possible (doubt it). But it's still really interesting to try and go through and solve the case properly, using your own deductive skills. I was pretty annoyed at one part of the solutions for the first case, because I really think that they kind of jumped the gun and just made it seem like Sherlock was assuming something. It really seemed impossible for even Sherlock to figure that out, especially because he's not supposed to be the best (that'd be Mycroft). I think he should have at least had another lead!

Another thing is that you can only play this game once, since you'll know all the solutions by the end of the ten cases. I've only done one case though, so the game lasts for quite some time. I think they're in the process of creating an expansion as well, so that'll be interesting. You can also play it individually or as a group, but the latter might be harder since you need to agree on which leads to follow.

This is probably one of my favourite board games out there. Seeing that it was created in 1981, it's also pretty clever how they developed it.

Superhero Spam

Guardians of the Galaxy

8.6/10 on IMDb
92% on Rotten Tomatoes
I'll be perfectly honest here, I definitely wasn't expecting much of this film. When I saw the trailer that came on before X-Men: Days of Future Past, I thought it was a super cheesy and try-hard film. Honestly, some of the stuff in the trailer looked ridiculous, and not in the good sense.

BUT I did quite enjoy this movie. I probably didn't like it as much as a lot of others do, and this may be due to the fact that it was really really hyped up. Another reason might be just because it felt like it dragged on for quite some time. They set up certain scenes to make you think the movie was ending, but then it just doesn't.

But apart from that, it really was quite enjoyable. The jokes in it aren't as cheesy and try-hard as I thought they were; they definitely weren't as bad as the jokes at the beginning of The Lego Movie, so that's a big plus.

Even though the plot dragged out, I really liked the characters of this movie. We seem to get a glimpse of Peter (Star Lord) Quill's childhood and traumas, but it would have been amazing if they spent a bit longer introducing his character, as well as the rest of the Gaurdians'. Gamora was my personal favourite since she was super sassy and a real badass. I absolutely loved it every time she tilted her head because she just looked so cool.

But anyway, I still really liked the other characters, especially Rocket, since you see him as such an overconfident and proud raccoon-mutt thing (drawing from The Hunger Games' idea of muttations), but then you realise he's actually really insecure and vulnerable BECAUSE he's so different.

So overall I quite enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised by the plot/characters/humour, but I don't know if I would watch it again in the near future.

*UPDATE*: I watched it again in the near future and I've changed my mind; it's actually a pretty great film.


Green Lantern

5.7/10 on IMDb
26% on Rotten Tomatoes
Do not be fooled. Ryan Reynolds in all his handsome glory cannot save this movie.

I saw this movie in the library and thought, "Oh hey, how come I totally forgot about this and haven't seen this yet!" So of course I borrowed it, expecting to have a lovely time watching it. However, I then quickly realised that it was rated quite badly and had some very harsh reviews of it online. Nonetheless, I thought I may as well watch it seeing as we've already borrowed it...

I guess since I expected and knew it was going to be terrible, it didn't come as too much of a shock to me, but it was still pretty bad. The film just didn't have any substance. Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are beautiful people... and that was probably the only good thing of the movie. The plot wasn't that good, which is a shame because my brother was telling me about the premise of Green Lantern in the comic books after I watched the movie, and it seems like the movie could have gone to such great places, but unfortunately didn't.

Someone (I forgot who) put it well when they said this movie would have been good if it came out before we saw all the Marvel and Batman movies and had our superhero movie expectations raised.

They also had an end-credits scene which JeremyJahns thought was cute, the whole idea of the producers thinking they could have a sequel.

I was also confused as to what the other Green Lantern people did... like in the movie there's thousands of them, but... they don't do anything? They're not very useful and they just wasted all their talent.

Oh I totally forgot. Another thing that was good was the fact that they address the whole just-because-you-cover-your-eyes-doesn't-mean-your-identity-is-a-secret plot hole in a lot of classic superhero movies/stories. I thought that was pretty funny and worth giving credit for.

Long story short, this movie isn't that great. Sure you can still enjoy your time, but it's not a memorable or really emotionally-investing film.


Man of Steel

7.3/10 on IMDb
56% on Rotten Tomatoes
I can't remember why I didn't want to watch Man of Steel when it first came out (probably just because others were saying it was bad), but I remember being very very sick of Superman movies. I probably haven't seen all the superman movies, but I've definitely watched a lot when I was younger, and I really don't like the idea of Superman because he seems too crazy. Like it's just stupid that he's always being pitched against Lex Luthor and that he only has one weakness; Kryptonite. I've always much preferred other superheroes like Batman or Iron Man, who are just regular humans and serve as a symbol to us regular humans that we don't need super powers to be amazing (we just need billions of dollars).

In saying that, I liked this film better than expected. He doesn't go up against humans this time, he goes up against other aliens just like him! Finally, an actual match in terms of his crazy speed, flying, strength and laser eyes. And it looks cool. For like a straight hour, literally, there's nothing shown except amazing visuals and fighting sequences.

I also really loved his 'transformation', from terrified-of-his-powers young Clark to yay-I-can-fly-literally-around-the-world Superman. I don't recall seeing this in many of the films (but then again I was really young), and I didn't watch Smallville (the TV show), so I quite liked this change. However, as I said, it did feel like it dragged out for quite some time. Not only his transformation, but even the transformation (and downfall) of Krypton itself was pretty cool (and yet, somehow, still dragged out a bit).

I loved Amy Adams as Lois Lane though; she always amazes me. Michael Shannon was great as General Zod and Kevin Costner/Russell Crowe as the fathers. Henry Cavill as Superman himself was pretty good; I guess this is his first major film since I don't recognise him from anything and his IMDb portfolio is a bit lacking. So this is a great break for him.

The film also leaves me to ponder on how Batman vs Superman will pan out. In this film we see a lot of crazy stuff, like aliens from Krypton flying through buildings and punching each other at super fast speeds. I mean, how can Batman even handle this?! I mean yeah, sure, he could grab some Kryptonite and weaken Superman but am I wrong in assuming that the ending of this film kind of alludes to the fact that Superman is getting better and more adjusted to Kryptonite and Kryptonian climatisation? I dunno, maybe I just didn't pay enough attention to it.

But in the end I was glad to have watched it. I was seriously very reluctant, but I thought, "Hey, we have the DVD at the moment so I might as well check it out." I wasn't disappointed.

(But let's face it, who could be disappointed after watching Green Lantern?)

Then how are you this evening, Mrs Darcy?

Boyhood

8.8/10 on IMDb
99% on Rotten Tomatoes
Okay, at the time of posting, this currently is 100% on Metacritic. Whuuuurt.

I saw the advanced screening of this without expecting much, but it was surprisingly good!

So the basic premise of this film is not the plot, but in the actually process of making the film. The film was made over 12 years, as they casted a 6 year old boy and every year they would film a 15 minute segment, so you could actually see him (and the rest of the cast) age over 12 years, ultimately seeing his boyhood, hence the title.

The reason I wasn't too sure about this was because I didn't understand what sort of plot could go with this. Any plot would seem secondary to the ultimate aim of just seeing the cast age over time.

Fortunately, the plot was still pretty good; there were fun moments and there were intense moments.

I think the most surprising thing, though, was that the actors were actually so good! I mean it's hard enough to cast a 6 year old, let alone have them keep up their acting skills when they get older, because you simply can't foresee how well they would be. But the main boy and his sister (who was actually the director's daughter) were surprisingly amazing.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this movie. The plot was good and just seeing them age over time and seeing their characters develop was amazing. I'd definitely rewatch it.


Captain America: The Winter Soldier

7.9/10 on IMDb
89% on Rotten Tomatoes
I loved this movie. Honestly, it was amazing. Obviously I had my reservations, seeing as the first film was... not the greatest (to say the least), but they really upped the ante on this one.

The plot was great, notable characters ended up actually DOING stuff, and Captain American is so much more pro-er than before. They had some great elements, a far-from-typical car chase and some surprising turn of events. But I think that some of the stuff that they included didn't seem to be very logical, or at least the explanation was really rushed, so there were a few gaps that didn't really line up. I was also really confused about why there was sexual tension between Captain America and Black Widow... but regardless of that, it was really great.

HOWEVER.

The thing that truly got me excited was the mid-credits scene. Honestly, that hyped me up sooooo much! The very very last scene (which was actually post-credits and not mid-credits) wasn't too spectacular though, so you can afford to skip out on it, but definitely stay for the mid-credits scene!


Pride and Prejudice

7.8/10 on IMDb
85% on Rotten Tomatoes
Last, but definitely not least, one of my favourite books was turned into a movie. And to be honest, I only read Pride and Prejudice like this year so I didn't even care so much about it before then, but I loved this film adaptation! I was going to save this for a later post but I just love it so much I couldn't help it!

The characters were pretty spot on, the plot was followed quite closely, and the actors were amazing.

I was so happy to see Jena Malone (who played Johanna Mason in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) as reckless and wild Lydia, and also to see Donald Sutherland, who is definitely nothing like what I pictured him to be like when reading the book, as the father.

But honestly, Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen stole the show as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy respectively. Keira Knightley was so great at being Elizabeth since, despite being pretty, she was able to bring an air of unattractiveness into her character. In the books, while she is still pretty, Elizabeth isn't the prettiest of her sisters, making her a less viable target for suitors. Add to this her witty comebacks, great intellect and ability to not care what others think of her and you get a girl who's not very attractive at all. Keira Knightley was so good at showing these two aspects of Elizabeth, and I think most of it came from her extremely wide smile and the way she speaked. Matthew Macfadyen on the other hand was so different to what I had seen in Death at a Funeral, I couldn't actually believe it was him! I think it was so clever that, at the beginning of the film, when Elizabeth hates Mr Darcy, Macfadyen actually looks somewhat unattractive, but then once the film starts warming up to his character, you realise that he looks more and more handsome with every passing scene. I don't know how they managed to do that (or whether it's just me being crazily invested in the storyline), but I loved it.

I also loved the ending scene that they added in. While it wasn't in the books, it had great great great dialogue. I actually didn't watch the American version, I watched the UK version, which didn't have any kissing at all because, let's face it, back in those days you didn't kiss someone you hadn't married yet. So anyway, I watched the American ending separately, and to be honest I actually was quite uncomfortable when they started kissing because it was just out of character and weird to see.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment though, was the fact that the didn't try to slide in the most famous quote of all time,

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

I thought they would at least give the line to the mother, who's craziness can cover pretty much anything you want to include in the film, but alas, they didn't.

But the film was so good it has reignited the spark within me and I'm super eager to rewatch it, as well as reread the book!