Moooore Movies!

Big Hero 6 (2014)

8.1/10 on IMDb
88% on Rotten Tomatoes
This animated film tells the story of 14-year old genius Hero Hamada, who uses his skillz in robotics (as well as his friends' scientific prowesses) to create a team of superheroes named Big Hero 6.

This film is actually loosely based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, and even though I wasn't familiar with the original comics, I was curious to see how Disney would do an animation on a Marvel comic book character. As you can tell from the Wiki article on the original comics, they've changed quite a lot (Baymax is this huge green monster thing), so it's unsurprisingly still very much like a typical Disney movie.

I actually didn't expect much of it from watching the trailers, because I thought the humour might be too forced, but I actually enjoyed it better than I expected I would. It was quite comical ("Balalalala!"), and the storyline was good (although still quite typical). What makes the film work is the characterisation of both the humans and Baymax, the latter of which undoubtebly carries the film and most of the humour.

All in all the film was quite good, but still not as amazing as it was hyped up to be. It wasn't new or anything, I mean just think of any superhero or animated film where they have to train for something and you kind of get the idea. Even the flying sequence reminded me of How to Train your Dragon.

I know a lot of people think Wreck-It Ralph was better, and to be honest I don't know where I stand on this. The concept of Wreck-It Ralph was much better, but I can't remember liking it too much. Of course, I can't really remember when I watched it so I do need to rewatch it to form a better opinion on it. But I think most of it is because the concept of Wreck-It Ralph allows for better dialogue, better humour and better storylines.

But all in all, as a superhero film, Big Hero 6 doesn't do too bad. I probably wouldn't watch it anytime soon or invest in the DVD, but it was still an enjoyable watch.


Her (2013)

8.0/10 on IMDb
94% on Rotten Tomatoes
Set in a frighteningly plausible near future, Her focuses on a society where technology has the capacity to allow for personalised operating systems complete with very advanced artificial intelligence. Our lead character purchases one of these and what follows is an unorthodox romance between human and OS.

As you can tell, this film has a very, very interesting concept which leads to some very, very uncomfortable scenes (especially when watching with the family). But in a world where everything is virtual (even the sex), it really makes you think about where this world is headed. While it does make you a bit frightened of the future, it's executed in such a way where you feel like you actually could be okay with a time when people are so intertwined with their technologies that a romance between a human and an OS isn't even that strange or weird in the eyes of others.

I really liked the ending, it was quite interesting and funny even though it was meant to be very dramatic. I guess it was because the ending addressed what you were thinking the whole length of the movie without even realising you were thinking of it.

Joaquin Phoenix was great in this role, as was Amy Adams and even Scarlett Johansson (as this film proves she doesn't need a body to be sexy). It was also good seeing Chris Pratt in this, as he wasn't playing a comedic role and he was just a lovely and supportive friend.

So while this was a good concept, it was still a bit of a weird film and I wouldn't see it again anytime soon. It's one of those ones that are good to watch once, and not really ever again.


Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

5.9/10 on IMDb
18% on Rotten Tomatoes
Well, this is going to be short.

I slept halfway through this so I honestly don't think I can review this but I guess that's a review in itself.

I don't even really know what the plot is, but it's set some time after the third in the franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Mark Wahlberg plays the main character who helps repair Optimus Prime. However, there is also a Transformer bounty hunter called Lockdown whose orders are to find and kill the other Transformers. Optimus Prime then needs to find the remaining Autobots, and then from there I don't really know what happened. There was some sort of conspiracy going on with Megatron and... yeah I dunno.

To be honest, Mark Wahlberg was really weird in this. My brother pointed out that it was weird seeing him as a father, which I totally agree with because I thought, even though they explain it in the film, he's way too young to be a father to such an old daughter. The acting was also really weird, the comedy was cringe-worthy and the plot, as you can tell, was sub-par.

Don't watch it.

Holiday Catch Up

I watched the last Hobbit the week it came out!

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

7.7/10 on IMDb
60% on Rotten Tomatoes
The last in the stretched-thin trilogy following the adventures of Bilbo Baggins. Now we find ourselves in the midst of a conundrum: Smaug has left his Lonely Mountain to bring destruction on the people of Lake Town. As Thorin proceeds to claim his Kingship back and rule over the Lonely Mountain, news spreads of his return and thus a battle takes place, consisting of five armies: The Dwarves, The Men, The Elves, The Orcs and The Wolves/Eagles (the identity of the fifth army is debated).

This was definitely the best Hobbit movie of the trilogy, which comes to no surprise since it was not only a battle movie, but it also had some great links that foreshadowed the events in Lord of the Rings. Another great thing about this was that it wasn't three hours long, and even though it was still stretched out (in the book there is almost no information on the battle; Bilbo gets knocked out then he hears about what happened very briefly), it definitely wasn't as stretched out as other scenes in the first two movies.

Sure, a whole movie dedicated to one battle can get tedious (to say the least), but after watching the first two films, you have no choice but to accept that this is just the way it has to be. Fortunately, there's some moments of drama and humour that break up the intense battle, which itself contains some great battle sequences to make it a definitely worthy film.

While the romance between Tauriel and Kili was a bit bizarre, it was still nice to see what happened here. The ending seriously got all my feels going. I especially loved some of the quotes from this movie, but unfortunately I have to put spoiler tags on some of them.

~SPOILERS!~

Tauriel:If this is love, I don't want it. Take it away, please! Why does it hurt so much?
Thranduil: Because it was real.

Saruman: Leave Sauron to me!
(Not really a spoiler but it takes away the magic if you know he's going to say this)

Dwalin: You sit here, in these vast halls, with a crown upon your head and yet you are lesser now than you have ever been.

I also made some banana bread these holidays!

I had three bananas that were super ripe and I definitely couldn't eat them all because I was the only one at home eating bananas, so I just spontaneously decided to make banana bread and it actually turned out quite alright.

It wasn't super dry or anything, but since banana bread is usually really really moist, it kinda felt like this was too dry (maybe because I didn't want to put too much butter in...)


These holidays I'm also volunteering as a Research Assistant for a Psychology student who's doing her PhD. It's 14 hours a week, meeting for 3 hours each week, but it's pretty flexible as I can just work from home most of the time. It's pretty much like doing an assessment, so I have to read lots of journal articles, do a summary of their findings, create a reference list and help write the introduction of her paper. Thankfully I don't get marked though, and everything I do goes through her eyes, since it's her PhD and she obviously wants it to be good. I was talking to a student who did this program last year and wanted to stay on even until now, and he said that it really helped with his assessments as it allowed him to read more efficiently, understand things better and write his assessments better. The supervisor is also super lovely and helpful so she's very happy to provide us volunteers with contacts that would help us learn more about Clinical Psychology. The topic she's working on is self-handicapping, which is super interesting for me, and I'm helping her with the self-esteem part of it, which I hope would really help my understanding of things when I head into Clinical Psych.

I haven't really started yet except reading some journal articles, but we only just met up last week. So I'm still going to be pretty busy these holidays, which is good since I'm no longer working (can't tutor because it's the holidays and Christmas season is over for my Christmas casual self at The Body Shop) and need to kill time.

I want to get back into cooking random stuff, painting/drawing random stuff and writing more of this story I'm working on, but I really haven't gotten the motivation back yet. So apart from that, my holidays haven't been really eventful.

- - - - -
And now, here are some movie reviews that I've been putting off for some time:

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

8.0/10 on IMDb
81% on Rotten Tomatoes
Based on the book of the same name by John Green, the story tells of a teenage Hazel Grace Lancaster, who has been diagnosed with cancer since young. It follows pretty much the plot and tone of the book (which I loved), but for some reason I didn't really enjoy this movie. I think it was because of the forced pretentiousness of the characters which made me super uncomfortable and annoyed. I mean, the characters were pretentious in the book, and I guess that's why I felt a bit weird reading some of Augustus' dialogue, but seeing it acted out by a real person makes you really want to cringe. There was also not much of a way to understand what Hazel was thinking, which was one of the things that was great about the novel.

I will give them props on how they managed the ending though; I had a lot of feels during it. Shailene Woodley was pretty great during this; she looked completely different to her character in Divergent, and it did show her versatility as an actor.

And yet... I wouldn't rewatch this any time soon.


Divergent (2014)

6.8/10 on IMDb
41% on Rotten Tomatoes
Speaking of Divergent, I can't believe I never wrote a review on it. It's probably because I already wrote a review on the book and assumed I did one for the film.

As I said, this film also stars Shailene Woodley as the main character Tris. The story is set in a dystopian future with society divided into five factions based on a dominating personality trait: Abnegation (selflessness), Dauntless (bravery), Erudite (intellect), Candor (honesty), and Amity (friendliness). People who do not belong to just one faction are classed as Divergent. And as you guessed it, Tris is Divergent.

Sure enough the Divergents are in danger of being eliminated (executed), and so the story sets up the beginnings of a conspiracy against these Divergents that Tris must protect herself from.

Yet it's wrong to sell the story as that because in all honesty, most of the movie focuses on Tris' initiation after choosing to go to the Dauntless faction (at the age of 16, students take a test and then choose whether to stay in the faction their family is in, or leave their family permanently and choose another faction). The initiation comprises of mainly physical and mental training (the latter taking the form of fear simulations in which students must face their worst fears).

The novels themselves weren't at all fantastic (Hunger Games is so much better), so it was no surprise that this film wasn't that great. Sure it was good seeing how they actually created the world, painted the Dauntless faction and even the society's faction system, as well as seeing how they did the fear landscapes, but if the novel that it's based off doesn't have a strong plotline, then this won't either.

The second novel in the trilogy, Insurgent, was the best in my opinion, and even the trailer for it looks like they're changing a lot of things (just look at all the comments) to make it translate better on film, so it looks like it'll be an interesting one to watch out for. But for Divergent, I don't think I'd revisit it.


Sin City

8.1/10 on IMDb
78% on Rotten Tomatoes
Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, this film tells the story of three characters thrown into dark situations all in the corrupt Basin City (aka Sin City).

I wasn't too sure about this film, but when I saw Sin City 2 coming out, I figured I should check it out. Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed it. While the main reason for being interested in it was the style of the film, since it's an adaptation of the graphic novel and therefore has stylistic black and white digitised imagery, I still really liked the plot of it. Sure, there was a lot of brutal violence and very sexual scenes (which my mum was very quick to complain about), but I think it was good because it added to the corruption, and even violent scenes weren't that violent because of its comic-book-like nature.

It was good seeing how all these characters intertwined, as well as seeing how corrupt humans can be. While fictional, it still emphasises real and human characteristics that exist today. The directing was great, and there was such a great cast as well, but I think the best features are the artistic nature of the film, as well as the cautions of human corruption. So in the end, this is a must see.

(Note: I actually wanted to watch Sin City 2 after I saw this to put them in the same blog post but I heard it was terrible so I haven't seen it yet.)

Christmas and Birthday Update

So these holidays I returned back to The Body Shop to work as a Christmas Casual and this time around I got 25% off!!!

It's been pretty hectic and I've been really tired this past month and a bit, so I haven't been blogging much, but there will be more now that January has hit!


So December 23rd was my birthday!

Unfortunately I was working a 6 hour shift that day, but later on I met up with Rachel and Collette from my youth group!

Rach got me a stuffed giraffe (named "Geoff" according to his tag) and Collette got me flowers, which was the first time I've ever received a live bouquet of flowers from someone!

We had some food and drinks at Max Brenner...

...Then I went home, had cake, and had dinner with my family at Epping Club, and they gave me all these random presents (plus money from my dad yay!):

A pacer shaped like a pencil, magnetic bookmarks, and random tins of Would You Prefer/Personality Test cards

The week before my birthday my lovely and super sweet colleague Annie also bought me stuff from The Body Shop! I was going to get these products anyway but she kept insisting she would pay for them, and it's cheaper for her anyway because she gets 50% off as a permanent worker. So anyway she bought these for me yaaaaaaay!

Peppermint Cooling Foot Lotion, Peppermint Foot Soak, and the Vitamin C Microdermabrasion

I also had the girls over the Saturday before my birthday. We had tacos and everything for dinner:

...And I was super happy with their presents (yes I did have a wishlist but still)!

(Catching Fire > Mockingjay)

The World of Ice and Fire

The Hedge Knight
(The graphic novel adaptation, but still cool)

We also exchanged Kris Kringle presents!

Pamela had me but the present didn't arrive on time so she gave me a souvenir from her days at The Gold Coast which she lost but then proceeded to randomly find again:

Batman shot glass
And then on Boxing Day she gave me my actual present!

It's a wrap around ring that says: "This too shall pass". It's one of my favourite sayings from an old tale/riddle/story that you can read about on Wiki


Yet again, my family gave me really weird Christmas presents as well:

A portable phone charger my dad brought back from China (but it's super bulky), a random IQ Brain Train Game thing from my brother because he likes buying me stuff that he wants, and a stamp set!

I also did TWO kris kringle games this year with people from church, and from them I got a 2015 diary and a random cool book that has instructions on just about anything!

So that just about sums up my holiday presents.

Until next time guys.

It's 2015! (*UPDATED* 5/10/2015)

Yay for the new year! Which just means a new year of more movies, more books and more fun.

So to cap off 2014 I figured I should rank all the movies I've seen this year. I've ranked every single film of 2014 I've seen (that I remember), AND I've linked each film to the blog post with my review of that movie. Note: older posts for some reason don't have the pictures showing and I don't know how to fix this.

Also if you are wondering, the way I did this was mainly just asking myself, "Given the option of two movies, which would I want to see more?" Of course that doesn't apply to all of them, as I still took into account the factors of acting, plot, entertaining, and even bias.

Anyway here goes:

Best Movies of 2014 (according to me):
1. Gone Girl
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The plot was cray, the suspense was killer, and the actors were amazing. Rosamund Pike for the Oscar!

2. X-Men: Days of Future Past
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My love for time travel, X-Men, superheroes, and the cast puts this in my top three.

3. Predestination (review coming soon)
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One of THE BEST time travel films I have ever seen (I'm tossing it up with Back to the Future)! The opening scenes are exciting and futuristic, the middle of the film is extremely intriguing, and the ending is a masterpiece. I love the concept of time travel and all the theories that accompany it, so I was super happy that they handled it really well in this film.

4. Birdman
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A great and wholly self-aware film that entertains right from the erratic introduction of the opening credits. Michael Keaton is great in this, as well as the supporting cast, but the entire film looking like it was done in one take is simply stunning! This film is funny, it's deep, and it's damn artistic.

5. The Theory of Everything
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A truly incredible film about the life of Jane and Stephen Hawking. It was touching, it was beautiful, and it was inspiring. Eddie Redmayne well deserved the Oscar for this, no matter what you want to tell me about how good Michael Keaton was in Birdman. All the performances were amazing, and I was sobbing by the end of the film.

6. The Imitation Game
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A great true (or maybe not) story about the life of Alan Turing, computer genius who helped the Allies win World War II by creating a machine to crack the uncrackable Enigma. Benedict Cumberbatch does not fail to impress in this drama, but of the Oscar nominees I think this was one of the weaker ones (although maybe I'm just biased because I'm too annoyed that it isn't truly "based on a true story")

7. Interstellar
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A great film on humanity's inherent desire for survival, with an unorthodox love story thrown in as a driving force. An amazing film with the only faults being a very long run time, as well as some minor (but very loud nonetheless) plot holes and confusions.

8. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
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Plot twists, spins, and more plot twists. The complexity and surprise factors made it stand out.

9. Grand Budapest Hotel
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Wes Anderson is amazing. No one can deny that after watching 100 minutes of this quirky, fast paced, bizarre and stylistic film that puts it in the top 5.

10. Edge of Tomorrow
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A good movie with Tom Cruise is a rarity, but he took hold of this movie with such power that it definitely stood out. While the ending was a bit confusing, the whole build up was fascinating.

11. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
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Captain America is redeemed and more in this stand-out Marvel film that makes you eager for the next.

12. Nightcrawler (review coming soon)
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A great and really disturbing film about knowing (or rather, not knowing) the boundaries between being an observer and a participant in crime, through the story of a crime scene photographer. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance and appearance is perfection in this, but the film suffers from slow pacing and some dragged out scenes.

13. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
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A bit slow, a bit long and maybe even a bit unnecessary, this film was great in showing the damages of war on your mental state. But of course bias feeds into this rating, as my love for The Hunger Games and Jennifer Lawrence will never be quashed.

14. Guardians of the Galaxy
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A surprisingly good film, that gets better the more you reflect on it. While humour is central, the characters are interesting and the plot was better than I expected it to be.

15. Boyhood
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This film is definitely worthy of mention. Even if I didn't love it, it definitely was a film worthy of your (nearly) 3 hours. The uniqueness of Richard Linklater's latest project continually engages you as you watch this little six year old boy grow up to be your age, hitting a sensitive nerve and resonating with your own personal life. The moment seizes us indeed.

16. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
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Peter Jackson sure left the best for last. As I am reminded of his amazingness at creating epic Middle Earth battle films, sensitive nerves are once again struck as nostalgia floods you to your core. Definitely the best of the Hobbit movies, and whilst still a shadow to its Lord of the Rings parent, it was a good end to the reign of Middle Earth films.

17. Fury
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A good film focusing on the brotherhood that can develop between a group of men fighting in the war. War scenes are intense, and performances are good. The film isn't outstanding, but it certainly is a good film.

18. Into the Woods
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A fun, exciting musical with a stellar cast. Intertwining all our favourite classic fairytales, the film sure is entertaining. The only issue is that the second half of the film noticeably worsens and does not live up to the greatness of the first half.

19. How to Train your Dragon 2
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Directing sequels is much alike to walking on thin ice, but this sequel definitely had a good shot at it. Whilst not as great as the first film, it was cute, it was emotional, and it added new and interesting plot elements that made it worth the watch.

20. Noah
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The controversial adaptation of the well-known biblical story makes you question humanity as a source of knowledge, as your eyes are opened to the flaws of man. If you forget it's a biblical story and go in with an open mind, it's pretty enjoyable.

21. Before I Go to Sleep (review coming soon)
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An intriguing premise for a film, but nothing we haven't seen before (c.f. 50 First Dates, Memento). Nicole Kidman is obviously going to give a good performance, as is Colin Firth. The film is intriguing and intense, with an interesting plot twist you don't see coming.

22. 300: Rise of an Empire
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A must see for just cool slow-mo action sequences and interesting modern spins on ancient Greek stories, this film's gritty imagery may not be as good as the original 300, but it was still pretty intriguing.

23. American Sniper
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Ahhhhh I didn't understand the hype on this film! Sure it was a decent film in that Bradley Cooper's performance was great and the war scenes were intense, but it was pretty boring for me! It didn't entertain me at all and I actually got so bored and wanted to sleep. The repetitive nature of the movie (goes to war, snipes like cray cray, goes home, doesn't fit in, goes back to war, etc. etc.) becomes tiresome, and this film isn't even the first to deal with post-war depression and trauma.

24. The LEGO Movie
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The only reason I watched this was because of LEGO. It was pretty amazingly done, but the first part of the movie was absolutely unbearable. The constant bombardment of weird and dry humour made me uneasy, but at least it made the second half seem a lot better. The last bit as well was, while still funny, seem a bit weird, but definitely not as weird as the beginning.

25. The Amazing Spiderman 2: Rise of Electro
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This movie was... a shame. The villains weren't executed well enough, Spiderman's arrogance was so overwhelming, and the plot just wasn't that great.

26. Divergent
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I don't know how a non-reader could have watched this. I was quite surprised at how they did this, because the directing wasn't what I expected it to be. Whilst the novels weren't strong anyway, the film lacks any real conviction in its characters and plot. Also, watching the Insurgent trailer and how much they changed to make it look dramatic makes this movie seem even worse.

27. The Fault in Our Stars
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This was a shame because the book was quite good, but I think that this story is just something that's better when reading. In the film you have no idea what she's thinking because there's no sense of explaining her thoughts or emotions, whether in dialogue or in voice-over. Further, the characters are pretty annoying. When reading, it was okay, but still annoying because the main guy seemed so pretentious. However in the film, this level of pretentiousness was just magnified and really bothered me.

28. Godzilla
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This movie was so hyped up, and I fully expected amazing stuff from Bryan Cranston, but this film just DID NOT deliver. There was almost no needs to put any human actors in this, and there was also no need to really make a film on Godzilla if you barely included it/him in the actual movie.

29. Transformers: Age of Extinction
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I'm probably not entitled to an opinion on this film because I slept halfway through it, but it was really weird. Mark Wahlberg just felt weird in this role, the humour was not up to standard, and I didn't know what was going on. By the way, I have problems sleeping, so being able to sleep through all the noise of this movie is really something.

Yes, those are all the movies of 2014 I have watched, but I've also got a list of movies that I wanted to watch this year, but didn't get around to doing so (and as I watch them I will continue updating this list hopefully):
• Anchorman 2
• Bad Neighbours
• 22 Jump street
• Horrible Bosses 2
• Serena
• Exodus: Gods and Kings
• Whiplash

And I've got the movies that I wanted to see but were apparently terrible:
• Maleficent
• Transcendence
• Sin City 2
• A Million Ways to Die in the West
• Exodus: Gods and Kings (yes, it doubles up because I was super keen on watching it but then everyone said it was really terrible so I didn't, but I still want to watch it - just at home or something rather than at the cinema)

And because I don't want to end on a bad note, here are some 2015 movies off the top of my head that I'm looking forward to!
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Pitch Perfect 2
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
• Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
• Insurgent
• Cinderella

Here's to a good year!