The Lego Movie

Lego has been a great part of my childhood. I mean what is a better use of time than building Lego models? Ah, how I miss the days of Lego.

Although on initially watching the Lego Movie trailers I thought that the film looked pathetic and I had a kind of ‘ha, never want to see that’ attitude, I soon came to realise that the predictable and basic humour is something which I really do need in my life in order to take stress off of me and forget about the upcoming exams, so I decided to see it with some of my friends.

Was the film what I had expected? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No. I sat in the cinema accompanied by my friends and also a load of young children and their parents so I knew that the film probably wasn’t particularly aimed at my age group, but it was a laugh all the same.

The film is about an evil guy, President Business, controlling the lives of the Lego people and how the world is run, and the whole film is set around imagination and the decision whether to build from instructions or use your mind to make up Lego objects. It’s a pretty good idea really and it’s good to be able to have such a different range of characters, personalities and styles depending on what character they are. Of course the main character has to save the day and (surprisingly enough) he is one of the people who you would least expect to be a hero, but it worked pretty well and the film did make me smile a bit, as I thought ‘Why am I here…?’ but then got more into it.

One of the main sort-of-negatives is the catchy song. I’m pretty sure everyone in the cinema left singing ‘Everything is awesome.’ in their heads. It’s kinda hard not to. That’s not really a negative, but I do hate having songs in my head for ages.

The message given to children? Every film has to have a message of some kind. I read this as:
– Be creative and imaginative
– Fight against bad and try to help others
– Let your girlfriend be with the man who saves the day even if it wasn’t you and you were already in a fairly serious relationship (…I’m still a bit confused about this one).

My friends and I all agreed that it was a pretty great film, so do watch it if you can. You won’t regret it.

Beautiful Creatures: The Book

When the film was due to be coming out at the cinema I decided that it was about time I started reading the book. Beautiful Creatures, the first book of the Caster Chronicles, has had many positive reviews and although I’ve heard people saying that the book is a work of genius and something everyone must read I’m afraid that I must disagree. Yes, indeed it is in places rather interesting, the plot twists unexpected and interesting, but the book is also filled with generic features and parts of story lines which are just a bit predictable, lacking originality and being pretty much like any other young adult paranormal romance.

The storyline involves two teenagers, Ethan Wate who lives in the small town Gatlin and Lena Duchannes who has recently arrived there, and Ethan seems to have dreamt about her before meeting her in real life, so when they meet their lives become somewhat intertwined and linked as they become closer and fall in love (aww, how sweet).

Of course as expected Lena has powers which are at first hard to control, which makes her class members suspicious when trouble surrounds her and they instantly dislike her, partially because of her strange Uncle and also about the way in which she doesn’t try to fit in but has a unique style. Lena reveals to Ethan that her family are Casters who have special powers, but this doesn’t put him off her (of course not, it’s supposed to be romantic after all), and they go on a date which sparks rumours about them and puts most people in Ethan’s school off of him.

The story is about Lena’s approaching 16th Birthday where she will be claimed as good or bad, and of course there are twists and complications as there should be. The two lovers try to investigate how to break the curse on Lena’s family. Although I found some of the parts clever, others were very disappointing with the solutions not having much substance and involving the ‘Oh-look-at-that-I-seem-to-have-much-more-power-than-I-originally-thought’ type solutions which are just a bit irritating after the book has reached the climax and the reader is waiting for a clever ending.

Also I didn’t find the characters too interesting or relatable, as I have also heard from other people’s views of the book was a disappointment. I quite liked the idea of Lena who seemed pretty cool, but couldn’t relate to her. Also Ethan I sometimes saw as more of a female character. Sorry to be stereotypical but that’s just the way i imagined him, so although he seemed pretty sweet and some people found it interesting having it viewed from a male perspective, it sounded just like any other book of the same genre.

So should I read the other books? Hm, although this review has been pretty negative I still do want to find out what is going to happen next and where the storyline will next take the characters, so it can’t have been that bad overall, but I am the sort of person that has to finish something once they have started it and won’t just look it up on Wikipedia as tempting as it may be. However this book has taken about three quarters of a year to read and I might have to motivate myself through the books more so that they don’t drag on forever. The book just wasn’t interesting enough for me to want to read it often.

Kerrang! Magazines

The first Kerrang! magazine I ever bought was one year ago, so it seems appropriate to write a blogpost about them now. I first bought the magazine because it contained an A4 poster of Amy Lee of Evanescence (it was from the 2013 Valentines issue), and it’s rather cool that there haven’t been any Evanescence posters since then except this week’s 2014 Valentines issue, which has an old picture of Amy. 🙂

Look at these beautiful posters of Andy Biersack and Amy Lee! Recently I’ve been purchasing Kerrang! magazines every week and finally subscribed to them as lots of the articles and posters are pretty great, and so my marvellous collection of magazines is gradually building up although the price of them (when buying other magazines on top of these such as Metal Hammer and Rock Sound) is a bit worrying as I’m supposed to be saving up for ‘World Challenge’ and haven’t got very far with that.

But look at them – they do look rather nice. I like the fact that Kerrang! magazine is a weekly magazine as it means that I can look forward to it. Hm, does that make my life sound sad? No, not really – my life is mainly consisting of school work at the moment so I’d say that enthusiasm for a magazine is understandable.

 

I’m quite pleased with the way they fit together on my wall. Unfortunately my room is pretty small and I have almost run out of room to put my posters 😦 ‘Tis a shame.

Richard II

A couple of weeks ago I went to see a Shakespeare play, ‘Richard II,’ at the Barbican, arranged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, not really because I wanted to see the play but mainly to see David Tennant on stage and to have the opportunity to see him with my own eyes. My sister and I had thought about going for a while but not booked tickets, and then the tickets sold out just as we were about to buy them. Typical. Luckily on the day we discovered the website StubHub which allows fans to sell on and buy tickets, so we purchased tickets for the last show a few hours before the show started and collected the tickets from one of their collection points in London on the way to the play.

As we were waiting for the play to start, we wandered around outside and looked at some of the costumes which were on display and have been used in various plays in the past, and some of them are amazing as to how much detail they include.

I had read up about the plot prior to watching the play, so I knew what was going to happen, as some plays can be difficult to follow. The play, despite not being quite my thing as it’s historical, was very well done and the acting was great. Also, I got to see David Tennant (playing Richard II) with his long hair extensions. What could be better than that? I genuinely think he looks good with long hair, although talking to other people I seem to be the only person with that opinion.

The play was scattered with areas of humour to make it more enjoyable. It was a pretty good play and I can say that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but it didn’t help that I was really tired. There were a few mistakes in the play which weren’t noticeable and were cleverly covered up and moved on from. I only found out that they were genuine mistakes from this website after watching it.

After the play, we went outside and rushed to the stage door, hoping to meet David Tennant. Unfortunately there were signs which read, “Owing to final night RSC commitments, Mr Tennant will be unable to sign this evening.” Now that was disappointing, as although I hadn’t expected to meet him there was a chance that I would and people from the plays on previous days had posted pictures on Twitter which had somewhat got my hopes up. Although I recognised a couple of other actors, I’m not really a fan of them so decided that I might as well leave. Even though I didn’t get to meed David Tennant I did get to watch him act on stage and he was really good, so that’s just as good really.

‘Thanks a lot Milton Jones’ recording

The other week I went to one of the regular radio recordings which I go to to fill up my free time (or take my mind off of school work) and I really did enjoy the recording and find it very funny, which might mean that I’m finally developing a sense of humour or it might just mean that it was pretty funny. Either way, it was enjoyable and crammed full of good jokes (I mean, who can resist a good Milton Jones one-liner?!)

So although this recording had already been planned to be called ‘Help! It’s Milton Jones’ the name was then changed, and there is some pretty weird music for the introduction and separations within, but it is also fairly amusing so you can’t complain. When this is broadcast I definitely recommend that you listen to it as, despite there being a few predictable areas (c’mon, there are always bound to be a few), the jokes are quite good in places.

After the double recording I waited around at RADA and was able to meet some of the actors – Milton Jones and Tom Goodman-Hill, as well as Tom Goodman-Hill’s partner, Jessica Raine, who was in the audience and we immediately recognised.

Despite my picture with Jessica Raine making me look massive, I do love Tom Goodman-Hill casually positioning himself in the background. 🙂 Like always, these pictures show to me that I need to learn to smile as I physically can’t do it, but I MET THEM so that’s rather exciting!

I’ve recently had an awfully large amount of homework to compete, hence why it has taken me such a long amount of time to write this post, but I’ve finally finished my first topic of my art coursework and am up to date with my homework for once!

Also, I’m currently in a good mood as John Finnemore’s radio sitcom Cabin Pressure will be recorded this month, the last episode, and tickets to be put up for application fairly soon! Now that is really exciting!