Movie Monday - Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

I've talked about this movie in the past, mostly as part of my "OMG I LOVED THIS" rambles at the end of last year. But I've never properly covered it for Movie Monday. Having bought it on DVD last week and watched it again over the weekend, it seemed only appropriate to cover it properly!

Reasons why Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is awesome:
1. Jeremy Renner. Like you expected anything else.
2. Billowy coats. Y'all know I'm a sucker for a good billowy coat, and Hansel's is pretty freaking spectacular.
3. Matrix-style arrow avoidance.

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4. Gemma Arterton.
5. Hansel has diabetes and still kicks arse on a daily basis.
6. Ridiculous weapons.

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7. Exploding dudes.
8. Ben and his fanboy flailing.
9. The final scene in the desert.
10. Famke Janssen.

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11. The opening credits. They're pretty fabulous.
12. Ridiculous modernisations. I'm sure some people will find the inclusion of homemade tasers to be over-the-top stupid. But for me? It adds a note of steampunk-ness to the story.
13. Headbutting douchebags.

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14. Death by shovel.
15. The soundtrack.
16. The magic wands the witches use. They're pretty freaking cool.

Plus, the following quotes:
- "Whatever you do, don't eat the fuckin' candy."
- "I hate to break this to you, but this isn't gonna be an open casket."
- "Revenge doesn't change the past. It won't bring our parents back. But it sure as hell feels good."
- "We learned a couple of things while we were trapped in that house. One, never walk in to a house made of candy. And two, if you're gonna kill a witch, set her ass on fire."
- "The Curse of Hunger for Crawling Things. I fucking hate that one."

Have you seen it? What did you think? (Obviously, it's totally ridiculous. But it's so FUN.)

K xx

Movie Monday: Thor

It had been a whole 2-3 weeks since I'd seen a Marvel movie. Obviously, this had to be rectified. And what better way to do it than with a Marvel movie I'd somehow only seen once?!

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Reasons why Thor is awesome:
1. Tom Hiddleston. Come on, like anything else was going to be at the top of this list.
2. The coffee shop scene.

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3. Kat Dennings. She and her awesome lines are definitely a highlight of this movie.
4. Billowy cloaks of doom. I loves me a good billowy cloak of doom.
5. Chris Hemsworth. He's pretty great.
6. Blue glowy objects. Marvel sure does love those things.

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7. Natalie Portman.
8. COOOOOOOOOOOOOOULSON!!! (side note: I am so freaking excited about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. OMG, YOU GUYS)
9. Mjolnir.

Now with added bicep appreciation. Source lost to the depths of Tumblr because
the way Google brings up Tumblr results is the WORST.

10. Ridiculous horned helmets.
11. Anthony Hopkins. Total BAMF.
12. Loki's amazing facial expressions.

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13. Sif. She's an awesome character.
14. Table tossing.
15. Stellan Skarsgard.
16. Frost giants.

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17. It's directed by Kenneth Branaugh.
18. Idris Elba.
19. Pretty much every scene where someone in New Mexico tries to wield Mjolnir.
20. Drunken Erik.
21. JEREMY RENNER.

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22. Stan Lee cameos.
23. Tasing Thor.
24. The continuity through the Marvel movies. It's freaking PHENOMENAL, you guys. (Dear Steven Moffat: please watch and take notes. Love, Whovians)

Plus, the following quotes:
- "Do me a favour. Don't be dead."
- "Only one of you can ascend to the throne. But both of you were born to be kings."
- "I have no plans to die today."
- "Run back home, little princess." "...Damn."
- "I need a horse!" "We don't have horses. Just dogs, cats, birds..." "Then give me one of those large enough to ride."
- "I never wanted the throne. I only wanted to be your equal."
- "FOUND YOU!!"
- "Is this how you normally look?" "More or less." "It's a good look."
- "I knew this scientist, a pioneer in gamma radiation. SHIELD showed up and he wasn't heard from again."
- "You think me strange." "Yeah." "Good strange or bad strange?" "I'm not quite sure yet."
- "You want me to slow him down, sir? Or are you sending in more guys for him to beat up?"
- "Is that one of Stark's?" "I dunno. That guy never tells me anything."
- "Is there a Renaissance fair in town?" "Call it in." "Yeah. Uh, base? We've got, uh, Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood..."
- "You know, for a crazy homeless person, he's pretty cut."
- "I am not dying for six college credits!"
- "You're big. I've fought bigger."
- "We drank, we fought, we made his ancestors proud."
- "Oh my God, this is going on Facebook. Smile!"

So. Thoughts? Also, on a scale of one to fangirl flail, how excited are you about Thor: The Dark World?

K xx

Bloggy friends are the bestest friends

Whoops. It appears that I've been slacking off on blogging about my trip to the US. You know, the one I went on in JANUARY... #fail

Previously, HOGWARTS.

The day after the great Hogwarts expedition of 2013, Lor and I headed out to meet Emmy at a Starbucks somewhere near downtown Orlando. The three of us had absolutely no idea what to do that day - we spent some time abusing the free wifi at Starbucks looking up non-theme park related things to do in Orlando, but didn't come to any decisions. In the end, our lack of decisiveness was getting ridiculous, and time was rapidly ticking past. There was only one solution - send a text message to Gina:

Me: Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinaaaaaaaa. We don't know what to do today...
Gina: *immediately sends four responses each filled with well thought out suggestions even though it's barely 7am*

ACTUAL BEST.

Anyway, we ended up going to Downtown Disney. We wandered around some of the Disney themed shops, then bought some fudge because OBVIOUSLY. Somewhere along the way, we stumbled across a shop that sold nothing but dinosaur related stuff. It's possible that I Kermit flailed when I discovered that they had plastic velociraptors. And so it came to pass that Clever Girl joined our intrepid trio:

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

We wandered through the Lego shop:

And then an enormous Disney Store, which included all kinds of complete insanity. We took advantage of the free wifi to tweet/Facebook a bunch of pictures:

Pregnant looking Ariel

Ho suspension Tink

Apparently in his spare time, Voldemort dresses up as Cinderella

After a while, we decided we were hungry, and that we should eat at the Rainforest Cafe because of reasons that now escape me. We ended up sitting at the bar on ridiculously high stools that had animal tails, which was kind of weird. On the plus side, RASPBERRY DAIQUIRI:

Yup. Lunch at the Rainforest Cafe requires booze.

After lunch, we wandered around some more, and then stumbled across a movie theatre. By a happy coincidence, a screening of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters was about to start. I'm pretty sure my realisation of that went something like this:

Me: OHMIGOD JEREMY RENNER CAN WE PLEASE GO AND SEE JEREMY RENNER PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE??????
Emmy: I guess so?
Lor: Eh. Why not?
Me: YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY OHMIGOD I HAVE TO EMAIL KIM SHE'LL BE SO JEALOUS.

Yup. That pretty much happened.

I can't speak for the others, but I thought the movie was awesome. And not just because of Jeremy Renner. Sooner or later, I'll rewatch it and probably do a Movie Monday post on it. Because of reasons.

After the movie, we still had an hour or two to spare before we had to be at Alice's for dinner, so we headed back to the hotel, watched the previous day's installment of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and then sat watching Maury for an hour because that's what happens when you ask me to find something to watch on American television.

We ended up leaving a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle later than we'd planned because.......well, we needed to know, dammit!

Yeah. That.

And of course then when we finally did get on the road and heading Alice's, there turned out to be a massive car accident on the freeway and instead of taking us like 20 minutes to get there, it took us the better part of an hour. Poor Alice, meanwhile, was slaving over a hot stove making us an incredible dinner as we texted her from the car, promising that we WERE in fact on our way.

Eventually, we got there and had an amazing evening of good food, good company, a little cider, and so much giggling that Alice's neighbours probably thought we were bonkers. I also turned up with a bag of dirty laundry - literally - and was all "OH HAI, BLOGGY FRIEND. Thanks for cooking me dinner! Can I use your washing machine?" Yup. That happened. 

Several hours later, our stomachs hurt from laughing and it was getting stupidly late, so Lor and I headed back to the hotel with a couple of "Whoops, we ignored the GPS and are now going totally the wrong way" detours because we were too busy giggling about everything that had happened that day.

Next up, Disneyworld and everything that happened. 

K xx

Movie Monday: The 14.5 hour flight edition

Okay, so this is kind of a cheat-y version of Movie Monday, I know. But apparently when you see Les Miserables at the movies for the third time in a month, they give you a free dose of consumption, so I've been hacking up a lung since I got home. Between that and the obligatory jetlag, I've been going to bed at 9pm, which has somewhat hindered my movie watching time.

Thankfully, the flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles (and vice versa) is fourteen and a half hours, which gave me ample time to catch up on recent releases that I somehow missed at the movies. So I figured I'd talk about them today.

The Bourne Legacy

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I was a little sceptical about how they were going to make a Bourne movie work when it didn't actually feature Jason Bourne. But Jeremy Renner pulled it off pretty spectacularly. It was a lot of action with not a great deal of plot, but that's pretty much what ALL the Bourne movies are, right? That said, I think I'm going to need to watch it again when the dialogue isn't constantly being interrupted by screaming one year old twins and hosties!

The Amazing Spider-man
Not quite sure how I missed this one when it was on at the movies, but it was pretty spectacular. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are completely adorable, and it was really awesome to see a superhero who can be hurt and exhausted and broken. I mean, he's a teenager. He's going to make mistakes, you know? I know a lot of people thought it was unnecessary to make another Spider-man movie so soon, especially with a different actor in the lead. But it kept me entertained on a plane for three hours, so it gets a big thumbs up in my book!

Brave

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Holy hell, this was amazing. The animation was spectacular, the story was adorable, and the cast is phenomenal. Plus, a princess who can stand up and fight for herself. WIN. Obviously, I'm a little upset that they didn't find a way for my all time favourite Scot to be included (hint: his name rhymes with Schmavid Schmennant), but they had Billy Connolly in there, and what more do you really need?! If you haven't seen it yet, you really really should.

The Dark Knight Rises
Confession: I watched this one after the airline had declared it sleepy time, and as a result I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open several times. I know, I know. I'm a bad person, it's amazing, blah blah blah. It's a really freaking long movie, you guys. And I must confess, Batman is one of my least favourite superheroes (my least favourite of all is Superman. Because he's kind of lame, and his disguise is shit). I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so freaking tired. But at this point in time? I'm not really feeling the need to rewatch it and find out.

Megamind

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I really enjoyed this, possibly because I was 13 hours into a 14.5 hour flight, and hadn't been able to sleep, thanks to the screaming one year old twins in front of me. So a movie intended for small children was about all my brain could cope with at that point in time! It was fun to see things from the villain's point of view for a change. And Minion was awesome.

Looper
I kinda sorta hated this movie. I mean, the idea was intriguing. But for me, the execution wasn't that great. There wasn't enough explanation to any of it - the random addition of people with telekinetic powers, how you decide that being a looper is a good career choice, why time travel appears to be used exclusively by the mob to dispose of people who have outlived their usefulness. Plus, having Joseph Gordon-Levitt using some kind of drugs that ultimately changed the colour of his eyes just seemed weird. I mean, was that added into the script after they did the casting? Gah.

Frankenweenie
I wasn't a huge fan of this either. It was more Tim Burton doing what Tim Burton does best, and frankly I'm a little bit over it. On the upside, it didn't feature Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham-Carter. On the downside, it featured Catherine O'Hara and Winona Ryder, so he's still using the same actors over and over again. Sigh. Sure, I teared up when the dog died, but you can pretty much guarantee that ANY time something happens to a dog in a TV show/movie, that I will cry.

End of Watch

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I don't know what I was expecting from this, but it didn't meet with any of my expectations. This isn't to say it was bad. It wasn't. It was pretty awesome, actually. It's filmed in a documentary style, and for a large chunk of the movie, the events don't seem to tie together. It's just a film following two ordinary cops through their daily lives. The friendship between the two main characters is brilliantly done, and I definitely didn't see the ending coming. Well worth watching, although I don't know that I'd bother to see it on the big screen.

So there you have it, the movies I watched en route to/from Los Angeles. Have you seen any of them? If so, what did you think?

K xx

Movie Monday: The "What I'm excited about in 2013" edition

It's the very last day of 2012, and that can only mean one thing: it's time for me to Kermit flail with fangirly excitement about movies that are coming out in 2013!!

(Note: yes, a good chunk of these have already been released in the US. Australia is behind the times, yo.)

The Life of Pi

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I haven't read the book, and with any luck I'll get the chance to do so before I see the movie. Based on the trailer, this is going to be fairly extraordinary.

The Silver Linings Playbook

I haven't really liked Bradley Cooper in anything since Alias. I'm hoping this is the movie that's going to change that. It looks pretty awesome. Plus, it stars Jennifer Lawrence, who I not-so-secretly want to be my best friend. 

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

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I mean, come on. This movie looks freaking amazing, in a completely terrible sort of a way. You can't tell me you don't want to see Jeremy Renner playing the medieval baby of Jason Bourne and Dean Winchester. 

Cloud Atlas

This one is either going to be a total mindfuck or a truly astonishing piece of cinema. Again, I've not read the book, and am hoping I get the chance to before it hits theatres. Tom Hiddleston recommended it on Twitter though, so it must be pretty good! 

Iron Man 3

Excuse me while I watch the trailer for the hundredth time and send fangirly emails to Kim. I honestly don't think there's any way it can suck. I mean, it's Robert Downey Jr playing Tony Stark playing Robert Downey Jr playing Tony Stark. It's like Inception, only less confusing and with more superheroes.

The Great Gatsby

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I'm actually a little hesitant about this one, mostly because I'm not really enjoying the use of modern music over the trailers that have been released. BUT it worked for Moulin Rouge, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see...  At least I have the advantage of not having read the book a hundred thousand times, so I won't be upset if certain details are left out!

The Wolverine

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I don't particularly care what it's about, I'm just psyched to have another X-Men movie coming out. And Hugh Jackman is always brilliant as Wolverine. 

Much Ado About Nothing

Whedon does Shakespeare in secret on the cheap with all his favourite actors? YES PLEASE OMG THIS NEEDS TO COME OUT LIKE RIGHT NOW. I mean, if nothing else, I want to see it because Wesley and Fred will finally get their happy ending! Also? Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Sean Maher, Tom Lenk, Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker?? It's a Who's Who of the Whedon-verse.

Thor: The Dark World

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As if anyone is surprised to see this on here. I loves me a Marvel movie, and considering this one costars Tom Hiddleston, adding it to the list of things I'm excited about was a no-brainer. ESPECIALLY when The Ninth Doctor is the villain of the movie! 

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I can't wait to see how they handle the giant clockface that is the arena in this one! I just wish we didn't have to wait so freaking long for it to come out, you know?? 

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

HOLY CRAP, YOU GUYS. After the ending of An Unexpected Journey, how can you NOT be excited about this movie?!?!?! I just...I mean...Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug? Having conversation with Martin Freeman?? It's going to be made of win. Plus, DWARFMITAGE.

Basically, it's another year of sequels and comic book movies! I can't wait. What are you excited about seeing in 2013?

K xx

Things I Like Thursday, Volume 5

Seen random stuff on the internet that you find hilarious or just want to share? Head over to Gina's to link up!

Well, I just went to embed one of the videos I was planning on sharing with you this week, and it's been taken down from Youtube. SAD FACE. 

Hopefully the rest makes up for it! 

First, there's this:

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It's a double dose of nerdiness!! 

And then there's a video that I can't embed because it's not available on Youtube. But trust me - it is so very much worth clicking through for. 

Did you guys know that Jeremy Renner can sing? Like REALLY sing? Click here to watch him singing New York State of Mind on Jimmy Fallon. ZOMG. I was NOT expecting a voice like that. This is what happened when I watched it earlier:

Yeah. That happened. Because bicep appreciation + excellent singing voice = ovary explosions.

And finally, there's Lor's reviews of 50 Shades of Crap Grey for the Snark Squad. Holy hell. I laughed until I cried. 

Found something online this week that you desperately need to share? Head over to Gina's and link up!

K xx