My Favourite Movie

I bet you're looking at the picture right now and thinking I'm joking. I'm totally not. My favourite movie of all time is Disney's The Little Mermaid.

It probably has something to do with the fact that this was my first favourite movie. You know how kids will sometimes pick one movie and watch it over and over and over again, and never tire of it? The Little Mermaid was my movie on repeat. Except my love for this movie didn't just last for a year - it has lasted my whole life. I am amazed that the old VHS I have still runs! Although that doesn't matter, because as soon as it was released on DVD, I made sure to pick it up.

Of course I don't watch The Little Mermaid every day anymore, or even once a month. But if I'm looking for a movie and don't know what I want to watch, I will almost always choose to pop this in. What do I love so much about it? Well, for one thing, the songs. I like a lot of music from Disney movie, but there is something about the songs in The Little Mermaid that I just love - especially Part of Your World and Kiss the Girl! I know every word. How could I not at this point? Also, I think it's the whole fairy tale and fantasy thing, especially that it's not just your typical Disney Princess movie, but that the princess is a mermaid. I've been fascinated by mermaids and fairies and all things magical for as long as I can remember. Just the idea that there's a whole other world living right underneath our eyes that we don't even know about... it's that idea that I really love, I think.

So, yes. The Little Mermaid is my favourite movie. And I've seen a lot of movies in my life, and I do love a lot of movies almost as much. Almost. But I can pretty confidently say that no other movie will ever take first place.

What's your all-time favourite movie? Is it an unexpected choice like mine?

Movie Review: MIB III *slight spoilers*

Alright. Men in Black III. It has been a ridiculously long time since Men in Black II came out - 10 years, actually. And it's probably been 10 years since I've seen the 2nd one, and possibly even longer since I've seen the first one. I probably should have watched both of them again before seeing the new one, but as it is, I really have no comparisons between the movies because I can't even remember what happened in the first two. I do recall liking them, but that doesn't say much.

Anyway. The basic premise of the Men in Black movies is that there is a secret organization that keeps track of and polices extraterrestrial activity on Earth, which there is way more of than any human would ever guess - aliens are everywhere. The movies follow Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) on their missions. In Men in Black III, Boris the Animal, an evil alien that Agent K arrested in the 60s, escapes from his high security prison and travels back in time to kill K before he has a chance to shoot off his arm and arrest him. Agent J wakes up one morning and is the only person that remembers K. He must travel back in time to save his partner and kill Boris the Animal before he gets to K.

My impression of this movie is that it was kind of ridiculous. Maybe that's what happens when you take a movie that was popular in the 90s and try to do a sequel of it in 2012. The dialogue was especially corny, and it felt like a movie that belonged in the 90s when that was the norm. Imagine trying to do another Austin Powers movie today - it just doesn't fit in with the current culture. Dialogue aside, the story was okay, but also silly. I think it's definitely a movie more suited to kids, who would get a kick out of humans who are actually aliens in disguise.

Negativity aside, I did like how they went into Agent K's past and showed a whole different side of this usually-super-serious character. And I especially liked the ending that involved J as a kid - not going to give any more than that away - which made me a little teary-eyed.

All-in-all, it wasn't a terrible movie, but I'm also glad I didn't have to pay to watch it. I've heard a lot of people say that they did like it, so maybe I'm being a bit too critical. Just not my style, I suppose.

JIVE/JIBE

Last night on Twitter, Allison/Amarixe, Nikki Phillippi, and Landon Austin were having a conversation about vlogging everyday in June, and what they should call their vlogs. Of course I had to be a creeper and follow the conversation, and when they couldn't come up with anything (since VALIJ/VEDIJ and Vlune weren't sounding very nice) I felt like I had to at least attempt to come up with a good name. Alas, I came up with I-JIVE or JIVE which stands for In June I'll Vlog Everyday. I tweeted the 3 of them my idea and now they're all going to use it! I personally got tweets back from Allison and Landon, which I majorly fan-girled about, and Nikki tweeted that she loved it as well. I am so so so excited that they liked my idea! N

Now I feel like I should also JIVE, except for the fact that I don't have the proper equipment to vlog at all (read: a decent camera). HOWEVER, I've decided that I'm going to try and JIBE (June - I'll Blog Everyday). Sound good? Sounds good. Remember, I do have 2 blogs - this one & my beauty blog. So I won't necessarily have a new blog post up on here every day, or on that one, but I will try to put at least one post up on one or the other every day in June.

I invite you to join in and JIVE or JIBE with me if you've got a YouTube channel or a blog! Comment with your links so I can follow you, and follow me to make sure you see my posts every day. Also, make sure you check out Allison's, Nikki's, and Landon's 2nd channels where they'll be vlogging every day, and tell them Kristy (@kristyhank) sent you! And also make sure you follow me here and on my other blog so that you can catch my posts every day. Yay fun. :)

Movie Review (sort of): The Avengers

Yes. I finally got around to watching the Avengers. I know that it's been out for 3 weeks already, and I know that I work at a movie theater and therefore should have seen it before now... but at least I did see it, right? Anyway, it was fantastic, and I'm so glad I did see it in theaters. I wasn't sure if I was going to, since I hadn't seen Thor or Captain America, and still haven't, but after hearing from so many people about how great it was, I knew I had to.

At the beginning of the movie, I was so confused as to what was going on. I had no idea what the cube thingy was, or how Loki came from it, or where Loki came from. Loki also seemed a little ridiculous to me, especially when he was in full 'god' or whatever gear. I still think that, but whatever, it's okay. Anyway, the story wasn't too hard to catch onto, and I quickly got into it. I loved how there was so much comedy in the dialogue, it definitely added to the movie. Then again, with Robert Downey Jr. As Iron Man, it was expected. However, Bruce Banner and Thor had some good lines as well.

I personally like superhero comic-book type movies; I have ever since the first Spiderman movie of that series in 2002. But, if you're a girl and are not sure if you'd like the comic-book based movies, I say give it a shot. For one thing, with all the guys in this movie, there's enough eye-candy to get you through the 2 and ½ hours, even if you do think the storyline is a little bit silly. Robert Downey Jr. As Iron Man, obviously; Chris Hemsworth as Thor, obviously; Chris Evans as Captain America, obviously; and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye – never heard of him before, and still really don't know much about his character, but, whatever, amazing! Haha. I also really like Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/Mark Ruffalo) and Scarlett Johannson (Black Widow) as actors, and Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) is amazing, of course.

I do wish I had watched Captain American and Thor before seeing Avengers, though. I felt like I was missing a lot of background info on their characters, and I think it would have helped me to grasp it a little bit better. And I found that I really, really liked Thor's character! So, I'll definitely have to catch up on those two movies, and then maybe re-watch Avengers with a new perspective.

All-in-all, the actors in the Avengers are amazing, as was the action, and the dialogue. I still think the whole premise is a little bit ridiculous but I can definitely get past that, because I did enjoy the movie immensely.

These are a few of my favourite things...

Here are a few of my current favourite things:

TV: 

The Vampire Diaries has been my favourite show for about 2 years now. I just can't get enough of it! After the whole Twilight fiasco, I didn't think I'd be able to get into anything Vampire/Werewolf related again, at least not anything that was targeted towards teens. But Vampire Diaries is just SO GOOD, and every episode has SO MUCH ACTION. Ian Somerhalder/Damon doesn't hurt either. :)

As for something a little more lighthearted, New Girl is a show that I just discovered after I finished writing exams last month. I watched all the episodes within about 3 days, and then cursed myself for starting to watch it while it was still in it's first season, because I wanted MORE! But alas, I must wait til every Tuesday for more, and soon it will be over for the summer. So sad. I will probably re-watch the entire season when that happens. Nick is my favourite character and Jess & Nick needs to happen now!

Music: 

Early last month I discovered Marina & the Diamonds with her release of Primadonna, the first single off her new CD - Electra Heart. Since Electra Heart wasn't out yet, I downloaded her last album instead - The Family Jewels. I fell in love & haven't been able to stop listening to any of her songs. Electra Heart is now out as well and the two albums are pretty much all I've been listening to. My favourite songs are Shampain, Oh No!, and Mowgli's Road off of The Family Jewels, and Homewrecker and Bubblegum Bitch off of Electra Heart. But I mean, those were hard to choose, because I actually love ALL of the songs.

Food/Drink: 
The concept of green smoothies are disgusting. I mean, think about it - you're drinking spinach. They also LOOK disgusting, like green slime! But with the right combination of ingredients - I like using vanilla or chocolate soy or almond milk, vanilla yogurt, bananas, and peanut butter - they are actually DELICIOUS. As well as filling, and hey, spinach has protein in it - that's a plus for me.

Green tea - OBSESSED. That is all.

Make sure to check out my beauty favourites on my Beauty/Fashion Blog! 

Pottermore!

October 1st, 2011: 
I want to talk about Pottermore, because it is pretty fricken cool when it actually works.

In early August, I "got in" by finding the magic quill with #4 Grimmauld Place (that's the question I had to answer). However, I never got my e-mail that I was in for beta testing until about a week ago. I was pretty annoyed about how long I had to wait, since it's opening to the public in October ... which it is now... and I only got in a week before.

 Anyway, the whole Pottermore experience IS pretty amazing. Basically, you go through every chapter of every book, and there are a few interactive scenes for each one of them where you can find hidden things, read about loads of extra stuff that was and wasn't in the books, and in special instances, do your shopping, get your wand, get sorted, and make potions.

Getting my wand was the first pretty exciting thing to happen. You have to answer a series of questions that you have no idea what they have to do with anything lol, and then Ollivander presents you with your wand. I got an 11 inch wand made of Beech Wood with a Phoenix core, brittle.

The next exciting thing is getting sorted into your Hogwarts House! I wanted/expected to be in Ravenclaw, and was absolutely terrified of being in Hufflepuff, ha. There were another set of questions that would put you in your house. I've taken loads of 'sorting' surveys on the internet before, and it's usually pretty obvious which answers lead to which houses. They weren't so obvious this time, and some of the questions had 4 choices while some had 6 and some only had 2, so I really had no idea where I was going to end up! But I did end up getting into Ravenclaw, so it must be my true house. :)

Once you're sorted, there are a lot more things to collect in each scene - galleons and spell books and potions ingredients mostly. Making potions is pretty cool but I'm still horrible at it. You can also learn new spells through different spell books and duel other 'witches and wizards'. And everything you do gains you house points.

So yeah. Pottermore is pretty fantastic in my opinion, except for the fact that I can't log in half the time because the server is too busy. I'm sure that problem will be fixed soon enough. Oh, by the way, my user name is OakSpell138, so add me as a friend if you're in too!

Currently Reading: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

I thought I'd do a little update on what I'm currently reading, which is The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson. This is the third book in the Millenium series, following the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo & the Girl who Played with Fire. I have read the first two already, but it has been at least a year since I finished reading the second book, and although I remember the details of the first book quite easily, I had to go back and remind myself what the Girl who Played with Fire was about before starting this one. This  was critical, since the plot starts off right at the point where the last one ended. This means that there is quite a bit of action right  from the very beginning. This is nice, in my opinion, especially for this series, in which the books seem to start off quite slow. I had the hardest time getting into the Girl with the Dragon tattoo, because the first 150 pages or so were so dry. However, I'm glad I stuck it out and got through them, because this really has been a great series. Saying that, I am only about 160 pages into the Girl who Kicked the Hornet's nest, and I have not been bored at all. There have already been some unexpected twists and turns, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

This was all a bit cryptic, I realize, and I apologize. I really don't want to spoil anything, especially when I don't know where things are going myself!

If you'd like to keep up with what I'm reading, feel free to follow me on GoodReads. :)

Thomas Harris - Silence of the Lambs *CONTAINS SPOILERS*

I recently read Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. This is the second book in the Hannibal series, the middle book in between Red Dragon and Hannibal. I have never seen any of the Hannibal movies, so as far as story line goes, I had nothing to base any expectations off of, which I generally prefer when reading books.

Silence of the Lambs is of the mystery genre, which, I must admit, is not my favourite genre to read. There are so many mysteries out there that too many of them are similar. The murderer of this story is a man that the public calls “Buffalo Bill”, and has been killing young women and skinning them, seemingly in a random order, as the bodies have been found all over the place with no apparent pattern. Clarice Starling, a trainee-FBI agent, is given the task of interviewing Hannibal Lecter, an imprisoned psychologist-and-psychopath-in-one, who may know who Buffalo Bill is and what his motives are. 

Buffalo Bill turns out to be a transvestite-type, who is attempting to make a skin suit out of a woman's skin, in order to 'become' a woman. Quite disturbing and quite interesting, and I have to say that I wasn't expecting that one. But the real draw to this book is Starling's interviews with Hannibal. His character intrigues me to no end. Being a former psychologist but also a psychopath is a dangerous combination – he knows exactly how to get into one's head and mess with them, and one can never tell if he's being genuine or if he is telling you a flat-out lie. 

By the end of the book, Hannibal has lead Starling and the FBI to Buffalo Bill. However, he has also escaped, after being transferred from his high-security cell to one where the security is less knowledgeable of his ways.

I am looking forward to reading Hannibal. While Silence of the Lambs gave a glimpse of the mad genius of Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal is completely focused on his character. I will definitely do a follow-up about that novel after I read it.

Book/Movie Review: American Psycho

April 3rd, 2011:
For a long time, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis has been on the top of my 'to-read' list. I got my hands on it a few months ago, and finally got around to reading it recently. I'm not really sure what I was expecting from it. I knew it was supposed to be horrifying, and I've heard people say that they've had to stop reading it because they were so disgusted at what the main character was doing to his victims. I thought I could handle it, that it couldn't possibly be so bad. To be completely honest, it was an amazing book. It definitely lives up to its reputation of being horrifying and disgusting. Even someone like me, who has read so much horror and watched so many bloody movies, had to stop reading at times because the amount of detail in which the things Patrick Bateman does to his victims made me feel sick at times.

It is also a completely absurd story. There is no reason that he does any of the things he does, except for that he wants to. Some of Bateman's victims are random, people that he doesn't even know – these mostly consist of prostitutes and homeless people on the street. Others are his friends, who are really more like acquaintances, because his group of 'friends' really can't tell the difference between one another. This causes some confusion, and at the end of the novel, I wasn't really sure if the main character had actually killed anyone at all, and was just completely insane, and inside his own head. But I think what really happened was that he did kill everyone he described killing, and the reason for the confusion is because of the anonymity in society. The man he confesses to killing is seen in London multiple times by several people, but it is not him – it is someone else from the same high-class society who looks the same and acts the same but is not in fact the same person. Through the horror of the book, it also had me laughing SO many times. The way he describes his emotions and experiences is just so ridiculous. Almost every chapter, usually at the end of the first paragraph, the narrator describes what the topic of the Patty Winter show that morning was. There are also several chapters devoted to musical artists, each of their albums and descriptions of every song that they've done.

After I finished the book, I immediately watched the movie, just to see the comparison between the two. Even though it is pretty spot on with the actual events that happen, it really doesn't even compare. There is no way to depict in such detail the horror and absurdity in the movie as can be done in the book. Christian did do a pretty good job as Patrick Bateman though, and the part that made me laugh the most was when he had the 2 prostitutes over, and instead of paying attention to them during sex, he was flexing his own muscles and admiring himself in the mirror. One thing that annoyed me was that they changed the names of a couple of the characters – Tim Price became Tim Bryce, and Paul Owen was Paul Allen. I'm sure there was a reason for it, but since I don't know what it was, it annoyed me. Anyway, yes – the book was definitely better than the movie, which is no surprise. It also surprised me how horrifying it actually was, even after all the warnings about it, which is impressive to me. Even though I hated a lot of it, just because of the way Bateman and his friends acted, which I guess was the whole point, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it still a week later. Definitely a good commentary on modern society.

Lady Gaga - Judas

April 16th, 2011:
I LOVE THIS SONG – which is actually such a relief to me. I have to admit that after Gaga's release of Born This Way, I was a little bit nervous for the rest of the album. Sure, it was catchy and it was fun, and it also had a great message, but I didn't feel like it was original (I listened to it against Madonna's Express Yourself, and it really does sound so similar). It also was definitely not a song I could listen to over and over again without getting sick of it. Within about a week of it being out, I was bored of it, and by now, I'm actually pretty tired of hearing it, and skip over it almost every time it comes up on my iTunes. I'm actually surprised it became a number 1 hit, but I think it was more the anticipation for it that made it happen, than the actual song itself.

I personally did not have as much anticipation for Judas as I did for Born This Way. Maybe that's why I'm not disappointed. Or maybe it's just a better song. The first time I listened to it yesterday, I didn't really pay much attention to the lyrics, and didn't feel like it was that memorable. However, that's also how I felt the first time I listened to Bad Romance when it was released, which went on to become one of my favourite and most-listened to songs. Today, I sat down and really listened to Judas – the lyrics, the melody, the way it all comes together. After that, my opinion of it rose immensely. Obviously there is a huge biblical reference, and I love how she ties it into the entire song and makes it work so well. I also really like how she sings the verses – it's different, which makes it unique from other songs, which makes it good, at least to me. And the chorus is super simple, but super catchy, and I love it.

 I'll say it again. I love this song. I don't feel like I will get sick of it very quickly either. I am once again excited for the Born This Way album to come out!