Weekly Recap #8: Untold, Gone Girl, Witches of East End, Bates Motel, Grosse Pointe Blank

This post is linked to Stacking the Shelves (hosted by Tynga Reviews)  and The Sunday Post (hosted by Kimba @Caffeinated Book Reviewer).

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Read

Untold (The Lynburn Legacy, #2)  by Sarah Rees Brennan
Read the first book in the series, Unspoken earlier this year. Despite Unspoken getting really rave reviews and good ratings on goodreads, I did not share the same opinion. It was just a meh for me. But the ending of Unspoken felt very abrupt and more like a non ending, which is the reason why I have picked up the second book, Untold. If you have not heard of this series it's about a teenage school reporter who discovers that her sleepy English town (which has locations with whimsical names) called Sorry-in-the-Vale is home to Sorcerers who are trying to get back to the old ways of ruling. By the way...what is the collective noun for Sorcerers? Anyway, I don't think Untold improved much from the first book. The love triangle in this is frustrating as it always is in most stories. I hate that Kami and Jared comes close to actually communicating on things that matters but don't most of the time. However, this does have a better ending than Unspoken...a cliffhanger involving Jared which looks like the kind gothic ghost stories are made of. So yes, I will be coming back for the third book due for release late September this year.


Watched

Witches of East End - Season 1

Recently finished the first season. The family of witches aspect, 2 generations of sisters in this one, reminds me a bit of Charmed at least the first season Charmed before it seemed the characters/cast were in competition with each other as to who could wear less clothes. Quite enjoyed this first season where so far the storyline has been about defeating enemies from their past that have come back into their life, which I think has a more manageable plot than them being defenders of this realm.

Bates Motel - Season 2
Another great season where more bad stuff happens. We see more of Norman's unstable side and he is just scary during his bouts of explosive anger. When will someone see that he is just mentally not right instead of just referring him to as a sensitive boy? It'll be great if in the future season Norman actually get's institutionalize and see a psychiatrist try to diagnose him and discovering some of the crazy stuff that has happened the last few years. In Season 2 we also learn more about Norma's past when a family member comes to town, which explains a lot why Dylan seems to be the son that she loves less. Poor Dylan. I like that we see more of his character in this season and he is possibly the most normal member of the Bates  family. Can't wait for season 3.

Grosse Pointe Blank
When I did my Thursday Movie Picks on Assassins, someone recommended Grosse Pointe Blnak (I think it was Greg?) and so I caught it the past week. John Cusack plays, Martin Blank, a hit man who reluctantly goes back to his hometown (Grosse Pointe) for his 10 year high school reunion as he sees it as an opportunity to see his old girlfriend (Minnie Driver) and complete his latest assignment which happens to be in his hometown as well. The movie is a dark comedy and it's great. There's action, romance, and just so darkly funny. A lot of great lines. I love that whenever anyone in his hometown ask Martin what he does for living, he'd say professional killer and every single time people thought it was all joke. Then there's Martin's psychiatrist who is terrified of Martin because of his occupation and every advice/session pretty much ends with him telling Martin to not to kill anyone.

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Around the Blog

Thursday: Thursday Movie Picks #7 was Dramatic Scenes in which I included YouTube clips of 3 of my favourite scenes. Do check out what my picks were as well as the blogs that participated. Next Thursday's topic is Movies set Locally (you can choose country or state). Since the participators of past edition of this meme comes from various places, I don't expect to see any similar picks for this upcoming meme :). So if you love movies, come and take part in this weekly meme. You can read about future topics here.
Friday: Did another Let's Get Creative post.

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Other Stuff

• I tried reading Gone Girl some weeks ago. Read about 2 chapters and gave up. Now currently listening to the audiobook. So far things are interesting. I always feel like I'm cheating when I listen to an audiobook. The experience is just different from actual reading since the work is partly interpreted for me.
• Have you seen The Lizzie Benet Diaries before. It's a YouTube series based on Pride and Prejudice and set in present day. I started watching last year, took a break and and was reminded of it again when I started seeing Emma Approved gifs on Tumblr. It seems present day adaptations of classic works YouTube style is all the rage now. If you love those two check out more series here to fill that Emma Approved void.
• Underworld is getting a reboot! I don't care much about the 3rd and 4th movie but I really like the Underworld universe so I'd love to see another Underworld movie. But I'm not sure how I feel about a reboot since the last movie didn't have like a proper ending for the characters, seems more like Underworld should get a final sequel.
• Did you see Weird Al Yankovic perform some Show Themes at the Emmys? I of course love the Game of Thrones theme he did. Don't know what I'm talking about? See it here.

Let's Get Creative #4

Line from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Thursday Movie Picks #7: Dramatic Scenes

Hey there, welcome to the seventh edition of Thursday Movie Picks! I hope you have been joining us the previous weeks. If you haven't, it's still not too late to join. For new folks, the rules of this weekly meme is simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each. For more information on the meme and future topics please visit the meme's page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Dramatic Scenes (Your pic of dramatic scenes. You can either quote the scene or post a YouTube clip of it)

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When I picked this topic I thought it was going to be easy. I knew I had seen some amazing scenes in a lot of movies. Ones that demand my attention. Ones that make me rewind and rewatch just because they're awesome. So then it came to narrowing them down and seeing if they were available on YouTube. Unfortunately, few are online. And when I checked, some of them did not seem as dramatic when they are seen out of context and so they were left out of my picks. Now, I also did not specify or define what were dramatic scenes when I chose it for today's topic. You can interprete it as you like. For my picks the dramatic scenes I have chosen are usually emotional and have a revelationary aspect in terms of the character or story. So here are my picks in alphabetical order.

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Before Sunset (2004) - "Nine years after Jesse and Celine first met, they encounter each other again on the French leg of Jesse's book tour"
From the very beginning, we pretty much know of Jesse's feelings toward his and Celine's missed meeting 9 years ago. However Celine has been playing it cool until this scene. She finally lets it out how affected she is by that missed meeting. And did you see how Jesse wanted to touch her as she made the emotional sad/angry confession but too afraid to make contact. Celine does this too as the scene continues beyond this clip when he talks about his marriage. Her hand hovers over him as if to console him but retracts just before she touches him.

Michael Clayton (2007) - "A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit."
Tom Wilkinson's character just had a public meltdown where he stripped naked during a deposition and this clip here is this great scene where he attempts to make his case and explain to his colleague, played by George Clooney, as to what brought about the meltdown. Basically he is wreck with guilt from representing a guilty client and he is standing his ground that he is not going mad despite the nude show he had just put on.

 

Scent of a Woman(1992) - "A prep school student needing money agrees to "babysit" a blind man, but the job is not at all what he anticipated."
Al Pacino makes an emotional, angry passionate speech to save Chris O'Donnell's character from getting expelled. When he slams his cane does that not make you sit upright and listen to what he says. It's overtop but it works. He's so powerfully intimidating he commands the attention of the whole auditorium of snooty students and educators...and us the viewers and puts it plainly what he thinks of them all and their scapegoating.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

If you are participating be sure to add your blog post to the linky widget below (Enter your Blog Post URL, your Blog Name and your email {which will remain hidden}). Please also visit the other participating blogs, spread the word about this meme, and also link back to my blog on your own Thursday Movie Picks post :)

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Weekly Recap #7: Feed, Petals on the Wind,Paranormal Activity

This post is linked to Stacking the Shelves (hosted by Tynga Reviews)  and The Sunday Post (hosted by Kimba @Caffeinated Book Reviewer).

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Read

Feed by M.T. Anderson
Finished Feed a book set in a futuristic world where people are completely immersed in technology and consumerism. In Feed, people have access to a wealth of information which are transmitted to a feed implant in their brain. They are constantly bombarded by entertainment, advertising and messages by friends and family. Being fed information instantaneously consequently results in the erosion of people cognitive ability. Most don't know how to read, write or even speak in complete sentences. Imagine knowing that 10 plus 10 is 20 because you brain googles this answer but don't actually know how to calculate this on your own. Only when a hacker attacks their feeds does Titus, the main character, becomes aware of the pervasiveness of the feed and the negative effects that they have. I find books that create a new language/slangs challenging to read; meaning extremely difficult to read. This as well. I nearly gave up as it was hard trying to make sense of this new world and trying to decipher what the characters were saying with all the made up slang filled dialogue. It was only midway through that the world began to make more sense and I understood the language more. Overall I find myself liking the book and gives me much to think about.

 

Watched

Petals on the Wind
Beware of some spoilers for Flowers in the Attic - Petals on the Wind was so bad. I understand that the children were screwed up by what happened to them in the attic but a lot of the stuff that happens until midway through in the Petals on the Wind just seemed like unnecessary attempts to be more scandalous than the incestuous affair of the teenage siblings in Flowers in the Attic. Example: what importance was Carrie's and the priest's engagement other than be a wafer like reason for her to seek her mother? Or even of Cathy's involvement with that toxic male dancer? Not much other than being a frivolous filler for an already short TV movie before the actual main confrontation/revenge plot comes into play. 

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
This movie has such a low ratings on IMDB. I don't get it. It's not too bad. I think it's probably that with a lot of the Paranormal Activity movies there is no resolution in the end which leaves the audiences dissatisfied. I remember watching the first movie in the theater and when the credits rolled a person actually actual cried out something along the lines of "that's it?". So yeah the ending is always left hanging, although I do think they've tried to tie each of the sequels to the first movie. I'm not sure how coherent and successful they are at linking up the stories together since I have not watch any of the movies back to back or in the order they were released. Anyway, I did enjoy this movie. There were several scary bits but what I like most about it was the characters had great chemistry. They really seem like friends and family and we are one of them along for the ride.

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Thursday:Thursday Movie Picks #6 was Movies about Time Travel. I really enjoy watching time travel movies and had a lot of fun coming up with my picks. We also had the most of participants taking part in the meme last Thursday. So do check out what my Time Travel Movie picks were as well as the blogs that participated. Now next Thursdays topic is a lot of fun; Dramatic Scenes (Your pic of dramatic scenes. You can either quote the scene or post a YouTube clip of it). So if you love movies, come and take part in this weekly meme. You can read about future topics here.
Friday: Did another Let's Get Creative post.

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Other Stuff


I have been hanging around Tumblr and seeing a lot of the Outlander gifs...I so want to watch this. It's a period time travel TV series...awesome right? If the books weren't so thick I'd probably have checked it out first.

Let's Get Creative #3

The last line of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

"I love you, I love you, I love you"

Thursday Movie Picks #6: Movies about Time Travel

Hey there, welcome to the sixth edition of Thursday Movie Picks! I hope you have been joining us the previous weeks. If you haven't, it's still not too late to join. For new folks, the rules of this weekly meme is simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each. For more information on the meme and future topics please visit the meme's page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Movies about Time Travel

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Time Travel movies are a lot of fun and most will definitely give your brain a lot exercise. For something that may not at all be possible, there are a lot rules to adhere to. 

Many of the more popular time travel movies tend to be adventure/action/science fiction movies, most are set in some distant or not to distant future and are about traveling to the past to save the world from some disaster. But for my picks, I'll be picking the more low key time travel dramas with relatively contemporary settings.

As always, my picks in alphabetical order:

About Time (2013) - "At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think."

The first time I heard about About Time, I thought...Rachel McAdams in another romantic time travel movie (I still haven't watch The Time Traveller's Wife)? I blame it on the poster. Tim is a time traveler. He travels back in time sometimes selfishly to alter events to seek a happier future himself and at times to prevent accidents. But time travel is of course a tricky business which gives rise to other unwanted consequences which we do see here as well. But what I like about About Time was that it also presented time travel as an opportunity to have more time to do things that you love or to spend more time with your love ones. It was also very refreshing to watch a movie that featured a pretty functional family that actually enjoy each other's company.

Primer (2004) - "Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention."

This I have heard as being the time travel movie to watch. It is certainly one of the more meticulous time travel movies that I have seen that attempts to play by some of those tricky rules. The movie does get a little confusing at times along the way, but I got most of it and Primer is certainly of those movies that would benefit from a second viewing.

Somewhere in Time (1980) - "A Chicago playwright uses self-hypnosis to find the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel."

Christopher Reeve plays, Richard, a playwright, who is approached by an elderly lady who gives him a pocket watch and cryptically asks him to come back to her. Intrigued yet? Not Richard, not until much much later when an elderly hotel employee believes he looks like a man from his childhood. Realising there must be some kind of connection to the old woman, he seeks for a way to travel back in time to meet her. I'm a fan of period movies and this is a pretty movie. Jane Seymour and her costumes in Somewhere in Time were just gorgeous. I also enjoyed the time travel aspect of the movie which came full circle in the end. Here's a little spoiler so highlight the next line if you want to see...If you remember where it starts, you'd know how it ends, which is the tragedy of this love story.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

If you are participating be sure to add your blog post to the linky widget below (Enter your Blog Post URL, your Blog Name and your email {which will remain hidden}). Please also visit the other participating blogs, spread the word about this meme, and also link back to my blog on your own Thursday Movie Picks post :)

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Weekly Recap #6: Garden Spells, Snowpiercer and Flowers in the Attic

This post is linked to Stacking the Shelves (hosted by Tynga Reviews)  and The Sunday Post (hosted by Kimba @Caffeinated Book Reviewer).

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Read

Garden Spells
A short read about the Waverly sisters who are not quite so ordinary. One, a caterer who can cook up dishes to meet the special needs of her clients and the other finally discovers where her talents lie when she returns home after a decade away. I haven't read a lot of magical realism and this is one I enjoyed very much. Sweet and charming story, I'd say it's a mix of Practical Magic and Chocolat.

Watched

Snowpiercer
Finally saw this after hearing/reading about it. It recently aired on one of those cable movie channels, which isn't exactly the ideal way to watch a movie since they either tend to be edited and have no subtitles which I have come to depend on. I'm not sure how much was edited out for Snowpiercer but what really sucks was there were several scenes where Namgoong used this translator device which translates whatever he said into English, and the audio for the computer translator was just soo much lower than the voices of all the other characters that I missed out on chunks of what Namgoong was trying to say. Aside from that, the movie started out well.

The world of Snowpiercer was interesting, the train is self sufficient and I love discovering the contents of each carriage. The aquarium and the garden ones were wondrous and thus such a contrast to the back carriages and the artic cold that lies outside of the the train. The look of the world of Snowpiercer I'd say was like a cross of City of Ember and Harry Potter/Wes Anderson movies for the front carriages. I was to a point sold on the whole lower class revolting against the ruling upper class premise until I began to see some plot holes. Well...it was either plot holes or I wasn't quite paying attention. How exactly did the class system work? The Snowpiercer I'm assuming represents the world; people in the front are the upper class, and at the back are the lower class. Unfortunately I think the movie does a deservice by not actually showing the lower class working, as such they're not exactly illustrating the exploitative nature of such a system. Secondly if each carriage exist solely for one purpose only, this meant that passengers would have to go through several carriages to go to whatever destination they were headed to...which in turn meant that armed guards would have to go through the kindergarten everyday just to get to the back of the train? Err...not really clever planning from the genius Wilford. And I don't get why anyone felt it was worth to fight for the control of the engine, in the end you're still trapped on a train, so yeah Namgoong is probably the only one who has his head straight. Still the train itself is fascinating and I like the characters so I expected a good payoff at the end, with the engine and the leader of the train, Wilford. I don't want to spoil it so I'll just say I was disappointed. In a way I understood Wilford's reason but it seemed such a tedious and convoluted way to bring about what he wanted. 

Flowers in the Attic (2014)
I've not read the book but I am a little familiar with the story from having watch the earlier adaptation made in the 80's. Can't exactly compare the two adaptation since I watched the earlier one almost a decade ago. Some positive for this newer movie; good that they used kid actors who are closer to the age of the Dollanger children. It made believing their naivety slightly easier. Negatives; well this is a Lifetime channel movie, as expected the dialogue isn't really good. They do have some good actors here but even they can't carry some of the bad lines this movie had. Some scenes also seemed weirdly edited together, but since I saw this on TV, this may be due to some scenes having to be censored out. Overall not so bad. The sequel Petals on the Wind airs next week.
  

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Wednesday: Did another Let's Get Creative post
Thursday: This is the fifth week for the Thursday Movie Picks meme where I listed 3 Movies that feature Food Predominantly. Do check out what my picks were as well as the blogs that participated in this meme. Fortunately Wendall spotted there was no theme for this coming week Thursday Movie Picks and so I have chosen one his suggestions; Movies about Time Travel for this Thursday. So if you love movies, come and take part in this weekly meme. You can read about future topics here.

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Other Stuff

• Currently reading Feed set in a futuristic world where people are completely immersed in technology and consumerism...we're not too far away from it.
• Currently watching the Walking Dead Season 4....in time for Season 5 which should be premiering soon.
• I've also opened a Society6 shop. Not much stuff yet as editing has been a pain since my computer is having trouble handling all the large files and keeps hanging :(