So I saw the teaser trailer for the VMAs just now.
I kind of went to bed earlier than usual, and apparently 4am is a natural wake-up/non-sleepy time for me (this has happened before), so I've been wasting a couple hours looking up movies. Which eventually, of course, led me to the Hunger Games teaser trailer.
Well, it's like nothing. It's maybe a minute long, and all it has are shots of Katniss running, with some voiceover person telling her she's awesome (if they mess up continuity/plot so that Gale plays a larger part in the movie, simply to play up the love triangle, I may be slightly to very upset. Just saying.) Yeah. Talk about teaser.
This has put me back on the fence about Jennifer Lawrence. The thing is, she just doesn't look intense enough, especially not in this. Like I said, I don't know exactly what Katniss looks like in my head - but I do know it's not this. That said, if she's a good actress (and I'm about 85% certain she is) I should be able to get over that. Also, it's totally possible she just seems less intense because of the music that's playing - I was having some Twilight flashbacks. Like seriously. GET BETTER MUSIC. PLEASE. Don't make me have Twilight flashbacks during The Hunger Games by doing that thing with the music and the panoramic sweep and/or the flashes of running.
(final note: apparently Liam Hemsworth's Australian accent is identifiable to some in this voiceover, but I didn't notice; who knows whether that's because of the quality of the video I watched/the fact that I watched it on my iPhone, or because I'm just not so great at accents. Maybe it's not that bad, and people are just looking for something to judge. We'll see.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Life update
Yeah, it's one of those boring posts about my life/media again, sorry, but unfortunately for you, these things are sort of important to me, so suck it up.
Let's see...in terms of movie media, I've managed to watch (500) Days of Summer, The Sandlot, Hoodwinked, Letters to Juliet, and part of Catch and Release. My Thoughts are as follows:
(500) Days: I was informed, multiple times, that this movie was AMAZING. I thought it was good...but not that good, though maybe all the hype fooled me into having expectations that were waaaay too high. Who knows. In any case, I wanted to strangle Summer by the end/middle of it, and also Tom was SUCH A WHINY LITTLE WIMP.
I've already seen The Sandlot/Hoodwinked. I think the former is hilarious and a perfect summer movie, and the latter is hilarious and I need the soundtrack to it.
Letters to Juliet was painful, but I made it through it; I realized too late, unfortunately, that the main guy was nowhere near hot enough to save the bad acting/plot of the movie. Meanwhile, Catch and Release did have a couple hot guys who might've been enough to carry on the movie, were it not for the weird sex scene in the middle. That was just too much. I couldn't finish it and still feel like a decent human being (okay, it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty bad).
For television: Pretty Little Liars and Covert Affairs. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind on White Collar, though I'll probably just read the episode summaries somewhere and continue watching anyway, and thankfully Hulu is only airing episodes a month after they air, so it's okay that I missed a couple (brb, actually, I'm going to start now. Okay, done, we'll continue).
My book count is now up to 53, but I won't bother to summarize/list all the books I've been reading here, except to mention The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien because I really, really, really enjoyed it - it's sort a collection of short stories, but they're all related to one another, and deal with a platoon of soldiers in the Vietnam War. (If you're like, super duper interested in what books I read (not sure why you would be...) I list them/my reactions here.
Let's see...oh yeah, life! Actually, go-outside-and-see-people life! I forgot about that...
Well, we had a French exchange student for a little over two weeks, something that we also did last year. This year our girl was quieter, and had more difficulty with English - she also seemed a bit...not kinder necessarily, but our girl last year struck me as a bit more of a "popular" girl, whereas this year our girl was more chill. She was also almost 19, so a little more maturity was a given.
Swimming has started, and it's been an eventful two weeks: glass shattered on the pool deck, causing us to have to find a new pool for three days, and to (thankfully) only have one practice a day. Yesterday, a girl hit herself in the forehead with a wrench while trying to undo the lane lines, and had to have four stitches; unfortunately, she did it after practice was over, so no cancellation there.
School will start soon. Senior year, hooray! I have classes that I am actually happy with, and I'm excited to see friends/have a late start some days. Ummm...yeah. That's kind of it for now.
Let's see...in terms of movie media, I've managed to watch (500) Days of Summer, The Sandlot, Hoodwinked, Letters to Juliet, and part of Catch and Release. My Thoughts are as follows:
(500) Days: I was informed, multiple times, that this movie was AMAZING. I thought it was good...but not that good, though maybe all the hype fooled me into having expectations that were waaaay too high. Who knows. In any case, I wanted to strangle Summer by the end/middle of it, and also Tom was SUCH A WHINY LITTLE WIMP.
I've already seen The Sandlot/Hoodwinked. I think the former is hilarious and a perfect summer movie, and the latter is hilarious and I need the soundtrack to it.
Letters to Juliet was painful, but I made it through it; I realized too late, unfortunately, that the main guy was nowhere near hot enough to save the bad acting/plot of the movie. Meanwhile, Catch and Release did have a couple hot guys who might've been enough to carry on the movie, were it not for the weird sex scene in the middle. That was just too much. I couldn't finish it and still feel like a decent human being (okay, it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty bad).
For television: Pretty Little Liars and Covert Affairs. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind on White Collar, though I'll probably just read the episode summaries somewhere and continue watching anyway, and thankfully Hulu is only airing episodes a month after they air, so it's okay that I missed a couple (brb, actually, I'm going to start now. Okay, done, we'll continue).
My book count is now up to 53, but I won't bother to summarize/list all the books I've been reading here, except to mention The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien because I really, really, really enjoyed it - it's sort a collection of short stories, but they're all related to one another, and deal with a platoon of soldiers in the Vietnam War. (If you're like, super duper interested in what books I read (not sure why you would be...) I list them/my reactions here.
Let's see...oh yeah, life! Actually, go-outside-and-see-people life! I forgot about that...
Well, we had a French exchange student for a little over two weeks, something that we also did last year. This year our girl was quieter, and had more difficulty with English - she also seemed a bit...not kinder necessarily, but our girl last year struck me as a bit more of a "popular" girl, whereas this year our girl was more chill. She was also almost 19, so a little more maturity was a given.
Swimming has started, and it's been an eventful two weeks: glass shattered on the pool deck, causing us to have to find a new pool for three days, and to (thankfully) only have one practice a day. Yesterday, a girl hit herself in the forehead with a wrench while trying to undo the lane lines, and had to have four stitches; unfortunately, she did it after practice was over, so no cancellation there.
School will start soon. Senior year, hooray! I have classes that I am actually happy with, and I'm excited to see friends/have a late start some days. Ummm...yeah. That's kind of it for now.
Monday, August 22, 2011
An update on The Hunger Games
I feel like I should update my previous thoughts on castin re:The Hunger Games, since, you know, new photos came out and I just noticed and all that.
I can get behind Liam Hemsworth, who looks extremely like my pictured Gale with his now-brown hair, though I still thunk he looks a little like a gorilla when seen from the front. Meanwhile, Jennifer Lawrence/Katniss is looking okay, though to be perfecty honest: I never fully imagine what a character looks like in my head. They're more a vague conglomeration of characteristics, rather than a definite face. So any time a book is made into a movie, getting my head around the characters of the movie as being the same as the books is kind of hard (there exists only one exception to thus that I can think of: Harry Potter.)(Oh wait, I guess The Lord of the Rings, but I feel like that book doesn't really cause me to visualize the characters at all, so it doesn't really count.) So what I'm trying to say is: Jennifer Lawrence doesn't really look like Katniss to me, but then I don't really have the most solid idea of what I think Katniss looks like, so it's all a moot point in the end.
In other news, Rue was cast, and she's the appropriate skin tone so we won't be hearing screams of fury over that on the Interwebz! (This is all sort of a late update, so really those screams of fury would've happened a little while ago). Also, I don't know if I mentioned last time that Stanley Tucci was cast as Caesar Flickerman, but he was! And Stanley Tucci is AMAZING. So, more happiness. Hooray!
Yeah, so those are my thoughts.
I can get behind Liam Hemsworth, who looks extremely like my pictured Gale with his now-brown hair, though I still thunk he looks a little like a gorilla when seen from the front. Meanwhile, Jennifer Lawrence/Katniss is looking okay, though to be perfecty honest: I never fully imagine what a character looks like in my head. They're more a vague conglomeration of characteristics, rather than a definite face. So any time a book is made into a movie, getting my head around the characters of the movie as being the same as the books is kind of hard (there exists only one exception to thus that I can think of: Harry Potter.)(Oh wait, I guess The Lord of the Rings, but I feel like that book doesn't really cause me to visualize the characters at all, so it doesn't really count.) So what I'm trying to say is: Jennifer Lawrence doesn't really look like Katniss to me, but then I don't really have the most solid idea of what I think Katniss looks like, so it's all a moot point in the end.
In other news, Rue was cast, and she's the appropriate skin tone so we won't be hearing screams of fury over that on the Interwebz! (This is all sort of a late update, so really those screams of fury would've happened a little while ago). Also, I don't know if I mentioned last time that Stanley Tucci was cast as Caesar Flickerman, but he was! And Stanley Tucci is AMAZING. So, more happiness. Hooray!
Yeah, so those are my thoughts.
Monday, August 8, 2011
So I saw Harry Potter.
There are many Thoughts I have about this movie, and the whole movie arc in general, but I'll try to keep it short.
1. Something I didn't understand: when they want to get at Bellatrix's vault, and they ask for identification/her wand, um, why exactly don't they just give it to them? They have the wand; they proved that. I just don't get it.
2. I was fine with the epilogue in the book, because it gave a chance to see the future for the characters, but in the movie...well. I would say the two Weasleys aged the best, with Rupert Grint truly looking almost 40; Emma Watson, on the other hand, looked her age, and seeing her with chidren was...unsettling.
3. I'm not sure where the Ariana storyline went, but I missed it; it helped explain so much about Dumbledore, about why he never told Harry he needed to die. (As a matter of fact, I miss all of the storylines that they just completely dropped from the movie. Not that I'm still bitter over HBP. Never.)
4. Speaking of Dumbledore, I really dislike Michael Gambon playing him; he's too angry. And then, in King's Cross - just, not. I don't know.
5. Also, the gleeful McGonagall thing was a bit much in the movies; the "I always wanted to do that" was out of place, and the "Send all of Slytherin to the dungeons" was just wrong - I know you can say what you will about making an "evil" house (which, to be honest, isn't all that evil all the time - I think in times when Voldemort wasn't in power/his followers weren't the parents of the students, Slytherin House wasn't necessarily evil. Look at Slughorn, or Andromeda Tonks, for example) - but seriously, this is the sort of thing that the book would've addressed as something that makes us them, becoming the enemy, etc.
6. I have to say, I actually thought the two Fred deaths were both pretty comparable, in terms of emotional impact; in the book, there's the obvious shock and the fact that you can see/hear what Harry's thinking, but in the movie there's the scene with the whole Weasley family crying over him, which is much more emotionally stirring to see, rather than read about.
7. Neville and Luna are a thing in the movie! It's adorable!
All of this being said: I thought the movie was fairly well done, and I cried at the appropriate moments, but...I don't know. There was something missing. It just didn't...feel right.
1. Something I didn't understand: when they want to get at Bellatrix's vault, and they ask for identification/her wand, um, why exactly don't they just give it to them? They have the wand; they proved that. I just don't get it.
2. I was fine with the epilogue in the book, because it gave a chance to see the future for the characters, but in the movie...well. I would say the two Weasleys aged the best, with Rupert Grint truly looking almost 40; Emma Watson, on the other hand, looked her age, and seeing her with chidren was...unsettling.
3. I'm not sure where the Ariana storyline went, but I missed it; it helped explain so much about Dumbledore, about why he never told Harry he needed to die. (As a matter of fact, I miss all of the storylines that they just completely dropped from the movie. Not that I'm still bitter over HBP. Never.)
4. Speaking of Dumbledore, I really dislike Michael Gambon playing him; he's too angry. And then, in King's Cross - just, not. I don't know.
5. Also, the gleeful McGonagall thing was a bit much in the movies; the "I always wanted to do that" was out of place, and the "Send all of Slytherin to the dungeons" was just wrong - I know you can say what you will about making an "evil" house (which, to be honest, isn't all that evil all the time - I think in times when Voldemort wasn't in power/his followers weren't the parents of the students, Slytherin House wasn't necessarily evil. Look at Slughorn, or Andromeda Tonks, for example) - but seriously, this is the sort of thing that the book would've addressed as something that makes us them, becoming the enemy, etc.
6. I have to say, I actually thought the two Fred deaths were both pretty comparable, in terms of emotional impact; in the book, there's the obvious shock and the fact that you can see/hear what Harry's thinking, but in the movie there's the scene with the whole Weasley family crying over him, which is much more emotionally stirring to see, rather than read about.
7. Neville and Luna are a thing in the movie! It's adorable!
All of this being said: I thought the movie was fairly well done, and I cried at the appropriate moments, but...I don't know. There was something missing. It just didn't...feel right.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
So. I am in a bit of a quandary.
Swimming will start in one and a half weeks, and once it begins it, along with a college English class and Advanced Topics math (which is like AP Calculus BC/Calculus HL), will eat my life. So, in my quest to make life slightly less stressful for myself this fall, I am trying to get a jumpstarton the college essay.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Home again
So this year's camp experience was a success; despite the crap that I was put through on kitchen, it really gave me a chance to get back in the swing of things at camp, and get to know some of the staff before I was in a cabin. My cabin second session was the most amazing group of girls, and I'm not sure if I could have asked for a better first cabin; they all got along, and hung out all the time during their free time, despite the fact that they came to camp in pairs or groups of friends. My co-staff wasn't the warmest or loudest person, but I think we balanced each other, and since she's someone I would be afraid of/intimidated by, it was kind of nice to get a chance to really get to know her better. I managed to make friends with the CITs and some of the ACs too, so I'm pretty psyched for next year.
The downside to this awesome experience is that now I'm super depressed to be home. I seriously miss camp; it's all rainy out today, and while at camp I would be well into my day, working my first camptivity, at home I'm just...sitting. At the computer. Feeling depressed. Also, the prospect of school/swimming is making me want to hurt something (fall of senior year, what what, going to die die, yippee)
Other news?
1. There's a new spin-off for Avatar called The Legend of Korra and I AM SO FRICKIN' EXCITED
2. I saw Transformers (not worth the ticket) and Friends with Benefits (meh-y, at least it was funny, and it was JT and Mila Kunis so I'm okay with that) on our nights out at camp. Also saw Remember Me and No Strings Attached in our peak my first session.
3. A girl in my peak met Barack Obama, with her family; apparently her dad helped him raise money. Anyway, he sent them an actual handwritten card when her grandma died. Also, Zach Gilford from Off the Map (which, by the way, has been cancelled) used to go to my camp. Seriously, I think he was a counselor there. And Tina Fey worked at the YMCA that our camp is based out of.
That's all for now folks!
The downside to this awesome experience is that now I'm super depressed to be home. I seriously miss camp; it's all rainy out today, and while at camp I would be well into my day, working my first camptivity, at home I'm just...sitting. At the computer. Feeling depressed. Also, the prospect of school/swimming is making me want to hurt something (fall of senior year, what what, going to die die, yippee)
Other news?
1. There's a new spin-off for Avatar called The Legend of Korra and I AM SO FRICKIN' EXCITED
2. I saw Transformers (not worth the ticket) and Friends with Benefits (meh-y, at least it was funny, and it was JT and Mila Kunis so I'm okay with that) on our nights out at camp. Also saw Remember Me and No Strings Attached in our peak my first session.
3. A girl in my peak met Barack Obama, with her family; apparently her dad helped him raise money. Anyway, he sent them an actual handwritten card when her grandma died. Also, Zach Gilford from Off the Map (which, by the way, has been cancelled) used to go to my camp. Seriously, I think he was a counselor there. And Tina Fey worked at the YMCA that our camp is based out of.
That's all for now folks!
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