A couple of days ago, Dreamworks Animation released the official teaser trailer of How To Train Your Dragon 2. Yes, everyone, there is a sequel to this surprisingly popular animated movie of the very adorkable Hiccup and his adorable pet dragon, Toothless!
Watching the above trailer, I am absolutely thrilled to see the partners-in-crime, Hiccup and Toothless! Toothless is still very adorable. I still want a dragon as a pet if it’s as cute as Toothless.
But what surprises me most about the official teaser trailer is that Hiccup is hot. How did an animated character who was once nerdy become hot? When the trailer revealed Hiccup’s new look, my first thought was: “Puberty did him good.” Why didn’t my puberty do the same thing for me? Did I miss the “hot” part of my puberty? How? Also, the new Hiccup looked like a certain YouTuber who goes by the name of Gavin Free from Roosterteeth. See below to judge yourself…
HiccupGavin Free
Yes? No?
Anyway, does Siti love or hate the official teaser trailer? Absolutely love it and can’t wait for June 2014!
You might have heard the news about an hour ago that the world has lost a young talent by the name of Cory Monteith, one of the main cast members of Glee.
R.I.P Cory Monteith. My thoughts and prayers goes out to his family and friends. As much as this has affected me as well as other fans of Glee (or who were once fans of Glee), I cannot imagine the shock and sadness felt by his loved ones. He left the world broken-hearted but I hope wherever he is right now, that place treats him better than this world did. And I hope that he left the world knowing that he was an inspiration to many people out there, that he left a mark.
I would like to end this post with this…
During an interview with Inside The Actors Studio, James Lipton asked this question: “Finally, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?” And Cory’s answer was:
I don’t write about casting news before and this is going to be a first. But hey, there’s always a first to everything and since I did write Glee recaps last season, I decided this would be quite apt.
So, there are news floating around that my favourite American Idol alumni, Adam Lambert, is joining Glee next season. Ryan Murphy, the show’s creator, tweeted the news earlier and Adam did acknowledge it by re-tweeting the tweet with his own message: “I’m so excited!! ;)” But the character he will be playing or whether it will be for the whole season or just a brief role like another American Idol alumni, Jessica Sanchez, is currently unknown.
What do I think about it? Well, I do love Adam and I did want Glee to do a cover of his songs. But until I know what his character will be and how long he will be in the show, I am a little bit apprehensive about it. Years ago, I would readily admit I am a “Gleek”. But now, not so much. It is like watching a trainwreck of a show with so many guest stars and new characters that viewers generally do not care for. And honestly, unless he has nothing to do with Rachel Berry, I will be absolutely pissed. But for now, I have no idea what his role would be and can only hope that I won’t throw my precious laptop down from my fourth storey flat.
Love it or hate it? I am happy for Adam but let’s see.
I know, I know, I missed a couple of episode reviews of Teen Wolf. I wanted to come up with an awesome reason why I didn’t write my reviews for the two episodes before this latest one but I came up with none except that I was being a lazy arse. And also that I just watched the two episodes before this one like 2 hours ago. But, I don’t regret my decision at all because Motel California has got to be one of the best episodes of Teen Wolf.
Cut for possible spoilers for those who have not watched…
After being a teeny-weeny bit disappointed with Monsters University, I came in watching Despicable Me 2 hoping and praying that it gives as much as it did with all those hilarious clips before the movie release. And I wasn’t disappointed at all.
In the sequel of the popular Universal-distributed animated movie, we learned what happened after Gru threw his villain cap and has now dedicated his life as a father to Margo, Edith and the adorable “It’s so fluffy, I wanna die” Agnes, and a jelly and jam businessman. But as we all know from the trailer that I’m sure you can’t miss, Gru is recruited by The Anti-Villain League to help capture a villain who has stolen a powerful mutating chemical named PX-41. Okay, so that chemical part I don’t think you know but now you do and I won’t spoil you any further than that.
This movie made me laugh from the start till the end. And when I say “start”, I meant the introduction where they flashed “Illumination Entertainment” on the screen. There were very few moments when no one laughed. You see Gru being such a dad to a tweeny Margo, the three girls being adorable as always and they certainly do not fail when it comes to Agnes, and of course, who could ever forget the minions. You may not understand whatever that comes out of the minions’ mouths but their antics are what made everything hilarious. Also, we cannot forget the ever-slow Dr. Nefario. He has very little things to say in this sequel but whatever he did say were all gems. There are also new characters in this sequel, one being the lady who tasered Gru, Lucy, and if you are like me who have been watching every single clip of Despicable Me 2 before its launch, evil minions.
If you wanna know how the evil minion comes about, do watch the movie. You will never regret it. Also, I will never ever listen to “I Swear” the same way ever again.
Well, this is a delayed review. I watched Monsters University last week but in my defence, I was quite sick and am still sick. So, if this review made no sense at all, you can blame it all on my cough syrup (I’m feeling drowsy right now).
Anyway, on to my review of this beloved monsters movie…
If you do not know by now, Monsters University is a prequel to Monsters, Inc. so no, there is no Boo. This animated movie is set before Sullivan became the top monster in Monsters, Inc. and Mike is still… well, Mike.
I like how Pixar made the movie like a typical non-animated “young people in college” movie, with the cliché groups – the jocks, the babes, the nerds, the goths, etc. It is also nice to see that Randy wasn’t that bad of a guy – wait, no, monster – when he was in school.
But it was a little bit of a letdown from the popular Monsters, Inc. I think some people expected a sequel more than a prequel, most probably because the ending in Monsters, Inc. was when Sullivan met Boo once again. I was one of those people who was kind of disappointed a little bit because I love Boo and there were a lot of rumours of how we actually saw Boo in Toy Story 3.
Nevertheless, the movie was a fun, feel-good, family-friendly movie. In my opinion, Squishy and Squishy’s mom stole the limelight for me. Squishy is adorable and I want to grow up to be Squishy’s mom. Anyway, like any other animated movies, kids could learn a thing or two (or more) from it. So, if you have not watched it yet and you love Monsters, Inc., go and head down to watch it. Bring little kids along to. They will enjoy it as much as you do.
Before “World War Z”, I have only read one other zombie-related book – “Warm Bodies”. But since I heard plenty of great reviews for “World War Z” and the movie of the same name was about to be released (then), I decided to give this book a shot. And I do not regret every second of my decision.
“World War Z” is basically a collection of survivors’ stories from the zombie apocalypse that struck our planet. It touches different aspects of the war – from the military to the general public, from the religious to the atheists – and different parts of the world – from US to South Korea.
The book is complex but that’s what I love about it. War between humans, in itself, is not simple – there is a cost on human lives among many other things. War against zombies is another level of not simple. They are the living dead so how do you kill the living dead? Like every other wars, there are questionable tactics being used to win this war and as a reader, you struggle between the morality and the practicality of these tactics. And throughout the book, you wonder if you would ever survive in a zombie apocalypse.
Max Brooks made World War Z so real and believable. If, one day, we do have zombie apocalypse, I know that this book might just save us all.
I watched World War Z about two to three days ago but I chose to review the movie only after I finished the book, which I was reading more than halfway through. I chose to do this because what I had read in the book and what I had actually watched were different stories to me.
World War Z, the book written by Max Brooks, is basically a personal recount of each survivor that a UN investigator interviewed after the zombies war, named “World War Z”. The name of the investigator was not revealed, if I recall correctly, because as he said in the book, it’s not about him but the survivors of the war. The book was quite complex and it’s apt because war, in itself with humans, is not simple. War against zombies would be an entire different thing because zombies are not humans and don’t think like one (actually, they don’t think at all). It touched many a subject from politics to religion.
World War Z, the movie directed by Marc Forster and starred Brad Pitt, was quite the exact opposite of what I read. It is about Brad Pitt’s character, Gerry, who was a retired UN investigator, forced to return to his former job after zombies attacked the entire planet. He tried to find the cure and, at the same time, save his family.
The difference between the book and the movie doesn’t quite end there. Even the movement of the zombies were different between those two media, which I can simply summarize as such: book – slow; movie: fast super-non-human power (unless they are dormant).
The differences I mentioned above threw me off as I love the book (which, by the way, I have not reviewed yet and will do so later) and when I watched the movie thinking that it’s an adaptation of the book, I was left confused. I wanted to love the movie. It is a good zombie movie with quite an original storyline with the exception of a number of annoying characters (really, don’t they ever watch a zombie movie in their world? Straight shot to the brain will be the only thing that will kill a zombie. It’s in EVERY single damn zombie movie out there! Shot on the head!), if not for the fact that the movie is called World War Z, after the book and it’s supposed to be based on the book.
I really, really want to love the movie. I really do but I simply can’t. If only it’s not called World War Z but Brad Pitt: The Zombie Killing Machine, I would probably love it.
In conclusion, if you watch the movie, love it and decided to read the book, don’t. You will be like me, completely and utterly dissatisfied and also confused. About the movie. Not the book. The book is simply brilliant. As such, I would give the movie a two out of five popcorns from me. My expectations of the movie were dashed.
And the plot thickened in this episode of Teen Wolf. Did you know that werewolves are afraid of fireflies? Yeah, me neither. Also, a screencap of Allison being a badass. You’re welcome.
Review is under the cut because of possible spoilers…
I just came back from watching Man of Steel and this was my expression during 90% of the movie:
Before I gave my review, let me tell you what the movie is about. In a nutshell, it’s the life of Superman before he became Superman and what happened when he finally accepted that he’s Superman.
And now my review…
Cinematic-wise, it was brilliant – the CGI effects and cinematography was brilliantly executed. I was watching it in digital and it still came out really great. I bet it would be better in 3D. But story-wise was so dull.
I have to confess, first of all, that Superman is my least favourite superhero out of all superheroes/heroines out there. But I watched Smallville and Lois & Clark and those are probably better than what I watched earlier. That said, my examples were TV shows because I vaguely remember the old Superman movies. But it’s still Superman and about Superman!
The storyline was too heavy for me. The thing about movies is that you can’t make it so heavy and dark because it could get really dull. Even dramatic movies, they have to add in some light-heartedness into it so that the audience members wouldn’t get bored with the drama. And I’m not even comparing this to Marvel movies. If I were to compare this movie to The Dark Knight franchise, which is part of the DC comics world, at least the franchise had some comical moments in between so that it wouldn’t get too dark. The character itself is already pretty depressing so you wouldn’t want to darken that further.
Also, the way the movie transitioned between the past and present were pretty confusing to me. I get that it’s trying to fit the present to what happened in the past. But I was still quite confused. I do appreciate the background of Superman in this movie. I don’t think we see much of Superman’s background in the TV shows unless you love the comics. So I didn’t know much about his parents and how he came to earth. So that part of the movie was probably one of my favourites.
Now, I was wondering whether it would make a difference if Christopher Nolan helmed the director’s seat instead. He did a great job with The Dark Knight franchise. As a producer, I don’t think he can make that many calls. I’m not sure as I’m not in the industry to guarantee that. But it’s just something that I wonder. I have a feeling it would.
I don’t enjoy the movie. It falls flat for me. I wouldn’t suggest wasting your money watching it but if you’re curious, go ahead.
This Siti Never Sleeps At Night 