Movie: The Other Boleyn Girl

First of all, wow, evening movie tickets are $9 here! Yikes!

Okay, exclamation of disbelief out of the way, I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl with friends sdkelley and DragonGoddess, yay!

My first impressions of the ads for this was "Eric Bana as Henry?! Are they nuts?" Nothing against Eric Bana, but really, every picture I've ever seen of Henry is of a very robust (to be kind :P), reddish haired gentleman. Eric is so the opposite of this!

After seeing the movie, I liked it a lot. The costumes and settings were beautiful, the acting was good. I wouldn't consider myself a history buff, so I can't speak for how accurate it was historically. My readings of this time period have so far consisted only of the book for this movie The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory and Murder Most Royal by Jean Plaidy who is also well known writer Victoria Holt. I enjoyed them both immensely and would highly recommend them.

I do have to say that if you go into the movie expecting the book, you may be disappointed, as it's a very watered down version. As with any movie that comes after a novel, much is left out or changed due to time constraints and story flow. To me the book focused much more on Mary, and was Mary's telling of the story, that feeling was not present in the movie at all. While Mary was certainly an important character, you did not get the feeling she was telling the story, which was an integral part of the novel. In the movie, Mary's romance with Stafford is completely glossed over, all the sudden he's asking her to leave with him, with very little lead up as to why she might even consider it.

I enjoyed Eric Bana's performance, even if I would not have cast him as Henry initially. Though you never really see the physical decline that I think is usually portrayed in other tellings of this period. But that's Hollywood for ya! ;)

All in all, I would say if you enjoy historical movies, definitely give it a try, I recommend it. And take my comments on comparison to the book with a grain of salt as it's been a good four years at least since I've read it, and I don't have my own copy to refer to! ;)

If you are interested in the Anne Boleyn story, check out this version from Wikipedia to see how it compares to the books and the movie.

Book: Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld

There’s no way I’m ever going to review everything I read (trust me, it’s not all review worthy, nor could I always give it a worthy review) so I’ll just stick to the ones that really stood out for me.



I’ll start with the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld:
1. Uglies
2. Pretties
3. Specials
4. Extras – I still need to read this one, it’s on my wishlist!

I picked this series out of the Teen Virtual bookbox that we have going on BookObsessed mostly because everyone else was very excited about it, at the time, I’d never heard of it before, it sounded mildly interesting, so I thought I’d give it a try. I share some tastes with the people who seemed interested in it, so that was enough for me to give them a chance. I’m very glad I did, they were a pleasant surprise!

The setting of the story is a futuristic earth, after life as we know it today has been destroyed through our own mistakes (people from our time period now are referred to as Rusties) and a new human culture has arisen where at a certain age, everyone undergoes an operation that makes them “pretty”. The person’s entire body is remade into the ideal. Everyone will be equal, and thus everyone will be happy, Utopia. The downside of this is that no one thinks for themselves and everyone spends their time in pleasurable pursuits, which is just how the powers-that-be want it. As expected, this condition is not sustainable, there were always be individuals who break the mold, and think for themselves, and I think that, above all else is the central point of the series. Body image is another major theme, enhancement surgeries are as common as changing clothes or putting on accessorizing jewelry. Friendship, love and loyalty are challenges to any teen, and the characters struggle with those in this series as well.

Overall, this was a fun, fast paced, but not lightly themed Sci-Fi series that I would highly recommend! It brings to mind elements from Brave New World, but I enjoyed it a lot more! I am definitely interested in trying out others by this author.

Christmas Plate

I have way too many hobbies, I really don't have time to work. The story of this plate is kind of funny, and it is the biggest painted pottery project I have done, so I'll show it off!

The story goes like this, way back a few years ago, oh, 2 or 3, or I don't even know how long for sure, we would often go to a pottery painting place (they have the pieces all ready to paint, you paint 'em, they fire 'em for you) and my mom kinda likes to start big projects. Apparently this one was bigger than she realized at first. So she painted on it a couple of times, lost interest for awhile (like over a year for awhile!) and then picked it up again, washed it off and started over, painted on it one session, and again quit. I'd keep saying to her, "hey, we should see if they still have your plate." and finally she says to me something like, "I don't want to work on it, you finish it for me." pretty much having written it off. Well, the store we go to called Walls of Clay had not only kept the plate, but taken it with them when they changed locations! In fact, they had almost decided to paint it themselves and use it as a display because they hadn't been able to find another one to sell, and they have a sign that they will only keep things for 30 days or so. But they're softies, and they really kept ours for, oh, at least several years! So I decided that for Christmas, I would indeed finish the plate for her! And so I did... 14 hours over 4 sessions later, voila, we have a Christmas plate, and we got to know the staff really well! I haven't been back yet... I'm a little burned out on painting. But I do have some ideas, so I'm sure we'll go back eventually! ;)

Movie: Music and Lyrics

We’re very slow to get around to watching movies, most of the time it’s catch a few minutes of tv here and there (usually just enough to be totally confused at what we’ve missed since the last few minutes we saw) and/or be on the computer, playing games, catching up on bills, Bookcrossing, or just otherwise wasting time. I have a short enough attention span that movies are kind of hard for me unless it’s something I’m REALLY interested in, or an actor/actress I really like.

This past weekend though we actually did sit down and watch a movie (well, okay, I was in the same room with it, sat down and watched is probably an exaggeration) that we’d had from Netflix for probably at least a month, which is pretty typical unfortunately.

We watched Music and Lyrics with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. It was very cute, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a Hugh Grant fan (which I am), who used to be or still is a fan of 80’s groups like Wham or Duran Duran (which I am) and anyone just looking for a cute little romantic movie. I would say it was typical Hugh Grant, the bumbling male lead who’s sort of clueless but figures it out in a big way by the end in time to save the day and the relationship, apologizing in a huge public way (oh wait, that’s most of his movies, isn’t it? Yep!). In other words, Hugh’s character is just like all his others, which in my opinion, is actually a good thing, because it’s what I’ve come to expect from him, and what I want, so thanks Hugh! The 80’s-esque video they made for the beginning of the movie is absolutely hysterical! I enjoyed Cora as well, her idea of spiritual was definitely a bit… off! LOL!

Other Hugh Grant movies I like very much are:

Notting Hill and Two Weeks Notice

Time for a change!

Decided to revamp and start all over! Well, almost all over, I saved my linkies but that's it!

Made a new name and a new header *proud of self* (well, okay, Mr. Shaunie helped) and I'm ready to go!

Now... what to put here! That's a problem for another day, I've already wasted far too much time as it is, just trying to figure out how to make it look like I wanted, and I'm still not sure I got there! LOL!