31 January 2016

Places to visit just about an hour outside London. Wait, whut!? Only 1hour outside London?

Hallooooooo!!

As promised in last week's blog post, no Star Wars in this one. Although I've been listening to the score written by none other than John Williams on my commute to work, but that's about it.

Work was crazy busy, so I just wanted to get home as soon as possible and get to bed immediately... As you can tell, nothing exciting happend during the week. So lets rewind to the beginning of the blogging week: Saturday 23rd January.

Saturday, my friend and I, ventured out of London. To the South coast of England. To a small town called Rye to be precise. (I keep saying: 'Rey'. A tiny bit of Star Wars keeps sneaking in x)). So Saturday morning at 8am we met up in St Pancras to take the train to Ashford intl and from there a train to Brighton, via Rye.


Before my friend made the suggestion to go there on a casual day during the weekend, I had never heard of it before. Apparently it used to be quite a busy town with the earliest dates I could find in 11th Century. Don't shoot me if I'm wrong! It was originally build as defence against the French (quite the irony as my friend is from Paris) and it had a little harbor that was part of a collaboration between other harbors called 'cinque port'. When you google 'Rye' a whole lot more history will show up, but I'm going to leave it here with the information and just let you enjoy the images below.

It's an iny tiny town with the cutest cobly streets and little houses. The view from the cliff is also absolutely stunning. One of the random things that caught my eye is that almost all the houses had single glassed window. You can't have it all I guess?

So my friend and I arrived at Rye station around 9.30am, had a little wander around town because we wanted to go to the information centre, which didn't open until 10am... We had some delicious breakfast at the Mermaid cafe and had another little wander around town. Around noon we took the bus to Camber Sands. You can't go to the seaside without actually seeing the sea. Apparently this is one of the few beaches in Britain that has sand instead of pebbles.

We walked all the way back to Rye, which is about 6km!





After that very misty walk (I had to take off my glasses in order to see something. Reverse world?) we found a little cafe in town centre and had a delicious crêpe and drank a very nice hot chocolate. It all worked out perfectly.



On the train back to London we both fell asleep ^^ But thank god is was Sunday the day after so no alarm clock, no obligations, just full 'recovery' of the previous day :) That was a very good weekend :) We'll definitely do it again but with a different location within 1hour from London!

That is it for this week's blog post. Hope you liked it :)

Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara

24 January 2016

The Star Wars Force is still going strong with this one.

Hallooooo!!

I can't believe January is almost over. Only one week to go! But first, this week's blog post :)

Since I have quite a few busy weeks/weekends ahead, I took it upon myself to make most of my quiet time by doing absolutely nothing of interest during the weekend. Staying in bed and watching YouTube videos, cleaning my room, doing some laundry,... You know, regular life stuff. I know I know, second weekend in a row. Not really promising for someone with a blog, hein? But I think staying in all day, watching videos on YouTube/movies and doing absolutely nothing besides enjoying the fact that you don't have to be anywhere, is a seriously underrated activity. I live for those days x)

The week has been pretty bleak as well. I tried a 'new' route home. Instead of getting home around 8pm, it's now 7pm. It's a bit more stressful at times, but at least I have an hour extra to get settled into my pyjama's and bed when I'm home :)

I also went to the Disney store on Oxford Street one night after work, as I'd seen a pretty awesome Star Wars lay out every time I passed. So of course I had to check it out :) The Star Wars Force is still going strong with this one! Although I doubt that it'll ever stop now ^^ So if you're in the area or if you're in London in the near future, go check out the store, it's pretty cool ^^






Not going to lie, I want all the merch and goodies. Especially an actual interactive R2-D2 or remote controlled BB-8. However, they cost about £150 and what in the world am I going to do with a remote controlled droid? As for the other goodies, I have mugs enough, I don't need any figurines and I certainly do not need a plastic lightsaber (wouldn't mind the real deal though x)). I might go for a notebook though. I can always use a notebook :) It was just a matter of time before I started buying goodies x)

Now, for the past weeks Star Wars has basically dominated this blog, but not to worry, next week's blog post will contain something else! I went to Rye yesterday, so it'll all be about that visit :)

I'm going to leave it here. Another short blog post. I can't have it all: and doing nothing and having something impressive to share... Ah well :)

Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara

20 January 2016

Just 4 super hero (or anti hero) movies I'm stoked to see in 2016^^

Hallooooo!!

New year, new movies to look forward to! I have a list of all the movies I'm excited about that will hit theatres in the next 12 months. I will most likely not see them all, but it won't be because of a lack of trying... x) First up: super heroes! Or, anti heroes? Villians?

http://www.foxmovies.com/movies/deadpool

BAM, start the year with an R rated movie Deadpool
In cinemas 10th February 2016 Possible the most talked about comic to film adaptation picture ever. I'm not familiar with the character itself, but the fact that they got me excited for it, means gooood marketing!;)



Captain America: Civil War
In cinemas 29th April 2016 And I refuse to pick a side!



The long anticipated Suicide Squad
In cinemas 5th August 2016 I'll sure have to mentally prepare myself for this one. Next to Deadpool, this movie has been a long time in the making ^^



To me unknown Doctor Strange
28th October 2016 Very little is known about this movie. Well, to the non comic book readers at least. But it's Benedict Cumberbatch. In a Marvel movie. What more do you need?!


Of course we have Batman vs Superman, X-men Apocalypse, etc but these are movies that I'm either not really into or I just haven't seen any of the previous films yet. Never say never though ;)

It's a short one, but do you have other super hero movies you're excited about?

Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara

17 January 2016

How it should have ended, Bad lip reading and Everything wrong with... Star Wars!

Halloooo !!!

Week 2 has come and gone and was one of those 'meh' weeks. I finished watching all the Star Wars films, which left me with a 'I-have-no-idea-what-to-do-with-my-life-or-how-I-lived-before-watching-the-Star-Wars-saga' feeling. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this. Whether it is watching a movie saga back to back, binge watching 3 seasons of a tv show or reading a book in a record time. Afterwards you have no idea how to behave or live life for that matter. This has been such a week.

It all started pretty well. Had a very lovely lie in on  Saturday morning. Since the temperatures finally dicided to drop (winter is FINALLY here), it is absolutely freezing cold in the house. The fact that some of my housemates leave the backdoor open doesn't really help x) I simply refuse to add money on the gasmeter until next month as I rather prefer this cold-and-have-to-bundle-up-in-hoodies-and-bedsocks-whilst-drinking-lots-and-lots-of-tea than sweating-and-having-no-way-of-cooling-down. But I'll have company staying over for a weekend in February and I can't really have guests freezing to death now can I? So Saturday was spent in bed, whilst drinking tea and rewatching some of the Star Wars films. I wanted to be fully prepared for the Force Awakens!

So Sunday morning, alarm clock went off at 8.30am, got up, got dressed and left the house at 9.45am. I couldn't really remember the time of the screening, so as it turned out I was about an hour and a half too early... Yay. Shops didn't open until 11am, so I had an our to kill at least. Thank god the Costa opens around 8am, so I bought myself a medium cappuccino and had a good read in Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. Yes, I'm still reading that book. To be fair, I haven't read since last Sunday, so you can say it is currently 'on hold'. Not that it is a bad book, not at all, but 950pages is a lot to get through...



Then, it was finally 11.30am. Show time! Safe to say I was pretty stocked x) I had a good seat and the crowd wasn't big, but more than I'm used to on a Sunday morning. It's Star Wars after all. Unfortunately I had a guy sitting in the row behind me with the loudest bag of crisps I've ever heard -.- And a few rows in front of me there sat a woman who had to check her phone 3 times throughout the movie. The light that flashed up on her screen was like looking directly into to sun. It burned by eyes! Seriously, please, do not be that kind of person. You do not pay £11 to look at your phone. Like J-Law said earlier this week: 'You gotta live in the now.' And stop annoying other people who are there to watch to movie and not your phone.

But, other then those two annoying people, the crowd was good and I genuinely enjoyed the movie. So of course I had to write a Monday post about it ^^ "Chewie, we're home." - Han Solo, Star Wars: episode VII: the Force Awakens

The rest of the week's evenings was spent browsing the internet. Watching behind the scene of the Star Wars movies, deleted scenes, interviews, Cinemasins, How it should have ended,.. I read reviews, opinions, theories, expectations on episodes VIII and IX,... Going from what I have heard and read so far, is that if the Force is real (and mind you, there are people who think it is) a lot of the Star Wars fans would be on the Dark Side. The amount of comments, complaints, etc on the changes George Lucas has made on the original trilogy when they were released on DVD about 15 years ago is enormous. Don't get me started on the reviews on the Force Awakens or the prequel trilogy. Seriously, I have never read or heard so much negativity in a fandom as in the Star Wars fandom. But, I'm a newbie, and I haven't been around as long as some of the fans. Lets see how I get along in a few years time when they start making changes to Harry Potter...

To finish this week's blog post, I'd like to share some of my favourite YouTube videos I've found in the past couple weeks about Star Wars. These are just a fraction of all the ones that I liked. You gotta make those decisions. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do x)

How it should have ended






 Bad lip reading


 Everything wrong with...





Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara

12 January 2016

"Chewie, we're home." - Han Solo, Star Wars: episode VII: the Force Awakens

Hallooooooo!!

Yes, yes, yes. I'm arriving incredibly late at this party. Force Awakens hit theatres 16th December 2015 in the UK. A good 3 weeks and a half ago. An overload on reviews, fan theories and spoilers overflowed the internet almost immediatly. Somehow, I managed to avoid any spoilers or any outspoken opinions. Miracle! Eventually, after quite a few weeks of wondering whether or not I should start watching the movies, I finally decided to just do it. 25th December 2015 I saw Episode IV: A New Hope. I was hooked from the first minute. Fast forward to today, after watching Episode V, VI, I, II and III in a time span of 4 days, I watched episode VII. Never thought I'd actually see it on the big screen, let alone be excited about it. But here I was, the alarm went off at 8.30am, on a Sunday. Got ready with a lot of squeals of excitement, left the house like walking on air, bought my ticket with a huge smile and took my seat in the theatre with palpitations and a huuuuuuuge grin that didn't leave my face until half way through the movie. You'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen the movie already.
 
Star Wars: the Force Awakens

** SPOILERS AHEAD**
2015
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels,...
Lenght: 135 min= 2h 15min
Genre: Sci-Fi, adventure, action
8/10

A quick summary is in order I think. I'm going to be lazy and use the summary written by Noah White on IMDb.

30 years after the defeat of Darth Vader and the Empire, Rey, a scavenger from the planet Jakku, finds a BB-8 droid that knows the whereabouts of the long lost Luke Skywalker. Rey, as well as a rogue stormtrooper and two smugglers, are thrown into the middle of a battle between the resistance and the daunting legions of the First Order.

Sounds familiar right? If I had to describe the entire movie with one quote from the film it would be "Chewie, we're home." There is no point beating around the bush. The plot line of TFA (the Force Awakens) is very very very close to "Episode IV: a New Hope". I can perfectly imagine that the film makers wanted to create a feeling of coming home for the first time in 32 years, or whenever you saw Return of the Jedi for the first time.

They stick to the familiar formula: an attack of the bad guys (Empire vs First Order), droid with crucial information (R2-D2 vs BB-8), woman gets captured (Princess Leia vs Rey), Rebellion goes to the rescue (although Rey does actually safe herself. What a woman), main character discovers he/she has the power of the Force (Luke vs Rey), they don't know who their real parents are and a Death Star must be destroyed. It's basically a reboot of A New Hope, which, I welcomed with open arms. The original cast is back: Han Solo, princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2 and of course Chewbacca. But a lot of new and promising characters are introduced as well: Finn, Poe, Rey, BB-8 and Kylo Ren to name a few.

I'm soooo happy to say that the script is soooo much better than any of the 6 previous films. Which results in far better acting. Phieuw. Let's face it, even Meryl Streep couldn't work with a badly written script... (And don't misunderstand me: I love the 6 previous films. One a bit more than the other, but overall, absolutely brilliant movies). Especially Domhnall Gleeson captured my attention with his performance in this one. I mainly know him as Bill Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, his work in Brooklyn, About Time and Anna Karenina, where he always played 'the good guy'. In this one, he is definitely the bad guy. No other Star Wars villain comes even close to his character. Count Dooku, general Grievous, Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, no, not even Darth Sidious comes even close to the chills General Hux gave me. He so.. human... Other new comers, with Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in particular, but also Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac, they all deserve a lot of praise to carry such a movie. BB-8 is just the cutest, but I was really happy when my favourite R2 made his appearance^^ And of course the original cast. Can't wait to see more of Skywalker in episode VIII. One tiny thing: Leia with fake eyelashes? Really? Unless they are her natural lashes, then wauw!

The tone is a lot lighter with much more comic relief than its predescesors. Boyega's comic timing is just flawless. You can definitely feel the Disney in it. I haven't decided if it's a good thing or not though... Luckily it's not at all airy and fluffy (I never had the feeling they were going to burst out into a song anyway) and you have quite a few darker scenes as well. Phieuw.

I have the impression that the opinions are very much devided amongst the Star Wars fans. I have yet to read a positive review on IMDb. Almost all of them are negative, going from: 'Absolutely disappointing', to 'I can't believe I paid to see this' to 'I've lost my love for Star Wars'. Whilst reviews from YouTubers, news papers, magazines, etc, are much more positive and accepting on the familiar plot with headlines such as "The best Star Wars so far!" and "Consider me conquered". You can't deny that TFA is ruling the box offices these past couple weeks though.

One thing that annoyed me a tiny little bit, is that at some points the movie is a tad too fast paced. You saw things happening without them being properly explained. A bit like Episode III. However, after re watching that one a couple times I caught on some details I didn't notice the first time watching. I'm convinced that watching TFA a second time I'll notice details, which will answer a lot of the questions I have now. Although I doubt that all of them will be answered, because that is what happens. You leave the theater with a billion questions and no answers. I hope this is a well thought through move to get the audience back for more in 2017 when episode VIII will be released and not the studio trying to rush through the story. I just really hope that a lot gets explained in Episode VIII and IX.

A lot of fan theories are floating around the interwebs. I'm not going to go into details here, but I'll link my favourite ones below. Source: MoviePilot
All theories on Rey in one speadsheet
Could Supreme leader Snoke really be Darth Vader?
Is the real answer to Rey's parentage?
Who do you think Snoke really is?
Is Kylo Ren secretly fighting against the Dark Side?

A few of my questions:
- I'm seriously wondering why the stormtroopers aren't clones anymore. Wasn't that the whole point of Episode II: Attack of the Clones? To explain where Darth Vader's army came from? I'm really looking forward to an explanation in the next Star Wars movies to come!
- Who the freaking hell are Rey's parents!? I'm at an absolute loss here. Hurray for fan theories.
- Is Kylo Ren good or evil? First impression: he's absolutely evil. But that very touching scene between him and his father made me less sure. Well, until he killed him. However, reading fan theory "Is Kylo Ren secretly fighting against the Dark Side?" I'm not 100% sure of what to think. Could be possible? After all, he said: "I'll finish what you've started, grandad"... Awful that he had to kill his own father though if that .

Anyway, as always, here are some clips, interviews and of course the trailer

Trailer


Clip



Interviews
Kevin McCarthy is seriously my all time favourite interviewer





Review



Safe to say that I'm absolutely loving the Star Wars films. Original trilogy, prequels and now episode VII. Those 2hours absolutely flew by!

If you've seen it, what are your theories on Episode VII?
 
Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara

9 January 2016

Star Wars: Episode 0 - Discovery of a new fandom

Halloooo!!

I'm back!

This two week break must have been the longest break I have ever taken from blogging since I started in March 2014. Reason being that blogmas '15 really took me out this year. Might have been the combination work+daily blogging that pushed me over. Eventhough I really enjoyed daily blogging, it was a lot to take on. Unlike the previous year, when I didn't had to go to work and had more time to do fun stuff and actually write the blog posts. Ah well, I've done it, had a fabulous month, took a two week break and now I'm back on to weekly blogging + the occassionally movietime monday or midweek posts.

The first blog post of 2016 is a BANGER. For me at least, 'cause I finally jumped on a huge bandwagon. A wagon that's been going ever since 1977 when the original 'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' was released.



The movie was followed by two sequels. 'Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire strikes back' was released in 1980 and 'Star Wars: Episode VI - the Return of the Jedi' in 1983.

Obviously I was no where near to even excisting in the '80, but even when the second trilogy hit theatres between 1999 and 2005, I completely missed the excitement. Don't ask me how or why. I was aware that films called "Star Wars" were released. I'm a huge fan of almost everything sci-fi, adventure, action, fantasy, etc. When Harry Potter hit theatres in 2001, I was all over that (thanks again mum:)). I can still remember when Lord of the Ring: Fellowship to the Ring came out on VHS in 2002 and how excited I was when I finally got to see it. It took another year, however, before my parents allowed me to see Return of the King in theatres. I have absolutely no idea why I missed the whole Star Wars hype.

It's exactly my cup of tea. Right up my alley. Something I should have watched at the drop of a hat like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or any MCU film.

But now, finally, I've catched up. On Christmas day I watched episode IV with my sister and her boyfriend. Neither of us had ever seen a Star Wars movie. If you ever need inspiration for things to do on Christmas day, I highly recommend this. A week and half passed, with celebrating New Year in between, before I watched episode V and VI in one day. Traveling by Eurostar is by far the best way to watch movies. Due to a 30min delay, I got to see the entire fifth movie and half an hour of the sixth movie. So, of course, as soon as I arrived in my room in London, I continued watching.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were dedicated to episode I, II and III. Thursday evening was spent by watching YouTube videos on the behind the scenes, making offs, interviews with cast and crew, etc. And Friday evening I rewatched episode IV. The plan is to see episode VII: the Force Awakens this weekend. There is a lot of chance that next week's blog post will be all about Star Wars as well. I've discovered a whole new fandom! Next to Middle Earth, Wizarding world, Narnia, Shadow world, Scottish Highlands and MCU, I can now add: the Galaxy. Better late then never, hein? I guess that is why all these franchises keep going ^^



Anyone else who recently discovered a new fandom? Or discovered Star Wars just recently like I did?

If you made it this far in my first blog post of 2016, congratulations and a huge thank you for reading my rant ^^

Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara

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