#looks at my 8 year old Oscar Wilde special interest which means I have a bookshelf filled with his works and books on him

[rustyelias]

I’ll l never forgive Alex for making real historical figures npc’s I can never escape this podcast man

[purplesurveys]

775

Do you always carry breath mints? No, I don’t find it essential considering I only get (or got, by now) a certain allowance per week and my budget is usually just right to fit in food, gas, other necessities, and maybe one or two nights of eating out. JM always brought a pack of those every day though and if I felt like I needed one, it was easy to ask him for one. On a side note, it’s so weird having to type these out in the past tense now that that part of my life is virtually over... What is the point of scented pens/pencils/erasers? I don’t think they have one. They’re just fun to have around if they’re new to you and you have a bit of extra money to buy them. Do you buy/wear band-aids with cartoon characters on them? No but we do have packs that come in different colors, which is entertaining enough for me. Are you amused by celebrity fashion flubs? Egh, not as much these days but it’ll sometimes be fun to look at what people are wearing at major events like the Oscars and Met Gala to see who hit the mark and who didn’t. What do you think your reaction would be upon entering the White House? Political feelings aside, I think I’d be as excited going there as I would be going to other tourist destinations. Bonus points if they’ve got a museum inside.

Do you buy and wear crazy looking socks? I wouldn’t call them crazy-looking, but I do like socks with wackier designs like if they’re sushi-themed or burger-themed haha. Would you run down the street wearing a tutu, fishnets, & flippers? That literally just sounds like a task that other college orgs make their applicants do as part of their application process. I’d do it if it was a dare or if something’s in it for me, but I wouldn’t on my own. Have you ever grown your own sea monkeys or dinosaurs? I don’t know what you mean. Would you want to travel into deep space? You kidding? I’ve wanted to go to space since I first read about people going to the Moon. I’d for sure do it if it was offered to me. Have you ever thrown a game controller (or the game) and broke it? Nah but pretty similar; I’ve often smacked my laptops when something goes wrong, like if the internet isn’t fast enough or if it hangs.

Did you ever own an Etch-a-Sketch? No. I think my mom did though. Do/did you ever have glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling? Nope, but my dad’s family in Tondo had these, in my cousins’ room. When we went over to visit we’d typically spend the night, so every time it was lights out the stars were my favorite thing to see cause they felt pretty magical to me. Does your house have an attic that had stuff in it when you moved in? No. We don’t have an attic but our third floor is our rooftop. What movie were you really worked up for that ended up disappointing you? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. And this is gonna get so much flak, but The Shawshank Redemption. Does/did your school have special dress-up days? No for both schools I’ve been in. I do appreciate the fact that my current school has no dress code though. What cartoons did you watch when you were little? A lot, since kids are supposed to watch cartoons anyway lol. My favorite ones were Spongebob, Fairly OddParents, Mr. Bean, The Wild Thornberrys, Jimmy Neutron, House of Mouse, and The Emperor’s New School. Do you eat peanut shells along with the peanuts? I don’t. Have you ever gone white-water rafting? Nope. What part of a paper is hardest for you to write? Introduction. It sets the tone for your entire paper so if it isn’t good or appealing enough, it’s hard to follow through and come up with an excellent piece overall. Does your grandma wear an apron when she cooks? I never saw her wearing one, no. This is your chance to get it out! Place random rant here: Get me the fuck out of this house. How often do you need "me" time? These days I’ve had so much of it I wouldn’t even want it anymore for a while after this lol. Normally though, it’s important for me to have this at the end of the day. I’m always with a bunch of people and friends everyday in school and recharging by being alone is vital to me. Does it bother you that almost everything is done on computers now? Sometimes it can feel impersonal, like if you get invited to a debut or wedding through Facebook. But most of the time I find it convenient because everything is instant now. Have you ever gotten stuck in a revolving door? I don’t think so. There was a time I had fun going around a revolving door at the City of Dreams entrance for a few turns because I hadn’t seen one in a while hahahaha but I didn’t get stuck. Who is your favorite superhero? Not big on that whole genre. I guess I like Wonder Woman. KFC Chicken: original or extra crispy? Original please. What class in school do/did you secretly love? Idk, if I like a class I’d be vocal about it lol. What animal do you most resemble while eating? A human? Pop-Tarts vs. Toaster Strudels. Discuss: I’ve never had the second one and I really like Pop-Tarts, so the verdict here is prrrrretty obvious. Do you believe there are subliminal messages in songs? Like...Illuminati-wise? Lmao not at all, but people sure were busy trying to prove this about Beyonce and Lady Gaga back in 2009. I do think other intentional forms of subliminal messages exist, like how Hayley was actually singing the word ‘mercy’ when she sang the chorus to Simmer. Think about your first kiss. Did you have any idea what you were doing? No, she had to teach me how to move my lips and to not be scared and just go with the dance, because I was very nervous. Would you play Jumanji, if given the chance? I’ve never seen the movie, both original and remake.

Name a song lyric you heard wrong the first time and what it really said: I can’t recall an instance at the moment. Do you text/call while going to the bathroom? (Go multitasking!) I’ll bring my phone so I can scroll through Reddit or play games. Do you always make sure your cell phone is charged before going somewhere? Most of the time. I’ll still forget sometimes, though. Did you get Happy Meals just for the toys as a kid? No. They weren’t my kind of toys so I didn’t really ask my parents for Happy Meals. I asked for other toys I knew I’d have more use out of instead.   Have you ever seen your parents cry? If so, how did it make you feel? My mom. She was crying because my sister did a very kiddie mistake, and I was mostly indifferent because at that point our relationship was severed, and also why the fuck would you cry over a little booboo your 8 year old daughter did? She was being dramatic that day and I had no fucking time nor pity for it. What are your thoughts on Chuck Norris? I mostly know him as a 9GAG meme but other than that I know nothing of him. Did you answer that last question with a random Chuck Norris fact? No.

What is the most annoying sound in the world? Boomers complaining and getting their uninformed opinion out in the open. Do you honestly care about calories and fat content? No. How do you feel about animal testing? Fuck outta here. Do you often shift blame towards others? No. This is what my mom did and continues to do, and like I’ve said before I’ve made it my life’s mission to not do the things she did. Do you ever feel like you're smarter than your boss? I don’t have a boss. But I definitely didn’t doubt my internship boss, she was obviously very wise and had gone through a lot to get to where she is today. Your very first best friend: Is he/she STILL your best friend? No. Do you add condiments to your ice cream, or just eat it plain? Nah dude what the hell? Have you ever witnessed a crime? I saw a car very nearly run over a group of pedestrians walking on the pedestrian lane, but the driver was able to hit the brakes before they hit them hard. What's the coolest personalized license plate you've ever seen? Not a lot of cool plates here considering we’re only allowed a maximum of three letters and three numbers. If a plate is personalized it’s usually the driver’s initials and birthday, and that is hardly interesting lol. Did you ever have a piggybank that literally ate your money? No.

[graciest]

Quarantine Books!

To put it simply, I read a lot. Whenever I find my personal reality to be lacking I search for an escape to a far off land with magic and love and adventure. And lets face it, my personal reality is pretty tedious, especially since I’ve been stuck in quarantine due to COVID-19. As everyone else is also practicing social distancing and might find themselves with a bit of free time, I thought I might encourage you all to turn off Netflix and seek out an alternative form of escapism. 

Below is a list of some of my favorite and recent reads! Fair warning, they are all very much of the fantasy/romance/save the world genre. 

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

Need I say more? This series is a classic and if you have’t read it yet I’m not sure why you’re still on this page GO READ HARRY POTTER. Even if you have read it before I would really encourage you to reread it! I got so much more out of it the second and third (and fourth and fifth) time around! The boy who lived, loved, suffered, endured and smiled is a story worth hearing over and over. 

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

This series is amazing and is directly responsible for reconnecting me to reading in college. It follows the story of 19 year old Feyre, a certified badass. And the story doesn’t stop after the first book but gets SO MUCH BETTER. The second book, A Court of Mist and Fury, touches on depression and abusive relationships while continuing with an exciting plot. You won’t want to put this series down!

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Buckle down because this series is long af, but so incredibly worth it. It begins with probably the most badass character I've come across, Celaena. Her journey throughout 8 books is filled with multiple plot twists, amazing characters and story of sacrifice, love and acceptance of who you truly are. 

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

This complete universe created and perfected by Clare will always have a special place in my heart. Watching Clary and Jace’s story unfold throughout 6 books, 2 wars and trying times is so worth it. The author does an amazing job of weaving her fantasy universe throughout one of the most interesting places on Earth- New York City!

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

The prequel series to City of Bones takes place in 1800s London! The three main characters create a truly unique love triangle that I’ve never seen before, or since. Each character is so easy to love and I always, and I mean ALWAYS, cry at the end of the final book. 

Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

The sequel trilogy to City of Bones takes place 5 years after the end of the Mortal Instruments series. I just have mad respect for Clare creating an entire universe and 3 different series within it that keep the readers interested. I wouldn't read these until after you have finished both of the two previous series mentioned!

Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye

I loved this book just because there’s nothing like a warrior best friend team that takes the matter of saving the country into their own hands. The second book in the series was just released and I’m planning on reading it as soon as I can. 

Abandon by Meg Cabot 

Perhaps not my favorite book, but it was a very easy read and is good if you’re looking for something short and simple. It puts a fun modern twist on the tale of Hades and Persephone. Not to mention it takes place in Florida!

The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye

Three interesting characters make for a fun read about magic in imperial Russia! I haven’t read the rest of the books in the series but am planning on it!

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

It doesn’t get better than Forks, Washington. Even if Bella Swan isn’t the most sensational girl I've ever met, I dream of the day I have two extremely hot supernatural boys fighting over me. But seriously, is Bella like always crying or is it just me?

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

One of those ordinary-girl-discovers-she’s-extraordinary books which makes for a fun read. I’m currently on the second book. Netflix recently wrapped filming for season 1 of this upcoming TV series but hasn't released its debut date yet!

Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch

Awesome series set in an interesting fantasy world! It’s about a main character who has to come to terms with who she is and figure out how to save her people against all odds. Two cute boys definitely enhance the plot. 

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

A twist on stories of the Fae, it follows the tale of Jude as she tries to be accepted in a world that is not her own. Plus, nothing gets your blood going like a hot enemy. 

Some classics I love:

Peter Pan

Pride & Prejudice 

The Swiss Family Robinson

Treasure Island

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 

The Great Gatsby

The Call of the Wild 

The Hobbit (+ Lord of the Rings)

The Chronicles of Narnia

Bonus: Poetry!

100 Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings

Milk and Honey 

Mother Love by Rita Dove

The Complete Poems by John Keats 

Odes by Sharon Olds 

The Essential Rumi by Jalal Ad-Din Rumi

I HIGHLY recommended starting with one of the books that looks like this because they are truly some of my favorite! Finally, I thought I would include my personal reading list in case you weren't interested in any of the above. 

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell 

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir 

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

[disappointingyet]

This is a list of my favourite films of the year. That sounds like a simple statement, but in some quarters the long-running arguments about what is and isn’t a film got very heated in 2017. Even the year bit of that can get very messy.

But for at least this one last time, I’m keeping things simple: these are the films I enjoyed most out of the ones that were released in UK cinemas in 2017.*

There were plenty of films I didn’t see: some I wanted to but didn’t get round to – Colossal is the one that stands out. Others I just wasn’t drawn to – Detroit, Dunkirk (give money to Christopher Nolan and he’ll only keep making movies) and the critically adored Call Me By Your Name (the super-annoying title probably didn’t help).

There were lots of movies I did see and like, though, and that’s what we’re here to talk about…

*This decision was made simpler because I didn’t love any of the films that Netflix streamed without even giving a token cinema release, which included Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) and Sundance favourite I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore. The best of the bunch was The Incredible Jessica James.

1. Manchester By The Sea

Back in October 2016, I wrote: ‘If a better film is released in the UK in 2017, I’ll be very impressed.’ Well, I have been impressed by the excellent movies below on this list, but none of them beat Manchester By The Sea as far as I’m concerned. In outline, it sounds like nothing special: a story of some grim stuff happening to a fairly ordinary family, in particular a bloke who likes to pick fights in bars and his teenage nephew. But writer-director Kenneth Lonergan turns the ingredients for a predictable drama into something very special, not least by lacing this grief-laden story with lots of (appropriately) funny moments.

Full review here

2. The Handmaiden

A lot of the films on this list are fairly light on plot, so if you want a movie with scheming, counter-scheming and deception, not to mention pretty costumes, sex, cherry blossoms, perviness (its 18 certificate is richly earned) plus differing Korean views of their Japanese occupiers, this is the one. It’s directed by Park Chan-wook, best known for Old Boy, and loosely based on Sarah Waters’ Victorian-set melodrama Fingersmith, which turns out to be perfectly suited to Korea in the 1930s.

Full review here

3. Certain Women

Resolutely low-key collection of three slightly overlapping short stories set in wintery Montana. It’s a character piece, with Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and (the excellent, previously little-known) Lily Gladstone leading each segment. Director Kelly Reichardt knows exactly who these women are, and how the place they live shapes them. It seems modest at first, but it stuck in my mind long after flashier films had faded away.

Full review here

4. Moonlight

So much of what I read about Moonlight made it sound so much less interesting than it is. Around awards time, you could have easily formed the impression it was a heart-tugging issue movie, not helped by the campaign to get Naomi Harris an Oscar (‘Look! Pretty woman getting grubby to play junkie skank!’)**

What makes it a remarkable film – and it is a remarkable film – are the extraordinary cinematography and the telling of the story via often fragmentary scenes, and how little is explained, at least until the much more conventional, even theatrical (and thus slightly disappointing) final segment. Great moviemaking is about the how, not the what.

Full review here

**The classic awards-season tendency to grade performances by perceived difficulty points led to people talking about Harris rather than the way better Janelle Monae.

5. The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki

Lovely, bittersweet based-on-real-life tale of Mäki, a small man who was Finnish boxing’s big hope in the early 1960s. It’s not really a boxing film, more a story about two decent young people trying to work out what they want. Which probably doesn’t sound like the most gripping core of a film, but it works. My favourite Finnish film of the year, narrowly shading…

Full review here

6. The Other Side Of Hope

Why should social realism be the only way of looking at problems like the refugee crisis? Aki Kaurismäki brings his taste for dramatic lighting, deadpan acting and vintage rock’n’roll to this story of a young Syrian braving bureaucracy and street racism in Helsinki. Less funny than most Kaurismäki films, but I found it very moving.

Full review here

7. Spider-Man: Homecoming

I’ve had enough of super heroes on screen – Marvel’s The Defenders on Netflix was the last straw. I’m voting for a moratorium on them*** and gangsters. So it took a lot to persuade me to see yet another Spider-Man reboot. ‘Don’t think of it as an action movie, think of it as a high-school comedy,’ said my friend Jess, and she was right. It’s nimble and funny and doesn’t take itself too seriously – the best surprise of the year.

Full review here

***I’m totally prepared to believe that Thor: Ragnarok is enjoyable in a bonkers, proggy kind of way, but I’m not risking it. Too many people insisted Captain America: Civil War was good.

8. The Death Of Stalin

After dealing with the (by comparison small) monsters of the Blair era in The Thick Of It, Armando Iannucci turns to the worst – by at least one measure – men in history: Beria, Molotov and Uncle Joe himself. 

I don’t think by portraying the farcical nature of the days after Stalin’s death the film is disrespectful to all those who died. I think humour has always been part of how we confront the horror. 

The Death Of Stalin has the best ensemble cast of the year – Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov, Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, Jason Isaacs giving the performance of his career as Marshal Zhukov, and – best of all – Simon Russell Beale as Beria. And, crucially, it’s definitely a film, not a bit of TV that has snuck on to the big screen.

9. Daphne

Essentially, a classic US indie movie transplanted from Brooklyn to Walworth. The title character is a pretentious and self-centred 30-year-old failing to get her life together – she’s just like women I used to meet at parties in south London 10 or 15 years ago. That could make for a dull film, of course, but the writing, the feel for the place and Emily Beecham as Daphne make it funny and involving.

Full review here

10. After The Storm

Once promising writer with a gambling problem becomes low-rent PI and uses his new skills to keep tabs on his ex. If you think you can imagine how this film goes from that description, you’re probably miles from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s typically patient, generous-spirited and occasionally funny family drama.

Full review here

11. A Ghost Story

Or that one with the white-sheet-with-eye-holes phantom. A Ghost Story is definitely a film you either buy into or you don’t, an austere tale about grief and loss. I did, and found it sad and moving and pleasingly different. 

Full review here

12. Neruda

It’s a playful movie about a playful title character – the Chilean poet and dilettante politician during his dramatic time on the run from the authorities –  but Neruda has a melancholy underlying mood that rises to the surface as the film goes on. It’s a smart, complex and entertaining film.

Full review here

13. The Florida Project

A group of small kids living in a low-rent long-stay motel have adventures and misbehave a bit. And that’s mostly it, with a few dips into the struggles of the mother of one of the kids, plus a sense of the endless patience and generosity of spirit of the motel manager (Willem Dafoe, the sole big name in the cast). What’s impressive is the way Sean Baker maintains a tone that manages to dodge both ‘look at what grindingly terrible lives poor folk lead’ and being a whimsical adorable-kids-running-wild picture. It does drag a little about three quarters of the way in, but the ending pulls it back.

14. La La Land

First it was an instant masterpiece that was going to change the game, then it was a deflating bubble as the haters managed to shout louder than the lovers. So which take on this nostalgia-soaked showbiz musical do I agree with? Well, there are problems with the film – mostly to do with director Damien Chazelle’s continuing attempts to foist his rotten ideology of music on the rest of us via his movies – but I think the people who were swooning were closer to the truth than the raspberry blowers.  

Full review here

15. Lady Macbeth

Bracingly bleak and at times hard to watch, this is very much in the anti-heritage industry counter-tradition of British period dramas. It’s about the rebellion of a young woman against a grim arranged marriage in Victorian Yorkshire, a struggle that makes strange and grim turns. Unpleasant, but an impressive and memorable piece of filmmaking.

Full review here

16. Blade Of The Immortal

‘Blood-drenched’ would be an understatement when it comes to this gleefully violent supernatural samurai tale in which an almost unkillable ronin is hired by a young girl to revenge her father’s death. If it doesn’t match up to veteran director Takashi Miike’s kinetic 2010 masterpiece 13 Assassins, Blade Of The Immortal is still full of staggering set pieces. Not for the squeamish.

Full review here

17. I Am Not Your Negro

In a variant on the title of this blog, I’d describe this documentary as kind of unsatisfactory yet powerful. It’s got a curious premise: it’s an ‘adaptation’ of a book that was only vaguely started: James Baldwin’s look at the meaning of the lives and deaths of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. 

The result is a slightly rambling wander through what Baldwin wrote and said about black lives in America. The clips of Baldwin on TV and at the Oxford Union are electrifying. The chunks of his writing are beautifully read by Samuel L Jackson in a warm, wise deep oak-aged voice than sounds precisely nothing like either Samuel L Jackson or James Baldwin. 

Dropped in around the place are news stills from the last couple of years by way of saying, ‘Yes, Obama made it to the presidency, but otherwise things are still fucked.’ That’s a bit clumsy and crude. What makes the film is Baldwin himself – a great writer (I’m still annoyed that someone nicked my copy of The Fire Next Time in 1991) but also a figure who confounds our condescension of past times: here was a black gay man who was an international public intellectual in the 1960s.

Best old films I saw on the big screen

Scarface

Not every rapper’s favourite movie – this is the terrific 1932 original, a ripped-from-the-headlines account of the rise of a ruthless Chicago gangster that’s as electrifyingly urgent as current organised-crime dramas are weary. 

Full review here

Un Flic

Jean-Pierre Melville, whose career stretched from the 1940s to ’70s, made some of my favourite films ever – Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samurai, Army Of The Shadows – and the BFI showed all of them in a splendid full retrospective this autumn. Of the ones I’d never seen before, my favourite was Un Flic, his last film, a bleak, minimalist film in which a laconic, sadistic cop (Alain Delon) slowly gets on the trail of a heist crew. Moody, stylised and very cool.

Full review here

The Cobweb

Over the top, and unashamedly so, Vincente Minnelli’s undervalued mid-’50s melodrama is set in a psychiatric clinic, has a great cast and a plot in which the choice of a set of curtains causes all manner of scheming, bitching and betrayal. 

Full review here

La Vérité

An uncharacteristically meaty role for Brigitte Bardot is at the centre of this courtroom drama from Henri-Georges Clouzot. BB plays a beatnik girl on trial for murder, but what made her do it and can a patriarchal justice system treat her fairly? I suspect this felt dated when it appeared in nouvelle vague-era Paris, but it seems pretty relevant now.

Full review here

Salesman

Extraordinary documentary about a group of travelling salesman doing their damnedest to flog absurdly overpriced Bibles to low income Catholics in a late 1960s US where the Age of Aquarius most definitely isn’t in effect.

Full review here

And DYB’s films of:

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND Feb. 1, 2019 -  MISS BALA

It’s Super Bowl weekend, and you know what means, right? No, I don’t either, but normally, the Super Bowl has an effect on Sunday box office as people will go to Super Bowl parties or watch it with friends which makes it less of a necessity to go to the movies, so anything opening needs to make sure to do well on Friday and Saturday. Into that market comes a female-driven action thriller that might benefit from having a weekend to itself.

MISS BALA (Sony)

Directed by Catherine Hardwick (Twilight, Thirteen, The Nativity, Red Riding Hood) Written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer Cast: Gina Rodriguez, Anthony Mackie, Ismael Cruz Cordova MPAA Rating: PG-13

The only wide release this weekend is this female-driven revenge thriller starring the beloved Gina Rodriguez from Jane the Virgin, which is based on a 2011 Mexican film that was Mexico’s Oscar submission that year. (It didn’t even get nominated.) The film was popular enough that the producers found a studio interested in a remake starring one of the more beloved LatinX actors from recent years.

Although Gina Rodriguez has never received an Emmy nomination, she’s received three Golden Globe nominations, all for Jane the Virgin, winning with her first nod in 2015.  She hasn’t quite made a name for herself in the movie realm, mostly voicing roles in animated films and having small roles in last year’s Annihilation and Deepwater Horizon. (I hate to say this, but I still sometimes get her mixed up with Fast and Furious star Michelle Rodriguez, but they are indeed two different people.)

It also stars Anthony Mackie, who was last seen in Fox’s The Hate U Give, but who has really exploded as a star after being cast as The Falcon for Marvel Studios’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier, appearing in a couple Marvel movies since then.

Miss Bala is following in the same general genre realm as 2018’s Proud Mary, starring Taraji P. Henson, which opened with just under $10 million on MLK Jr. weekend and grossed $20.9 million, or Jennifer Garner’s Peppermint, which grossed $35.5 million after opening with $13.4 million. Oddly, both those movies opened on weekend with much stronger competition – Liam Neeson’s The Commuter and The Nun – which is not something Miss Bala has to worry about.

Although I’m not sure Miss Bala  can make huge waves, it should do well among urban audiences and maybe more among women than the typical action thriller might, although this is usually a male-driven genre. Unfortunately, Sony is only opening it in roughly 2,000 theaters, probably focused on those urban markets, maybe hoping to get in some of the LatinX audience who make up a good percentage of moviegoers these days. Much of the recent marketing is focusing on the amount of LatinX people involved with making the movie, so they’re clearly hoping to get some of the business of Pantelion’s bigger releases.

Mind you, last weekend, The Kid Who Would Be King opened much MUCH lower than expected, and I expect this sort of ennui to affect Miss Bala as well. An opening in the $7 to 8 million range should probably be expected, which might allow Glass to remain #1 for a third weekend despite the Sunday competition from the Super Bowl.

Mini-Review:

It’s been so long since I saw the Mexican movie Miss Bala, all I really remember of it is that it’s about a beauty contest winner who gets caught up in the war on drugs between the DEA and Mexican gangsters, and with the relationship between Mexico and the U.S. so much in the news, it makes sense that a studio would want to remake it for American audiences.

In this case, it’s Gina Rodriguez’s Gloria, an L.A. make-up artist who travels down to Tijuana to support her friend Suzu, who has entered the Miss Baja competition – again, Gloria is there just to support her friend -- and yet, when they go out to a nightclub, Gloria witnesses the Estrella gang showing up to shoot up the place and kill the police chief. Suzu gets lost in the melee, and next thing Gloria knows, she’s taken by the gang, whose leader Lino (Ismael Cruz Cordova) takes a liking to her. Trying to escape, she ends up encountering the DEA who wants to use Gloria to keep the Estrella gang in their sights.

That’s probably all you need to know as Gloria is passed around and put to work by both Lino and his gang, the DEA and other factions, all who see her as a way to end the ongoing war.

There’s no question that Rodriguez is a talented actress, something she shows off repeatedly, as she acts scared, acts upset and basically acts her way out of any bad situation into which she’s put. In fact, she’s so much better than every other actor around her, that makes it obvious how bad the other actors are.

Similarly, Catherine Hardwicke has enough experience as a filmmaker to make this work, but she’s clearly working from a script that just doesn’t have enough meat to keep it going, so the film’s pace is all over the place. We get a big shoot-out one minute, then Gloria and Lino are out on a quiet but out-of-place date the next. Over an hour later, we’re BACK at the beauty competition, which you keep thinking has been taken out of the story equation, because it seems like such a non-entity at that point. Not that the beauty contest ever seemed like that big an aspect of the original, but at least it was used as the set-up for the lead character’s journey rather than a plot device shoehorned into her story.

There’s so much that could have been said about this piece in terms of the way women are used as objects for trading and trafficking, but that aspect of the movie gets lost in the interest of making it a cool gangster flick that doesn’t lose the LatinX women watching it… but probably will anyway.

Miss Bala has guns, explosions, a decent guideline to work from and Gina Rodriguez, so why is it still so frickin’ boring?

Rating: 6/10

With that in mind, this week’s Top 10 should look something like below, and it’s likely to be one of the worst weekends of the year with the Top 10 grossing less than $50 million….

UPDATE: A couple minor changes due to actual theater counts being a little different from my earlier estimates, although the most significance addition is Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old, which is re-opening into 735 theaters across the country this weekend. Interest and demand should still be good enough for it to get into the top 10 without around $3 million or so. We’ll have to see how the Super Bowl affects anything on Sunday, especially the L.A. Rams playing the New England Patriots, affecting two important movie markets.

1. Glass   (Universal) - $9.5 million -50%

2. The Upside (STX) – $8 million-33%

3. Miss Bala (Sony) - $7.5 million N/A

4. The Kid Who Would Be King  (20thCentury Fox) - $4.4 million -38%

5. Aquaman (Warner Bros.)  - $4.2 million -43%

6. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse  (Sony) - $4.0 million -35% (up .2 million)

7. Green Book  (Universal) - $3.8 million -31% (up .3 million)

8. A Dog’s Way Home (Sony) – $3.2 million -37% (up .3 million

9. They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.) - $2.9 million N/A

10. Escape Room (Sony) - $2.3 million -45%

LIMITED RELEASES

Apparently, Peter Jackson’s THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD (Warner Bros.) will be opening for a limited release into about 500 theaters this weekend after three successful “one-day only” screenings of his 3D colorized WWI footage, grossing more than $8 million. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, I highly recommend it, and who knows? Maybe it will place somewhere in the top 15 for the weekend. You can read more about this fascinating doc in my earlier column.

Just a week after the debut of his Netflix film Polar, Mads Mikkelson returns in the very different survival thriller ARCTIC (Bleecker Street), written and directed by Joe Penna. In this one, he plays Overgard, the sole survivor of a plane crash in the arctic wasteland whose drive to survive is further motivated by a young woman he ends up dragging across the tundra in hopes of saving her. I generally love survival movies like this one and the likes of Touching the Void, 127 Hours and the Kate Winslet-Idris Elba survival movie The Mountain Between Us. This one is particularly special, because Mikkelson is such an amazing actor, and he’s really able to carry this story, often with almost zero dialogue. Penna also shows quite a bit of skill as a first-time director, filming in less-than-desirable conditions to really raise the stakes on what Overgard needs to overcome to survive. I recommend this tense survival film highly if you live in one of the select cities where it will be playing on Friday.

Although his upcoming horror remake Grudge has been shifted back to Jan. 2020, Nicholas (The Eyes of My Mother) Pesce’s second feature PIERCING (Universal Pictures Content Group), based on Ryû Murakami’s novel, stars Christopher Abbott as a man with a disturbing past who hires an equally disturbed escort, played by Mia Wasikowska, for an S&M session that turns into a grisly and deadly game. It’s an extremely disturbing but brilliantly stylish film that throws back to Dario Argento and De Palma – it even uses one of Goblin’s tracks from Argento’s Tenebre – but also pays homage to American Psycho and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. It will open in select theaters, On Demand and Digital HD this Friday

Opening Wednesday at New York’s Film Forum is Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree  (Cinema Guild), the new film from the Turkish director of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, a family drama about a dysfunctional father-son relationship who are pitted against one another. Turkey’s official submission for the Oscars will open exclusively at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday.

Rooney frontman Robert Schwartzman returns behind the camera with his second feature as a director,  The Unicorn (The Orchard), starring Lauren Lapkus (Orange is the New Black) and Nick Rutherford play an engaged couple visiting Palm Springs to celebrate her parents’ 25thwedding vow renewal, when they discover the magic of “threesomes” which they set out to discover for themselves. Having premiered at SXSW last year, it will open in select cities including New York’s Cinema Village, L.A.’s Laemmle Noho and more.

Fresh off its premiere at the 1stever Iranian Film Festival New York, Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi’s Pig (Khook) (IFC Center) has its U.S. theatrical premiere with its story of blacklisted director named Hasan, who hasn’t been allowed to make a film in years (something fairly common in Iran, apparently), so his favorite actress is moving on, his wife has fallen out of love with him and their daughter is moving out. Oh, and also (and I’m putting this in verbatim) “Hasan is upset that he is being inexplicably ignored by the serial killer who has been decapitating the country’s best filmmakers.”  Oh, Iran.. you so crazy! It opens at the IFC Center on Friday and in L.A. at the Lammle’s Music Hall and Town Center on Feb. 15.

From Bollywood comes Shelly Chopra Dhar’s Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (FIP), translated as “How I Felt When I Saw That Girl,” starring Sonam Kapoor (Sanju, Neerja) as Sweety, who has to deal with a family a little too excited about marrying her off, although she’s in love with a young writer, hoping her family will accept him. It will open in select cities in roughly 175 theaters, and I’m excited to say that I plan on seeing this Friday.

In that same vein, Rising Star Entertainment Ltd. Releases The Gandhi Murder, directed by Karim Traidia and Pankaj Sehgal, a conspiracy theory period film based on true events leading up to the assassination of Mahatma Ghandi. The film actually has a bunch of Western talent including Stephen Lang from the Avatar movies and Vinnie Jones, and it opens on Thursday, presumably focusing more on its VOD.

Asa Butterfield, Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones and Nina Dobrev star in Peter Hutching’s rom-com THEN CAME YOU (Shout! Studios) with Williams playing Skye, a teen suffering from a terminal illness who befriends 19-year-old hypochondriac Calvin (Butterfield) who helps her with her eccentric bucket list, and she helps him make a play for Nina Dobrev’s Izzy. So kind of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, only with Nina Dobrev instead of Earl. In theaters and On Demand Friday.

Opening in New York, L.A. as well as On Demand (this time for real!) is St. Bernard Syndicate (Uncork’d Entertainment), the new mockumentary from Klown director Mads Brügger – who also has a new documentary at Sundance this week! It’s about two entrepreneurs who try to find their fortune in the Chinese pet industry by creating a breeding center for Saint Bernard dogs that goes off course.

An intriguing on VOD this week is John Potash’s Drugs as Weapons Against Us (Gravitas Ventures), about the CIA’s Project MK-Ultra and how it was used to manipulate musicians and activists to promote drugs for social control. I haven’t seen it but if Potash can offer proof, this will be one not to miss.

There are also a couple Fathom Events on Thursday, the Anime A Silent Voice and the Graham Staines biopic The Least of These, and you’d probably learn just as much about these by clicking on the respective links.

STREAMING

Having just premiered at Sundance, Dan Gilroy’s reunion with his Nightcrawler star Jake Gyllenhaal for VELVET BUZZSAW premieres on Netflix Friday. Gilroys’ horror-thriller takes place in the contemporary art world of Los Angeles, exploring the idea that “artists invest their souls in their work and that, in an ideal world, that work should not be considered a mere commodity.” Sounds like pretty heady stuff, and though I won’t be able to see it until later today, Jake Gyllenhaal is in it, so I should enjoy it.  I’ll post some thoughts sometime Thursday. (Note: The movie also opens in New York at the Landmark at 57, and presumably in L.A., too, if you want to see it with an audience.) 

Mini-Review: The snooty and pretentious LA. art world is probably rife for humor, and it’s also rife for a horror movie in which some of those snooty and pretentious people within are killed off in gory and fantastical fashion. While the third movie from Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) tries its best to mix the two sides of the horror-comedy genre, it constantly runs into trouble trying to keep them together.

Velvet Buzzsaw reunites Gilroy with his Nightcrawler star Jake Gyllenhaal as L.A. art critic Morf Vandewalt, who can make or break a budding artist’s career with one of his reviews. His girlfriend Josephina (Zawe Ashton) works at one of L.A.’s ritziest galleries but she isn’t faring well with her boss Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo, also from Nightcrawler). One night, Josephina finds a dead neighbor and learns that his apartment is teeming with his undiscovered artwork, dark and gloomy and perfect for selling to the L.A. art cognoscenti.  Everyone wants to get their hands on the priceless “Dease” artwork, but as Morf finds out more about the artist’s dark past, the people in his circles start dying.

If you’ve seen a lot of horror movies, you’ll probably already recognize the horror sub-genre of an item haunted by a dead man that proceeds to kill those who come into contact with it. This is basically where Gilroy’s latest film is coming from, though the premise of art that can literally kill is just a bit on-the-nose for a movie that’s set-up as a comedy about the art world.

The way Gilroy introduces the cast of characters is almost Altman-ess, as it pokes fun at all the different types vying for the priciest artwork by the mystery painter.  Gyllenhaal’s Morf is particularly funny as he transitions from confidence to full-on neuroses, but no one gets more laughs than Natalia Dyer as a young assistant who keeps being passed around from one employer to another, and her reaction to each of their deaths gets funnier each time.

There are a few clever and gory kills and a few less-than-clever kills, but it always feels like it’s never going far enough to appease horror fans, even with a seeming nod to the Phantasm franchise. (Incidentally, the title of the film comes from Rene Russo’s former punk band, incidentally, something which isn’t particularly significant to anything.)

I’m sure it would be a lot more fun watching Velvet Buzzsaw with an audience than it would sitting at home watching it on Netflix by yourself, but you’re either going to be fully on board with what Gilroy and his cast are doing or you won’t. There probably won’t be much in-between.

While there are certainly some merits to Dan Gilroy’s first (and hopefully last) foray into horror, the humor often plays better than the horror elements, and they rarely feel like they’re meshed-together particularly well.

Rating: 6/10

The Taiwanese drama Dear Ex from co-directors Chih-Yen Hsu and Mag Hsu stars Ying-Xuan Hsieh as a woman named Sanlian, whose  late husband has cut their son out of their will in favorite a man named Jay, played by Roy Chiu, which gets more interesting when her son moves in with Jay.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Late Nites at Metrograph continues with Diao Yi’Nan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014), an excellent Chinese crime-thriller that I can’t recommend enough, having seen it a number of times since it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees is Jean Cocteau’s 1946 classic Beauty and the Beast and then Produced by David O. Selznick continues with screenings of Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) on Saturday and Sunday and then continuing into February.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Weds. and Thurs’ double features are Edward J. Lasko’s Smash Up Alley: 43 The Richard Petty Story  (1972) with Jeff Bridges’ The Last American Hero  (1973); Friday and Saturday are double features of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws  (1975) with The Deep (1977) and the weekend’s 2pm Matinee is Norman Tokar’s The Happiest Millionaire  (1967). Monday’s Matinee is F. Gary Gray’s 1996 drama Set It Off.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC):

Janus Films’ new 4k Restorations of Jackie Chan’s Police Story and Police Story 2 will be running once a day for the next week at New York’s first Alamo Drafthouse.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Continuing the Film Society’s tribute to filmmakers who recently brought their Oscar-nominated films to the New York Film Festival, there will be a four-day Yorgos Lanthimos retrospective, including his latest film The Favourite, as well as earlier Greek films Dogtooth, Kinetta, Alps and English language films The Lobster (also an Oscar nomimee) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

In conjunction with the world premiere of Shudder TV’s Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, the Egyptian will have a FREE screening Blacula (1971) on Friday night, and a double feature of Tales from the Hood with Tales from the Crypt: Demon Night (both from 1995) on Saturday night.

AERO  (LA):

Brad Bird will be appearing in person on Friday to screen his first film The Iron Giant  (1999) as part of “Bird Watching: the Animation of Brad Bird,” which continues on Saturday, again with Bird in person, for a double feature of The Incredibles  (2004) and its 2018 sequel The Incredibles II.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad presents two new retrospective series to coincide with the new 4k release of Emmanuelle: Beyond Emmanuelle: Just Jaeckin, a retrospective of the director’s erotic films,and Erotic Journeys: The Many Faces of Em(m)anuelle, which shows the entire series of erotic classics that paved the way for Cinemax.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Waverly Midnights: The Feds will show the late Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs  (1991) on Friday and Saturday night, Weekend Classics: Early Godard  will screen Contempt (1963), while Late Night Favorites goes with Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining (1980).  

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

The Nuart’s Friday night midnight selection is Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider from 1969.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The amazing four-week series Far Out in the 70s: A New Wave of Comedy, 1969 - 1979 continues this week with Paul Mazurksy’s 1969 comedy Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice on Wednesday, as well as the French comedies The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973) and The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe  (1972), plus John Waters’Female Trouble (1974). The Alan Arkin-directed Little Murders, starring Elliot Gould,screens on Thursday and Friday with Richard Pryor’s Car Wash on Thursday and Robert Altman’s  California Split (also starring Gould) on Friday. Saturday the series continues with three similarly-titled but very different films in the 1979 coming-of-age drama Breaking Away, Hal Ashby and Peter Sellers’ Being There (1979) and Milos Forman’s Taking Off (1971). Sunday you can watch a Woody Allen double feature of his Oscar-winning Annie Hall (1977) and Oscar-nominated Manhattan (1979), in which Allen co-stars with Meryl Streep and Mariel Hemingway.  On Monday is a double feature of Melvyn Van Peebles’ Watermelon Man (1970) with the 1973 film Five on the Black Hand Side, both starring Godfrey Cambridge. Tuesday is a screening of La Cage Aux Folles (1978) along with the Elaine May-adapted and Mike Nichols’ directed The Birdcage  (1996), starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, plus the Elaine May-written Warren Beatty remake of Heaven Can Wait (1978). This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is the 1979 family film The Muppet Movie, screening Saturday and Sunday at 11AM.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Sir Sidney Poitiercontinues with the Sidney Poitier-directed Stir Crazy (1980), starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, on Thursday, 1962’s Paris Blueson Thursday and Sneakers  (1992) on Friday.  MOMA is also kicking off Cinema of Trauma: The Films of Lee Chang-dong on Friday, looking at the previous films of the Korean director of Burning, including Green Fish  (1997), Poetry  (2010) and Oasis  (2002).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend’s Family Matinee and Sensory Friendly Screening is the foreign animated film Zarafa  (2012), plus the museum is running its 2019 Cinema Tropical Festival, which includes films from Latin and South America from the past few years.

That’s it for this weekend, and things are currently in development for a few changes next week, so standby!

[lovedbooksnmore]

My Top 10 Favorite Books | 100 Days of Booklr Day 9

So for today’s 100 Days of Booklr and since it’s a Friday I thought I would do something fun, which is talk about my favorite books! And I actually organized them so the book at the bottom of this list is my favorite book of all time. So... here we go! These are my favorite books!

10. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: So I know that this is technically a play but it is still one of the best things I’ve ever read. I had to read this my senior year of high school and it was one of the best things I have ever read in school. The Importance of Being Earnest showed me how when done well, satire and comedy can be as good as a dramatic story. This satire of Victorian England had me laughing harder than I had in any other book I had read and was a pure joy to read. The Importance of Being Earnest also showed me the potential plays had. I never really had a desire to read plays before but I do pick them up or go see productions now and then. Honestly if you are looking for a great laugh pick up The Importance of Being Earnest or go see a production of it! I wouldn’t recommend seeing the movie though, because like always the movie is very different. 

9. My Lady Jane by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows: When I picked up My Lady Jane earlier this year I wasn’t really expecting anything. I people say it was really good but I know that when I read historical fiction of actual historical figures it can be really hit or miss for me, being a history major when I was in college. But I LOVED My Lady Jane! Lady Jane follows the life of Lady Jane Grey, who was queen of England for nine days before she was executed. This book also includes people turning into animals, which you wouldn’t think works in a historical fiction book BUT IT DOES. I think one of the things that makes My Lady Jane work so perfectly is that it never takes itself too seriously, its a book that halfway through tells you it’s throwing history outside the window after this point! Where else have you seen that in a historical fiction book?! This book is filled with so many laughs and is a great read for if you’re looking for something different or want to get out of a reading slump! Would recommend to everyone!

8. Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes: Falling Kingdoms is one of my favorite YA fantasy series. It follows a group of characters fighting for control of this island, called Mytica, and its kingdoms. In terms of plot I know it sounds a lot like other fantasy stories, like Game of Thrones or whatever, but I still really love it. This story is beautifully written and has such a wide group of characters that are so interesting to read about and I find myself enjoying every minute of the stories that I read. The six part series is coming to a close this year and I still need to pick up the fifth book, but I’ll probably pick it up closer to the release of the sixth book. Also if you’ve read Falling Kingdoms and want some more from the same world there’s a companion series called Spirits and Thieves set partially in our world and partially in the Falling Kingdoms universe, but thousands of years before Falling Kingdoms. Both series are really great reads that I would recommend to anyone who loves YA fantasy, or just fantasy in general.

7. The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson: This is my most recent read to be included on this list but it immediately became one of my favorites. I’m still trying to recover from the ending of this book so I can pick up the next book, The Well of Ascension, but I’m still in shock if I’m being honest. This is the first book in the Mistborn series. The Final Empire is an adult epic fantasy that follows these group of people who are skaa, who have been slaves for the Final Empire for a thousand years, and their desire to overthrow the leader of the Final Empire, known as the Lord Ruler. There is also the most fascinating magical system I have ever read in this book. Some people have the ability to consume a type of metal and it will give them special powers, like strength, and they are called Mistlings. These people can only consume one type of metal Rarer people still can consume all types of metals and be gain all of the powers and they are known as Mistborn. This book had me on my edge of my seat from page one, I had to know what was going to happen next, which is why I read this huge 500+ page book in about three days. I loved all the characters and felt for them every step of the journey. This was my first adult fantasy book and I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I do YA fantasy or love the characters as much, but boy was I wrong! This book really opened my eyes for what a fantasy story can really be like. If you haven’t picked up The Final Empire or the Mistborn series yet DO IT! I promise you won’t be disappointed! 

6. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo: Yes! Six of Crows! If you couldn’t tell with every other picture set on my blog being Six of Crows, this is one of my favorite books ever. I’m pretty sure everyone who as read this heist story about a band of misfits has found themselves in love with not one but all of its characters. This is one of the most diverse reads I have seen in YA with no two characters being alike. It also has one of the strongest relationships I have seen between friends in any type of book. Ever. This book truly has something for everyone and if you haven’t picked up Six of Crows yet... WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?!?! Pick it up!!! I promise you will love it!

5. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince is one of those books that I think you could read throughout your life and take away something completely different each time. The story about this little prince and all the people he meets trying to figure out life is a moving and breath taking piece of fiction and poses more philosophical questions than most adult books do. I am honestly struggling to describe this book, because I think its one you have to experience yourself. It’s a really short book filled with tons of pictures, its a children’s book of course, and it’s easy to read in one sitting. Once you read it I promise you’ll understand what I mean and it’ll be on of your favorites too.

4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: I’ve read Pride and Prejudice about five times and I think my love for it has grown each time I’ve read it. This is a classic and beloved by so many people, it’s even my mom’s favorite book! It follows the lives of the Bennet family with its five daughters and their mother who is determined to see them married. Their lives change when the rich Mr. Bingley moves in and brings along his even richer friend Mr. Darcy. This is my favorite romance story and it has one of the best slow burning romances I have ever read. If you haven’t picked up Pride and Prejudice you really should because it is such a worthwhile read. And if the fact that this is a classic puts you off I found this to be one of the easier classics to read. It’s language is really easy to understand. Or I would recommend listening to it on audio book. Rosamund Pike, who played Jane in the 2005 movie version, does a really good reading for Audible that is worth checking out if you’re interested.

3. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender is an amazing book that I don’t think people talk about enough. It’s a magical realism book that follows the life of Ava Lavender, who was born with wings, and it also tells the story of several generations of her family and their journey from France to Ava’s hometown. This was my first magical realism book and it was beautiful. Leslye Walton had such an amazing writing style that made you feel like you were reading a fairy tale and painted these beautiful pictures. If you’re looking for something a little different to read I would definitely say pick this book up because you won’t be disappointed. 

2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: I read this book back in ninth grade for my English class and I loved it. This was one of my first political books and I think it is the best one I have ever read. I love how we get to read from the point of view from Scout, a young year old girl. It’s very rare that we get to see an adult story told from the point of view of a child, giving the whole story a naivete. Even though this story was written in 1960 it is still an important story to be told and is important in our modern day political climate. I haven’t read Harper Lee’s other work, Go Set a Watchman, which I believe was a draft that Harper Lee wrote of To Kill a Mockingbird but with an adult character as the main character and differences here and there. I’m not really interested in reading Go Set a Watchman because I think everything that needed to be told was told in To Kill a Mockingbird. If you also haven’t seen the movie To Kill a Mockingbird I would also recommend that. It’s one of the few movies that lives up to the original source.

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling: I want you to know I really tried to not put a Harry Potter book on this list but I couldn’t! I just couldn’t! I felt like the list was incomplete and didn’t really show my true feelings. I know this is probably the top of every list by everyone ever, but it deserves it! Harry Potter was the book that got me and so many people to start reading and that by itself is important. But Harry Potter is also a beautiful and creative story. What else could I say about Harry Potter that hasn’t been said? Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite Harry Potter book and I can summarize why in just two words: the marauders. I LOVE the marauders and want to know more about them! But please not through a play written by Jack Thorne.

But that’s a list of my favorite books! 

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Sherlock “The Final Problem” Observations

1.

Jim Moriarty has to be the smoothest motherfucker in the fictional world. He just does it so well! It takes a certain amount of class to be like that, and yet Andrew really pulls it off. I’ve admittedly missed him.

He was fun.

Jim could somehow get it on with a peach and it would seem perfectly normal and even expected thanks to Andrew’s impeccable acting.

2.

Mycroft is sitting alone in the dark, watching an old film and giggling like a damn dork as he mouths the words like he’s some fucking genius. So damn proud of himself.

And then that tiny smile when he sees the old video of his family from years back. As if he’s shocked to see it and shocked to be moved by it.

And then ‘I’m Back’ has to fuck it up. Just when the Ice Man was getting the #FEELS someone has to ruin it! I was so ready to squeal!

Though the joke itself was kind of funny it thankfully got rid of that shitty ass, poor-foreplay-filled film he was watching. Good Christ that was painful.

And then Mycroft literally goes and proves me RIGHT! For years I have lived with the belief that there was a weapon of some sort in that umbrella and I feel so very fucking brilliant! Why else would he carry it around ALL the time?

Mycroft lives in this big ass house that is literally decorated out the ass with unnecessary shit. That’s gotta be effin lonely, good Lord. The open space, the vacancy. It’s kind of sad to see how lonely the British Government is without him even realizing it.

John and Sherlock are dicks. All is right in their world.

For now.

3.

Bill ‘The Wig’ Wiggins gets another mention!

Though seriously, wtf is with the fandom in forgetting who he is? Like, how many posts labeled him as some ‘nameless junkie’ in “The Lying Detective”?

He may be a drug addict, but he’s a brilliant Chemist that even Sherlock takes seriously. Give the guy a break. Doing drugs or alcohol doesn’t make you any less of a person. They just make you a person who might need some help and self control.

4.

Mycroft: This is a private matter.

John: *moves to get up*

Sherlock: John stays.

Mycroft: This is family.

Sherlock: THAT’S WHY HE STAYS!

John: *tiny half smile at his notepad*

This part was really touching because it’s Sherlock showing an insistence that John is important to him and that of all the people he wants with him while he’s learning such intense things about himself, he wants John to be there.

No offense, but choosing your friend over your blood relations is a very important action.

Sherlock’s icy indifference had been chipped away by John a little at a time, until he feels comfortable enough to admit in front of his brother, who thinks that ‘caring is not an advantage’, that he thinks of his best friend as family first and foremost.

That sociopathic exterior just slowly gets further and further away.

5.

Mycroft is 7 years older than Sherlock. Sherlock is one year older than Eurus. Sherls was the middle child. It literally explains so much. Being the middle child sucks.

6.

Mrs Hudson rocking away to heavy metal while hoovering is probably the coolest thing. The Aston Martin was awesome, but her musical taste is wow. I love her and I want her as an honorary Nana.

7.

John: Oscar Wilde.

Mycroft: What?

John: He said, ‘the truth is rarely pure and never simple’. *breaths deeply* It’s... The Importance of Being Earnest. We did it in school.

Mycroft: So did we, now I recall. I was Lady Bracknell.

Sherlock: Yeah. You were great.

Mycroft: You really think so?

Sherlock: Yes, I really do.

Mycroft: That’s good to know. I’ve always wondered.

Sherlock: *looks down* *whispers* Good luck, boys.

God, the suspense killed me. And I swear that little brotherly exchange was sad.

8.

Eurus knew Bach from a second of sound. That’s awesome. I play games like that to test my musical knowledge and am nowhere near as good. She’s like a bloody computer.

9.

The whole glass bit was pretty interesting. It’s an optical illusion catered to one specific direction. If he were to come at her from a different angle, he would have noticed the odd cut in the signs.

You see what you expect to see. Why would a major facility not have a dangerous person behind a glass wall?

He wasn’t observing.

10.

John being the one to notice whose voice was on the recording is great. Mycroft, Mr. Genius couldn’t even tell.

I like it when John is given a chance to prove that he too can pay attention. That he can observe like Mycroft and Sherlock. Of course it lands them in deep shit, but it’s still nice all the same.

John isn’t some rug to be walked on and he’s not just a sidekick.

11.

Jim is ‘relatable’. And to be frank he really is which is so not fair!

“The Hungry Donkey” is a fanfic I would love to read. Sorry, but Jim had a point. Putting a baby in a manger is literally asking for trouble.

12.

Sherlock asking John how he is when he wakes up is really sweet. Like, he’s considerate of John’s health so much and my feels...

Also, he teases John a lot. Teasing!

13.

Sherlock was moving on to calm the little girl down. He was trying to reassure her with praise for following instructions.

Watching his growth as a character is honestly so special and I love the obvious changes from season one.

14.

Mycroft being terrified to kill someone is probably the most humane thing I’ve seen from him. Like, he honestly lost his cool then and was unable to differentiate between the situations. And I think it shows more depth to his character and how he views the ‘world of goldfish’ truly.

If Mycroft was as detached and emotionless as he wants everyone to believe, then he wouldn’t show such feelings, especially in front of others.

Hiding his face in his hand and leaning against the wall so he doesn’t have to watch. Despite the power he controls and the danger he has probably had to become familiar with, he couldn’t handle it.

The erratic breathing and mild panic attack setting in.

Retching against the wall.

Mycroft has gone through a little character growth of his own. And while traumatic for him, I think it was necessary.

15.

“Today we are soldiers, Mycroft. Soldiers. And that means to hell with what happens to us!”-John Watson

In all honesty, the military is not a place for fun and games. While they glam it up with words like ‘serving your country’ or ‘helping the cause’, you are basically putting yourself in danger on a constant basis. You are working for a cause that you might not even know everything about, but you are going to give it your all because in the military, the good of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Because you might one day have to throw yourself in the line of fire or throw yourself on a bomb to save your comrades. Military is not about you. You agree to shed who you are to make yourself a tool to be used for the ‘safety’ of your cause.

That is what it means to be a soldier. John is a soldier, and he realizes what is happening. And he knows that now is not the time for games and competitions. It’s about the good of the many being more important than the need of the few,

And it’s a lesson that Mycroft needs.

John has had at least one chance in each season to put Mycroft in his place and I like that this time wasn’t for the sake of a joke and one-upping him.

Mycroft needs to understand that not everything is a contest and being the ‘best’ isn’t always the best thing.

16.

The name of the person who was supposed to get the coffin, was on the lid. Mycroft has some sass in him somewhere. 

17.

Molly’s kitchens is a chef’s wet dream. I swear to God, I want everything in it. Everything I can and cannot see. Who would have thought that such a secluded woman would have such a state of the art kitchen?

But if she has this bomb ass kitchen, then she must be a cook of some sort. Why else would she need a house/flat with such a detailed room if she was practically incapable of cooking anything and wouldn’t need it?

So I headcanon that Molly is basically a great cook and likes to make morgue jokes to her food while she cooks it.

Her jumper was hideous though. We can’t have everything it seems.

It also sucks that Molly got dragged into it. Again. Like, can’t the girl have some damn peace and quiet in her life? Can’t she just relax?

And it’s incredibly sad because she was basically friend zoned before she had to confess her feelings for a man that won’t return them the way she wants.

Though she made him realize how incredibly hard it is to admit your feelings. Even if he doesn’t love her, he struggled to say those words. After he literally threw them about a moment prior, many times, he could not do it when put on the spot because she was his friend and he knew his insincerity would hurt her.

18.

To put ‘I Love You’ on a coffin is a bit macabre, isn’t it? It’s basically implying that the Love was dead before it truly began.

And that’s sad.

Especially when Sherlock began to emotionally trash the shit out of it because he was just that wrung out.

19.

“Brother mine.”

I am not well right now. He cares a lot. And I care a lot. And we all care too much. He tried to anger Sherlock in order to have Sherlock shoot him. He wanted his little brother to be able to keep his best friend this time, and that hurts.

And Sherlock shaking and being so sad and unable to do it. He cares too.

My #FEELS

Sherlock turning the gun on himself because he doesn’t want to shoot his big brother or his best friend.

RIP Melli.

20.

The trauma of having to realize that your childhood friend was killed by your own sister, is one thing.

But we as an audience now understand more about Sherlock. He re-wrote his own story because he didn’t like it. He couldn’t handle it. He didn’t want to. A common thing in those with PTSD.

Sherlock’s actions from then on were a reflection of his new attitude. His character in A Study In Pink makes more sense now.

And it’s probably the saddest thing to realize for him.

21.

Greg calling Sherlock a ‘good man’ is a nice way to come full circle from episode one of season one.

He called him Greg!

Sometimes I wondered if Sherlock actually knew his name but said wrong ones to annoy him. It’s a very Sherlock thing to do.

22.

“It is what it is.”

23.

Mummy Holmes looks to Sherlock and asks him for help. “You were always the grown up.”

Probably the best moment in Sherlock’s life. Like he’s somehow managed to be the more mature between he and Mycroft, in his parents’ eyes. More responsible. Level-headed. Which is ironic considering what happened in this episode.

24.

Sherlock and Eurus performing a duet.

Now, this is a bit strange for me to like especially after the emotional trauma she put them all through throughout the episode, but when I see Eurus, I don’t see a copy of Mycroft or Sherlock.

Sherlock was once a ‘machine’. If anything. Eurus is the machine, constantly working through variables in an effort to understand.

Sherlock’s emotions are what make him a great detective. Eurus has a great mind, but her lack of understanding for emotions are her downfall in a way. She’s not good with them, much like Mycroft, and so she remains to be like a computer.

A computer that needs heavy rewiring. And a de-bugging.

She is not well. She will not have a normal life.

“Genius needs an audience,” as Sherlock once said. She had no audience. She had no friends. She had nothing. No one. She was her own friend. And it didn’t do her any good.

On top of that, I’m not certain her situation was handled properly. It doesn’t seem like the best was done for her, and while I get limited options at the time, couldn’t they have done better as technology and the area of medicine progressed?

Sherlock playing a duet with her doesn’t mean he forgives her. Maybe he’s accepted what she’s done, and can understand her point of view now. Maybe he knows how unwell she truly is, and he pities her.

Or he’s genuinely interested in the sister who was pretty much gone from his life for at least 30 years.

The Holmes parents wanted to be in contact with her despite everything she’d done. What’s so off about Sherlock being curious? His entire memory was rearranged because of it. He has a right to be curious.

25.

MISS YOU

“Who you really are doesn’t matter.”

A lot of people have emotionally taken this phrase out of context. And I could honestly gripe about how pathetic it is, but my comment just now kind of explains my thoughts of almost everyone else’s thoughts, so I’ll continue on.

As always, people take only one part, instead of the whole.

“I know who you really are. A junkie who solves crimes to get high, and the soldier who never came back from the war.”

Mary lays it on them. The facts of who they are. Sherlock is an addict and he substitutes cocaine, for crime solving to keep his mind afloat and of use. Otherwise he’d been higher than a kite and eating chips all the time.

John was unable to transition into the life of a civilian. Much like other soldiers never truly do. You can take the soldier out of the war, but you cannot take the war out of the soldier, and this is a textbook case of it.

She broke them down past their titles and what everyone knows them as, to their basics. Who they really are.

And being a junkie isn’t considered cool. Having an addiction to adrenaline isn’t considered cool. Most would look down on such things if they knew the truth about Sherlock and John and their inner struggles and problems. They’d been deemed unstable. Awkward. Dangerous probably.

Two men who live together actively seeking danger and possibly life threatening circumstances constantly, in order to fulfill some kind of addiction they each have.

But Mary goes on to tell them that it doesn’t matter.

I have said many times that doing drugs or alcohol doesn’t make you a bad person. And a lot of people would look down on them for the truth of who they are, but Mary tells them it doesn’t matter. She knows them and who they can become. She understands both of them in ways that other people can’t.

It shouldn’t matter if someone is a junkie or if they suffer PTSD. It shouldn’t be their defining characteristic. We are more than our choices. Sherlock and John are more than their choices.

And to get all angry over something that simple is immature and as I previously stated, pathetic.

26.

John spraying the new smiley face on the wall.

I lowkey thought he and Mrs Hudson were annoyed by it, but he literally re-sprays it on the new wallpaper!

Sherlock shoots the wall again to be sure.

He then stabs the mantel, much to poor Mrs Hudson’s vexation.

27.

Sherlock and John living in 221B and raising Rosie together. And John smiling up at Sherlock. Yes. Seeing Sherlock going from trying to reason with a baby on how to keep a rattle, to bouncing her in his arms while he smiles, is great.

It’s a moment that I’ve wanted for years.

28.

Finally, my opinion of the Sherlock fandom has gone down since this season started. I never once had a problem until people started attacking me for liking the episodes. People literally mocking me for not believing that John cheated on his wife. And then turning around a week later claiming they didn’t believe it either. I had those blogs marked down and when I checked on them after “The Lying Detective” aired, I blocked every one of their lying asses.

Sherlock is a great show. A show about Sherlock Holmes primarily. Hence why the show is named after him. We see him in the beginning. We see him in the end. It’s his journey. His adventure.

In the last episode of season 4, Sherlock asked John if he was okay, several times. He wasn’t in any way concerned in A Study In Pink. He’s grown as a person by opening up with John.

I liked season 4. There was drama at every turn, little extra bits here and there that required another watch or 5, secrets and riddles that had to be solved. So many throwbacks to the books and former shows, like usual int he show.

I was happy with everything. As a GenderFluid Pansexual, I was not insulted. I didn’t ‘feel attacked’ by anything in Sherlock. I wasn’t phased in the least by anything. I don’t consider anything ‘queerbaiting’ or a ‘spit on the LGBTQ+ Community’. We got Irene for God’s sake! Sexy Lesbian Dominatrix who is smarter than Sherlock, more cunning than Mycroft, and assured in her own sexuality and self. And she wasn’t killed off.

There’s this strange western concept that sex and kissing proves that two people love each other. Romance doesn’t not depend on gender. So unless you’re telling me you’re in love with someone’s genitals, cut the shit.

I don’t need them to kiss. I need them together, happy, doing what both of them love, looking out for each other, and being the pillar the other needs. And if they were opposite genders, this would have immediately been considered canonical conformation of Joanlock. But it’s like it’s only canon if the men kiss for everyone to see.

A kiss doesn’t mean you love someone. Moving to shoot yourself so you don’t have to choose between who to shoot, is a bigger declaration of love.

The words ‘I love you’ are bandied about constantly. They have no meaning in my book. I look to actions to show me how someone feels. So telling someone you love them is easy(if you’re not Molly). But offering to give your life for them isn’t easy.

I take that to be important. I take the emotional support between them as my confirmation.

And if the majority of the fandom wants to throw a fit and continue to be depressed, then do so. But don’t count me in on it.

I’m restricting my contact to the fandom on Tumblr. Shockingly, Tumblr ended up being the cesspool of hate from the Sherlock fandom, out of all the possible sites to cause drama.

So many fandoms are disgusted by BBC Sherlock right now. So many people glad to have not been dragged in ever, as they witness people being attacked in just the past day alone. Their feeds and dashboards filled with blatant harassment between bloggers who can’t grow up.

It’s gotten ridiculous and I don’t want to be a part of it when there are so few people left who actually use their brains.

The Sherlock Fandom has become just like the Twilight Fandom. Congrats. You’ve put me off to fandom happenings and ensured many don’t want to get to know the show we supposedly love so much. And you confirmed the beliefs of a lot of others, over the ‘pretentious assholes’ that make up the Sherlock fandom.

[happyweddingblogs]

150 Funny Marriage Quotes for Newlyweds

If you are looking for some hilarious marriage quotes to add fun element to your wedding, then this post is for you. Here we are sharing 150 funny marriage quotes for you that you can use in your wedding invites, wedding signage, and wedding social media updates.

Source: Happy Wedding App

Let’s get started…….

1. “The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.” —Henny Youngman

2. “The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing – and then marry him.” —Cher

3. “Love is one long sweet dream and marriage is the alarm clock!” — Zeenat Essa

4. “In olden times, sacrifices were made at the altar, a practice which is still very much practiced.” —Helen Rowland

5. “Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.” — Zig Ziglar TC mark

6. “Before you marry a person you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.” — Will Ferrell

7. “The most important four words for a successful marriage: ‘I’ll do the dishes.’” — Anonymous

8. “By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” — Socrates

9. “When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.” — Prince Philip

10. “I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” — Rita Rudner

11. “Love is a sweet dream and marriage is the alarm clock.” — Jewish Proverb

12. “Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.” — Albert Einstein

13. “There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.” — Oscar Wilde

14. “All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner.” — Red Skelton

15. “Take care of him. And make him feel important. And if you can do that, you’ll have a happy and wonderful marriage. Like two out of every ten couples.” — Neil Simon

16. “Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.” — Ambrose Bierce

17. “Marriage is like a deck of cards. All you need in the beginning is two hearts and a diamond. After 10 years you need a club and spade.” — Carrie

18. “Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences.” —Isadora Duncan

19. “A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.” — Michel de Montaigne

20. “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.” — Benjamin Franklin

21. “A guy knows he’s in love when he loses interest in his car for a couple of days.” — NOT A BOOK

22. “The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.” — Ann Bancroft

23. “Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.” — Honore de Balzac

24. “A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.” — Michel de Montaigne

25. “Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.” —Jean Kerr

26. “To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the loving cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” — Ogden Nash

27. “I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.” — Steven Wright

28. “Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage – they’ve experienced pain and bought jewelry.” — Rita Rudner

29. “Marriage is when a man loses his bachelor’s degree and woman gets her master’s degree.” — Rama Kochhar

30. “When you have a baby, love is automatic, when you get married, love is earned.” —Marie Osmond

31. “Marriage – a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.” — Beverley Nichols

32. “Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.” — G. K. Chesterton

33. “Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.” — Stephen Leacock

34. “Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.” — Erma Bombeck

35. “All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.” — Raymond Hull

36. “Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings … and lawyers.” — Richard Pryor

37. “If you want to know how your girl will treat you after marriage, just listen to her talking to her little brother.” — Sam Levenson

38. “They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.” — Alexander Pope

39. “Marriage is an attempt to solve problems together which you didn’t even have when you were on your own.” — Eddie Cantor

40. “An ideal wife is any woman who has an ideal husband.” — Booth Tarkington

41. “Never get married in college; it’s hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you’ve already made one mistake.” — Elbert Hubbard

42. “Love is telling someone their hair extensions are showing.” — Natasha Leggero

43. “I love being married. It’s so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life” — Anonymous

44. “I married beneath me, all women do.” — Nancy Astor

45. “Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not.” — Albert Einstein

46. “In my house I’m the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.” — Woody Allen

47. “Marriage is like a game of chess, except the board is flowing water, the pieces are made of smoke and no move you make will have any effect on the outcome.” — Jerry Seinfeld

48. “Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.” — Marilyn Monroe

49. “Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.” — John Wilmot

50. “Marriage is a difficult project. When seven years have passed and all your body’s cells have been replaced, you’re meant to experience that seven-year itch.” — Yoko Ono

Also See:

Best 75 Wedding Love Quotes

51. “You can’t buy love on eBay.” — Anonymous

52. “Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.” — H.L. Mencken

53. “Always get married in the morning. That way if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted the whole day.” — Mickey Rooney

54. “My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.” — Rodney Dangerfield

55. “Marry a man your own age; As your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.” — Phyllis Diller

56. “Before marriage, a man declares that he would lay down his life to serve you; after marriage, he won’t even lay down his newspaper to talk to you.” — Helen Rowland

57. “Marriage is a wonderful invention: then again, so is the bicycle repair kit.” — Billy Connolly

58. “The only mistake for which people are congratulated is marriage.” — Ratna Deep

59. “More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.” — Doug Larson

60. “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” — Albert Einstein

61. “Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.” — Erma Bombeck

62. “Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet service to see who they really are.” — Will Ferrell

63. “You can’t buy love, but you can pay heavily for it.” — Henny Youngman

64. “The brain is the most outstanding organ. It works 24/7, 365 from birth until you fall in love.” —Sophie Monroe

65. “All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” — Charles M. Schulz

66. “Marriage is like a phone call in the night: first the ring, and then you wake up.” — Evelyn Hendrickson

67. “True love is like seeing ghosts; we all talk about it, but few of us have ever seen one.” — La Rochefoucauld

68. “True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.” — Erich Segal

69. “Where love is the case, the doctor is an ass.” — English Proverb

70. “The best thing to ever happen to marriage is the pause-live-TV button.” — Rick Reilly

71. “I love you no matter what you do, but do you have to do so much of it?” — Jean Illsley Clarke

72. “A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.” — Brendan Francis

73. “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.” — Benjamin Franklin

74. “Romantic love is mental illness. But it’s a pleasurable one.” — Fran Lebowitz

75. “Besides chocolate, you’re my favourite.” — Anonymous

76. “Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you’re in.” — Richard Jeni

77. “Marriage is like watching the color of leaves in the fall; ever changing and more stunningly beautiful with each passing day.” — Fawn Weaver 78. “Love is a lot like a backache, it doesn’t show up on X-rays, but you know it’s there.” — George Burns

79. “Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.” — Thomas Dewar

80. “My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.” — Winston Churchill

81. “I’m going to get married again because I’m more mature now, and I need some kitchen stuff.” —Wendy Liebman

82. “Love is a lot like a backache; It doesn’t show up on X-Rays, But you know it’s there.” — George Burns

83. “We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops” — Henny Youngman

84. “They say love is blind…and marriage is an institution. Well, I’m not ready for an institution for the blind just yet.” — Mae West

85. “I love you like a fat kid loves cake.” — Quote from 50 Cents

86. “Men aren’t necessities, they’re luxuries.” — Cher

87. “What’s the best way to get your husband to remember your anniversary? Get married on his birthday.” — Cindy Garner

88. “I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.” — Groucho Marx

89. “They say true love hides behind every corner, I must be walking in circles.” — Anonymous

90. “Trust your husband, adore your husband, and get as much as you can in your own name.” — Joan Rivers

91. “If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.” — Katharine Hepburn

92. “My wife and I have the secret to making a marriage last. Two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, a little wine, good food. She goes on tuesdays, I go Fridays.” — Henry Youngman

93. “If you want your wife to listen to you, then talk to another woman; she will be all ears.” — Sigmund Freud

94. “Marriage is like a walk in the park… Jurassic Park.” — Anonymous

95. “For marriage to be a success, every woman and every man should have her and his own bathroom. The end.” — Catherine Zeta-Jones

96. “Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.” — H. L. Mencken

97. “Before we got married, I caught her in my arms. Now I catch her in my pockets.” — Anonymous

98. “My wife, Mary, and I have been married for forty-seven years, and not once have we had an argument serious enough to consider divorce; murder, yes, but divorce, never.” — Jack Benny

99. “Love is the answer, but while you’re waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.” — Woody Allen

100. “I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.” — Steve Martin

101. “Remember that creating a successful marriage is like farming: You have to start over again every morning.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

102. “Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.” — Ambrose Bierce

103. “Marriage: A legal or religious ceremony by which two persons of the opposite sex solemnly agree to harass and spy on each other for ninety-nine years, or until death do them join.” — Elbert Hubbard

104. “The last time I was inside a woman was when I went to the Statue of Liberty.” — Woody Allen

105. “Marriage marks the end of many short follies – being one long stupidity.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

106. “An archeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.” — Agatha Christie

107 “I love you even when I’m really, really hungry” — Anonymous

108. “Love is an electric blanket with somebody else in control of the switch.” — Cathy Carlyle

109. “The four most important words in any marriage…”I’ll do the dishes.” — Anonymous

110. “Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.” —Woody Allen

111. “All marriages are happy. It’s trying to live together afterwards that causes all the problems.” —Shelley Winters

112. “If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?” — Lily Tomlin

113. “Marriage is the bond between a person who never remembers anniversaries and another who never forgets them.” — Ogden Nash

114. “Marriage is like vitamins: We supplement each other’s minimum daily requirements.” —Anonymous

115. “Love is a grave mental disease.” — Plato

116. “Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything else.” — Jean Kerr

117. “A man in love is not complete until he is married. Then he is finished.” — Zsa Zsa Gabor

118. “Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your heart or burn down your house, you can never tell.” — Joan Crawford

119. “Love is not having to hold in your farts anymore.” — Bree Luckey

120. “When you see a married couple walking down the street, the one that’s a few steps ahead is the one that’s mad.” — Helen Rowland

121. “It’s been so long since I made love, I can’t even remember who gets tied up.” — Joan Rivers

122. “Love is the seventh sense, which destroys all the other six senses.” — Anonymous

123. “Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash.” — Joyce Brothers

124. “A good marriage is one where each partner secretly suspects they got the better deal.” — Anonymous

125. “People should fall in love with their eyes closed.” — Andy Warhol

126. “The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open.” — Groucho Marx

127. “In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money virtue before beauty, the mind before the body, then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.” — William Penn

128. “Love is blind but marriage is a real eye-opener” — Pauline Thomason

129. “Love doesn’t drop on you unexpectedly; you have to give off signals, sort of like an amateur radio operator.” — Helen Gurley Brown

130. “Love is like a tornado, picks you up off your feet and sometimes takes half your house.” — Anonymous

131. “Marriage is a great institution for those who like institutions.” — Tommy Dewar

132. “I know that somewhere in the Universe exists my perfect soulmate – but looking for her is much more difficult than just staying at home and ordering another pizza.” — Alf Whit

133. “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade my wife to marry Me.” — winston-churchill

134. “If I get married, I want to be very married.” — Audrey Hepburn

135. “It is impossible to love and be wise.” — Francis Bacon

136. “Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.” — Joseph Barth

137. “Marriage is a risk; I think it’s a great and glorious risk, as long as you embark on the adventure in the same spirit.” — Cate Blanchett

138. “People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.” — Bob Hope

139. “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” — Mark Twain

140. “The highest happiness on earth is marriage.” — William Lyon Phelps

141. “What the world really needs is more love and less paper work.” — Pearl Bailey

142. “One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.” — Honoré de Balzac

143. “Marriage is not just spiritual communion; it is also remembering to take out the trash.” — Joyce Brothers

144. “Love is spending the rest of your life with someone you want to kill & not doing it because you’d miss them!” — Anonymous

145. “A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other the guardian of his solitude, and shows him this confidence, the greatest in his power to bestow.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

146. “Men make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.” — Anonymous

147. “To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the loving cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” — Ogden Nash

148. “Husbands are like wine, they take a long time to mature.” — From Letters to Juliet

149. “Marriage is a workshop….. Where husband works and wife shops.” — Anonymous

150. “Husbands and wives are so irritating. But without them, who would we blame for misplacing our socks?” — Janet Periat

AND FINALLY……

So, these are the funniest marriage quotes which you can use in your wedding. These marriage quotes will simply add to the fun part of your wedding. You can even make your wedding speech hilarious with these funny quotes on marriage.

Happy Wedding…..

[filmreviewsbyanidiot]

An Idiots Top 10 Films Of 2019

Oh hello. Lovely to be back on this blog. I was last here reviewing Slender Man in September 2018. Let me tell you, Slender Man will not be appearing in this list. Because it wasn’t released in 2019 and also it’s absolute shite. Also not on the list is Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse because it came out in the UK last year. The rest all came out in the UK this year. If you’re interested, it would have been number 2 if I had included it because it’s absolutely incredible. Thank you. As Bloc Party sang: so here we are. It’s the end of 2019 and I’ve seen some films and now I’m going to talk about them as if I’m at all qualified to tell you which ones were good. Imagine that. No need. Here we go! NUMBER 10 - Judy (Rupert Goold) This entire order is going to be wrong because I don’t have the time to sit and put them in the perfect order, I am a busy boy. Get off my case. Anyway, Judy! I love a biopic and I’m a homosexual man that likes the arts. So a Judy Garland biopic is very much up my Straße. She was a wonderfully messed up and fabulous woman. So tragic. So beautiful. So fascinating. I think this film does a really great job of showing all of that. Renee Zellwegar is a perfect casting, she really does Judy justice (working title for Judge Judy).  NUMBER 9 - Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar) Quite surprised this made it into the list but here it is. It’s a really beautiful film. Antonio Banderas is quite phenomenal in it and deserves the Oscar buzz he’s getting. It’s a captivating performance. One of the better depictions of addiction I’ve seen. It’s heartbreaking, funny, moving and you never get bored despite nothing huge happening. It’s a character study and it’s brilliant. NUMBER 8 - Green Book (Peter Farrelly) Uh oh. I��ve gone there. I understand the criticism and I understand that some would say “If you really got it, then you wouldn’t like the film”. All I can say to that is... I felt warm and fuzzy at the end and I can’t pretend I didn’t. I like feeling warm and fuzzy and this film did that. It may not be true to life. But neither was Bohemian Rhapsody and I still enjoyed that. As long as you’re aware of the jumps that these films make, then just enjoy them for the film that they are. They’re not documentaries. It’s a fun and moving film about a friendship that either did or didn’t exist, depending who you ask/what interviews you watch. I’m not sure what my opinion is on putting a filter on history. There will always be films that do so but there will also always be films that don’t. Shouldn’t we be able to have both? Genuinely don’t know the answer. But I enjoyed this film and can’t pretend I didn’t.  NUMBER 7 - Stan & Ollie (John S. Baird) Yeah mate, I don’t care. This didn’t get what it deserved. It’s stunning, quite frankly. Again, I love a biopic and this does everything I need from one. It’s incredibly similar to Judy in that it’s about Hollywood legends towards the end of their career trying to make a final bit of money by playing shows in Britain. There’s something so poignant about studying these legendary people at the end of their careers. People who were at the very top. Unbelievably famous and successful but their star is waning. It breaks my heart. This is also a beautiful look at a friendship and that sort of stuff gets me more than a romance. I’ve been single my whole life and friendships mean a great deal to me. I can watch a moving romance and shed a tear but films about long lasting friendships can leave me in pieces. I audibly sobbed when I saw this film. That’s enough to get it into the top 10. NUMBER 6 - Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller) I adored this film. Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant were sublime. What a fascinating story. It’s a film I’ve thought about here and there for most of the year. I can still picture so much of it and had no idea I was enjoying it so much whilst I was watching it. It’s really stayed with me. Again, friendship is a big element of this and a theme is certainly becoming apparent in the films I love. This film is funny and weird and makes you want to sit at a New York bar and just chat to someone and learn everything about their crazy life. I want to go right now and bump into someone like Lee Israel or Jack Hock. Cities like New York and London and full of people like them and that’s why I bloody love them so much.  NUMBER 5 - Honey Boy (Alma Har’el) A moving film written by Shia LaBeouf about his alcoholic dad. Noah Jupe plays the young Otis (based on Shia) and is exceptional. One of the most impressive performances from a child actor that I’ve seen.  Lucas Hedges is always a treat to see. What an actor. And Shia plays a version of his own dad and is also amazing. Just some really fucking great acting on display in this film. It’s really well made, looks incredible and explores the father/son relationship with brutality but also quite touchingly. It’s an impressive piece of work. NUMBER 4 - Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach) Having seen this film and not long afterwards seen the Tories win a majority... there isn’t much more heartbreaking to be honest. Ken Loach’s last two films (The other being I, Daniel Blake) have shown the stark reality of a Tory government and if anyone on the planet can watch these films and then put a cross in a box for the Tories without conscience... well I’m not sure you’re human. This film broke my heart because I knew it was a reality for so many people. I also knew that some families have it even worse. I can’t bear thinking about it but sometimes you have to put yourself through it because how else are we going to fight these evil pricks if we don’t remind ourselves what they’re doing to people? This is a beautiful look at a modern working class British family and some of the family moments made me cry. The teenage son in particular is a character that I wanted to slap and hug at the same time. As bleak as you’d expect from Ken Loach and I wouldn’t have him any other way. NUMBER 3 - Booksmart (Olivia Wilde) Quite the contrast to the previous film! I seldom enjoy American comedy films. American comedy isn’t really for me and comedy films usually aren’t either. So I wasn’t expecting much from this film but goodness me I loved it. I can’t remember why I loved it so much but I know that I did. I laughed out loud at least twice which is incredibly rare for a miserable old bastard like me. Again, friendship is the main theme here which is probably why I loved it so much. It’s also just great to see two young girls not giving a shit. I get really depressed by the way young girls feel so self conscious and are constantly worrying about what people think of them. Scared to look silly in front of people. It’s horrific and this film says a huge ‘fuck you’ to that bullshit. What a funny, silly and wonderful ride this film is. Hooray. NUMBER 2 - Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe Russo) Quite basic of me but come on. It’s a pretty bloody incredible film. Not on its own of course. But if you’ve seen every Marvel movie, then this is one of the greatest things to experience. Every hero coming together in the most spectacular fashion. It’s a really impressive feat and I wonder how superhero films can ever better it. I would say, it’s hard not to pair it with Infinity War which is maybe unfair in terms of putting in a list of films from this year but still, to see that huge finale on the big screen this year was very exciting. I look forward to watching all of these films back to back in years to come. What a body of work. And there’s more to bloody come! NUMBER 1 - Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham) What a film. The most perfect exploration of the awful things modern teenage girls go through. I cringed for her more than a film has ever made me cringe. It was excruciating. A heartbreaking look at how phones and the internet affect kids these days but not a film that’s entirely damning of it. It’s easy to be patronising when it comes to technology and how kids interact with it. This doesn’t do that. It celebrates being young today by showing how hard it can be but also how small victories can mean the world. Elsie Fisher gives the most spectacular performance as Kayla Day. Honestly, really quite astonishing for a 16 year old. Jake Ryan who plays Gabe is the scene stealer of the film. What a great performance. It’s just a really special film and I absolutely adored it. The whole year I was waiting for a film with Oscar buzz to come along and replace it as my favourite but it hasn’t happened. Watch it however you can! Well there you go. A load of opinions from someone who has no idea what he’s talking about. That’s the internet for you. Bye pricks.

[thinktosee]

IRISH HERITAGE MONTH

The Irish Tricolours. Image courtesy Quora

1. INTRODUCTON

March is IRISH HERITAGE MONTH. It is in recognition of People of Irish descent everywhere in this world. As far as David Singh was concerned, any recognition of a People and their Rights deserves our unconditional support. We join the Irish People in this celebration of their Heritage, Culture and Spirit. Your heritage is ours too.

The Irish are an accomplished and indomitable people. They are spread all across the world. Wherever they go, that Strength in Spirit guides them.

Some notable folks of Irish-descent include :

Henry Ford – Founder, Ford Motor (1863-1947)

John F. Kennedy – 35th U.S. President (1917-1963)

Nicole Kidman – Award-winning Actress (1967 - )

Oscar Wilde – Writer (1854-1900)

George Bernard Shaw – Writer, Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1925 (1856-1950)

St. Brigid of Kildare – Nun, Abbess and Founder of Ireland’s 1st convent (451-525)

U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Image courtesy Irish Central

2. CHILDHOOD IRISH FRIENDS

When I was 9 years, an Irish family moved into our neighbourhood. They had 2 children – Tommy, 10 and Michael 8 years old. Their father was with the British Army, which then had a base in singapore. Their mum (who had a very deep Irish accent which I had difficulty understanding her spoken words), worked tirelesly on the home front.

Tommy and Michael became my dear friends. They were a tight-knit family. Dad was one of the fun-nest persons I knew. He’d play practical jokes on the kids. He was also very direct, as direct as they come, which I found very refreshing.

They would invite me to their home now and then for dinner. It was something I always craved since we were sure to be entertained by dad, while mum laid out a sumptuous feast on the dinner table. For a 9-year old then, my world view about the Irish was slowly taking shape – I realized then they were really compassionate and generous. And very intelligent. Tommy was the leader in our play group. He had good leadership skills. He led by example. He never favoured his brother over me except when an argument broke out between us, which it did one day. Like the loyal brother he was, Tommy supported Michael in the fight. After it was all over, and in the evening when their dad came home, he calmly walked over to my house. I was expecting him. He asked me why I had hit Michael. I replied that his son hit me first. I was shaking in my short pants then. Their dad was over 6 feet tall. And then he said to me, “That’s fair enough.” He turned around and walked back to his house.

Image courtesy Depositphotos

The next day, we were back to being friends again. That’s how wonderful being a child was – no harbouring of ill-will. Every transgression is forgiven. Love and friendship mean everything in our little world.

My friends returned to Ireland when I was 11. I missed them dearly for a while. I thought then that when I grew up, I’d visit Ireland to look them up. I still haven’t made that trip and I doubt I’d find them since I never knew their last names! Whatever the case may be, this special family made my life so much more meaningful.

A fantastic book which is part of our family’s collection

3. DAVID’S FRIENDS AND TEACHERS IN HIGH SCHOOL

A few of David’s teachers and friends in school were of Irish descent. Because it was an international school, David’s world view, like mine before, changed…for the better. It was through this interaction that David thrived. He embraced a global perspective to learning. He was very passionate about English Literature (a good part of which is actually of Irish and Scottish origin).

What did these teachers and friends teach David? To maintain an open mind. It is as simple as that. Through an open mind, nothing is impossible. David discovered this new world of limitless knowledge. He set out to learn as much as he possibly could. It was a world of egalitarian rather than elitist methods of teaching and learning. A world of engaging in endless discussions. David decided he was not going to be put down ever again like he was in the singaporean elitist public education system he attended in primary school.

David, Grade 7 front row 3rd from left. His first year in SJI International. Many of his classmates here are scattered today in universities all over the world. It is interesting to note the colours of the school dress are Green and White.  Image courtesy SJI International.

4. CONCLUSION 

The Irish People have been bullied, abused and put down throughout the ages by elitist and imperial powers. And by racism and discrimination. Each time, they persevered and triumphed. As we celebrate this Irish Heritage Month, I close with a poem by W.B. Yeats, whom David admired, for good reason. Please pay very close attention to this great poem.

Yeats, an Irishman, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 :

THE STOLEN CHILD

Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that dropp their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). Image courtesy Shenandoah Literary

In the Spirit of David Cornelius Singh

David’s father

Email : davidnfather@gmail.com

Mar 07, 2018