Three DVD's I LOVE

So I went to London recently and I'd saved up a lot of money for the shops that we don't have up here. Turns out we decided to do more than spend more so I had some money left when I came home. That is where these three DVDs came in to play. 

I saw each one of these movies twice at the cinema. I wanted each one as they came out on DVD too but with my London trip looming I wanted to save my money for that. I'm SO glad I had enough money at the end to buy these.

Iron Man 3

This movie, for me, was brilliant. My dad didn't like it even though he is a huge comic fan especially of Iron Man and Spiderman! He said there wasn't enough action... I can kind of see where he is coming from but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked seeing Tony with anxiety. It made me remember that he is real and human. Don't even get me started on the bad guys. The mandarin.. GENIUS. I know it was a big movie when it came out so you've probably seen/heard enough to make you see or not see it already but hey ho it's a favourite of mine. 

Olympus Has Fallen

WHERE DO I START! This movie was a 'meh that looks good, let's go!' kind of movie. The first part where they attack the white house is the first EVER movie where I felt odd inside. I've seen other movies with mass murder like that but it never looked so real and the innocent people never looked so innocent. It really took me by surprise and moved me. Then it kept getting better. I'd heard it was like die hard in the white house. Which I guess it is BUT there's not a problem with that. It is a good action movie by it's own right and just because die hard did it first doesn't mean no one else can do it. Please do not let people saying that put you off it :)! 

Star Trek Into Darkness

I'd never seen any Star Trek movie before I saw this one! As soon as I got home afterwards I ordered the first one online! I just thought it was brilliant! The humor was spot on and I kind of fell in love with Chris Pine. I thought the bad guy was brilliant (first time I'd seen Cumberbatch). I just highly recommend this movie and just ignore all the 'geek' stigma that revolves around Star Trek because there was nothing geeky about this movie. 

I also just want to add on that I watched Warhorse last week and was highly amused by Khan and Loki being in it together. 

What are you favourite DVD purchases of late?

Falling Skies

Hello!

This is the first part of a three part blog series. I want to tell you about one of my all time favourite shows. From the title you can probably guess which one... FALLING SKIES!

On TV here in the UK it is only at the beginning of season three. So I decided to do a three part blog series about it giving each series a separate blog because even though I've enjoyed every series, I've enjoyed them for different reasons and I personally think they were all very different from each other. 

So I'll start by saying that the first series was my favourite out of the others so far. I haven't seen much of season three yet so who knows, that may come up top. 

So, Falling Skies is about a group of survivors trying to carry on surviving in an alien invastion. The show is set a few months after they invade and most of the human population have been wiped out. The show focuses around the Mason family which consists of Tom (the father), Hal (the eldest son), Ben (...) and Matt (the youngest son). SPOILER: Ben has a ... because you find out in the first episode that he has been captured by the aliens and harnessed. The aliens are capturing the younger children (10-17 years old) and putting harnesses on them which makes them become zombie-like slaves to the skitters (the shows name for the aliens). I'm writing all this and I'm not sure how much to/I should be explaining. I will warn with a SPOILER if I am going to say something that I think may spoil it. 

So the first season in a nutshell is the second mass (name of the group of survivors) trying to make a stand to the aliens. Also the Mason family want to get Ben back. We basically learn more about the aliens too. We only ever know how much the characters know. I know Steven Speilberg was very sure about the fact that the audience shouldn't know any more than the characters on the show. This is something I love about Steven Speilberg. His stuff is always very character driven and he knows how important it is for the audience to connect with the characters in as many ways as possible. 

What I liked best about series one was the character interaction. I got the impression that the alien invasion was more of a back drop than the main focus of the show. The main focus is the survivors and their interactions. It's more of a family drama than a sci-fi. I remember just after it had come out I went online to see what everyone was saying about it and I was gutted to find that a lot of people didn't seem too keen on it. They were all saying that there wasn't enough sci-fi in it. Now it has just been given a fourth season so I don't think it can be doing that bad. Although saying that I feel like season two became more sci-fi and the family drama took more of a back seat while the aliens became the main focus.

I have put the season 1 promo at the end. Check it out!

Have you watched any of Falling Skies? Let me know what you think about it :)!

Battle Royale

I feel as though I was quite late finding this book. My mum got me it for Christmas last year and I decided to make it the first book I read...



I could not put it down. I know that is probably an over used term but if there was ever a time to use it then it is now!

The first few pages are just them on the school bus and the main character pretty much names ALL of the children. Do not let this put you off. I was panicking, worrying if I didn't remember all the names then I wouldn't understand something later on in the book but this isn't the case.
Another thing I don't want you to judge this book on is the film. I LOVE films and I am open to film adaptations of books but I feel this film just did not do this book justice. Houshun Takami is an amazing writer and the way he portrays the characters is a talent I rarely find. One character may only last two pages but you forget they've only just come into it and you're upset they are gone. In the film I feel as though they didn't portray this as well. There were a lot of quick deaths to some meaningless characters. I understand film's can't do this as well as books can without the actors saying their feelings out loud but it still effected my enjoyment of the film. As far as an action film goes, I think it is good. I feel the film is more for the action whereas the book is more for the characters.

Anyway, back to the book, there are some AMAZING characters. Even the bad people are so interesting you don't mind their chapter because you still enjoy reading about them. Some of the character have stuck with me months after I finished reading it. I feel like I don't want to say too much as I don't want to give anything away.

I don't know if this is the right thing to do but I'm also going to mention The Hunger Games... I actually read The Hunger Games first (well the first book, still haven't read the second or third book) and I did enjoy it. Yet I've just never found myself recommending it to anyone. A lot of my friends have it ready to read and when I see it I always say 'That reminds me! You should read Battle Royale!' I have nothing against the Hunger Games and I know it is a trilogy and I feel I can't comment properly until I have read all three but if I had to pick a favourite then Battle Royale would win hands down. There is some very BIG similarities to them both and to be honest I was a bit peeved off at The Hunger Games at some parts because it was unnecessary. One little bit I want to mention is when Rue tells Katniss to whistle and the Mockingjays will copy and that's how they will find each other and set fires and stuff (I can't quite remember the details). This happened in Battle Royale! I just feel if I was going to write a book with the same back drop as Battle Royale I would try to not make it so similar.

The below picture is of the back page in the book. It made me laugh. We now know so much about Yuji Oniki.

I guess I just want to finish by saying go and read this book please! If you've read it let me know what you thought of it and if you've seen the film then leave a comment too as I would love to see what you think of either one of them. I feel like I have gone on A LOT here but it is in my top five books and I had to do it justice. :)!

Chasing Mavericks

Hello!

Welcome to my blog. I'm just going to get straight into it!

So me and my friend have an unlimited card for the cinema and we basically go and see anything. I'd seen Chasing Mavericks advertised a few weeks ago and the first thing that came to my mind was 'It's about surfing... I'll pass' my friend wasn't bothered about seeing it either. Then when it came out we had seen everything else that we wanted to see and being the cinema addict I am I searched the listings frantically one day to see if there was ANYTHING on. I came across this and went and watched the trailer again. It was like watching a completely different trailer. I saw past the surfing and I saw the real story behind it. I picked up my phone right away and called my friend who agreed to go and see it with me. I was expecting it to be heartwarming and a little bit cheesy but in a good way. I was looking forward to an easy going movie with some awesome surfing.

When we were at the cinema I turned to my friend and said 'I really hope this is good, I'm wooting for it.' She replied 'Yeah.. Me too.' I thought to myself, 'she really doesn't want to see this movie'. Anyway it started and I decided I liked the main character straight away. I was glued to the screen for the first half and only then did I pause for a few seconds to ask my friend what she thought. She turned to me and said 'it's amazing, I love it' I agreed and we turned back to the screen. We watched the rest and started discussing it as soon as the credits started rolling. She even went on to say that it was the best movie she had seen this year. Now I personally couldn't put it above certain other movies I have seen this year but it is definitely joint first with them.

Now I don't want to big it up too much because I don't want anyone to go expecting more than it could be in reality but I do want to ask you to give this movie a chance. Try to look past the fact that it is about surfing (a 32 foot wave at that) and to go and see it. I've never surfed but I do think it's a pretty cool sport and I would love to have a go but you definitely do not need an interest in surfing to go see this movie! I could go on and on about how good it is but I would be here all night. Just do me a favour, if you do go see it because you read it here or if you have already seen it, let me know what you think. :)!