Friday, March 30, 2012

Movie Review - Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror


Starring: Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane, Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo, Danny Woodburn, Sebastian Saraceno, Martin Klebba, Ronald Lee Clark, Robert Emms, Mare Winningham, Sean Bean, and more...

Directed by: Tarsem Sighn Dhandwar Original Story by: Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm Screenplay by: Melissa Wallack and Jason Keller Original Music by: Alan Menken

Premise: The Queen of a small kingdom decides she must rid herself of her departed husband's daughter as Snow White begins to outshine her as the most beautiful woman of the realm. (Rated PG)

Review:

1) Acting - Thumbs Up - Julia Roberts was a hoot as the vain evil queen. Nathan Lane delivered any number of great lines and was the perfect toady. Lily Collins made a great Snow White, especially at the end when she showed the steel beneath the fair maiden! I have always enjoyed the work of Danny Woodburn, Jordan Prentice, and Martin Klebba. Now I have four more great actors to add to the list as well. The seven of them made a great team and looked to have had a lot of fun making the film and it shows. Armie Hammer brought a great air for Prince Alcott, whose ego suffered a few blows, but he learned in time. He pulled off the puppy love scenes hilariously. Robert Emms, though he unfortunately did not return in the latter part of the film, was a lot of fun as well. Great chemistry between all the cast.

2) Special Effects - Total Thumbs Up - From the gorgeous CGI castle, to the Beast, and the super amazing killer puppets, the special effects were outstanding. The integration of the Queen as she walked through the Mirror to the other world was amazing. And I totally enjoyed the cartoonish addition of hearts to the Prince as the Queen's potion took effect. Adorable! The beginning of the film as the Queen told her tale with the dolls was nicely done.

Totally loved the ships used during the chess match. Especially when they proved to be somewhat functional!

3) Plot/Story - Thumbs Up - The screenwriters took a story that has been retold countless times yet tweaked things up enough to make it fresh. Expect many of the bits one normally ties to Snow White, though not always in the same order or to the same effect, but are there for those who know the story - whether it be from the original Grimm tales or Disney. The tack taken with the Seven Dwarves was fun and made them more real. There's also a story twist, with plenty of hints so viewers might get there before our heroine does.

Comedic moments and one liners abound. The entire feel of the piece kept crossing boundaries, but also made sure to remain light even on dark subjects. Loved the direction they took on the concept of the mirror itself.

4) Stunts - Thumbs Up - There is a lot of fun swordplay. The stilt scenes with all the acrobatics during the robberies were great to watch.

5) Locations/Cinematography - Thumbs Up - Lovely sweeping views of the forest and the CGI kingdom. Totally loved the fact that the Queen's open bedroom, showing the sky outside, would match the Queen's moods. The forest views and locations of interest there looked real and believable.

6) Costuming/Makeup - Thumbs Up - They had a lot of fun with this. The Queen's costumes were always large and grand, to compensate for her fading beauty. The wedding dress she wore was a monstrous affair but lovely. Trying to look at all the costumes at the ball totally entertained. Some truly innovative thinking - see if you can spot the sheep. The walrus took a minute to figure out, but it was totally outlandish! And all were outdone by the eye burning colors of the wigs and clothes of the attendees at the Queen's wedding. You almost got the sense they were trying to compensate for their ever growing unhappiness.

Watching Snow go through clothes for just the right thief look was fun. By the time they find just the thing, you're agreeing one hundred percent with the choice!

Conclusion: Mirror, Mirror is a fun film enjoyable by the entire family. It is funny and light, with several surprises and cute moments. Well worth a watch. The in-joke to Bollywood during the closing credits (possibly a poke at the director?) was a lot of fun!

Rating: 4 out of 5 (Hubby's Rating: Worth Price of Admission)

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Picture Kaleidoscope 3/28/12

Hope everyone is having a great week so far!


Beautiful Macro Photos of the Insides of Musical Instruments by Bjoern Ewers from PetaPixel. All of these are so neat!


Tower Bridge Dolphin Statue by Vulture Labs. The size of the original image is huge! But so much detail!


Sliced and Diced by WilsonAxpe. Love the colors and look of the thing.


Book Landscapes of Guy Laramee from PelFusion. Landscapes made from books. How do people come up with this stuff? Looks cool though.  


Ah pooh! My vain attempt t catch a cool looking sun peeking from the building. Bah! Windows that don't open! Bah! (heh heh)


The sky was looking really weird one evening, like the clouds were spilling out the side of a plate.



Weird stuff that day. 


Tried something new at Macaroni Grill called Chicken Milanese. Oh my! Between that and Bruschetta appetizer, hubby and I were in food heaven Saturday. Wish I'd had the presence of mind to take a pic BEFORE I ate. Doh! 


Been a long time since I went to visit the Horses at Las Colinas. Still totally awesome after all these years.



Wow, looks like that's it for this week. Enjoy!




Monday, March 26, 2012

Mind Sieve 3/26/12

Greetings!






Petapixel put up two videos by PES where they use stop motion to turn random objects into food. Too cute!


Making a Tintype - How Civil War-Era Tintype Photographs Were Made shared by Petapixel. This was a long process. Dang!


115 Reasons Why We Love Buffy The Vampire Slayer by Joanna Robinson (Celebrating BTVS 15th Anniversary. Dang!)


The newest Simon's Cat. Hee hee!


Video Game Mashup - Chuck Norris vs Angry Birds. ROFL

Designing From Bones - The Map Of The Creator. Hah, what fun! 







What's An Author-Agent Agreement? from Rachelle Gardner. Nice bit of info!

25 Things You Should Know About Creativity from Chuck (NSFW) Wendig. Yes, creativity is more than about writing! There is even creativity in accounting! Booyah!








Interesting post from Jami Gold - Who Cares About Quality Writing Anymore? I do! I do! *holds hand up*


After last week's flood, this one seems a little on the lame side, but dang I'm pooped! lol. Been a hard week. Don't worry, I'll dig up for stuff for next time. :P

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Virtual Tourist - Star Wars The Old Republic and Minecraft 3/25/12

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

On the Imperial Side....Nar Shaddaa

Ah the Imperials really do have such cool intimidating stations.

Safety always seems to be a problem. They always have all these open energy beams. People could get ideas, don't you know.

I don't remember if I'd run across this when I was here as a Jedi. But I loved how much this resembles the set ups in the red light districts in medieval Japan. Window shopping was quite the business.

Yes, more lovely carpeting!

A truly intimidating manufacturing area. Had been sealed for a 1,000 years but was going the whole time keeping anyone attempting to come in out. 

Yeah, some peeps didn't make it.



This machine supposedly does EVERYTHING! The secret hidden by a Sith

A yes, the corpses of men and machines who'd previously tried to gain egress. Look at those guns! 

Carpet!

Do love that neon! Hee!

Vast! Vast!

He looks mean, doesn't he?

CARPET!

Dead nasty.

My robotic disguise. This was fun. 


These lamps were just cool. 

NPCs busy at work. 

 An Ithorian! How rare!

Had to go back to Dromund Kaas to report. Must say I never did quite tell her Darkness that the man I brought back was dead.

I'm a little worried about this guy. Oozing darkness while meditating cannot be a good thing.

I NEVER get tired of looking at my Imp Spy ship! NEVER! Oooo! (Really need to remember to take pics during space combat. Argh!)



As I'd guessed, my spy has now been sent to Tatooine. I finally for my speeder! Woot! 


Now to the Republic side...still at Balmorra.


Nice droid weapon cannon. Back away slowly.

Republic scientist hard at work! 

Minecraft! And back to the original graphics as there was a major update and the texture pack peeps aren't caught up.

This is my place! I'd spotted the location I wanted not long after the new world had been created, but hadn't been able to find it again.

Naturally gutted (meaning it was created this way by the system) I've now totally encased it in glass for my own nefarious purposes. Like sleeping! Hah!


View down to the nice small lake beside the property from the highest point of my new home.

Creepers and spiders saying howdy.


From the inside. Found some bricks with moss that are PERFECT for this. Replaced the stone here with that and it looks marvelous! Of course I forgot to take a picture. Sigh. Can't wait to see the look of it once the texture pack is updated! Squee!



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