[Traverse's Scrapbook] Movie Reviews and Mayhem

[Traverse]

This image matched quite well color scheme wise... This has been a long time in coming, but I realized the other day my scrap is based in a PC that I no longer use and gosh darnit I wanted to start new and clean and citrus fresh, so...I did. Basic Info: I'm 22, female, and enjoy gaming, eating, petting fuzzy things, reading, drawing, painting, and driving alone on dark nights with loud music. Things to expect: Movie reviews (Betcha didn't guess that, right?) Rants about movies Bemused muddled thoughts Nerdiness

[Traverse]

Black Friday I was going to do the whole Black Friday thing this year I really was. As a personal rule of thumb I don't particularly enjoy the concept of sitting outside in 20ish degree weather waiting for some kind of deal instead of wrapped up in warm blankets in bed (things that interfere with my sleep bug me), but as it would happen within a week of each other my boyfriend and I's laptops kicked the bucket in violent brief ways. Now I have this fourish year old Toshiba which I am using to write this that is some strange virus infested plow horse that keeps on trudging. I'm half afraid the amount of malware on it is what's keeping it afloat so I don't dare clean it out until I've properly backed everything of value onto something else. It's main functions in life are housing my music and running my crappy excuse for a PS program. Anyway, random explanation aside, I can get by with this, but the timing of the laptop explosion caused me to look at Black Friday in a whole new light, so I tentatively (in the way that you might poke a sleeping bear) began perusing through thin leafed papers and searching the web amidst the voracious amount of pop ups my laptop can bring. Then amazon saved me with their Black Friday week (seriously Toys r Us opening up at 5PM on Thanksgiving and whole days turned into weeks just sums up the general view of the american Christmas season), and I wiped my brow and woke up at a decent time this morning having dodged that particular bullet with a laptop on its way to my doorstep with a single click (seriously I accidentally clicked the 'one click' shopping and it just rang me out). Though Goss's Walmart adventures did sound really fun...I still like being wrapped up in my blanket.

[Elysium]

I am one-hundred percent with you on that. I've never had enough willpower to participate in Black Friday. From my perspective, you suffer through the cold, in effect wasting your time in order to later, waste a large sum of your money. But I can certainly understand the desire to save on a laptop. If ever you're in the same spot again, you should totally look here - I got my laptop from there, as well as my sister's kindle fire. The items ship quickly and they work really well! It's also a good place to go if you've broken your cellphone, or so I've heard.

That laptop sounds like a few computers I've had in the past. Illegal downloads, man...

[Gossamer]

I didn't have a black friday adventure. It's black friday now and I just got out of bed. But I did have a slowly decaying urban grey thurs at Walmart and almost no one was there. Just me and gillar.. the tire guys, and some stooges setting up hamster mazes for the masses coming later.

I did however enjoy a thrill filled night snagging this deal and that deal online as they came open. I have a haul of Zoya Nail Polish for an insanely cheap price, some fantastic elf makeup that was $7 on a $40 dollar set, and a tube of my very own Julep polish for a $1 with free shipping as a thank you from the site. It was a fun filled adventuresome night all in my jammies with a white russian, writing NaNoish stuff to fill the time between. My only real high was the five hour energy Gillar got me around 2am so we could keep pushing on. Then I went to bed around 6am... and woke up bright and early at 730am thinking I'd slept for hours.

Now I'm back at it.. more NaNo forthcoming and if I hit my word goal total for the last 24 hrs before Tarot's count, I'm heading to Sally's to cash in my $5 worth of free stuff good today and today only a bit earlier than 'before work' so i have a better selection. And that's only 2,162 more words... and I'll probably run naked through my yard in celebration of hitting my goal. 10K in one 24 hour period is not bad... not bad at all.

PS I'm holding out to go see Catching Fire until I read your review here. Just sayin'... no pressure.

Oh and PPSS. My laptop is a 17 inch monster that's about (not kidding) ten years old maybe older. Its OS is so old that Microsoft doesn't support its upgrades anymore. And I wasn't the least bit tempted.

[Traverse]

A look at The Hunger Games: Catching Fire I like Finnick, okay? Overview: So I actually wasn't going to review this movie because I figured most everyone would have already seen it and whatnot, so thanks Goss for the request! I won't bore you with my ratings out of five for graphics, acting, etc. in little bullet points because this is a series that has as much money to throw around as Harry Potter and LOTR, it has the funding it has awesome actors and visual effects, so let's just get into the thick of it shall we? Mini rant about the first movie: Now as a whole I wasn't particularly impressed with the first Hunger Games movie. I will rarely ever get upset at a movie for not lining up 100% with the book it's based upon because, frankly, that's a very unrealistic expectation, however my favorite part of the Hunger Games novel (some spoilers I guess?) was the end of games with Peeta and Katniss up on the Cornucopia running away from the dogs. In the movie these were pitbulls on steroids chomping and snarling. In the book these were werewolves with fur color and eye colors matching all of the dead contestants in the games, I mean talk about a chilling final confrontation. I was really hyped for that ending and it was a total let down for me waiting for that one moment. That being said, Hunger Games was released just on the cusp of the book's hype as well as several other sci-fi controlling government scenario novels, so with Catching Fire, now that we had the main characters in a good place, all of da monies, I was pumped and excited for the movie. The plot (if you didn't know): For those of you who haven't read the books the plot of Catching Fire is Katniss returning home with the world around her considerably altered from her winning the Hunger Games. In theory this should spell an easy life with no lack of food or comfort for her or her family, but since she has become an image of revolution, some of the other districts are in a state of pre-revolution, as it were, and President Snow is determined to use Katniss to stifle this. I won't bore you with all of the details in between, but in the end, his plans don't work and what happens is on the next year's Hunger Games which is the 75th anniversary, a Quarter Quell happens (every 25 years has to be a super epic killing spree you understand) and in the hopes of crushing Katniss as a symbol of all that is good and right in the world what happens is the competitors for this Hunger Games are chosen from a pool of the existing victors of all the previous Hunger Games...75 years worth of them. So as the only female victor in District 11 Katniss has to do the whole murdering people thing, again. Yay! So a review, right:I really enjoy this plot because you get to see all kinds of new characters and learn how people won the Games in the past, as well as introducing my absolute favorite character, (featured above) Finnick, who was one of the previous winners of the Games. Now this was my hinge point for this movie, how well the actor did Finnick, and I must say I was impressed, because he was just perfect, just as Stanley Tucci is the greatest fit for Caesar Flickerman, Donald Sutherland is a great President Snow, Woody Harrelson is a great Haymitch. The people playing the roles are absolutely wonderful, and do a splendid job of conveying these figures I had pictured in fine print. If you enjoyed the first movie or even vaguely interested in the premise, I would say jump in, it's a fun ride, with stand out visuals, a great soundtrack, good acting and writing, and pretty much everything you might want from a holiday blockbuster. It's not precisely a warm fuzzy movie with a happy ending, but it will leave you wanting more, that is for certain. I had no qualms with anything they may have left out that was in the book this time, and I thought they did an excellent job with it. Also in case you are wondering they are definitely doing the last book Mockingjay in two parts, which I learned when at a talk by the man who will be the screen writer for both movies, Danny Strong, who was hired for his political writing that will be a big part of the third movie(s).

[Caelum]

Dear Traverse, I <3 Finnick too. Like, a lot. The fact that you also heart him makes me heart you. He's not my favorite, however. My favorite is Haymitch hands down. I didn't imagine Woody Harrelson playing him until he was drunk on screen and so obviously, so brilliant Haymitch I probably squeaked. My favorite scene with him in the new movie was when Gale was getting whipped. Holy. Hell. He's good. xoxo, katie.

[Caelum]

On phone, so wonky. But! I couldn't continue with my life until I was certain you had seen this. Toddler dressed as tiger plays with tiger cub. It doesn't get much better than this.

[Traverse]

D'aww cute things are cute, thanks for the tigers!

Also agreement on the Woody Harrelson love. He's always the best snarky individual in a film. Zombieland, Now You See Me, and Hunger Games are all awesome because of him.

x

[Taylani]

Shamelessly getting to use my new boxcode ;D That being said I also adore Woody Harrelson. I wasn't too thrilled with the plot behind "Now You See Me" as I thought it was written weakly, however I loved the acting by all the characters especially him. It made the movie so much better then what it would have been otherwise.

But he will always be "Woody" from Cheers to me The slightly ...ok a lot dumb...country Bumpkin moved to the big city of Boston

[Elysium]

I hate to be tangential, but that is precisely my opinion on Jeff Daniels. Though he is an amazing actor in the Newsroom, I still always warp back to his role in Dumb, Dumb and Dumber.

I read your review of Catching Fire to my sister, by the by, and now she wants to go see the movie! I'm glad too; she's a fan of the series but is a very reluctant movie goer.