PSA: Guardians of the Galaxy is AWESOME
I went to see it tonight with Jasper. I’m going again. Probably twice or so. I love it!
Pathé
Fun Day
Today I picked up my new ID card, it is very pretty 😀
In the evening I went to the city to meet up with Nienke and Ingrid at Subway for food, and then on to the cinema for the first of Ingrid’s presents. My bus was late, so I ended up being a bit late, too. Fortunately we had enough time, but they were already done eating. While I was eating my sub, Gert called. Nienke was so kind to answer, and the whole thing ended with Gert also coming along to come see the movie, Begin Again, also 😀
I really liked the movie, it’s an ucomplicated romcom with good actors and a fun story. Ruffalo and Knightlet play off each other well, the city and scenery is used well, and the other characters are well developed enough to round out the film. Plus, the music is pretty good.
Three Days Make a Post
I had a fun weird dream last night 😀
There was a war going on, and I was the general of one of the sides. I don’t know who we were fighting, or even why. I just knew, my side was the French Horde. I can understand where the Horde came from, as I have been playing a fair amount of Warcraft, but why they were French, I haven’t the slightest idea 😀
Anyway, we had to assault the enemy base, which was on the other end of a large pass. The pass was generally straight, but twisty because of rock outcroppings and other nature things sticking out. Added to that, there were many, many gates in the pass. For the WoW players among us, it was basically a version of the Dragonmaw pass leading to Grim Batol, except straight.
The gates were very, very tall; easily 8-10 meters high. And every gate was swarming with defenders. We couldn’t get too close, because they had archers and would throw all kinds of crap down on us. Boiling oil, pitch, rocks, etc… All the while yelling insults at us, Monty Python and the Holy Grail style.
Fortunately, we had trebuchets, and with the copious amounts of rocky outcroppings we had more than enough ammunition for them. And lucky for us, the gates were wood. So it took us a long time, but we managed to break down the various gates.
Unfortunately, I awoke before we reached the enemy stronghold 🙁
My companion yesterday morning
Friday I went to see Lucy with Gert and Nienke. It was an interesting film, exploring what might happen if we could use all of our brain at the same time. Even though it starts from the old, flawed, premise that we only use 10% of our brain, it is still entertaining to watch. It has some pacing issues where the first half goes fairly slow, and the second half fairly fast. I would have liked to see it the other way ’round as I found the first half, where Lucy delivers the drugs and ends up with it in her system, less interesting then the second half, where Lucy has figured out what the drugs do to her, and goes about trying to help herself before it kills her. The movie also has Morgan Freeman in it, which is always good.
After, we went to Starbucks and dropped Nienke off at the station.
Gert and I then went back to the cinema for Hercules. No deep thoughts necessary for this one, it was pure entertainment. I liked it a lot better than I had previously expected. It was a nice treatment where the myth really is larger than the man. Good to see how his friends help, and helped, him achieve the things he gets hired for, all the while using their tricks to bolster the myth.
Movies Galore! Also Lego! And Theater!
Did a bunch of movies this week, by myself and with others. Monday after work I went to see Edge of Tomorrow. It was a much better movie than I was expecting. I really like Full Metal Bitch and I didn’t even mind Tom Cruise in the movie 🙂
I also ordered tickets to go see War Horse with Mom. We’re going January 14!
Tuesday I finally went to see The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. The movie is hilarious! It’s been a long time since I laughed out loud at a movie that much. It’s been compared to Forest Gump, but it’s better than that. The titular character, Allan, gets put in a home when he blows up his hen house. Then on the day of his 100th birthday he decides to escape the coming party and attention and climbs out the window and walks off. As he goes to buy a bus ticket at the station, he gets asked to watch a suitcase for a minute and decides to walk off with it. It turns out the case is full of money. Criminal money. Cue an awesome road trip where he meets all kinds of people while being tracked and followed by the criminals that want their money back, interspersed with flashbacks to Allan’s long life where he experienced important events and met important people all the while being mostly oblivious to the importance of it.
Wednesday I had my shot again. Had it done in my arm because I still had some movies planned. Am never doing that again, though. My arm hurts like hell now still, and it’s Sunday. A quick Google has taught me that arm muscle is just not big enough. The way T. shots work is that the fluid bubble sits in your muscle and is slowly absorbed over the three weeks until the next shot. A leg muscle (or your ass 😀 ) is big enough to stretch around the fluid bubble, but arm just isn’t.
I also went to Bedum and Uithuizen with Mom to check for World of Warcraft Lego (Megabloks technically) at the Action
. Nico had seen it there, they had a big Stormwind Demolisher Set, a smaller Goblin Shredder (which I already have), about six or seven mounts+riders and eight single character figures with a small piece of scenery. They didn’t have all of them anymore, but I got a fair bunch
At the end of the afternoon I headed for the city to meet Gert. First we saw Grace of Monaco. It took me a while to get into but that’s mostly because I had the wrong idea and expectation beforehand. I’d seen trailers of the movie before, and that gave me the idea it was more a biopic of her life from marriage on and further. Until her death basically. But instead, it focuses on a specific period (early sixties) and shows how it was difficult for her to get used to life as Princess, torn between acting (Hitchcock offers her the lead in Marnie) and her family and duties, and how she could influence people, both behind the scenes, as well as the general populace. Once I figured that, the movie fell into place and things like pacing made sense.
Afterwards I had planned to go home, but we sat and talked for a while and decided on a whim to also see A Million Ways to Die in the West. I won’t dignify that movie with too many words. Suffice it to say that it is a stereotypical American comedy that runs on sex and poop jokes. The basic plot is fun, and there are occasional good, clever, jokes. So if it had been more of that, it would not have been so bad.
Thursday I also had the day off since I had to work yesterday. Nico was off early, so we decided to go see X-Men: Days of Future Past. It’s a good movie, I really liked that we got to see the merging of the old trilogy and these new films. Even though the timeline of the old trilogy is fairly effectively wiped by the events of this film, I like that they didn’t just go fingers-in-your-ears-it-doesn’t-exist-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you 😀
Back home, I finally ordered my theater tickets. As I said on Facebook, it cost me three organs and some change. But I have seven shows (in addition to the earlier mentioned War Horse) to go see in the new season two of which Mom will join me for.
- Chamber Choir of St. Petersburg: Vespers of Rachmaninoff ( 25-09-2014)
- Toneelgroep Amsterdam & Toneelhuis: Maria Stuart (10-12-2014)
- Musictheater Transparant & Claron McFadden: Lilith (05-02-2015)
- Sara Kroos: Van Jewelste (25-03-2014) with Mom
- Toneelgroep Amsterdam: Koningin Lear (03-04-2015)
- Various Comedians: Onceuponatimethegodfatherflewoverthecuckoosnest (29-05-2015) with Mom
- Marrugeku: Gudirr Gudirr (dance performance) (06-06-2015)
Friday, after work, I spent the evening reading and avoiding football. Not very lucky with that as I sat in my bedroom with the window open so I could hear the whole street erupting every time we scored. And we scored a lot.
Then, yesterday. I had a late shift, which I can normally do at home. But I realised this too late and since Kim was also working, I came to Groningen. Got a message from Gert half way through, he was at the Action, did I need any more Lego? I was indeed missing some, so I had him take a picture and saw they had ones I didn’t have yet. He was so kind as to buy them and bring them to work for me. I took my break and met him at Starbucks. I had just enough time to get a drink and chat briefly, before having to head back.
Today I slept in, and just as I was gonna go to the Parents for Father’s Day, Mom rang the bell. Dad was out cycling, so she came to ask if I wanted to take a walk with her. I joined her, and then after went back to their place for coffee and merriment 🙂
The Railway Man
Tuesday I watched the Riddick movies, while working. The first one was mostly Meh. The second was way more fun, with the Necromongers and such. The third was the best of the three. Poor puppy.
Today, Gert and I went to see The Railway Man after work.
It’s a movie after a true story about a man, Eric Lomax, stationed in Singapore during World War II. After the surrender of Singapore by the British in 1942, he and his fellow soldiers are captured and transported to work on the Thai-Burma railroad. Because Lomax is a radio man, he and his troop are at first kept in relative good conditions. But then the men start building a radio. And when it is found, Lomax takes the blame. Despite it being a radio only capable of receiving signals, he is extensively tortured because the Japanese believe he has been sending signals. One of the men torturing him is Interpreter Takashi Nagase.
After the war, Nagase escapes prosecution by pretending he never did anything but interpret. Lomax gets sent home and learns to sort of live with his experiences. Years later, he marries Patti. And when she discovers how deep his trauma runs, she sets in motion a sequence of events wherein Lomax travels back to the place where he was held. There is a museum there, now, and a Buddhist Temple. And Nagase is the tourguide there.
What follows is a deeply emotional meeting between the two where they try to reconcile the past and find a way to live with what happened instead of despite of it.
The movie takes a few liberties with the real story, notably in how the meeting between Lomax and Nagase plays out, but on the whole I found it deeply moving. The movie is slow (some might say too slow) and heavy; it cuts deep, both in the flash backs in the camp that depict the torture Lomax had to endure, as well as in the current time where the scars of that earlier time are still clearly visible. It is well served for ruminations about Human Nature, what one does in the most dire of circumstances to survive, how and what it does to you in the long run, and what is needed for true processing and dealing with things.
Seeing Things
The TV came today! Fortunately the delivery address was set for my parents, as I had to work. After work, Nienke and I had to go to singing class first. My last time, at least for now. It was fun, we did Tears in Heaven together like we’d been practicing since last time. It went really well. Then, I got to choose what I wanted for my final song. I really wanted to do Let it Go. But I can’t make it in the female way anymore. And I can do it in a lower version, but I always sing with the song. And since I hadn’t practiced this with music only, the singing itself went quite badly. So we decided to do this one together as well, since Nienke had been singing Let it Go by herself for a while now. Together, it went much better, and it was a good way to end 🙂
Then we headed back to the Station to go home where we rode our bikes to my parents first so we could use them to help with the TV. Except, of course, these days flatscreens barely weigh anything. So in the end, I carried it home while Nienke walked our bikes. Once home, I installed it, and we gave it a test run. It is very, very pretty 😀
Yesterday was an unaccustomed long day. I changed my free afternoon for the week from Wednesday to Friday, so I had to work a full day. Afterward I went to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier with Nico. It was very awesome. This movie is sooooooo much better than part one. The after credits preview scene for Avengers: Age of Ultron was good, too!
Loot
Went to see the Divergent movie on Friday with Kim. Good movie, good adaptation. I did miss a lot of details and some story parts, but as a movie, it was good. It works well separate from the book as well, as a general scifi movie.
This morning I went to a second hand book market with Nienke and her parents. I was fairly short on cash but managed to scrounge up enough loose change to be able to buy some. When we got there, there was a large selection and even a decent bit of English and non-fiction work. The one big gripe I had with it, no price tags. Some books had price post-its on it, but most had nothing. A lot had a price in the front so I went with those numbers. Which meant that after I had carefully selected five works, I was done. However, when we got to the entrance where the paying was to be done, it turned out the price in the front of the books wasn’t the sell price at all… They basically made it up on the spot, about a euro per book. Which meant I easily could’ve picked up five or so more books! But as the others were ready to leave, I had no time for that 🙁
Still I’m really happy with my loot 🙂
And tomorrow? Tomorrow it’s Rijksmuseum time! Woohoo!
Also, have some cats 🙂
Sunshine Day
Went in to work a little earlier today so I would be free at noon to meet Gert for a movie. We had lunch at Subway and then crossed the street to sit in the sunshine with coffee and cake at TOET. I can definitely live with moments like that, it was an hour well spent. The we crossed the street again to hit the cinema since our showing of The Monuments Men was at 13:30. It was a pretty good, fun, movie. Insofar a World War II movie can be “fun”. I liked the characters and the actors playing the characters. It was also interesting to watch and get a glimpse of what the real guys were doing back then. I missed a good through line. There was no real plot, it felt more like several vignettes that featured the same characters. Not in itself bad, but not really good either. The movie is saved by its casting.
Tonight I tried yoga at the gym. I’m used to Pilates, and figured yoga would be calmer and more zen and stuff. Instead, I died o.0 It’s crazy intensive and much more challenging than Pilates is. Although it did end with a nice couple minutes of meditation.
Yesterday I finished After Earth, the book of the movie. Now, the movie was really bad, but the book is actually pretty good. It helps it was written by Peter David. This is also what convinced me to take the book when I was over at Kim’s the other week to rummage through her box of books-to-get-rid-of. I’ve read several Star Trek tie-ins that Peter David wrote and I really enjoy those. He’s a good writer. Which was evident throughout the book. Of course he has to follow the script but he really managed to make it his own and work in a lot of extra background info about the world of After Earth that rounded out the story. The book is much better than the movie.
All Over the Place
It wasn’t very busy at work on Friday, so when I got there a wee bit before twelve to start my shift at noon, I figured I’d ask for leave. I had some reporting stuff to do later on, so I just asked for leave until 16:00, which I got.
Then Nienke suggested we go to the movies. So she asked for leave, and then Thomas was game for movie as well. We harassed traffic for quick answers, which we got, and off we went to the cinema. We decided on Need for Speed which was actually a pretty good movie. There was a decent plot, nice actors and very pretty (and fast) cars.
Afterward we went back to work until the end of our shifts, it was hilarious seeing everyone’s faces when we showed up again after leaving earlier 😀
Saturday we went to Ikea, really early in the morning. I got the big Hemnes cabinet along with some fabric baskets to put inside it. When we got to the kitchen part, I fell for the dishes there. I’d been bored with my regular whites anyway so I got new plates and bowls in dark purple and faded green. Also two picture frames to display some of the Paul Kidby prints I got as a Kickstarter reward. After getting home I spent the rest of the day building the bloody cabinet. By nightfall it was ready so I could put stuff in it. It will probably take a little bit of getting used too, as it’s a wee bit deeper than I anticipated/remembered. But it does already look much better than before. It’s real nice to have a proper place to spread out the altar.
This morning in Pilates class we got a new series of excercises, ouch! After lunch I removed all the winter decorations still in place and put up the spring stuff. It looks nice 🙂
Lord Erik and the Spartans in the Midwest
Movie day with Gert yesterday. I had the whole day off, so I went to the city early in the morning to meet up with him. Did some shopping first at Xenos where I bought me two awesome tea boxes.
Afterwards we went to see 300: Rise of an Empire. It is exactly what you expect of it: lots of slaughter, lots of blood, lots of gore, lots of slow motion bits to emphasise the killing and blood, very little plot. There’s nothing in this movie that sticks with you, the characters are one dimensional made of cardboard, not even a flicker of personality to make you care even in the slightest if they might die or not.
The second movie of the day was August: Osage County. Now this is a movie I really loved. It’s a family drama themed movie where, after their father disappears and then dies, the three children come home to their family home in the midwest. This leads to secrets being unearthed, arguing and awkward moments.
Today I had a late shift so I went to the store in the morning. After getting to the register with my basket I realised I forgot my wallet at home :S Fortunately I could place my basket near the register while I biked back home to get it. So my quick shopping trip took a bit longer than expected 😀
Afterward I cleaned the litter boxes and put the dishes in the dishwasher to make room on the counter for me to cook. Then, on to work I went. Work itself was uneventful, but late in the afternoon one of my coworkers approached me with a picture. “Look!” he said. And when I did I spied a picture of him on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones! As it turned out, HBO NL was visiting us again with the Throne (I think this was the third time total since I’ve worked there). The previous times I missed the opportunity.
This time around, I dropped everything and almost ran for it. I got lucky as the dude manning it was about to start cleaning up the shoot but he agreed to take my picture. So I grabbed the sword that was also present and sat on the Throne. For a prop used solely for this kind of photo shoot it’s remarkably solid and lifelike 😀 I was giddy with excitement, but managed to pull a serious face for the photo. The dude shot, the dude printed and I left with my shiny, shiny photo. After I left, a couple of my teammates showed up and also got lucky, but then he really left.
And of course I have to show you the picture 😀
Behold! Lord Erik of Westeros!
