awards

The Liebster Award – Take 4

Last month (wow I’m late at getting this posted) I was nominated by Markus from The Marcko Guy for the Liebster Award. Thanks so much dude and I can’t quite believe it’s the fourth one of these that I’ve been nominated for. Still, it’s a good way for you guys to get to know me (if you’re interested) and to shine a light on some great blogs.

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So the rules are simple. Answer the questions given to you by the person who nominated you (and don’t forget to thank them), nominate some other people and give them some more questions and share the love.

So without further ado, here’s my answers to the questions Markus gave me:

1.Is there a movie remake that you actually think is good?
I’ve seen very few remakes and originals if that makes sense. I do love The Magnificent Seven (1960) and think it’s great which is obviously a remake of Seven Samurai (which I haven’t seen). I hope the new Magnificent Seven film which is out later this month is good because I pretty much love the entire cast and I love the director.

2. You’re gonna be stuck in a prison cell for a long time, name three books that you’d bring with you to pass the time.
– The Martian by Andy Weir because it’s my new favourite book and it’d make me laugh.
– The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin because it’s the last book in an epic trilogy that I love but I haven’t got around to reading the last book yet.
– The Last Man Standing by David Baldaci because this book has been on my shelves for a good ten years and it’s long so being locked up in a cell for ages would give the perfect opportunity to read it. (more…)

Thoughts on BAFTA 2016 Winners

Bafta TrophyThe BAFTAs were last night and I have some thoughts on the winners. I didn’t watch the BAFTAs on BBC One as I was engrossed in my book (A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab if you’re interested) but I followed along on Twitter so I knew pretty much who all the winners were before the show even started on the TV.

I don’t know how much the BAFTAs will be a guess as to what the Oscars winners will be, history dictates that there’s usually some crossover but who knows. But I was pretty OK with most of last night’s winners. The two big nominees that I have yet to see are Brooklyn and Steve Jobs so I can’t really comment on those that much.

Now onto the stuff I can and want to talk about. First up Best Film, I can understand why The Revenant won, it’s got all the things voters love – it was tough to make, cast and crew could’ve died etc etc but I really would’ve liked any of the other nominees to win, especially Spotlight. That film really touched a chord with me so I kind of want it to win everything it’s been nominated for so I was really pleased when it won Best Original Screenplay. The same point can be made with Alejandro G Inarritu’s Best Director win for The Revenant, I get why he won but really I wanted any of the other nominees to win more.

The acting categories are always interesting. Leonardo DiCaprio was pretty much a shoe-in to win Best Actor, I don’t think The Revenant was his best work and if he goes on to win the Oscar, a part of me thinks it will be a bit like a “we’re finally giving you the Oscar and we don’t really care what film it’s for” Oscar. I’m so happy Brie Larson won Best Actress for Room, gosh she was amazing in that film and she was my favourite out of the nominees. Mark Rylance won Best Supporting Actor for Bridge of Spies which I was happy about, would’ve liked Mark Ruffalo to win for Spotlight because I love Ruffalo but I’m happy about Rylance’s win. Like I said, I haven’t seen Steve Jobs so I can’t comment on Kate Winslet’s performance but I really hoped Alicia Vikander would’ve won for ExMachina.

I was surprised (but pleased) by how many awards Mad Max: Fury Road won. I loved that film a ridiculous amount so it see Margaret Sixel win Best Editing for it was amazing. One of the reasons I liked Mad Max: Fury Road so much was because it didn’t look like your usual quickly-edited-so-you-can’t-really-see-what’s-happening action films and that was down to Margaret Sixel. Mad Max: Fury Road also one Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Make Up and Hair and were all worthy of the prize.

I also want to talk about the EE Rising Star Award. This Award is the one BAFTA that is voted for by the public it’s always an interesting one. I’m so happy John Boyega won! To be honest I’d have kind of been OK if any of the other four nominees won but Boyega has a special place in my heart. He gave a great speech and I’m still so happy for him.

Did you watch the BAFTAs last night? Do you get caught up in awards buzz or don’t you care that much? Let me know if there was anyone you’d wished have won below

The full list of winners: (more…)

Siblinghood of the World Bloggers Tag

Thank you so much to Felicia Sue Lynn for tagging me in the Siblinghood of the World Bloggers tag! To be honest she tagged me absolutely ages ago but I kept forgetting about it but now it’s finally here and in time to spread some love at the end of the year!

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Rules:
– Thank the blogger who nominated you, linking back to their site
– Put the award logo on your blog
– Answer the ten questions sent to you
– Make up ten new questions for your nominees to answer
– Nominate ten blogs

What book could you reread over and over and never get sick of?
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling it’s my favourite book in the series and sometimes I just go back to it without rereading the rest of the series.

What song is stuck in your head (or was recently stuck in your head)?
Flo Rida’s My House – I heard it on the radio recently and I just loved it. I had the chorus in my head for a while after that.

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The Encouraging Thunder Award

encouraging-thunder award ElenaSquareEyesThank you very much to the wonderful Felicia Sue Lynn who nominated me for the Encouraging Thunder Award. This little corner of the internet is my little space for thoughts and reviews and to think that other people like what I’m rambling about half the time and think it is award worthy feels great.

Rules:
-Thank the person who nominated you.
-Post the Encouraging Thunder logo.
-Mention your purpose in blogging.
-Nominate others for the award.

My purpose in blogging:

I first started this blog when I was still at University as a place to show off and develop my writing skills to potential future employers. Over time it’s grown from being solely film-focussed to being about my growing love of comics and rediscovering my love of books. To be honest, I blog for me. It’s a fantastic feeling when people comment or like a post or follow my blog but I enjoy having this little bit of the internet where I can write reviews of books and films and comics, or talk about something big that happened in my life. Just having this blog for where I can share my opinions is a nice feeling.

I’m still getting the hang of the community aspect of blogging, I’m one of those people that likes following blogs but not too many because I like to try and make a connection with the blogs I do follow but then I end up missing out on some great blogs because of that. Let me know of any blogs you think I should follow!

I nominate:

– From Pages to Pictures
– Nerds of Color
– Drew’s Movie Reviews
– Nya Reads
– Gareth Rhodes

Blogger Recognition Award

br_awardI was nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award over a month ago now (oops!) by Lauren at Never Anyone Else – thank you so much for the nomination, it’s always a nice surprise when something like this happens. You should totally check out Lauren’s blog too by the way – it’s rather awesome!

The Blogger Recognition Award was originally created by Eve at Edge of Night so thanks for creating such a cool award.

Here are the rules:

– Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to. Do some digging if you must! Find those blogs. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.
– Write a post to show off your award! Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. List who you’ve nominated in the post.
– Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image above).
– Comment on each blog and let them know you’ve nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.
– Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. That way, anyone can find the original guidelines and post if needed, and we can keep it from mutating and becoming confusing!

My blogging story:
This blog is two years old as I set it up in summer 2013 but I only really started blogging properly and regularly from January 2014. Since then I’ve been posting reviews or ramblings on books and films twice a week. The main reason I started this blog was because I wanted to have an outlet for my love of films and my thoughts on the film industry. I was starting to do some job hunting for work in the film industry soon realised that it was good to have an online presence to easily show potential employers that film was my passion. Since then this blog has evolved into a book/film blog with a bit of my life on the side and I’m enjoying the blogging experience. (more…)

The Liebester Award

liebsteraward-e1395941897374I’ve been nominated for the Liebester Award twice in the past month. So thank you very much Joey from Another Afterthought and Briana from From Pages to Pictures!

Here’s the rules for the Liebester Award:

– Link back to the person who nominated you.
– Answer 11 questions from the individual who nominated you.
– Nominate 11 new bloggers and come up with your own 11 questions. You cannot nominate the person who nominated you.
– Inform your nominee on being nominated.

So first off here’s my answers to Joey @ Another Afterthought’s questions – he put them in a kind of choose-your-own-story thing but I’m just gonna generally answer the questions.

The book I’m currently reading: X – A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon. It’s the story of Malcolm X’s early years and I’m only thrity pages into it at the moment but I’m liking it so far.
The book that tops my favourite list over the past three years: Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross. If you haven’t watched the show and/or read the book – you really need to get on that.
The book I’d give my worst enemy: New Moon by Stephanie Meyer as it is the one book I truly hated and I’d love to give someone else that pain.

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My Oscars 2014 Hopes and Predictions

As of last night I succeeded in one of my New Year’s Resolutions – I watched every film nominated for Best Film, Best Director and every film in the four performance categories. I’m rather pleased with myself as this means this year (when I watch the Oscars live for the first time) I can actually have a fully informed opinion on who or what I’d like to win.

So without further ado, here are a few of my hopes and predictions about what’s going to happen tonight.

In short, I’d very much like 12 Years a Slave to win every award it’s been nominated for – unfortunately that doesn’t look too likely if the way in which awards season has gone so far, though that being said it did take just about every award it was nominated for last night at the Independent Spirit Awards.

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Ant and Dec and the National Television Awards

The National Television Awards were last night and to be honest it’s my favourite UK television awards show since every single category is voted for by the public.

Ant and Dec went and won the Best Entertainment Presenter for the thirteenth year running beating Keith Lemon, Alan Carr, Dermot O’Leary and Graham Norton. (more…)

My thoughts on the Oscars 2014 nominations

oscar-statueThe nominations for the 86th Academy Awards were announced yesterday. After looking through them all I have to say generally I’m quite happy with who and what was nominated – though I am a bit gutted by a few omissions.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to watch all the films nominated for Oscars this year – or at least all those in the four acting categories, and best director and best film. By the looks of things I should be able to tick off that resolution by the time the Oscar winners are announced on March 2nd.

Let’s start with Best Film. I have seen six of the nine films nominated, the three I haven’t seen being Her, Dallas Buyers Club and The Wolf of Wall Street. Those three films have yet to be released in the UK (or in the case of The Wolf of Wall Street it’s released today). Out of what I’ve seen so far (and if I’m honest seeing the other three films won’t change this) 12 Years A Slave should most definitely win.

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12 YEARS A SLAVE Reaction

(This is my unfiltered reaction (with no spoilers) after getting back from seeing 12 Years a Slave last night. This was all typed between 11:30pm-12am and I just checked for spelling errors today before posting.)

I just got back from seeing 12 Years a Slave and I’ll tell you straight away – everything everyone’s been saying about this film is true. It is a fantastic, heart-breaking, it’s difficult to watch yet a masterpiece of film.

The whole cast’s performances are incredible. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong’o and Michael Fassbender deserve all the awards that they are nominated for and if Ejiofor and Nyong’o do not get Oscar nominations tomorrow I will not be held responsible for my actions. If they don’t go on to win said Oscars I will be forever disappointed in Hollywood. They are all fantastic. They are phenomenal.

The direction of this film is perfect – I’ve not seen a Steve McQueen film before but the way he would focus on traumatic ordeals and make the audience watch and take it in is to be commended. There’s a continuous shot that pans around to see the various characters reactions to an event that must have lasted for at least three minutes – shots like that makes this film so powerful and thought provoking.

The score was fantastic. I don’t know what instruments were used but some clearly didn’t sound right together and it put you on edge. It made me tense and apprehensive about what was going to happen to Solomon next. Hats off to the composer, whoever they are. (I just googled it and it’s Hans Zimmer – of course it is the bloody genius!)

This film is so powerful because it doesn’t hold back. The brutality is in your face and it doesn’t let you shy away from that horrible part of human history.

I cried at the end of the film, I had tears running down my face and when the credits began to roll allowed myself to sob (not so) quietly. You are there on this journey with Solomon and it’s almost impossible to believe that this all happened to him. When he cries, I was crying with him. There were a few other parts during the film where I had tears in my eyes but it was nothing compared to the final few shots and the title cards explaining more about Solomon’s later life.

I feel that everyone should see this film at some point in their lives. It is a difficult film to watch and it won’t leave you once you step out of that cinema screen but that’s what makes it so great and unforgiving. I can’t quite find the words to give this film justice. I cannot recommend it highly enough and it deserves every accolade. I have now seen every film nominated for a BAFTA for best film and I can honestly say 12 Years a Slave is the out and out winner in my eyes. 12 Years a Slave deserves every award it is nominated for in every category. It is a hard film to sit through a lot of the time but that’s what makes it great.