Wednesday Whimsy

  By: Caelrona

Hiya all! It’s Wednesday again, and I’ve paused my video games to bring you another blog. This week I went to the movie theaters to see Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters with a couple friends of mine. This movie didn’t make it on to my list of 2013 movies from my last blog post because… well, I’m not really sure. It didn’t come up on any of the big lists for expected blockbusters when I was looking up movies for this year, and (maybe because I don’t watch much TV..) I haven’t seen too much in the way of promotion for it. My friends mentioned it to me, and so despite not making it on to my list (and it totally would have done!) I did actually go to a theater and see this one. Furthermore; I liked it. It was just my type of movie; plenty of violence and a bit of gore with enough humor and seriousness to keep it interesting.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters was just released here in America on January 25th. Unfortunately, it won’t be getting released until February or even March in other parts of the world, so I will try my best not to ruin it for those of you who won’t be able to see it immediately. So, in case it wasn’t obvious, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is based on the classic children’s tale of Hansel and Gretel; two little children happen upon a house made of candy in a forest and get captured by the witch living in it. They end up killing her in a desperate struggle to save themselves from being eaten by her. This movie expands on the children’s tale, showing how Hansel and Gretel continued their lives after that incident and turned their gruesome beginning into a unique lifestyle and career.

This movie does a very good job of bringing that original tale to life for adults, as well as adding to it in a clever way. Jeremy Renner (AKA Hawkeye in the Avengers) plays a very no-nonsense, slightly socially-inept and ass-kicking Hansel, while Gemma Arterton (Princess Tamina from the Prince of Persia movie) plays his equally kick-ass, no-nonsense sister Gretel. Both actors are excellent, and their characters feel very believable and real as people. Playing opposite them as their foe is Famke Jansen (Jean Grey from the X-men movies) who delivers an excellent performance as an evil Grand Witch. Apparently she enjoys playing especially powerful female leads, which is nice, because she certainly is good at them.

If you get the chance, I would highly recommend you go and see this in the theaters. I enjoyed it immensely, and I cannot wait until a DVD release so I can have my own copy, because this movie was right up my alley. If you enjoyed movies like Van Helsing, The Prince of Persia, or The Scorpion King then this will definitely be something you’d enjoy. It has that same feel to it as those movies do, although I’m not entirely sure what you’d call that, exactly. Anyway, I will leave you with that!

Until next time,

Caelrona – signing off! ❤

WEDNESDAY WHIMSY

By @hmsbeefnuts

This weeks Wednesday Whimsy will be an ode to holidays. Not the kind of holiday where you board a plane and jet off to exotic places for a week or two, and certainly not a celebration of some religious event (for that is where holiday gets its origin, holiday/holy-day, your welcome fact fans). This year I have a week off, one whole week away from work, where I get to do exactly what I want for a whole week, exciting huh? Well it is for me. So far, we are a day in, and I have slept in and gone to the cinema and made some nice food, and taken my dog for long walks. Pretty good so far. But I thought I’d let you know about what else I have planned for the week, at least in a geek context, let the Summer of Jon commence!

As I mentioned above, I saw Brave yesterday. A lot of people are hating on this film, but for me, Brave is one of, if not the, best Pixar film. The animation is obviously stunning, as usual, but the theme of the film is right up my alley. The ancient Scottish wilderness is simply beautiful, stunning hills and mountains, picturesque forests and castles and brilliantly rendered characters, many of which are memorable. The protagonist herself, Merida, is a strong female role model, and one of the most likeable animated characters in a while. Sure, the story is pretty basic, we all learn a valuable lesson in the end, but then it must be remembered that this is a kids film, and although it doesn’t stray far from typical fairytale plot points, including a witch, although, not all that wicked, this is no bad thing. Sometimes the simplest stories are the best.

Perhaps the most ‘Disney’ of the Pixar films, Merida should fit nicely into the Disney Princess Sorority, even if she is very ballsy and would destroy Katniss Everdeen in an archery competition. I’m a fan of fairy stories, myths and legends, and Brave defiantly feels like it belongs in such illustrious company. I saw Brave in a room full of excited kids and not so excited parents, but everyone left the theatre smiling. The film had good action scenes, was scary enough just to put an edge on proceedings, and I’ll admit it, quite heart warming at times. I went to see this with my Mum, and there is not a better person you could take with you to see this, go take your Mum now. I’ll admit it, I’m not a fawning Pixar fan, I like The Incredibles, Nemo and Monster Inc. but hate Toy Story, Cars, Wall-E and Ratatouille. Brave however, did it for me, top marks Pixar.

Today I returned to the Cinema, this time for The Bourne Legacy. I had enjoyed all The Bourne films thus far, and am happy to say this continued with this new direction for the franchise. Taking place during the events of the previous films, The Bourne Legacy widens and enhances the Bourne Universe, revealing that the secret goings on of Treadstone etc. go way beyond Mr. Bourne. Hawkeye himself, Jeremy Renner is our hero and he handles himself superbly, even coming close to a certain Mr Neeson in one specific wolf fighting scene. It seems that wolves are the go to animal for putting main characters in danger. As is usual in these kind of spy films, characters all talk very quickly about secret organisations with amazing names and codewords, I love all that stuff. Ed Norton is the man charged with bad guy duties, and he does a reasonable job of trying to track Renner down. The beautiful and amazing Rachel Weisz is on hand to scream a bit, then lend a hand, and maybe become a bit of a love interest at the end. The action is typical of The Bourne Franchise, all parkour running about, bike chases and slick taking people down with no fuss.

The film is perfectly watch-able and enjoyable, but I do think that I should have perhaps re-watched the previous films, just to keep things fresh in my mind, however, if this is your first Bourne film, it wouldn’t be too confusing, although you may wonder why Matt Damon is reduced to a few black and white picture cameos. By no means a great film, but I enjoyed it and would watch a further sequel, and isn’t that all a film really needs to accomplish. Worth my time and money.

Later on this week I plan on seeing The Expendables 2, and that should be enough cinema for anyone in one holiday. Anyway, that’s enough chatter about me, I would also like to comment on All Geek To Me as a whole. Geeky Gem and I would like to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone who has read, commented or licked a link to All Geek To Me over the past 8 months. On Sunday we hit a huge landmark of 25,000 views, we broke our weekly view record with a very respectable 1,921 views and also beat our previous daily record of views with a fantastic 368 in one day. So a massive thank you once again. I really don’t think either Geeky Gem or I ever thought we would get 1,000 views, let alone 25,000 so we are very grateful to you all. I’ll catch you next week with some more rubbish about something I haven’t thought of yet, catch you guys later.

 

Hollywood Hunks

By Geeky Gem 

Now not too long ago Mr Beefnuts told you how much he liked a number of Hollywood babes, this made him feel guilty and slightly sexiest. Thus he has asked me to even it up by picking some Hollywood hunks, as I explained this is to make Mr Beefnuts feel better about himself and in no way was it any fun for me.  

Ha, who I am kidding I liked picking these guys as much as Mr Beefnuts did picking his, so with out further ado here are my picks for Hollywood Hunks again as always in no real order. 

Chris Evans

 

 

Kellan Lutz

 

 

Chris Hemsworth

 

 

Ryan Reynolds

 

 

Robert Downey Jr

 

 

Liam Hemsworth

 

 

Jeremy Renner

 

 

Samuel L. Jackson

 

 

Elijah Wood

 

 

Chris Pine