First glimpse of the Hunger Games movie

Okay, so. I sat throught the whole MTV Video Music Awards. Which would've been okay if that didn't mean watching as much commercials as actual awards material. I know this country has a lot of stuff to advertise, but come ON! Couldn't you even show more than those same four commercials playing in a loop? Geez. So after sitting through all those freaking commercial breaks, I expected to see a bit more than a 10-second teaser trailer. I thought they would show an actual clip! You still can't really tell by that teaser if the movie will be "the right kind".

Still, I very much liked those few rare seconds. They could've included Peeta at least via voiceover (I'm assuming that was Gale, right...?), but oh well. What I'm most glad about was that Jennifer looks quite young as she doesn't seem to be wearing too much make-up! Thumbs up for that.

So, yeah, thanks for this, but seriously... more please. That didn't satisfy anything or anyone.

For better quality click here.

Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (2011) - because experiencing it once is not enough

How freaking lucky it was that this movie happened to open less than a week after I arrived to the US? And as it only runs for two weeks, I easily could've missed it. But I didn't! It didn't play in my city, but we happened to make a little trip to Wichita, where it did play. (I expected film tickets to be cheaper here, but they really weren't; 13 dollars for a 3D showing, so not much difference to Finland's prices.)

Glee: The 3D Concert Movie is a sort of a documentary concentrating on the tour the cast of Glee did this spring and summer. We see most of the performances, get a glance of what happened on backstage and hear from the fans. More than once I almost began to sing along, or applaude after a number, because it was easy to forget that you were in a movie theatre, and not actually there, looking at the concert live. After it was over, I left the theatre humming Raise Your Glass and found myself smiling stupidly for the rest of the day.

All of the live performances were shown, except for Dog Days Are Over. Oh and Single Ladies! Nooo! It was the only thing I was left missing. Luckily I could go to YouTube right now and see several versions of it there. Yeah, I'm actually going, just a moment... Back now! Let's get on with it.

There were so many awesome things about seeing the live performances again. 1) Hearing Glee music is always awesome. 2) Hearing Glee music with a superb sound reproduction system is even more so. 3) In the concert you couldn't really concentrate on the little details happening on stage. Now you could see the little wrinkles around Lea Michele's eyes when she reaches for a high note in Firework, and Kevin McHale and Mark Salling goofing around during a group number. 4) Although the concert on screen wasn't the same one I saw, it took me back to that night in June and the memories were sweet. 5) YouTube videos are great, but a huge canvas and 3D glasses are even better. A huge, three-dimensional Heather Morris doing I'm A Slave 4 U made me quite happy. Hehe.

There wasn't enough behind-the-scenes material. Though I doubt nothing would be enough for me, as those people are just so lovable and adorable and funny and I could look at and listen to them for hours and hours and hours. The biggest surprise was that the blond Warbler with the cool haircut can actually talk! And other Warblers, as well! They were funny, too.

I also wanted so much more Chris. All he said was 'Thank you for loving me'. Though I think that pretty much sums it all up. That's all that wonderful man needs to say.

In between the numbers and behind-the-scenes materirial there various clips of fans declaring their love for Glee and naming their favourite characters and other things in the show. With some we looked a little deeper. Three young people described how Glee has affected their lives and improved them, or pretty much saved them. It was the good old American sentimentality, constructed in the familiar dramatized way, but still, I did find the stories quite inspirational and moving. This country is making even more of a wuss, haha.

Say what you want and call me what you wish, but I firmly stand behind my opinion that Glee is a real life-saver. Maybe it was mostly love for money that made this movie happen, but I think it's also love for something true and real and human. Glee rocks, period, and if any TV series was ever even to come close to saving the world, it would no doubt be Glee.

I'm off to see America, the wonderful United States of America

 Hehe, can't get enough of these Wizard of Oz references. But hell, it's not like I'm leaving to live in Kansas every day, so I will definitely milk everything out of this situation. So I'm leaving for Helsinki early tomorrow morning, and then it's Chicago, Kansas City and Emporia. I'm flying back on 19th of December. So, I'll see you guys on Christmas!

...Not really, though. Sure, I hopefully don't have much time to watch movies and write about them, but I think you'll hear from me every now and then, anyway. And, if you find yourself missing me so much you can hardly bear it, you can always go check out my new blog, Somewhere Over The Rainbow (told you I'm a sucker for WoO references... I'm afraid they don't end in the blog title), where I will (hopefully) actively report the latest turns of my adventure.

Bye then, for now. Pitäkää Suomi pystyssä! ^^

(And just because it's now stuck on my head, and it'd be only fair if it was stuck on yours, too...)

The Boy With The Bread, come to life

I'm getting steadily more and more excited about next March and The Hunger Games film. I will positively piss myself when the first teaser trailer comes along. Which could be relatively soon, actually, maybe even within a month, as they've already filmed all the stuff in the arena and District 12, and are currently in the Capitol. Holy cow. Merely the thought gives me goosebumps.

I know this Entertainment Weekly article with the exclusive pictures of the Hunger Games cast and the set came out ages/weeks ago, but only now I happened to stumble across an online version of the text (as I said a couple of hours ago when posting to my other blog, anything to keep me from having to pack). It's a nice read, building around an interview of Josh Hutcherson, playing my beloved Peeta in the film version.

I never really doubted his ability to bring Peeta to life in a way that appeals to me. There are actors that I immediately like, and those I don't (and yeah, those I'm first undetermined about and sometimes grow to like). With Hutcherson it was love at first sight, so to speak. When they annouced the casting, there was an instant YES. I saw Peeta in there somewhere. Josh has just the right kind of innocent charm and warmth in him. And now that he has that gorgeous blond hair, he even looks the part. I have a feeling he will be a perfect Peeta, for me, at least.

-- he seems like the rare young guy whom the spotlight will not singe. "I know it's going to be a big change, but I think if you go about it in the right way, you can still have your privacy," he says. "You got to just keep on trucking and make sure you're always being true to yourself." He laughs and gives the table a happy bang of his fist. "Which is so funny because - God bless America! - that's exactly what Peeta would say."

That's right. That's my Peeta.

Who would you be?

After a few week's break I though I'd accept the Movie Monday challenge again. Which film character would I like to be? Which fictional universe would I like to live in?

The first idea to pop into my head was very random and weird. And not nearly ambitious enough. I mean, come on, I have the whole universe on my hands; worlds and galaxies full of awesome and exciting milieus and fierce and admirable character executing daring and earth-shattering deeds. No way I'm going with something as lame as my first idea.

So, I naturally thought about Jedis. They're super über cool and can jump incredibly high and have most awesome weapons ever. But the thing is, their lives tend to end way too soon for my taste, or maybe they turn (almost) irrevocably evil just because that happens to be written in the stars or something. Too much drama for me, thank you very much.

Then I thought how wonderful it would be to be a part of the Weasley family and go to Hogwarts and learn magic and fight the Dark Forces. Only if I was a Weasley, it would be illegal for me to marry Ronald. Darn. Strike that.

'Oh but I've always wanted to live in a musical', I thought next. So how about High School Musical then? Bursting into song and dance in the middle of lunch, that would be the greatest thing ever. Maybe I'd get an amazing singing voice on the side, too? Honestly, though, that much positivity and smiling and happy endings and sugary clichees would make my teeth fall out in a day. So no. I decided to rule out every other Disney option too, because I'm always tempted to answer these challenges with Disney, and that's not very normal. (Oh wait! Does this mean I don't get to go with Pocahontas then? Damn!)

What else could it be, then? Superheroes? Other heroes? Dazzling and noble princesses? Revolutionaries who change the world? Mysterious loners or adventurous explorers from strange and exotic worlds or historic eras before ours? Nah. As nothing seemed to satisfy me, I thought 'Screw this', and concluded that I'm very boring, and thus don't long for galaxy-bending adventures or spine-chilling dangers. Not even in fun challenges that are meant for stretching your imagination and dreaming big. No, I guess in the end, real life with a spice is enough for me.

So I went with my first idea. Random and weird isn't necessarily bad.

Easy A is quite a surprising movie, as it's been stuck somewhere on the back of my head since I saw it some months ago. Comedies rarely do that for me. Thus it also happened to pop into my head when thinking about this challenge. I don't necessarily long to live in an American high school for the rest of my life, but the world of Easy A has pros too, and I will now concentrate on them.

Mainly, it's the insane wittiness that pretty much every person seems to possess. I'd love that. You'd just talk to people and say most genius things just like that. Imagine someone was messing with you, and you'd come up with the most awesome retort ever, but instead of proudly reciting the dialogue to everyone you know for the rest of the year, you wouldn't give another thought for your awesomeness, because those fantastic lines just keep pouring from your mouth all day, every day.

Also, as I would be Emma Stone's character Olive in this scenario, I would get a red hair (without having to be a Weasley and thus off Ronald's 'To Marry' list), and I wouldn't mind that. Nor the fact that she's inceribly and refreshingly mature, smart and self-confident for a protagonist of a high school comedy. I could use some of that. Also she has Stanley Tucci as a father. And Stanley Tucci would be a part of the deal, of course. Suck on that, wizards and Jedis, I have a Stanley Tucci father!

And maybe if I lived in the Easy A universe, someone would make funny montages of my boring weekends and actually make them look really cool and awesome, like this...



And for that, ladies and gentelmen, I will thus sacrifice the opportunity to jump unnaturally high, to be considered normal when breaking into a song when queueing at the supermarket, to keep saving the world on daily basis with awesome superpowers, and even to live in the Shire and spend the rest of my life eating and drinking and partying and daydreaming under fabulous trees and owning adorable feet and a terrific hair.

...Oh wait. I hadn't thought about the opportunity of being a Hobbit until now. Can I still change my mind about this and rewrite the whole post?

Citizen Kane and a slight improvement

 

15:52 I decided to watch Citizen Kane. With Space Odyssey it helped to keep 'a watching diary', so let's see if it helps me here, too. I'm not mentally as well prepared as I was last time, but let's hope for the best. I did write a very hopeful title for the post: 'Citizen Kane and a leap back to success'. I'm referring to the last two months of total FAILS in my little New Year resolution project.

15:58 Decided to watch a trailer first to get a clue of what to expect. It was a very fun trailer, though it didn't give me much of a clue. So let's get started. I'm starving, but there's nothing edible in this house. Oh well. I'll see you in a half an hour, when I'm hopefully fully absorbed in the world of Citizen Kane.

16:03 Well, I checked my Facebook page first. Get on with it, woman...

16:06 My knees are cold. That's weird.

16:07 Rosebud. Okay, yes, I've heard about that. Luckily I don't remember what it's all about. I don't know if I can actually shut up for a half an hour, but I'll do my best.

16:39 Did it! Now I need to go hunt down some food. But really, I'm quite enjoying myself.

16:55 Unfortunately I need to have a break to go and pick up my mum. Will be back in business in about an hour.

20:16 ... Or three. My nephew came to a visit and I kept him company by the sandbox making boat-shaped cakes. On with the show.

21:10 Nephew still here. He came and asked me to come and run with him in the backyard, so I did, until I got tired (didn't take long). Despite the distraction, I'm finding the movie pretty interesting.

21:57 Well, wasn't that confusing. I guess I'm a bit dumb.

22:01 Oh, I wasn't, after all. Only a bit blind for not recognizing an object. You know.

Well, a wrap-up. This sounds really pathetic, but before today, my closest interaction with Orson Wells was that Zac Efron movie. I guess it was about time to change that. Once again I saw that the film was very well made, it had some fascinating ideas and a killer cast, but it was missing that something that makes me tick. Well, I'm just a silly young girl watching one of the 'greatest' films ever made, I wouldn't understand. Haha. But yeah. I did like the trailer. And even though I wasn't blown away by what I saw, I wasn't totally bored, either, and didn't start cutting my toenails or anything, so I knew what was happening in the story all the time. It's just not my kind of a film, I guess.

So, I'll strike the 'leap back to success', even though I don't consider this a FAIL. Instead I'll call this post 'Citizen Kane and a slight improvement'.

Oh and HA! Stayed on schedule after all. Today is only the last of  July...

London memories

It's now been over a month since me and my friend came back from our gleeful weekend trip to London. For me, it was a kind of reunion with the city I've been growing fonder and fonder of over the years, and which I hadn't visitited in whole two years. Here are a few photos and words about the trip. I will seriously keep it short this time. (And give you a link to another post, which I definitely did not keep short.)

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Day 1, Friday. Our dear friend Ryanair brought us to the Stansted airport, almost on schedule this time! Hurray! The day was traditionally grey and rainy and our bus trip to centre London took so long (thanks to the traffic) that after getting to our hotel near the Waterloo station, we barely had energy to go out for dinner. Luckily there was a nice Egyptian style restaurant right across the street, so we didn't get very wet while running there through the rain. The waitress was so nice, and I remembered why I like English people so much, and the customer service. Fake politeness rocks! Haha. Afterwards we stopped by in a little corner shop, where I bought some of my British favourites: the lovely orange chocolate, Galaxy chocolate and chamomille tea.

Day 2, Saturday. My friend, although visiting London for the first time, wasn't interested in sightseeing, which I truly appreciated. I've acted as the tourist guide more than enough times already, leading my companions to see Big Ben and the Buckingham Palace and so on... This was a nice change. First we went to Camden, a huge market area which I just love. I bought a cute black-and-white dress with tiny cats in it (see the picture down below for the pattern), which has become one of my favourite pieces of clothing. Then I looked for and found all of my old favourite shops, and bought stupid funny postcards as always (one has a little dude in it, who says, "Let's go to Ikea", and another dude, laying on a couch, says, "Fuck Ikea", and I just can't get over how hilarious it is) and a traditional Star Wars t-shirt, which was not as stupid funny as usually, but pretty cool anyway. (I should propably take a picture of all the things I bought, but I'm too lazy to bother right now.)

Then we went for a walk in St. James Park, aka the bird park, which is my favourite park in London. At least it was before. My friend has an insane bird phobia, and it was pretty contagious. We draw some amused looks as we both ducked and scremed when a pidgeon flew over or something. Then we went to Starbucks and I got my Strawberry and Cream Frappuccino, which didn't taste as delicious as usually though. We drank our drinks sitting below the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. Then, um... Right, more shopping! This time on Oxford Street. I didn't buy anything there. There's just too many people for my taste.

On a side-street of Oxford St. there is a really nice champagne bar called Amuse Bouche, where we went to enjoy some yummy and not even insanely expensive champagne cocktails. Before getting back to the hotel we went for another drink in a bar called The Fire Station, near the Waterloo Station. It was nice, though we were a bit disappointed for the lack of firemen and a pole.

Day 3, Sunday.

Yihaa! Sunday! The concert day! If I haven't made it clear enough, the purpose of our trip was the Glee Live concert we had tickets for (well, we DID have them, in the end...). The concert was in the evening, and to set ourselves into the right mood, we decided to go to the Imperial War Museum (pretty much next to our hotel), and see the Holocaust exhibition. Haha. Good thinking, girls... I'd been to the exhibition once before, but the effect wasn't at all disminished. We walked out of the Museum with quite long faces and our thoughts pretty far away from the awesome fact that we would see the Glee cast live in just some short hours.

Luckily, the remedy was near. It was an awesome, sunny day, so we went to buy ice cream and sat down on the pretty lawn area next to the Museum. Then we lay down in the sun and listened to some Glee music from my MP3 player and watched the airplanes fly over us in the cloudless, blue sky. And there was the right mood again. We stayed there for quite a while, until finally made our way to the O2. Below is a 15-second taste of what we experienced there, but to read the whole story do click here. And no worries, there's no more of my lousy, shaky video clips.

Day 4, Monday.

After the concert, we were supposed to go to the hotel, get our things and walk to Victoria Station where we'd take the bus to the airport. Our flight would leave at 7 am, you see. Well... We thought, 'Oh we don't have to leave just yet, let's take an hour-long nap'. After the hour-long nap, 'Another hour won't hurt, we'll still make it'. And then, 'Aw, let's sleep some more and take a cap, screw saving money'. So that's what we did. And well, after all that money we'd already spent, a dozen pounds more didn't hurt too much.