Tome Thursday: The Bourne Identity

So Tome Thursday has turned more into a Saturday than anything else. I blame it on the holidays coming up, because not one of my days has been remotely slow recently!

In any event, I went back to my bookshelves and dug out my old copy of Robert Ludlum's most famous works: I have an omnibus featuring The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum. It took me a while, considering everything, to get back into it and manage to sit down long enough to read through the first book in the trilogy - since I've sort of refused to read any more novels regarding Bourne, considering the story finished when the author originally thought it over, but I might change my mind. It is, however, a challenging book to read.

And no, the movies do NOT do the series justice.

Talkie Tuesday: The Battle of the Five Armies

Hello everyone!

So, to my intense and utter surprise, my little country got to see the last part of the Hobbit trilogy before the US! That NEVER happens, so I'm just a little bit excited, considering our premiere happened on the same day as the New Zealand one (and on top of that, my hometown showed it that same weekend, too!). So my girlfriends and yours truly decided to see it this past Saturday, and to be perfectly honest I was pleasantly surprised. Not that I anticipated a huge comeback from the blunders of the second movie (don't even get me started on that one), but I did go in with a whole lot less positive than I did then, wary of the great feelings the trailers evoked knowing how disappointed I was last year, and it turns out that, all in all, this wasn't half as bad as one would have expected. Was it still bad? Yeah, especially on topics that were introduced wrongly from the start, completely off-base, or lost somewhere in translation. It will probably never live up to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, but at the very least, it WAS entertaining. One can't say anything against that!

So, spoiler alert ahead to anyone who has NOT yet seen The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, you're reading at your own risk, though if you're a book fan it gets less, considering you know what happens.

The Hobbit: TBOTFA, New Line Cinema

Tome Thursday: An Untamed Heart

Hello everyone!

So I just got back in from doing some early Christmas shopping. Brrrr, but it's cold outside now! I wish we'd get some snow as well, for the proper holiday feeling and all, but temperatures are definitely all Christmas-y now!

I was reminded of a very intriguing book I read a while back as I was perusing through the choices in our bookstore for my family, and decided to write about it tonight. The book is titled 'An Untamed Heart', and it was written by Lauraine Snelling. Now, I initially didn't even want to read any of Mrs. Snelling's books because I had gone through Janette Oke and most of hers, and thought I'd had enough of that kind of literature for a while, but in every one of Oke's books there would be some sort of introduction to a Lauraine Snelling book, so I eventually caved. For those of you who have never heard of the author before, she has written numerous children's books, but her most famous ones are the adult fiction she created about a town in North Dakota, Blessing; it is around Blessing that several of her series circle (Red River, Return to Red River, Daughters of Blessing, Home to Blessing, Song of Blessing), and 'An Untamed Heart' was the much-anticipated prequel to them all.

Talkie Tuesday: Draft Day

Hello everyone!

So a (long) while back, I saw the trailer for Draft Day, completely by accident, and decided I really needed to see this movie. One, it has Kevin Costner in it, two, there are some other familiar faces running around, three, it's football, and four - Kevin Costner. Enough said?

I've been a fan of Mr. Costner's for a while now, I can't even remember for how long, and although I know he obviously filmed before I saw any of his movies, it's a tie between whether I've seen the Bodyguard or The Prince of Thieves first. I'm fairly sure The Postman came afterwards at some point when there was nothing else to watch on TV and I saw the actor's face and decided I would just sit through it even though it didn't look promising (at the start). So, seeing him in the trailer for this kind of movie, it was a no-brainer that I would want to see it even if it did take me a long, long time to actually sit down and do it. 

So ...

Hello everyone!

So really, I've just realized that I might have taken on a bit too much with the three-day blogging, especially right now, it being December and all. I'm not sure I'd be able to keep up! Not at the moment, anyway, which means that 'Synopsis Saturday' will take a little bit of a break, and hopefully come back at some point in the future. For the time being, I'll just stick to 'Talkie Tuesday' and 'Tome Thursday', which I can definitely keep up with easily, and maybe sometimes I'll throw in a random other blog post (like this one!)

Because I had a fantastic time yesterday with my girlfriends, I'm including two pictures one of them took of what we were up to until ... around 3 am at night.

Long live St. Nick! Haha.

Have a good one x

Tome Thursday: The Wedding

Hello everyone!

I was a bit on a roll with Susan Elizabeth Phillips and ended up reading bits and pieces of some other books in between, but then I went back to one of my absolute favourites, Danielle Steel's 'Wedding'. I honestly don't read much of Steel to begin with, contrary to popular belief, I have a couple of books that I like, but that's it, because generally speaking I can't get into her characters as much as I probably should, or could. In any event, however, out of the three books of hers that I like, The Wedding was probably the first one I read that honestly sucked me in. My mother bought it as paperback, and to this day I'm still mad at her for trading it out for another Steel book with her sister. Grrr! Haha.

Talkie Tuesday: The Last Samurai

Hello everyone!

I can't believe it's December already, though looking out through my window you'd think it was sometime around April by the weather. I swear we're turning into Forks here on this end, but luckily our TV stations had some good ideas this past weekend about movies and I got to catch up on an oldie goldie while that happened: The Last Samurai.

Okay, yes, this movie has been out for more than a decade already and I'm sure there are by far more sophisticated reviews out there about it, by now ten years old, but it's one of my favourites when it comes to historical movies (even if it's not entirely accurate), and if I'm honest, one of the few Tom Cruise movies I can watch. Somehow, I can't seem to get into his vibe, although I can probably name more than a couple that were really good.

The Last Samurai, WBP

Synopsis Saturday: Thanksgiving and Carlton

Hello everyone!

So something apparently went wrong yesterday while I was trying to upload this blog, but oh well, I guess I'm just a couple of hours late for some even though it's been Sunday for a while on my end. 

Before I forget, happy Thanksgiving to everyone across the pond who celebrates it!

Thanksgiving week also means that all the shows which I usually watch weren't airing, only the beginning kicked off but the others are coming back next week (or the week after, depending on how much of a break they're taking).

Now, to business!

Tome Thursday: Fancy Pants

Hello everyone!

The past two Thursdays I've spent talking about book series instead of an actual book, and while technically I'll still be mentioning a series today, I'll actually be describing a book I started reading this morning, and couldn't put down until I finished it late in the afternoon (with breaks, of course!).

The book I read is titled Fancy Pants, and the author is Susan Elizabeth Phillips. SEP first came to my attention completely by accident when my sister, looking for some easy holiday reading, bought one of her books titled 'Nobody's Baby But Mine'; since she doesn't read many books to begin with, and she pretty much giggled through most of the tome, obviously I had to check out what was so funny, and thus I found myself reading some genuinely amusing books by a good author. Now, sometimes, she does tend to repeat herself - and most of her men usually have the same knee-jerk reactions - but generally speaking, I enjoy reading whichever book I pick up that has her name on it. 

Talkie Tuesday: Step Up - All In

Hello everyone!

It's Talkie Tuesday so it's time for another movie review, and for this week I picked another dance movie (I know, I've already done 'Make Your Move', which you can find here, but I can't help myself, I love dancing stuff!): the fifth installment in the Step Up series, subtitled 'All In'.

Now, when I first saw the beginnings of the franchise, back when Channing Tatum was the biggest hit in dancing anyone had ever seen at the time, I thought to myself that this was probably a franchise that could make a couple more movies and then tie it all off gracefully. The second one, 'The Streets', came off already-weaker than it's predecessor, but I got my hopes up with number 3, although they were dashed, except at a few moments, with 'Revolution' again. So I guess I was kind of hoping for a whole lot from five, given the history of uneven numbers and the like.

Step Up: All In

Synopsis Saturday: clandestine operations, irony and John Diggle

Hello everyone!

It's Saturday, and that means the second synposis since this blog started. Luckily, this week was still full with shows, because as of the next one, a lot of them are taking a week (or two) of a break, which means I'll get some air to breathe inbetween keeping up with the lot I watch, if nothing else! It was an action-packed week on every single episode it would seem, but SO much good writing that I was sitting on the edge of my seat almost all the time. Awesome!

This week saw a newbie make its debut, so I'm going to start the review with the new kid on the block, State of Affairs.

Katherine Heigl, State of Affairs, NBC

Tome Thursday: Janette Oke

Hey everyone!

It's Tome Thursday again, and that means talking about some more books that I've read. For some reason, these first two blogs were/are actually about a book series, but I think I'll be moving away from it next week and just do one book per blog. For this week, however, I'm sticking to the series bit, and I'm going to talk about Janette Oke's 'Canadian West'.

Janette Oke is a Canadian author and I first heard about her through the movie 'Love Comes Sotfly' (starring Katherine Heigl and Dale Midkiff), but that's an entirely different series which did, however, launch me into her world. But after doing some research on the matter, I found another one about a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a school teacher at a time when pioneers were still establishing communities and outposts through the Canadian wilderness.

Stephen Amell and Maggie Grace, When Calls the Heart

Talkie Tuesday: Vampire Academy

ALERT: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN VAMPIRE ACADEMY YET, READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

(Vampire Academy, TWC)

So a while back I finally decided to sit down and watch the movie adaptation of Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy. For those of you who might not know, it's an adaptation of the first book of her YA series, which contains six of them, the others being subtitled Frostbite, Shadow Kiss, Blood Promise, Spirit Bound and Last Sacrifice. The books are really cool (I enjoyed the new take on vampires), and I'd definitely recommend them to anyone who's into all the vampire stuff.

Being an avid book reader, you'll probably understand my hesitance about heading in to see this one. Frankly put, I was discouraged by recent book-to-movie adaptations and more than a little afraid of what they did to a book I consider one of my favourites. Especially in light of the trailers they released prior to the movie itself - they just made me cringe SO bad, it was ridiculous. I honestly thought it was going to be just another MeanGirls thing (which wouldn't have been surprising given the director was the same), so making myself watch it was a feat.

And then, surprise!

Synopsis Saturday: dance elimination, Inhumans and religious conflicts

Hello everyone!

It's time for the first synopsis of this blog! As I've mentioned before, I watch a lot of TV shows during their regular airing schedules, although granted since I live in Slovenia I have to watch them differently than on actual TV, since we don't have the channels. I'm going to briefly review/comment on the episodes I watched this week, providing you with links to each show as I go. 

(Dancing with the Stars, ABC)

Tome Thursday: Georgina Kincaid

Hello again everyone!

It's Thursday, and that means it's time to talk about books.

I spent an almost obscene amount of time reading. Really; I've been devouring books since pre-school, and during primary school our librarian actually forbade me from going into the section for higher-graders even though I'd read through all the other books already, which was when my parents signed me up for the public library. From there on out, my reading journey has gone through almost everything, from crime fighting to mushy romance, with occasional zombies tossed in the mix. I mean, the main reason why I treated myself to a Kobo e-reader was to be able to take more books with me to vacation!

And there are some authors I can never get enough of, one of them being Richelle Mead. Most of you will recognize her as the author of the world-famous Vampire Academy series (Dimitri Belikov fans, anyone?), and I started my 'acquaintance' with her there, too (for a review on the movie, check out next Tuesday's blog). And then I discovered she had written other series, among them about a succubus named Georgina Kincaid.

Talkie Tuesay: Make Your Move

ALERT: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN MAKE YOUR MOVE YET, READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

As promised, here is the first ever ACTUAL blog post from me, my first review! it's 'Make Your Move', an independent movie of South Korean-American origin. I watched it a little while ago but thought it would be a nice kick-start to my ramblings.

Originally, the movie was titled 'Cobu 3D', and Cobu apparently means something along the lines of 'drumming like dancing, dancing like drumming', if I caught the definition correctly when the lead female character explained it. Basically, in short, it's another modern-day version of Romeo and Juliet, set against the backdrop of New York City, and featuring some awesome dance moves.

First Blog

Hi everyone!

A lot of people seem to be writing blogs these days, so I decided I'd give it a go, too. I've mostly seen them use Blogger.com, so it seemed like a natural choice to try out, and so far all I can say are positive things. It really is as easy as everyone says it is!

Unfortunately, if you're looking for make-up reviews or 'a day in the life of' posts, this isn't the right place for you. I'm the kind of girl who doesn't really do much in terms of make-up, anyway. Less is more! What you'll find here will mostly be reviews on movies I've seen, books I've read (or am reading) and reviews of TV shows I'm currently watching. I do A LOT of this, so I decided, why not share my thoughts about it? I comment as I go along, anyway.

To make things a bit more organized, and since I don't have the time to blog every day, this blog will currently be split into three sections: Talkie Tuesday, where you'll find movie reviews (or talking picture reviews, if you like!), Tome Thursday, where I'll talk about the books I've read, and Synopsis Saturday, when I'll sit down to give brief overviews of the shows that I watched over the week.

Basically, these last will probably be the most diverse, as I watch quite a lot of shows (juggling them around my daily schedule), but I'll get into details this Saturday! For now, I think this intro is getting long enough. Expect to see the first movie review sometime tonight!

Have a good one x