Tiny Ball of Light at the Oscars [musing with sherbet lemons]

For anyone looking for the Oscars autotuned sensation, here is a decent version I found on youtube. Enjoy!

David Fincher Tribute [musing for recognition]

The man deserves some recognition, and quite possibly the Best Director award. Maybe the King's Speech deserved to clean house, but how long is Fincher going to go unappreciated, even when he makes a film that the Oscars should eat right up? It's unsurprising that best picture and best director don't always go to psychological thrillers and action flicks, but The Social Network was a perfectly tuned drama. Quite disappointed in the Academy.

Improving your handwriting technique (for those exam handcramps) [just musing]

I received an awesome ballpoint pen and a fountain pen from the two main men in my life (boyfriend and daddy, respectively) for my recent birthday. At first I looked into ways to improve my cursive writing technique for purely aesthetic reasons, but as soon as I found a good guide I realised that there are lots of great reasons to improve your handwriting.

Apparently the students of my generation (including myself) are not taught how to properly hold a pen and use the correct muscles when writing. This can make it very difficult to write for extended periods of time, causing cramps in the fingers and wrist. If you have this problem when you have to write for extended periods of time, you should definitely check out the link below.

Backlog

Ever write the first hundred or so pages to a book and then have a magical creative idea that results in your having to re-write large chunks of it in order to make it awesome? Good times. That's where I am now.

I'll be back with some book and movie reviews... some day :)

Moulin Rouge (2001) - a musical with a few magical touches [review by starlight]

Moulin Rouge is a classic story of love-at-first-sight, with the twist of the hopeless romantic falling for a prostitute. I know we all claim to be tired of this sort of thing... but just stop whining and enjoy its charms. Please? For me? This film is complex enough to make that overdone plotline incredibly rich and fantastic.

A Hint of What's to Come - Moulin Rouge [musing]

Read the full review here.

I spent my birthday morning curled up in pajamas with a cup of boozed-up coffee watching Moulin Rouge. Admittedly, a glass of red wine would have been more fitting, but I thought I would break that out after lunch. Here's a little teaser for a blog post to come - check out Ewan McGreggor and Nicole Kidman singing Come What May, one of the films few original musical numbers.

This goes out to my boyfriend at work. A girl can be a little sappy on her birthday, right? Since he can't watch the video in the office here some silly love song lyrics.

Never knew I could feel like this
Like I've never seen the sky before
Want to vanish inside your kiss
Everyday I love you more and more

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste
It all revolves around you


Almost can't wait to write this blog, but I have some wine to get into. Tune in later!

Are you afraid of the dark? [musing with nostalgia]

I almost wasn't going to post on this, but I watched an episode on (godbless) youtube and was intrigued by how dark this show actually was. And I mentioned there would be something only recognizable to Canadian kids growing up in the 90s. Most people I've asked have seen this show, but then I'm from Toronto. Essentially a bunch of children venture into the forest every week to exchange ghost stories. If my memory serves me well, they were pretty neat. Cheesy, but neat. The episode I watched was so much darker than I expected. Children's shows go so far out of their way to avoid topics like death, and this show seems so much creepier to me now that I'm older. If you've never seen Are You Afraid of the Dark, I don't by any means recommend it, but if you have seen it, check out episode 55, The Tale of Station 109.1 with Ryan Gosling (The Notebook and Blue Valentine) as a little tyke. Joanna Garcia (American Pie 2 and How I Met Your Mother) is in the intro as well.

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter... of course [review by starlight]

"You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night."

I want to start out by saying that on the first read-through, Prisoner of Azkaban was my favourite. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I can't really choose an all-time favourite, but I remember reading the third book for the first time at age of 10 and being completely swept off my feet by Rowling's story telling. Each Harry Potter book has had either an excellent twist or an important plot revelation in the climax (or both), and that of Sirius Black's true story is my favourite by far. I will always be a defender of the Harry Potter series, and a dedicated fan, so I would like to take this opportunity to defend something Rowling has often been criticized for - her writing.

George Lucas' Star Wars - Growing up with it [review by starlight]

A bit of an obvious one, but A New Hope was a really big part of my childhood. It's funny to think that tons of people still remember lining up to see the first Star Wars flick in theatres, while it came out waaaay before I was born. And thus, it was a childhood staple, cycled in with my Disney movies to be watched. Daily.

Xena: Warrior Princess [nostalgia time - failure]

Despite it's nauseating title, I had faith in my nostalgic memories of Xena. It's a show about Greek mythology and heroes, what's not to love? It had Aphrodite and Ares and Caesar, Hades and Athena and Poseidon. How could it possibly be bad?

Starlight's Labyrinth [review time]

"Within your eyes, I'll place the sky" 

David Bowie meets Jim Hensen. Incredible. This movie is so weird and so magical, no one should go without seeing it. However, if you made it into your adult life without ever entering the labyrinth, it may just be too late for you. Labyrinth is just too strange watch unless you saw it before you were ten.

February is Starlight Month [time for musing]

Seems like everyone else gets to give weird themes to the months, why can't I manipulate the month of my birth to my needs? This month's blog theme will be childhood fantasy favourites - those that stand up to the test of time and those that should have been left as a fond memory. The cliched tale of a 10 year old girl disguising herself as a boy to train as a knight, dancing puppets, a certain warrior princess that we all wish we could forget about, and plenty of wizards, goblins and princes that should have been left in the past. I'm going to be taking a trip down memory lane to sort out which of these child fantasy pieces are worth revisiting, and which to avoid for the rest of my adult life.

Warning: the next month's blog may be filled with obscure subjects that may be unrecognizable to anyone who is not a 20-23 year old female living in Canada. There will be subjects before your time, after your time, way too girly for you, and completely unseen beyond the borders of the great white north. But I hope to cover enough of these childhood favourites that there will be something to drown people of all ages, sexes and nationalities in nostalgia.

Knife of Dreams Review

The last of the Wheel of Time series to be completed entirely by Robert Jordan, Knife of Dreams, was a step in the right direction for the saga. For volume after volume, Jordan had been on a long-winded ramble, creating convoluted side-plots, over-developing unimportant side characters and leaving events unresolved and stagnant. This book, the last he wrote before his death, was a testament to his power as a story-teller and a reminder of why so many readers kept drudging through thousands of pages to get to the Last Battle. I was relieved and pleased to find that his last novel was the first step to a thrilling conclusion that will be as satisfying to readers as the story's beginnings were.