Dec 29, 2012

Why do the Harry Potter movies suck so bad?

Completly different from my last posts, but hey! I'm a movie and literature lover, so I felt the need to discuss this subject.

The question that hunts my mind from time to time is: Why do the Harry Potter movies suck so bad?
I think it is wise to remind you that this is my opinion and yours may differ. Just to avoid enraged fans ^^

When I was 11 years old, I had already read the 4 HP books that existed so far, and I LOVED them, I still do actually ^^, it was the year of 2000, and one year after that I was anxiously anticipating the new book, but instead we got a movie. "Alright, a movie!" I was super excited! I went to the premiere here in Portugal, and I was prepared to watch one of the most awesome movies ever created! - Girl, was I wrong - I almost cried with disappointment when I left the theatre.
 I know, I know, you can't expect a movie to be better than the book and I really wasn't, but the movie didn't even tried! It didn't even made the book the tiniest little justice. It was and IS horrid. 
I was sure it was gonna be a flop. Who in they're right mind would like the movie after reading the book which was FAR superior? Oh yeah, I forgot... most kids of my age didn't read that much and they didn't even know that the books existed, so many loved the movie, because let's face it, it is an immature movie, whereas the book isn't.
After the movie I got a bit "angry" at the HP fandom, 'cause I almost felt as a personal offense from JK Rowling letting my favourite book, at the time, be butchered like that :(

Many years after! We're in 2012, last week to be exact, and I decided to give the movies another try. I though - maybe the first movies were the worst, cause the cast was still young and unexperienced, yadda, yadda (which doesn't really matter 'cause the problem is not really the cast, cause there are GREAT actors in it, but yeah). Anyway, I decided to watch the Order of Phoenix (I ended up watching the previous movies too, when they aired on tv). 

First of all, how can you even expect a consistent saga when the director isn't even the same?  Let's see:

Sorcerer's Stone: Chris Columbus
Chamber of Secrets: Chris Columbus
Prisioner of Azkaban: Alfonso Cuarón
Goblet of Fire: Mike Newell
Order of Phoenix and so forth: David Yates

HP was actually David Yates first grand production (he had done some TV movies and mini-series only), I wish I could say it was also his last, but unfortunatelly it has been rumoured that he's been working on new projects, including a Tarzan movie (ouch).
I'll be talking about the Order of Phoenix only, for now, since it was the last one I've watched. 
I can honestly say it's one of the worst directing and screenplay I've seen, besides B movies. 
The story evolves in hyper-speed, you just want to shout "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN" at the screen. The way the scenes are connected, oh lawdy, it looks like Yates had a list of scenes he had to include from the book and how they connect to each other is completely overrated. It is also ironic how fast-paced the movie is and still.. incredibly boring.

Side Note:  Did you know that the Sorcerer's Stone book has 310 pages and the Order of Phoenix has 870, but the first HP movie has 152 minutes while the fifth has 138? I mean, really?! So the book is almost triple the size, but the movie is shorter.. makes sense. It explains why it looks so freakin rushed and chopped.

In the book the character of Harry gets much more moody and complex, you realize he's not the perfect hero, neither was he's father, who was kinda douchebaggy actually. You get none of that in the movie, it's just good ol' Harry with that stale personality of his and no character development.
The only good parts were the few minutes Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman or Helena Boham Carter were on screen.

Now that I've shown my discontentment about the movies, I would really like to hear from people that love them and why. We all have different perspectives and opinions, but it intrigues me how one can love equally both books and movies. In some cases people are so obssessed about HP that they will love everything about it blindly (that's the bad thing about fandoms), so they can't have a objective perception of the movies. And there are some people that have never read the books and love the movies  - Those I can't really understand :| Cause if you thought that shit was good, if you read the books your brain will freakin' explode! 
And I'm not even sure if there are people that have read the books and seen the movies and prefer the movies O_O But if there are, I'd love to hear from you and hear your opinion :D

And to end this post here's a drawing of me as a Ravenclaw student :D



Dec 19, 2012

MUOTD 4 - Dark Sailormoon Inspired Makeup

Argh, haven't posted anything for awhile! Altough I have been drawing almost non stop everytime I get some free time, so that's a good reason for neglecting my blog ^^
I'll just update with some crappy webcam shots of my makeup today.


























And here's an extra of me discovering new uses for my plugs - pencil holders, of course! When you're drawing it comes pretty handy, the back of your ear only holds one :D




Nov 30, 2012

No justice for me.

I have been feeling disenchanted with my art lately. It looks like I have been doing the same for ages, I wanted to do some different, something meaningful and appealing, but I was lacking motivation and inspiration. I can't remember the last time I've grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and just doodled away. I've been drawing in digital form ONLY for at least 2 years - this week I decided to change that. I decided to sketch something just for fun, and realized how much I missed the simpleness of drawing random stuff with a regular pencil in a regular sheet of paper. My ""traditional"" style is completely different from my regular digital style, it's much more cartoonish and stylized, but it's good to be able to practise both.

As soon as I start sketching ideas started to pop up and I decided to do a line of works called "No justice for me" - Idea born from a conversation with a friend about misogynism, LGBTQ-phobia, rape culture and other depressing stuff that need you're attention.

I've finished 2 drawings so far, more to come!









 Am I the only one who thinks the animated WIP's are just freakin hipnotazing? o_O

Nov 23, 2012

Tea with Alice

A couple of days ago me and a couple of friends went to the "Tea with Alice" exhibit at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon (it's going to be there 'till February 2013). Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first telling of the story by Lewis Carroll to the real Alice, the exhibition shows nearly 100 original illustrations of some of the most acclaimed contemporary editions of the book, illustrated by 21 artists from around the world. 
It's a small but pretty inspiring exhibit. The artworks are not hanged on the wall, as usual, but instead they are layed down on top of cute tea tables of all sizes and there are quotes of the book written in the walls. If you have the opportunity go check it out, it's worth it and it's free entrance! I think the exhibit is going to move back to London in March, but I'm not sure. If you want to want more about the it go here.




And this is what I looked like, I was in the wonderland mood, so I wore my new hat with little ears ^^ Pretty cozy and warm, perfect for this freezing weather. I also bought some new plugs, they are silicone and super plain but SO confortable, I had an hard time sleeping with my other plugs, they were hard plastic and they hurt my neck when I was laying down, I had to take them off :\

Nov 19, 2012

Look for the day + Goodreads

























Yesh, yesh, I know I said I would probably post the hair horn tutorial this past weekend, but I didn't had the time ;___; I'm not even sure if I should do a picture or a video tutorial... I'll figure it out once I'm doing it. Instead I'll leave you a random make-up I wore some time ago. You can never go wrong with green + purple! It's a color combination that makes me happy and reminds me of Halloween for some reason.

Meanwhile I made a Goodreads account, you can add my profile HERE, and hopefully suggest me some good books :D

And now I'll just dive into Junji Ito's Uzumaki again. If you're a manga and especially an horror fan, I strongly suggest you to take a look at Junji's work, that man is a freak! :D That's some f*cked up manga right there, I'm loving it ^^


*spirals away!*

Nov 12, 2012

Four Eyes

Haven't posted for a while. Gettin lazy with my posts! :|
Said I would do a tutorial about the hair horns and it's not forgotton! I'm hoping to do it this week, maybe post it on the weekend.

Moving on, a couple of days ago I got me some new glasses :D I'm just a bit far sighted so I don't have to wear 'em all the time, although I think they look pretty cute ^^, considering my last pair was freakin horrible on me :< And glasses, in general, don't really suit my face, unless they are huge, since I have pretty chubby cheeks. And these are big but not so big that they cover my eyebrows, which is good, and they are a pretty (very) dark purple.



Nov 4, 2012

Top 5 - The worst horror movies of the last 10 years

So finally I decided to make my top 5 worst horror movies of the last 10 years. I decided to shorten the list by considering only movies made in the last 10 years because otherwise it would be way to incomplete. Well, it will always be incomplete because obviously I haven't seen every horror movie ever made (not even in the past 10 years) but you get the point! :D Further in the future I might make another list as an update, if I ever come across movies worst than these (jeez, that'll be a challenge). Or , if you really dislike me, you can recommend me some! :D

Alright, let's start the countdown!


 5 - The Wicker Man (2006)



Synopsis
 A sheriff investigating the disappearance of a young girl from a small island and discovers there's a larger mystery to solve among the island's secretive, neo-pagan community.

This is probably the most obvious choice ever for a terrible horror movie. But I had to pick it.
 Pretty much everyone as seen this before or at least heard about it. It's pretty "mainstream" compared to my other choices, and I remember when it came out back in 2006, I saw the poster on theatres, but it never really appealed to me to go watch it. It has Nicholas Cage in it, so you automatically know it's gonna be bad, you just don't know how much.  
This had a pretty good budget, so it has less excuses to suck this much. Obviously the money doesn't improve on acting or directing skills, but it can certainly help in other departments. 

The Wicker Man was directed by Neil LaBute, and this was his first and only attempt at horror, he's reportoire is actually mostly made of comedies - and that's exactly what he did here: Pure comedy gold. 
There are too many things wrong with this film, but if I had to pick the worst, it would probably be the UNBELIEVABLY bad acting by Nicholas Cage, the character he plays is so fake and truely.. unbelivable and unrealistic, you feel no emotion towards him cause you never get to actually "see" the character, since you're too damn distracted by Cage making a fool of himself. 
Although, I have to admit, this movie is kinda of a guilty pleasure of mine, I've probably seen it at least 3/4 times, and if it happens to be on tv, I just can't stop watching it! It's so bad that it's... almost good. First time I watched it I laughed so hard, tears rolled down my cheeks. And I still laugh every time I see it. It's an awesome movie to be seen with friends - better than any comedy, I assure you. It has so many memorable bad moments, you'll be quoting this movie for the rest of your life. Who can forget about the bees? Oh, NOT the bees! :D




4 - Summer's Blood (2009)

 

Synopsis
A family of serial killers stalk a young woman out to find the father she's never known.

First of all, is that the funniest trailer you've seen in a while or what? That narrator is priceless x)

From all my picks, this movie has the highest score on IMDB with a rate of 4.4, which believe me,it's a really HIGH score. So I came to the sad conclusion that this high rating is due to the lead actress Ashley Greene - "Because she is a good actress?" - you might ask - nah, far from that. Because she starred in Twilight, that's why. And the only people you see getting excited about this movie are Twihards. Which, honestly, I really can't understand, because her "acting" is painful, to say the least, but hey, who can understand Twihards anyway?

So, this movie was the biggest waste of time from all the bad horror movies I've seen, just because you really don't even have to watch, the story is all summed up in the synopsis "A family of serial killers stalk a young woman out to find the father she's never known." - If you think about it for 2 seconds I think you can figure out the ending ""twist"", so the smallest synopsis ever, managed to spoil the movie... that takes skills! - not that it would be even remotely good without the spoiler. Because if you couldn't figure out the ending by the synposis, you will in the first 5 minutes of the movie.

Needless to say: predictable, predictable, predictable. Has one of the funniest death scenes I ever seen in a movie. No character development, I couldn't care less about any of the characters, I'm just hoping they all die quickly so the torture of watching this doesn't take any longer. And one of the stupidest, pointless finales. 
  


3 - House of the Dead (2003)



Synopsis
 A group of teens arrive on an island for a rave--only to discover the island has been taken over by zombies. The group takes refuge in a house where they try to survive the night.

Number 3, my choices for the top 3 are preeetty close together.
Of course at least one of Uwe Boll movies had to be on top 5! I'm picking only one, the worst IMO, otherwise this would be a list made out of this man's filmography. You don't know who Boll is? I'm not sure if I'm happy for you or you just missing out the fun. Uwe Boll's one of the worst directors of our time, and the bastard just doesn't give up. People are comparing him to Ed Wood, but Wood actually built a pretty solid group of fans over the time, he became a cult (although probably not because of his movies, but for being an inspiration as a man for some). I surely hope that doesn't happen do Boll.
Many of his movies are interpretations of videogames, such as House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, Postal, etc, so not only are the movies bad by themselves, they also spite the rage of many fans of the original stories.
House of the Dead begins like any other slasher movie - young people go to certain place, young people get killed- but is horribly written, horribly acted, horribly directed, horribly produced, has horrible special effects/make-up (I swear my Halloween zombie make-up is 1000x better) takes itself way to serious considering the laughable plot and it's incredibly BORING. My brain just turned off half way and I've seen the rest of the movie completly braindead hoping it would end soon. At least you can still have some laughs and enjoy the best dialogues you could ever hope for:

"You did it to become immortal...why?"
"To live forever."

2 - Jack O'Lantern (2004)




Synopsis 
 A violent spirit that manifests itself in the form of a Jack O'Lantern avenges people who have been wronged. 

We're almost at the top! Number 2 is Jack O'Latern. 
I don't even know where to begin with this one, cause I'm not even sure if I can call this piece of crap a "movie", it just seems like a school project ( a very bad one), it has AMATEUR written all over it. The acting is just non-existent, the plot was pretty obvious, you can figure out the ending in the first 10 minute. It's really useless to enumerate everything that went wrong in this, because everything did. It just makes your eyes hurt for 94 long minutes. The only reason this is not number 1, it's because it's pretty forgettable. When I watched it, 30 min later I had pretty much forgotten that this movie even existed, and I barely remember any details of the plot now, since it was so trivial.
The only question in my mind is: Why would someone want to publish something like this?! It´s so ridiculously amateur,  I can't really think of another word to describe it. And it's not like I've downloaded this from an undergound B-horror site or something, I actually rent it!


1 - Rottweiller (2004)



Synopsis
Dante travels across a desolate, futuristic Spain in search of his girlfriend, Ula. He is pursued by a bloodthirsty, cybernetic Rottweiler.

Whoo-hoo, We got to number one! Rottweiller - What a gem. This is everything an horror movie shouldn't be. First of all, something that always makes me frown : making animals the "bad guy" - Oh noes, let's all fear rottweillers, because they are evil dogs! :<;  Unless you're expecting a cliché ending such as - "but wait, after all, the real beasts are not animals.. but Humans!" *tun tun TUN* - But nah, you're not having non of that here, who cares about a moral ending anyway? Screw your morals, we got a cybernetic killer dog right here!
So, what I learned from this movie, is that the background story doesn't really matter, since I'm having an hard time believing that someone would think that the plot was actually somewhat decent, what matters is that we have a killer dog that looks suspiciously like the Terminator - with terrible CGI.
They tried to give all the focus they could to Rotty, but the dog doens't even have a reason to exhist! Where the heck did this cybernetic dog came from?! And why and how? Because this is futuristic Spain that's why, it should explain everything!
Basically, the movie is a chase, Dante (the main character), is chasing after Ula (his loved one), and Rotty is chasing Dante, because Dante is an escaped prisioner. Rotty had numerous chances to kill Dante, but this is not your ordinary dog, he's TRUE evil, he's not only a killer, he's also a racist and misogynist. He could have killed Dante, which was his primary goal, and would have ended the movie right there and saved us all the trouble, sure - but not when there are still black people and women on the screen! Which fortunately for our main character, where showing up all the time, so they kept little Rotty busy.
I have to say my heart broke a little when I recognized Ivana Baquero when the movie was halfway, she played Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth, I loved her acting, and thought she was a very talented young actress, who would have thought that 2 years before she was doing such crappy movies? What a waste of talent.
In conclusion, this deserves number one because it's not only bad, it's so bad it's hard to forget, it will HAUNT you! The acting, the nonsense plot, the CGI, the ending - all too bad to be true.
For a grand closure I will leave you with the best acting of the entire movie, done by: Chicken



And that's it! That was a loooooooong post, and still I tried to keep my comments short, but hope you enjoyed it ^^
Don't forget this is only my personal opinion based on the movies I've seen, you're entitled to have a different one, etc, etc, etc.   
 

Nov 1, 2012

Halloween!

'Morning Ghouls! How was your Halloween night? :)

Mine, although short, was pretty fun. Spent most of my afternoon doing zombie makeup for me, my Bf and a friend. My BF was supposed to be Mr.Giggles, but we thought it would be better if we all went as zombies ^^ 

We were supposed to go to Zombie Walk, but I couldn't finish the makeup in time, so we got there late and missed it :\  
We stayed at Bairro Alto and met some friends there. That place is always packed with tourists, so lots of people from different countries asked to take pictures with us cause they loved our costumes, it was pretty awesome :D  I wish I could have a copy of all those pics. We met people from Spain, Turkey, China, India, USA, and obviously fellow portuguese ^^
Oh! And I almost forgot, we went to a supermarket eariler to buy some liquor, we got a bunch of compliments and a little kid screamed and cried when he saw us, eheh, poor kid ^^


Later we went to Monster Walk, which was pretty crappy, we got bored and didn't stayed 'till the end. We then decided to check out Metropolis Club, Ronny Moorings from Clan of Xymox was gonna be there as a special guest DJ, but when we arrived we decided not to bother to go in, the music was pretty terrible for my taste, we stayed at the door of the club chatting for at least 20 minutes and all I could hear was Skrillex, dubstep, electronic music..  nah, thank you. We decided to call it a night then, since I was up since 7am and a friend since 6:30am, so we were pretty tired.
 
And here are some close up shots of my makeup :D Notice the little rat nomming on my shoulder.. I named him Xavier :P





Oct 28, 2012

Hair Horns look




























Cute look I like to do when I have the extra time to play with my hair ^^ Pretty simple but adorable. Might do a little tutorial on this, what ya think? :D
( My bangs were huge here :o)


Oct 25, 2012

MOTD 3 - No eyebrows makeup



I was lazy and not in the mood to draw my eyebrows, I just wanted something simple to go out do some grocerie shopping, but it got a little out of hand :P To be honest a simple makeup doesn't really look that good with no eyebrows :X And I feel prettier lookin weird anyway ^^




Zombie Walk LX poster

For the people who follow my blog and are not aware of it, I'm a digital artist and graphic designer :) So from time to time I do some pro bono work for non profitable organizations that defend noble causes or that I just find interesting and need some help with the design department. That's the case of: Zombie Walk (Lisbon)! How can you not love zombie walk? This is my first year at ZW, finally! I got so mad the past years cause I coudn't make it :< So this year I wanted to get envolved has much as I could. So I decided to help them desining the poster.

For my main inspiration, I though, right of the bat, retro horror movies posters, of course! B-Horror, Grindhouse and obviously, posters from George Romero's films.




Main characteristics: Bright and very few colors (sometimes monochromatic), grungy, very charismatic typography, regular use of sillhouettes.




And this is what I've come up with! A main red version and I also did a greyscale one as a request from the organization.
I added a very simbolic bridge of Lisbon, 25 de Abril bridge, to give it a personalized look, 'cause this is not "any" zombie walk, this is Zombie Walk Lisbon, and it's gonna kick ass :D
Aaand it's on Halloween, so I don't have to overthink my costume any longer.


Oct 23, 2012

MUOTD 2 - Zombina Makeup
























Pretty "normie" makeup ^^ Purple and green eyeshadow for the eye + black eyeliner. Full on red lipstick on the top lip, and just a bit at the bottom corners, then smudged to the mid section.
I still have purple hair, for some reason the red part of my bangs were covering the purple, so the eyebrows look a little off here :P

Oct 21, 2012

MUOTD 1 - Sunset makeup + replying to comments


Makeup I used to do often when I had my old hair, I think it matched perfectly ^^ Lately I haven't dolled up much so I have to post old pics D: And I've been feeling ill for this past couple of days, so at the moment I'm lookin like a mess :(

I've also wanted to clarify, that for some unfamiliar reason to me, my blog doesn't have a "reply to comment" button, so although I appreciate all the comments made, I can't answer them. So, thank you for the people who have been commenting! I'm not rude I promise, teehee :D

Oct 18, 2012

Getting ready for Halloween - Say hello to Mr. Giggles!

Halloween is almost here, woo-hoo! Most adorable night of the year :D This year I haven't been thinking that much about costumes until now, I think I'll fix my own costume with stuff I already own and with the lovely help of make-up ^^  I've also been practicing some face paint on my BF - So say hello to Mr. Giggles!


I know the photo looks like crap, but it's just a tiny sneak peak, I wouldn't want to reveal Mr. Giggles right away :D You'll have to wait for Halloween for the complete look, it still needs improvement. Meanwhile, I'll have to think about my make-up to match this level of creepiness.

Oct 14, 2012

Daily Outfit 2

Taking photos at night with black clothes is not the smartest idea for Daily outfit photos, and this is a pretty random pic of me talking, but oh well :P

Shirt: ebay
Vinyl skirt: pretty old skirt, I forgot where I got it
Lilac necklace with skeleton hand: Twisted Mind of Mine
Bag: Restyle
Little crown: Gift from a friend ^^ 




For make-up: dramatical eyebrows with a very simple eye, just black eyeshadow and eyeliner with a little wing. No fake eyelashes, I just have naturally long lashes :P. Lips contoured with light purple and filled with a purple/pinkish lipstick - very light colors.

Last pics were taken at home, me and my BF were waiting for the League of Legends world championship finale :D - It started at 3 a.m. here,  and lasted till almost 7 a.m. O_O, we are creatures of the night so we're used to pull an all nighter muahah. But it was a great game, GG TPA! :D

Oct 7, 2012

Daily Outfit 1

 First daily outfist post ;) Very casual look I wore the other day just to take a stroll in the park ^^

 
Super baggy and cute bat shirt: H&M
skirt: H&M
Boots: Milanoo
Tights: DIY
Sunglasses: Prada replica




Little bat wings with black eyeliner, grey eyeshadow with a splash of pink in the corners. Dark purple for the lips (in the pic looks like grey..) 

Oct 1, 2012

Happy Birthday to Cookie!

It was 3 years ago that my canine best friend was born :D My adorable companion Cookie :3 I can't believe she's already 3, seems like yesterday when she arrived and could fit in my coat's pocket!
Cookie is the most adorable dog I've ever met, she's a true friend and she definitely holds a sweet special place in my heart ^^ Happy birthday to her!

Now I'll spam you with some photos of her cuteness :D


 Cookie with only 2 months

 
First Christmas at home

First thing I see in the morning

Me and Cookie today, just a few minutes ago :D

It’s the “Too Bad to be True Horror Movie Marathon”!



A couple of days ago me and my BF decided to watch the “Ruins”. It was screened 2 years ago on MotelX, but we didn’t had the opportunity to go see it back then, so we decided to gave it a try now since we were bored and in the mood for an horror movie cliché. Summing up, the movie sucked. It was not only cliché, it had many plot holes, terrible acting, it was just too dumb to be even remotely scary, it was just… funny :D So it ended up being entertaining since we gave some good laughs (although I have to say, almost everything seems funnier when watched with my BF, we’re just a couple of goofballs).



The next night we wanted to repeat the experience, MOAR TERRIBLE HORROR MOVIES PLS – “Summer’s Blood” was the chosen one, and cinema gods have mercy on us! That was probably the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen O_O  and trust me, I’ve seen some pretty shitty movies. I gave it a 1/10 on IMDB and even that is a high rating. Atrocious acting, non sense plot and dumbest ending ever, it was so obvious I even figured out the plot “twist” just by reading the synopsis!  “The Ruins” compared to this was a freakin’ masterpiece! 


But we are thirsty for more! Can there be even worse? We want dumber stories, worst acting and directors. We want to scream “OH THE PLOT HOLES, WHY?! OH WHY?”, so I can make my (at least) top 5 Too Bad to Be True Horror Movies.

 I challenge you to make your own marathon – A week with a terrible horror movie per day, are you up for the challenge? You can follow my suggestions, which I’ll post later, or you can share your own suggestions! They have to be bad enough to either make you want to burst into tears of laugher or make you wanna gauge your eyes out :D

Next in the Marathon: Smile