A review: Cinderella

Cinderella follows the story of Ella (Lily James). She's grown up with both her parents in the countryside, being as loved and cared for as it is possible to be. When her mother all of a sudden dies, she leaves Ella to take care of a father that's never really gotten over the death of her mother. When he finally decides to remarry, Ella ends up with two stepsisters and a stepmother to tend to as well. While he goes away on business, Ella is gradually and unknowingly indoctrinated into her future role as Cinderella and as the news of her fathers death arrives, the staff is dismissed and her transformation into servant is complete.

Lots of movies have strong female protagonists that fight for what they want but strong doesn't always have to equal warrior. In Cinderella, it's fantastic to watch the powerful leading lady use anything but her fists. Instead, her power comes from knowing herself and the kind of life she wants to lead. In following her dreams she meets her Fairy Godmother and the magic she is bestowed is the reward for being true to herself. Refreshingly enough, this self-esteem also affects the prince (Richard Madden) and has him reevaluating his life after they've met for the first time. 

There are bits I could have done without; mainly the ending (and honestly - if someone chased me because I left a dance, I'd kick him in the balls), but aesthetically the movie really hits the nail on the head. I feel the bright colors, the glitter and the crystal shoes really help to drive home the point that life CAN be a fairy tale, despite tribulations, if you're just true to who you are.

 ©Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Used with permission.

Ambition for: April

These movies reminds me of this time of the year and that's why I want to re-watch them:

* Pride and Prejudice/PS. I love you
* Enchanted
* Planet of the Apes/World War Z
* Meet the Parents (can be swapped out for Dumb and Dumber To (which I haven't watched))

Since Easter's coming up soon too, I want to watch Easter-y movies:

* Chicken Run
* Free Birds
* Lotta flyttar hemifrån (A Clever Little Girl Like Lotta 2) - it's based on one of Astrid Lindgrens's books and in this Lotta (among other things) celebrate Easter. We watch it every year!

Aaand if there's time, I still want to watch classics with Julia (mainly The Godfather).

This is the most wonderful time of the year! The sky goes ombre at night and I just feel.. aliiive again!

In the spotlight: March

Although we didn't make time to watch any classics in March, Julia, Sara and I still watched movies together (a LOT of Disney). Here are my favorites (in no particular order):

1. Cinderella (2015)
I loved this. I can see why people may think it's too sickly sweet, but it was just the right kind of sweet for me! 

2. Anastasia
This used to scare the crap out of me, but now it's become a real favorite. Rasputin's such an overreacting drama queen that it's hard to take him seriously anymore (not gonna lie - the green monsterghostcreatures that help Rasputin still makes me uncomfortable though)!

3. Elementary
I was on a roll this month (I very much prefer movies to TV shows) and watched season two, then re-watched season one and started season three. It's not my favorite adaptation, but my favorite Sherlock. 
 
4. Red dragon
I think that Silence of the Lambs is a superior movie and infinitely more scary than this sequel, but I prefer to watch this one. I really do!   

Life hack

When someone (99% of the time it's your sister Sara) turns down a sandwich because "she's not that hungry right now" and then, two minutes later, wants "just a tiiiny bite" from YOURS, just say:

"Hey, if you weren't smart enough to plan ahead, then doom on you!" (and then chant "doom on you" until she walks away (or punches you - it really could go either way..))

Sherlock is bae: a comparison

Sherlock Holmes (two movies total)
The most action packed and esthetically pleasing, though the crimes are never thoroughly explained and therefore hard to fully grasp.
  
Sherlock (Robert Downey Jr.): Almost TOO eccentric (he's hyper and needy at the same time). And you're never given a clear insight into his methods, which makes him unpredictable and hard to connect to.  
Watson (Jude Law): The best Watson, in my opinion. He is bossy but supportive. Independent but caring. He doesn't let Sherlock walk all over him - and he's not dependent upon him either.
Moriarty: I'd say medium level scary - like that tiny black lump on the floor that makes you jump because you think it's a spider..

Moriarty? 

Sherlock (tv series)
Detailed crimes that really shows you how Sherlock can see what no one else does. Truly a one-man show! The only downside is that Sherlock's such a genius he's become a sociopath that lacks warmth. 

Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch): He picks up on everything = easy to root for him to solve the crimes. Infuriatingly robotlike with no empathy = easy to want to give him a poke in the eye.
Watson (Martin Freeman): Brings a lot to the story by being himself rather than by contributing with knowledge and partnership. Sort of a shoulder angel for Sherlock (which he needs). 
Moriarty: Eerily unpredictable and by far the scariest Moriarty. 

 I'm still savoring the third season of Sherlock, since the fourth one won't air until 2016..

Elementary (tv series) 
An unpredictable re-telling where nothing really is as you expect it to be. It even shows you Sherlock as a teacher - not a god. It's a crime series though, which makes it easy to predict when the killer will be revealed. 

Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller): He's the most human of the three and truly cares about people - he even heartbreakingly loves a few. The most sensitive and therefore my favorite.
Watson (Lucy Liu): A true partner. She has real knowledge and helps to solve the crimes as a second detective. What's great about this Watson is that she does it for herself; because she gets something out of it.   
Moriarty: Meh. Neither really threatening nor very scary.

Leaving the cocoon

This is what it feels like, when you get ready to watch the trailer to the movie based on one of your favorite books:

This is that trailer (Paper Towns):

Movie night: Cinderella (+ a lot of Elementary)

Julia was driving, I was in charge of the music (took full advantage of that fact and chose 'hits from 1998') and Hanna (blue hat) fell asleep in the back seat. We arrived at 6 pm and the sun still hadn't set! 

Cinderella was much better than we'd thought (it only got two stars in our local paper) and I have to say it's my favorite fairytale retelling to date. 

The rest of the weekend was spent re-watching season one of Elementary, eating blood oranges and doodling dinosaurs in top hats.  

Action, slow motion and explosions - oh, my!

I've watched 65 movies in 2015 (so far). I've never counted before and doing so made me realize that I have a really predictable taste. To be fair though - this chart only applies to what movies I'll want to re-watch a 1000 times (I have liked the occasional thriller or sci-fi too):

Just give me a slow motion musical with romance and a bit of explosive fight scenes and I'll love it forever!

Change comes slowly (if it comes at all)

Since I've been trying to do better this year, I thought I'd review my progress so far:

* I wanted to watch "less but better" which I've sort of been doing:
Since January 1th I've watched 64 movies - which is a lot. But I've gone with my mood for once, which has meant about 60% re-watching (instead of starting 10 movies at the same time 'so I can watch THEM ALL!') and I haven't gotten stuck watching one over and over again either. (I'm sadly not exaggerating if I say that there was a time when I watched Singin' in the rain for a week straight and hallucinated that Gene Kelly was my husband) Lastly, I've also made it a priority to watch movies with the people I love - instead of just watching stuff on my own. 

* I wanted to buy less and clean out my movie collection which I have:
I have cleaned it out - from 111 to 45 movies and I haven't bought a single one this year! (enormous progress) Instead I've borrowed movies from my family/watched stuff using Cmore and Viaplay. 

My two other goals involve doing more stuff like this. And so naturally I haven't made ANY progress yet.

In the (bad) spotlight: February

February was (unintentionally) "bad movie month" for me. Here are my least favorite ones, IN order:

1. Dracula untold 
I can't even describe how excited I was to watch this movie! I knew it would be bad, from watching the trailer, but I thought it would be "slow-motion-fighting-with-explosions-and-one-liners"-bad. The
kind of bad that I love, because it's a total escape from reality. Imagine my disappointment when the movie was taken more seriously on the surface, than I had though (i.e no explosions) but instead was full of plot holes, horrible female characters and the worst ending I've seen in a long time. An ending that had nothing to do with the Dracula you'd come to know throughout the movie. Can I rate it in sad faces? It gets 5!

2. Left behind
This is a movie where NOTHING happens. Very. Slowly. The trailer tries to make it look like it's filled with action, but it's not. Also, it really angers me when a story centers around a religion, in order to scare the viewer into thinking a certain way. 5 sad faces! 

3. The taking of Pelham 123
The ending was too quick - especially with that build-up! And Denzel Washington turned out to be more human than hero. It made me want to poke him very hard in the eyeballs! 3 sad faces.

Ambition for: March

Do I even have a goal for March? I'm not feeling too hot at the moment (life stuff) and spring is sort of "springing" really early here in Sweden, so who knows if I'll even make time to watch that many movies this month? 

If I feel like it:

* Exodus: Gods and Kings
* The Shawshank Redemption/Godfather (me and my sister Julia are planning to watch classics, that we've never watched before)
* Cinderella - in the cinema
* Elementary, season 1 (re-watch)

Best wishes,
The woman who does little else, but likes to kid herself that she actually does

What is happening? Last month, we had like 1,6 feet of snow in one day..