My Five Favourite Films

I love films. I love them so much. Even though lately I've been watching tv series more than films, I still do love them. Here is a short list of my favourite films and why I love them so much. They're in no particular order because I will never be able to prioritise any film over the others.

Pride

Oh yes, Pride. Pride is about a group of lesbians and gays in the 80s who raise money to help the miners who were on strike. The story is based on true events, which makes it all the more special. It's just so funny - the phrase a gaggle of gays and lesbians is an actual line in the film - the atmosphere is amazing. It's also very touching (I have to admit I cried quite a lot watching this). I have a soft spot for Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton, and having Andrew Scott and Jessie Cave in the same film isn't a punishment either. The story will stay with me for a long time to come, and if it leaves, I will just watch the film again to keep it. (IMDb)

Not Another Happy Ending

As always, the trailer is basically the whole film, but have no fear: it's still worth it to watch it! I fell in love with this from the very first scene. It's so Scottish and sunny. Of course I was already biased, Karen Gillan being my favourite actress and all, but the story feels like it was written for me. Jane Lockheart writes her first novel, which brings her instant fame and glory, and her long-lost father. She hadn't seen him since she was six, after her mother died. At the same time, she's beginning a new romance with Willie and has to write a new book. Only, she can't. She can't write. Then Jane's publisher Tom (Stanley Weber) and the lovely Roddie (Iain de Caestecker) try to make her life miserable so she can write again. 

The music, the setting, the fashion. Everything is just so nice and made me watch it seven times. (IMDb)

God Help the Girl

I just realised that this is also in Scotland. Maybe I should pick up my old dream and move to Scotland after all..!! Anyway, this film is a dream. Emily Browning, Olly Alexander and Hannah Murray are my Golden Trio. As Eve, James and Cassie they spend their summer in Glasgow, eventually deciding to form a band and make music. It's light and lovely. On the other hand, Eve tries to deal with her eating disorder and problems with her parents (who are far away). This gives the whole story a sort of tragic depth and made me want to watch it over and over again. Besides that, the music is just terrific and I haven't stopped listening to it since the first time I've seen this film. That's no coincidence, of course, as Stuart Murdoch (from Belle and Sebastian) is the guy behind this all. (IMDb)

Bright Star

Absolute pure romance. Sorry about the weird voiceover in this trailer, it kind of ruins the softness of it all. Nevertheless, you should all watch this. This is the story of the poet John Keats, who I absolutely love. That's really all I should say, actually, apart from that it's the most romantic yet also the most heartbreaking film I've ever seen. I remember seeing it for the first time and even three weeks later I found myself thinking about it. I even memorised the poem Bright Star, because it is so lovely and tragic.
The colours - soft white, light green, purple and blue -, the music, the beautiful period dresses.. Everything is poetic. (IMDb)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I gotta be honest here, I was even excited to rewatch this trailer before I put it in this post. I watched this film only recently in cinema and I am so anxious to get it as soon as it's out. I think maybe this film might be my favourite of all of them. I might have a little hierarchy after all!
I'm planning on writing a full review on this soon, so I'm going to keep it short.
As a true Jane Austen fan, I loved this film because the combination of the invincible girl power, the fierceness of all the female characters, the respect they earned from their male peers, while maintaining the romantic story Austen originally wrote, and a good splash of humour, was absolutely perfectly balanced. There, I tried it in one sentence, but there is so so much more to say. So look forward to that soon! (IMDb)

This was originally going to be ten of my favourites, but as I can't seem to shut up about some of these, it became five. I hope this was even a bit interesting to read, and let me know if you liked any of these films yourself! And please tell me your favourites, I can always use new films in my life!

Love,
Mia

March week 2

So last week the weather was GREAT. Like ‘SUMMER IS ON THE WAY’-great. That gave me a huge boost of energy and creativity. The weather today is less great, but that has given me the opportunity to write down the things that made me happy the past week.

I bought awesome socks. I actually bought them a few weeks ago, but I only started to appreciate them this week. I love them. Look at my socks. My socks are awesome.

I also passed the ice cream section in my supermarket this week and saw that the Ben&Jerry’s were temporarily cheaper than normal. So I had to buy one. Ice cream is my favourite food. I picked up the Vermonster flavour. It has maple syrup, caramelized pecans and a caramel swirl. Oh man. It is THE best ice cream I’ve ever tasted. It melts on your tongue and the caramelized pecans stay behind and are delicious and just hmmmm. So good, trust me. Buy it. Now. I’ve had it every day for the past week.

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When it starts to feel like spring and summer are very close, I start to feel more colourful. That leads me to two awesome things that have occupied my mind last week: nail polish and The Colours of Madeleine. I love nail polish, but I hadn’t been wearing it a lot over the past months. Now I’m very excited about the colourfulness nail polish gives your outfit, and how much it makes me feel like summer is really very much coming. 

And The Colours of Madeleine. Yessss. I’ve written about Jaclyn Moriarty before, read it here. She’s an Australian author and wrote The Year of Secret Assignments, among other awesome books. She is my all time favourite author. She has started a new trilogy: The Colours of Madeleine. I read the first when I got if for my birthday from my sister: A Corner of White. I fell in love with it on the first page. It was so good. And a few weeks ago part two came out: The Cracks in the Kingdom. I ordered it the second I found out about it. It comes out in The Netherlands on the 25^th of March, so I’ll have to be patient for a few more days. Moriarty has also been writing a few blog posts. She interacts with the people who comment on them, which made me love her even more. She even responded to my (unfortunately anonymous) comment on this post. The way she writes is just so funny and generally happy (fits my blog, you see).

Of course I haven’t been all creative and cool all week. I’ve been watching a LOT of George Gently. I watched the first episode when it was on the Belgian tv and fell in love. I’d seen one episode before, but never really continued watching. Now I just had to. Quick synopsis: a detective series that takes place in the north of England, about a detective chief inspector and a detective sergeant. Solving murders basically.
I am especially in love with John Bacchus. He is a racist, sexist idiot but I love him. His character is so interesting, so real. Lee Ingleby is incredibly good. Gently is of course an essential character, he’s the only reason Bacchus isn’t a super corrupt policeman yet. I love the dynamic between the two, and the historic facts about England 1964 are super educational. They really emphasise the real problems: sexism, racism, homophobia. John is always the problem, but his being wrong gets pointed out. And apart from that it’s just a really good detective series. Would recommend.
I've also watched Penelope yesterday. It has it all: James McAvoy, Simon Woods, Peter Dinklage, awesome outfits, an amazingly decorated bedroom, even Hoppipolla. If you want me to go into detail on this film, let me know. But it was awesome.

Song of the week: My IT’S SUMMER song
Buildings and Mountains by The Republic Tigers

Alright I've been loving a lot this week I see. More next week?

See ya then!
Love,
Mia

Happy new year

Hey internet people!

First of all

Happy new year everyone!

I hope you have an amazing 2013 ahead of you!!

Secondly. I am so so so sorry that I haven't written anything in a few weeks. I have an excuse though. I've been ill and I've been very busy. But now I'm all better and I have less work to do!
It's actually more annoying for myself that I haven't done anything for my blog, because I basically ejoy it so much that I've missed it.

I have a few new things in my life coming up that make me extremely excited to wake up in the morning and I hope you can see my happiness in my upcoming blogposts!

Two things that are going to happen in my life are that I'm going back to school (I'm still excited at the moment, but that'll change into teenage grumpiness after a few weeks probably) and I'm going to a Sigur Ros concert!

So be sure to check that out, I'll probably make pictures and enjoy it intensely.

Because it's the new year and I'm planning on accomplishing more this year than I did last year, I'm going to make a box in which I will put notes with happy things that happen this year. For example I could write a note now, saying 'Registered for school' or something. Because that's pretty positive, right? I want to see my life more positive from now on, making sure the happy experiences I will have stay emphasised.

On the internet I found some nice inspirational examples of how this jar or box should look like:

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For my jar I'm just using fun quotes that make me happy.

While I was making this, I remembered why I never do crafty things like this. The blue paper didn't stick to the glass, I couldn't find a black thick pencil and my last quote didn't fit..

Anyway I'm pretty happy about the way it turned out eventually.

Wow my camera suddenly decided to lose it's ability to be a camera.

But you get the general idea. (I suck at crafting)

In 2013:

♥ I will hopefully start two schools

♥ I will hopefully successfully finish one of them
♥ I will see Sigur Ros perform live, and who knows I'll maybe even meet them!
♥ I will meet a lot of new people and make new wonderful friendships
♥ I will be who I want to be, act the way I want to act and look the way I want to look

♥ The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who will be awesome-possum!

♥ Catching Fire in theatres
♥ Iron Man 3 in theatres

♥ Thor 2 in theatres

♥ The Desolation of Smaug in theatres ( BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH AND MARTIN FREEMAN &co.)

♥ And probably a lot more films in theatres..

So as you can see, I expect lots of awesome things!

I hope you have an amazingly good new year,

Love,
Mia

Little Red Riding Hood

Hey everyone!

You might recognise the picture above since it is my new banner. I have changed the look of my blog a little bit and I'm really happy with the result. I have made these pictures last sunday. It was a beautiful autumn day, probably the last weekend with all the coloured leaves on the trees. I expect the trees to be empty next weekend so I had to make some pictures of the nature reserve that's close to my house. 

Also I have continued watching Once Upon A Time and started to love Little Red Riding Hood. I adore her character, both in Storybrooke and in the enchanted forest. She's smart, beautiful and funny. You can read here what I've written about the series before.

I will not give away any of the plot lines of Ruby, except that she is awesomely badass (if I might use that word). 

Here some screen caps to make you excited for the series:

These images are from this website

I have a red cape (which I wear in the first picture) and I felt like Red Riding Hood walking through the woods like that. 

I love autumn. *sigh*

Oh hello there kitty! This little man is called Frans. He's actually not ours, but he's been eating our cat food for over a year now, so we are like his foster family. He's such a sweet fellow!

I hope you enjoyed these typical Dutch views,

Love,

Mia

Style inspiration: Ginnifer Goodwin

Hey guys!

A few days ago I started watching the series Once Upon A Time. I love the classic fairy tales like Snow White and Cinderella. I love princesses and dresses and crowns and chivalrous princes. So I thought I'd give it a shot.

The story is basically about all the fairy tale characters who were cursed by the Evil Queen, Snow White's stepmother. This curse stole away all the happy endings as a revenge on Snow White. Now all the characters are stuck in the real world in a town called StoryBrooke, where time stands still. No one remembers who they were in fairy tale land.

One of these characters is, as you might have guessed, Snow White. Gennifer Goodwin plays her and her real life 'twin' Mary Margaret Blanchard. As a kind and honest school teacher she is just like you'd imagine Snow White; a sweet, delicate and pale girl with dark hair. The way she dresses is perfectly balanced with this image we have of Snow White.

First of all her hair. It's perfect. It's dark, thick and beautiful like Snow White's, but it is short and modern to represent a Snow White-like girl in our reality.

In the show Mary Margaret wears the most beautiful clothes. Every time she appears on screen I want to just point and yell 'I WANT THOSE SHOES' or 'THAT SHIRT IS SO AMAZING'.

 

All the screen caps are from season 1, hopefully without any major spoilers and from The Ginnifer Goodwin fan site. I couldn't add too many pictures, because I didn't want to spoil anything for you, in case you want to watch it. I hope you do, though, it's filled with imagination and beautiful sceneries.

Love,

Mia

Bright Star

Hi everyone!

And we're back with an amazing film I've seen recently.

This film - Bright Star - is not just a film like any other to me. The film is about the life of the famous and ingenious poet John Keats. I had researched this tragic life of his before and I was already touched by the terrible events that took place in the short period of time.

When my sister suggested to watch this film, I was hesitant to agree. I was more in the mood for happy endings and funny quotes. Eventually I gave in and we watched it. This was probably the best choice I've made in the past weeks. Believe me: this film has affected me more than any romantic film.



I actually think that this film doesn't fit in the 'romantic film' genre, even though it's extremely romantic. It's so tragic that it stays in your mind for days. I'm the living proof because I think I watched it about a week ago and I'm still thinking about it all the time. Maybe that's just because I'm weird. Anyway, the film is so romantic and the ending is so miserable (and very well performed!).

However, I don't think just the magical performance of the amazing actors did the trick, nor the beautiful surroundings or the light atmosphere or the amazing costumes. No I think that the fact that all this really happened made me fall for this film forever.

The film is comparable to Becoming Jane (this film is about the (love)life of Jane Austen; also tragic) but I think Becoming Jane is somewhat lighter than Bright Star.

Watch the trailer!

Love,

Mia

Happy cats

Miep:

Music: Ice age by John Powell

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre never really appealed me. I had seen the series a thousand times, but I never really liked it. I think I grew out of that dislike, because when I heard that there was going to be a new film with Mia Wasikowska, I was thrilled! I really wanted to see it so I went to Zwolle with my sister.

The story of Jane Eyre is filled with mystery and excitement. Of course most of all, it´s filled with romance and heartache. Jane is a very clever woman, also a very good woman despite her experiences in the past. I just love Jane, but when I learned that Mia was going to be the leading actress in this film, I couldn´t be happier. I knew Mia from Alice in Wonderland and I thought she was wonderful. She was also a good Jane, but she´s just too beautiful.

The film was just so beautiful. The music, the colours, the images were all amazing. Everything was peaceful. It was really relaxing to watch it. The setting was so beautifully filmed, like you were really there and you could almost feel the wind in your hair.. The dress Jane wore was so beautiful. It was simple, but everything Mia would wear, would look stunning..

I hope everyone will enjoy this film as much as I did. I´ve been listening to the soundtrack suite for weeks now and suddenly I felt the need to read the book. (I know, shame on me for not have read it yet, but I don’t have time for these little joys in life since I’m in the final year of school)

I will definitely read it, and when I have I will tell you how much I loved it.

Love, Mia



The Fall

Yesterday and the day before yesterday I went to Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part 2. Just before the second time I went to see it, I watched The Fall (with Lee Pace from Pushing Daisies). So this film was kind of pushed in between two Harry Potters, but it was very impressive all the same.
The colours of just about anything actually are so bright and pretty. I allready loved Lee Pace because of Pushing Daisies (where he played Ned, the amazingly good looking shy guy with the magic finger) but when I saw that little girl acting I fell in love with her. She acts so casual as if she's really Alexandria in a hospital listening to an amazing story.
The story is also very good. I love the amount of imagination that's put in there. It's funny, sad, intriguing and beautiful at the same time.




Look at these colours! The sand and the sky with the red of the helmets..




This sweet little girl is Catinca Untaru. She plays Alexandria, and she's amazing as I've already said.

This is Justine Wadell, who plays the princess in this film. She's really beautiful. She's also Molly in Wives and Daughters.

Please watch this film, because it deserves your attention and love.

Love,
Mia

"Did I say an engagement is an elephant, ma'm?!"

Hey there!
My sister and I love Period dramas. Recently we watched Wives and Daughters, and we loved it. It was exactly what you can expect from a Costume drama. The characters were amazing, the story was typical, but original and the dresses.. Oh, the dresses.. The male clothes were cool too!

These are screenshots from the first episode:

YES! It's professor Dumbledore! And many others in many other Period dramas.

I love his outfit!

YES! It's Jane Bennet, from Pride and Prejudice! She's really cool here, as lady Harriet.

YES! It's mr. Collins, from Pride and Prejudice, and here he is actually really sweet!

You can watch it online here

Love,
Mia

PS: to understand the title of this post, you must watch it!