Watch Me: Seventh Son, and the awesome queen performance

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I've been intrigued by the story and movie entitled Seventh Son, directed by Sergei Bodrov, back in 2014. Where I first knew about the movie through an interview with Julianne Moore and that it's not her normal role to portray, which was a villain. Something that made me fascinated on how she would do was quite worth it.

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Medieval times rang with the stench of high belief in magic and fantasy, where the good and evil had no fine line since they had physical manifestation, especially the evil. Welcome the realm of Seventh Son where being a hunter of evil, a warrior of light, is a real and practically the most dangerous job of all time.

The film focuses on the folklore of "the seventh son of a seventh son", where the seventh son holds a prowess strong enough to be comparable to witches, trolls, and other supernatural monsters of their time. John Gregory, the last Spook, is on a quest to rid the world of the revived witch queen Mother Malkin. His quest brought him to the life of Tom Ward, a teenage herds boy, who has the ability to see visions, the seventh son of the seventh son, and an eager soul to get out of his country life yearning for an adventurous one.

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Yep, my purpose to see Julianne Moore to portray the villain, Mother Malkin, was worth every penny (forgive my irony for this statement).

Folklore's and medieval themed fantasy movies are always a good taste for my fiction loving tongue. Complete with dragons, mystical shape shifter's, and the sprinkle of simple olden times life, always stirs a nice soup of imagination for my brain.

The choice for the casting feels like not my cup of tea though, especially the lead roles for Gregory and Tom, although they grow into you as the story goes by. Even the young witch lover for Tom, Alice, was quite a pick. Maybe the re-write of the story, from the original books under author Joseph Delaney, might have to do with the unusual personalities the actors portrayed. Or maybe I'm just looking for a good justification of some of the blandness I find during the course of their dialogues, acting and story.

Either way, it doesn't pull down the good parts of the film, from it's unusual dry humour in between everything and the fierce Julianne Moore witch queen. Yes, this is a blatant fan girl to her portrayal, even the moments that she would show her human side due to the hurt she had experienced (I couldn't guess well if it was the same with the book, since I have a hunch it became that to a certain point for ex-machina reasons in re-writing the story from the book) was superbly fitting to the character she wants to shape the queen into.

The rushed parts and elements of the story was melded well, in comparison to some book to movie ones I've watched, where you could clearly say that there was a missing chunk of progress lacking for the characters growth to come a full circle. The only thing I could say that was forced was the romance for Tom and Alice's part, as they used the density (destiny) excuse for the ultimate reason of their attraction but covered it's traces by a moment where Alice explains it as if it was scientific. Copper metal in friction contact with another but sparks happened due to dust.

Wish that excuse worked in real life. It does but not on the scale where two people has this obvious tension between them.

Last words, this movie was a good roller coaster ride. Maybe reading the books would shed better light with things, and I hope no review somewhere out there from a fan of the book felt completely blasphemed and disappointed for all the missing bits they enjoyed from the book.

P.S. Kit Harrington died early in this film, I didn't know it was him until I realized in his dying moments.

Watch Me: sort of The Last Dragonslayer

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Sure I'm guilty for watching a movie by it's title and the poster, which is common, but that's how I got to watch The Last Dragonslayer that was produced by Blueprint Pictures shown in Sky One on the Christmas of 2016. A story based from a book authored by Jasper Fforde.

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Don't you feel eager to learn about a medieval themed world infested with modern day thinking and innovations, such as the concept of marketing and the budding age of electricity and automation under the noses of magic. Here lies the fascinating mix up of the Last Dragonslayer as it starts with an orphan girl named Jennifer, last name Strange, as she was "fairly" adopted by Mr. Zambini. A man who managed an agency that contracts magicians to do almost all the oddest jobs they are capable of.

After growing up under her foster fathers care, one day he vanishes and a series of events brings forth Jennifers fate into the unassuming role of the Last Dragonslayer.

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Again, I've encountered an imagination fuel for the mind of a lover of fantasy.

The Last Dragonslayer is a nice mix and mash of a universe in the brink of being unable to surpass mechanical and engineering like science because of the existence of magic. Compelling characters that so far is lovable in terms of their authenticity and rawness in regards to it's human emotions and desires. Plus the complexities of their universe, laws, and the blatant play of modern concept of advertising marketing and sales in the play of medieval set.

There's a charm to Elise Chappells portrayal of Jennifer with no over exaggeration and simple acts and emotions, there might be no grounds for me to judge the way she portrayed the character since I have never read the books myself. Still, the actress still captured a genuine that levels everything else in the story. Jennifer, the heroine, simply makes you want to be her friend with her smartness, fair compassion, her love and gratitude to her father, plus her eagerness to just be a simple girl who wants to work with her foster father.

Comparing Jennifer to the absurd side characters; might be a recurring formula for some fiction stories to have side characters that simply balances out the main leads almost simple character, that walked around her somehow made her seem desirable. Something I easily fall for most often, not that I put my self into the leads shoes, but I myself feel compelled to give her a nice peppy attention that the other characters seem to give her. Although, mine started at an earlier point in the story.

The story though was your typical hero thrown into the throngs of destiny due to untold historical circumstances that have lead to the demise of the kingdom. You have your typical mysterious events from a long time ago, that the hero had to unfold due to a lot of unanswerable questions that would lead to the current situations solution. Typical ex-machina situations, cause why not magic and fiction. Plus character tropes with typical scenario endings, like the hidden twist where the assistant who was the best one the hero could find is actually one of the enemies, the judas iscariot.

That however was not stopping anyone from connecting with Jennifer who along the ride was pouring her best, that typical underdog feeling. Selling it like so shouldn't be something wrong about this story, even though it's been a proven seller to viewers, at least the underdog tale didn't sell the plot and scenarios, and it's plot twist, short.

Being enamored by dragons and the mythical world of magical crossing steampunk genre isn't such a bad thing. Somehow, you won't be tired of it because the dialogues and characters are well thought out and worth the giggle. By the end of the movie you'd have gained that warm fuzzy feeling and joy that simply puts you in a sense that somehow you'd want more.

Imagine hearing a recounted tale like Jennifers from a friend over a nice warm beer in the cold winter. How about that?

Over-all, this movie is a good kid friendly story that as I said fuels the imagination enough to inspire someone to simply walk out the cinema doors and create something, or even go into a nice adventure.

Watch Me: teenie boppering The 5th Wave

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Out of curiosity, and being a weirdly loyal fan of Chloe Moretz, I tried watching one of her latest sci-fi themed movie entitled The 5th Wave directed by J.Blakeson from the same titled book written by Rick Yancey.

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Life was pretty much normal for Cassie Sullivans world, until a mysterious large hovering space craft the size of a continent became the dead ringer start of events unfolding into an apocalyptic battle between man and the alien race named as the Others.

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Believe me when I say this movie may have, like all the other nice movies out there, a good and curious universe that can very well establish a footing fit for a nice theatrical prowess, it is not unavoidably subject under a mainstream over used theme. Such as this very element of aliens being able to infest inside a human like a parasite, rendering their host under their very control, a.k.a. that Stephanie Meyer book the Host with the almost same type of alien.

This however is not the selling point of this movie, but the depicted experiences of Cassie and their eventual events into a future unknown under the invasion of the Others. Which to my opinion is pretty well composed, in terms of the flow of events fairly edited from the book into a feature film.

Might as very well clarify that it was very evident that the movie is a stepping stone opening for a long ass story, it's open ended conclusion after they saved Cassies sibling simply says "I'm supposed to have a continuation".

I've barely any knowledge of the book and how it's characters, events, and style of writing is unfurled. Basing from the movie, there are heavily built ex-machina scenarios edited from the original, and possibly characters intentionally omitted. Though, I am not a very critical person, and that to I simply enjoyed the flow. Disregarding the obvious romance tension happening between select characters, the action and adventure elements seems a good 8 out of 10 grade.

Simply put, this might be a B grade movie even to it's reader fan base. But I wouldn't mind seeing the sequel happen even if the movie itself isn't compelling, just out of curiosity on what will be happening next into the lives of the characters.

Over-all it might be better to just follow the books, own them and read to your hearts content; and treat the movie like a large fan base advertisement for it.

Watch Me: movie lising: Donnie Darko (2001)

There is nothing wrong with the concept of just clearly messing up time and space. Time travel, cross examination of existence between time lines, I guess making an effort to live life like so, discovering the definition of life changing and life ruining.

These days I find myself not enjoying any much content in any media for various 'I'm tired' reason. This prompted me to just embrace that too sensible or serious side and watch tons of physics and life questioning related movies. Psychological thrillers or just plain existentialism in movie platform are nice to watch, they pull strings that I couldn't feel sometimes. Or I feel it too much I've gone numb?

Last night I skipped working, just a bit, to finally watch Donnie Darko (2001) and a bit of Source Code (2011), since I was too sleepy the hour I watched the latter. Both are movies with Science-fiction concepts, Source Code with the stronger Scifi vibes, and both starred Jake Gyllenhaal, which I just realized when I started to watch Source Code. It wasn't intentional when I looked them up and went on and got a copy of the movies.

Donnie Darko has been in the list of my 'I'm highly curious' but 'I just couldn't get to you due to priorities are different' reasons of not watching it the moment I saw a tidbit info about it. There aren't much of a reaction for me on the movie since everything in it felt dream like, which they are. Fun was one word for the story, where in a sense the ending clearly concluded a good ending for the plights of Donnie who was clearly disturbed mayhaps for a semi-realistic or purely science fiction reasons.

Everyone in the world should try and watch Donnie with a sense and purpose of trying to look for easter eggs everywhere in the movie, at least still relating to the story, and never forgetting to set their empathy to a neutral level. Feelings flushed to me when I watched every part of it, shifting every relative sympathy and empathy for Donnie and the characters situation or flow of the story, wherever it lead. On the type of time and space fuck up it used was something I point out as sense of prediction, where everything was a linear end to a means but the ultimate decider still ended with Donnie.

At first you would get a bit confused why the story focused on several lives of characters that seemed insignificant during the course and even the moment they show up in the story, they are however significant in a sense that they formed what kind of Donnie would be by the end of the movie. This story clearly showed a good example of utilizing the characters around the main character, and the setting plot, to evolve them into what they can be. Almost all of them are praise worthy no matter how good or bad, a clear line of grey, their actions were. Except for Frank, who I didn't appreciate how strongly he was present in the whole of the movie, only to be truly introduced to be an almost third tier character related to Darko. His significance was the greatest yet he was the most irrelevant in terms of relation.

That itself makes me think that the person who wrote this story is that awesome, kudos Kelly.

The heaviness of the movie, due to all the psychological elements in it, tends to steer you completely away from the ending that was evident, a clear and obvious sign of Donnie's death or might be the end of his known world. The end can be interpreted in any way possible, but one thing was sure, it was the end for Donnie and him alone. Imagine being flooded by such thoughts at a young age clearly says something about the mentality of his character.

By the time you watch the climax of the movie you will be filled by assurance and hope that maybe Donnie could find a way to fight the inevitable. The end that he so feared, that, the fear he clearly felt drove him to almost endanger every single person important in his life. You can guess by this time that the end that was meant in the movie was his end, yet you question yourself whether he did choose to travel back in time or was it all truly in his head. Evident to the waking dreams of each character that made a grave distinction in his story, to the memorable up to the unpleasant ones.

Questioning the end, like the unconfirmed ending for Inception, is also another sign for me that the movie has truly caught your attention. Whether you get to have an answer for that won't matter, since the movie itself has already finished its purpose.

Telling a tale and making the viewer think for themselves of what is happening, to me, is a very captivating but taxing movie. You'd have to be a mental freak, or curious high mind; or a brain masochist, to enjoy one. Mind you, there is nothing wrong about that, it just means you'd rather have a high end mental entertainment in a level of which you'd rather not want to loose your mind in the course of enjoying everything. On the other, it's nice to get almost mindless and ignorantly stupid, site Angry Birds movie characters, which can also happen during the course in Donnie Darko.

There are that many elements emphasized to make you aware and even shallowly depressed, but it doesn't mean it won't pull you up. Life ups and downs are strongly evident in this story, and nothing short of the term roller coaster will truly miss a beat.

I feel like a child that missed out after watching this movie, now my inner child isn't missing out anymore, except I just need a different kind of outlet to make myself happier than the normal happy. The ignorant happy kind.

Tamtam and the Update

These days I've stopped creating for my planned webcomics "Tamtam: Peaceful Days", and stopped editing the script for the first arc of the story. But I've come back to edit the story and soon plan on creating the drafts, by pencil, and just post it like that through my webcomics. Mayhaps it would make me successfully practice being a clean pencil artist for my art, and future projects. I could ink them at the same time, but I take ten years to ink, especially in projects that I have to leave them off for the while.

Being slow in the industry of creating my own story and comics is a bit dragging. I won't be sugar coating my sin by saying I'm not jealous of the people who've gone and succeeded in this line of life, but I'm not lying when I say that I get the same heights of inspiration even sometimes greater than my warped jealous self. Either way, the script is in an over haul of almost everything. From the dialogue to terms used, I'm decided as well to incorporate the irony of 'Baybayin' into my story as a language used by mythos like creatures more than modern society.

In the Philippines, there is a local language and alphabet called 'Alibata' or 'Baybayin' that has been used by our natives until the Spaniards came, as I recall or think...or remember. The alphabet isn't exactly dead, but majority of the citizens aren't even versed in it anymore, me included. My father is awesome with tagalog words, that makes me evidently proud about that skill of his. Considering if it IS a skill to completely know more tagalog than english.

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Me incorporating 'Baybayin' as an ironic dead language in the universe of "Tamtam" is iconic, in a sense that I want to explore how I could string the world I've concocted and the reality I'm partially basing it from. Along with the fact that I'm introducing furry characters AND mythological representatives, completely based from original Pinoy mythology will be a big thing. Not that I'm following the trend in our comics industry, but I've always wondered how I can explore the stories I create with local fiction and mythological lore.

Filipino mythology is really fascinating, but in my growth as an adult, I've lost some of my fascination with the context like I'm already tired and not even happy to support local product, or information historically for that matter. History, especially the lore and legends, has always fascinated me like a moth into a candles light in my childhood days.

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Yet, my memory as good as the misconceptions that of the goldfish (if it IS a misconception that goldfish's memories are short), is completely warped into just retaining only the ones that I need for my current life. See Sherlock BBC, and that episode about him forgetting that Science and the Sun being the center of our known living universe.

This desire must not leave me, that's why I'm writing it here and possibly making a chronicle of my progress, albeit planned only yet and slowly progressing in it. Me, seeing myself researching about how to use 'Baybayin' will be a big thing for me. Putting up an ambition and a goal set helps me a lot.

Pretending to be Inimitable

I used to have a story where the mother of the heroine, heroine named Rui, and her mother was the governess of realms. Like a queen, who used to have a husband but she soon let him go because of political reasons. The man was driven out by her and the council, and soon married a woman who was simple and needed him as well.

I remembered how I always felt that Rui's mother always looked sad but satisfied, knowing that she once loved the man she knew she would always be loyal to but her life and everyone around her prevented them from being together. Sort of like, she became workaholic, and somehow he didn't see it. He believed they could be together, but she knew there we're lesser chances of them being together, and to spare them the pain of it she decided to cut off her ties with him.

Left to her was their daughter, who understood how her mother loved him. The story had them as side characters, but somehow, that's how I wrote her. And that character was almost based to be mine, the mother, the queen.

What a foreboding thing to write about. How selfless but selfish the mother was to the pain, that soon even Rui her child would be solemn but optimistic. Rui was the reason why the met again, not because Rui wanted them to be together again in the flow of the story. The child was intended to save their realm from a certain danger, and it so happened that she needed her father and mothers help to do it.

They helped her of course, but their reunion was only a short time as both of them now has their own lives to live. He to his new family and she to her thrown that she must bravely and strongly govern.

I never knew how painful it felt when I wrote / imagined it, actually, I do. Just that, right now, I feel so sad. Especially for Rui who I sincerely feel her secret want for her parents to be together, but she had learned to accept both their families because she knew she couldn't force them into what she wants.

There's a certain finality with the way I wrote her mothers story. Rui's mother and her father were main characters to a previous story of mine. They we're lead characters in it, the father was the guardian of Rui's mother then, they ended up falling in love with each other. Silently vowing their support to each other like a pendulum of flowing fate.

But circumstances broke them apart, plus the desire for each one to fulfill something they couldn't fill for each other. That in the end, somehow they broke apart. Farther away from the pain.

Rui's mother is a selfish martyr who smiles proudly as she see's the man she once loved happy. While the man, who looked on smiling thinking she was good and well. Not knowing truthfully to each other that somehow they still love each other. Rui knew, but couldn't just ruin the lives they've built.

Definitive and painful. That's how I imagined my characters ending would be. By their subjugation into a circumstance that broke them, I gave a certain goal an opportunity to grow, however tragic, horrific or selfless this goal made them end up to be. Such willies of mine are completely painful. Right now my tears won't stop shedding for them, for those in similar state.

For children who hoped their parents would be together again, yet couldn't. To people who knew the truth of their friends reality, but couldn't help but watch as they unfold a painful disaster happen. All the helpless romantic emotional struggle of the third party who wants to say they shouldn't give up, they must have hope. Don't let that heart weaken. Strive to hold on.

Find a way to hold on. There is still hope. You know there is. Or should you tragically die a heroine or hero, who thinks they're doing the selfless thing when no martyr who died did not think once of regret for their efforts. That even saints surely in their time of death told God of how regretful they may die young, but grateful they will go back to his arms.

Find a way to hold on. And maybe there might be something to save from it. Hoping.

Also, hoping that the thing I wrote got conveyed pretty well even if it was written cryptically.

Art Thing: fanism towards Leviathan and its art

There was a book series I sort of obsessed, in a degree, over back between the years 2012 and 2013 entitled Leviathan. The series is a sort of historical fiction steampunk book that focuses over a certain "part" of World War I. Which, I think, was pertaining to the Ottoman empire and the likes. Clearly I've little to no clue of the German, Union and Ottoman relationship during that era, excuse me historians. Don't roll on your graves, I'm not worth it.

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There are several highlights for this book that I swear will be biased if I stated them because it's based on my taste of literature or genre alone. However, I do believe the artist for the books illustrations is worth everyones money and time. Here I present one of the "awesome-est" artist for steampunk I've seen, and also admire in the level of putting details through his illustration.

< Keith Thompson >

No image of the person, yet

(thank god, cause I searched and found some random handsome dude...dunno who he was)

You can visit his website here: http://www.keiththompsonart.com/

I've never not given enough praises to any artist who enjoys putting heavy sketchy details into their work, whether if it's just a doodle or for work.

In this case, my admiration goes heavily on the steampunk concepts he made for the book. He's also got a deviantart that I might say is fairly inactive since I think it only features his works from the book. And, since the book series is already done, I guess it's fair enough to assume that it won't be updating anytime.

Below are some of the images I like from the gallery (http://keithwormwood.deviantart.com/).

Leviathan

Peace Treaty

I suggest you browse the gallery more AND his website, or you can buy the Illustrated companion book The Manual of Aeronautics, I think this image is also in the book. I have a copy of the book, given to me by my boyfriend as a christmas gift, I liked it a lot even though I didn't really show it much.

This isn't much of a glorified article putting his works on a pedestal, however I do get inspiration and determination to work just by seeing his art so if I were you I'd start browsing his works and get some good juices there. Or, if not just browse it for fun.