The Hunger Games Movie Review by Lauren

So if you follow us on Twitter you will have noticed I tweeted a lot the last few days about The Hunger Games. I was way too excited to see it mainly because I read the books a while ago and they are my favorite books ever! So this isn’t going to be a review as in the good, the bad and the ugly because there are no bad bits and lets face it there is no point in me writing an introduction to THG as I think if you don’t know what THG is then shame on you!

I vowed not to watch any trailers, clips etc because I sometimes feel they ruin the movie and because I know what happens anyways I wanted the movie to be a surprise. So I didn’t watch anything!! I went to the cinema to see Bel Ami with a friend and they played the trailer on all the screens and I panicked. I hid behind my magazine and closed my ears. I have to admit I did peak with one eye but I didn’t really see anything!

So I went to the previews last night with 2 friends. I was too excited – I ate my sweets before it even started!

I think I sat  with an open mouth throughout. From the start everything was as how I imagined and I mean everything. The scenery, the town, the clothes, the people, the whole thing. The one thing I did worry about is how the arena was going to be shown. As the book is quite descriptive, yet I can imagine everyone seeing something different in their heads, so I was a bit like hmmmm I want to see what they’ve done with it. They did the arena brilliantly, just how I imagined plus more.

The story kept the suspense, pity, humor, sadness and heartbreak true to the book. I read the series in 3 days and I never stopped crying so I knew I would be crying at the movie. Then a friend told me she cried 3 times at the premier screening and she never cries I was like OMG I am going to be distraught and yup I pretty much was distraught! I don’t really want to say anything specific incase you haven’t read the books because the one thing we hate is spoilers!

I do think the casting for this was perfect. I am Team Peeta and I was a tiny bit disappointed with Josh being cast to begin with, but I think whomever they cast I would have been disappointed because in my head Peeta was perfect. So over all I was very impressed with the cast. Cato surprised me too, I was hoping he would be the way he was portrayed at the very end!

So that is all I am going to say incase some of you are going to see it and haven’t read the book. However I have to say GO SEE IT YOU WON’T REGRET IT. Yes I am shouting at the whole world!

 

How many days until Catching Fire?

 

30 Films of Christmas + Giveaway

I was thinking a few weeks ago about how much I love Christmas, and especially Christmas films, and I thought…Why not watch lots of Christmas films and review them on the blog?? I also thought wouldn’t it be great if all the girls here at SLOFL watched some of the Christmas films and discussed which ones we love and which ones we MUST watch at Christmas…

I put together a list of 30 films that I want to try to watch before midnight on New Years Eve…not an easy feat if you have a busy life, but I think it can be done.

The list is below…

A Christmas Carol (w/ Jim Carrey)

A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas

Babes In Toyland

Bad Santa

Christmas Carol: The Movie (w/ Kate Winslet)

Deck The Halls

Elf

Four Christmasses

Fred Clause

Gremlins

The Grinch (live action)

Holiday Inn

Home Alone 1 & 2

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon)

It’s A Wonderful Life

Jack Frost

Jingle All The Way

Love Actually

Meet Me In St Louis

Mickey’s Christmas Carol

Miracle On 34^th Street (New)

Miracle On 34^th Street (Old)

Muppet’s Christmas Carol

Nativity!

Nightmare Before Christmas

Santa Clause 1, 2 & 3 (Tim Allen)

Scrooged

The Holiday

The Polar Express

White Christmas

So, what do you think? Are there some of your favourites in there? Are there some you would like to have seen on the list? If you leave us a comment by Christmas eve we’ll pick a few of them to watch during the week running up to New Year’s Eve. Plus, with it being Christmas and all, we thought we’d play Santa so those that we do pick will receive some goodies from us (including something extra special for 2 of you). They will arrive a little late of course but hey, it’ll give you something to look forward to in January

So, to sum up, all you have to do to enter is, leave us a comment and recommend a film that isn’t already on the list and leave us either your email address or Twitter name so we have a way of contacting the winner. As usual, if you’re under 16 please get permission from your parents.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Kimi. xx

 

Bridesmaids Review – By Lauren

Bridesmaids is about Annie who is a maid of honor for her best friend Lillian, but Annie’s life is falling apart. She tried her best to be the best maid of honor possible but it just falls to bits as Lillian’s new best friend Helen (Rose Byrne) is rich, beautiful and very close to Lillian. The rivalry begins to win the title of best friend!

As Annie’s life is falling to pieces so is the bridal shower! Annie’ takes the girls for a meal at a restaurant before a dress fitting and they end up being poisoned! They all fall very very sick in the expensive store which Annie couldn’t actually get them into it was Helen who knew a worker there! They ruined the shop’s bathroom and dressed. As Lillian wore a vintage dress so developed the food poisoning and had to run out the shop to a bathroom over the road but got caught short – Yes in the middle of the road!!

Then they go to Vegas. Annie is terrified of flying so Helen gives her something to help her relax but it didn’t work. Helen also give her a scotch which kick started the relaxant and Annie ended up very very high on the flight and they ended up getting arrested and sent back to Chicago! At this point Lillian had had enough and demoted her! Helen took over the plans and planned a very ravish bridal shower but at last minute Lillian went missing! This film is absolutely hilarious! I couldn’t pick my favorite part. You have to go and see it. Such a feel good movie with a happy ending! My favorite is Megan (Melissa McCarthy) she is beyond funny! I so want her at my bridal shower!!  I never stopped laughing throughout! The trailer I saw on UK TV has non of the scenes actually showed in the movie so everything was fresh as some comedies show the best bits in the trailers. I rate this 5/5!

“Thor” Movie Review – by Kimi

I’m a huge comic book film geek, and I’d been excited to see this film ever since
it was announced. I went to see this film on the same night as seeing Fast and
the Furious 5, and it started at about 11pm. I was hoping that the film would
be very exciting, and it’d keep me awake for the whole film, and it didn’t disappoint.

The casting of the characters was very well done. I adored Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
I think he was the perfect person to play Thor. He was very funny, his delivery
of some of the lines made me laugh out loud. Tom Hiddleston was brilliant as
the evil younger brother Loki. My fave scene of his was when he was actually
dressed in “normal clothes” on Earth. I audibly gasped in the cinema during
that scene, and my friend laughed at me.

Stellan Skarsgard, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings and Idris Elba were
all incredible too, and I love that Agent Coulson was back for this film.

What I really enjoyed about the film was the fact that it wasn’t overrun with
mythology. There were lots of mythological references obviously, but it didn’t feel
like a Norse History lesson. It was a very fun, interesting and hilarious film.
The action scenes were brilliantly shot, and I think Kenneth Branagh has just
been bumped up to my favourite director of all time.

In summary, this film is a must see for fans of comic books, and for non-comic
books fans too. Brilliant cast, hilarious dialogue, love story, and Thor takes
his top off - Bonus!

Mean Girls 2 Review – Steph

So who else was excited when they announced there was going to be a “Mean Girls 2″? I was. It brought back childhood memories of the Burn Book and Amanda Seyfried thinking that her boobs could predict the weather.

Mean Girls 2, like the original, focuses on a new transfer student named Jo Mitchell. Jo’s father repairs and races motor cars for a living and her mother passed away when she was young. When Jo first joins North Shore High she is met by Alley, the school loser and without knowing who she is, Jo becomes friends with her after Alley gets publicly humiliated by the plastics. When Jo takes Alley home her father makes Jo an offer she cannot refuse: she needs to be Alleys best friend and in return she will get college paid for along with all the textbooks she will need.

Alley and Jo become best friends and decide to go to war with the plastics, by creating a team named “The Anti-plastics” Jo thinks she can get North Shore to become Plastic free…She does this by trying to break the plastics apart.  However in her quest to try to become popular, bring down the plastics and be Alleys best friend she does not realise that she is becoming something like the plastics herself. Jo begins to get a thrill out of humiliating the plastic and becomes weight and look conscious, which has the consequences of loosing her boyfriend, getting expelled from school and losing her best friend.

The two teams (Plastics and Anti Plastics) decide to end their feud over a football match – part of the reason of doing this is to prove that Jo is innocent as she was framed by the head plastic that she stole the schools prom fund.

So, i am not going to tell you how this film finishes as you can find that out yourselves. I personally prefer the original “Mean Girls” as i thought this sequel was full of cheese and cheap jokes, but perhaps film companies need to do this to appeal to the younger age audiences. This film also didn’t have a star studded cast like Lindsey Lohan, Amanda Seyfried and Rachel McAdams.

Water For Elephants – By Steph

Today I indulged myself and bought  a ticket to see Water for Elephants at my local cinema. This beautiful screenplay starred Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson.

When i first thought of ”Water for Elephants” i expected a romantic escapism for me and my mum to enjoy – that AND Robert Pattinson of course!  The first 15 minutes of the film was lovely and easy to watch and you could easily get the plot (you could quickly figure out that the man you see at first is Rob’s character Jacob, only older).The film transitioned perfectly into a flashback of Jacobs earlier life but soon after that the film took a dramatic turn and became something that was quite violent,filled with beatings and punishment..but don’t let that put you off – because the beauty of the story is yet to come. I am trying not to give off major spoilers here – as i appreciate the fact that some people may be reading this review, deciding whether to go and see it or to buy the DVD or so on..

Once Jacob joined the circus, you expect something wrong to happen straight away – that was the impression i got, especially from knowing about the runner of the circus ”August” was the villan of the film. To my surprise, however, August seems to be nice, being hospitable towards Jacob, and this is what leads Jacob to his veterinary work with the animals, especially one of the most beautiful characters i have ever seen – Rosie the elephant. Although i would try and sell this film to you as much as i can, something that did upset me about it was the animal cruelty within it, and i would say that realistically if you are a major animal lover and completely against animal cruelty, i would not recommend this film to you. As Rob and Reese’s characters interact with this amazing creature an inevitable romance flourishes which when revealed to August, who is Marlenas (Reese) husband, the film brings up another social and increasing problem – domestic violence. The film later unravels further and different options become available to Jacob and Marlena, but there are obstacles in their way such as August’s band of circus thugs. Towards the end Jacob and Marlena manage to get themselves out of the circus – but only by the strands of their hair! (is that a weird expression?)

I am not going to give away any more plot but i would definitely like to congratulate the cast on their amazing acting efforts and made this screenplay a beautiful one to watch..now all that’s left to say is – GO SEE, GO BUY! GO GO GO!

Don’t forget to read Lauren’s book vs movie review of WFE!