Jaz Design

Stardust. Beautiful, enchanting. I came out of the cinema thinking that real life was sometimes incredibly boring compared to the story in the film. I guess in real life you have to make your own magic

I have to admit I do think it may have been aimed at teens younger than me. It was easy to see through some of the effects and some of it did seem quite childish. That said, it was a lovely story to escape with for a few hours once the lead stopped wearing his rose tinted glasses.

Brilliant cast list, I didn’t find myself wondering what other films they’d been in when I was watching – I was too engrossed in the performances. I’m really not a fan of Robert DeNiro – mostly because of the types of characters he plays, but I really enjoyed his part in this film and thought he did it brilliantly.

If you’re looking to escape for a few hours, you love fantasy or you love an entertaining lovestory with sky pirates, this is the film for you.

I know, this still needs updating, the template needs finishing, the front page needs finishing, everything and anything is up in the air. There’s not a lot I can do at the moment I’m afraid – lacking reliable internet and what not. Once I set up EasyPHP and what not on this newly formatted mashup of a PC I might get chance to sort things out.

On a more excitable note, I start my second summer of work at 3-Wise Internet Solutions (who are also my host, <3) tomorrow. On top of that, I have three, maybe four, units still to finish for university due to my illness at the end of the first semester, my dissertation research, self elected research and other general course reading to do. That’s a lot, but that’s ok, because it’s all positive. I also have my own personal photography and internet projects in mind. My head’s a bit full at the moment, I’m sure you can imagine.

I took my Mister to his home for the weekend, gave myself a bit of a break during that time, to play Guitar Hero, spend time with him and generally do not much. It was gooood. It all had to end tonight though, ready for tomorry Oh, and yeah, it was some sort of five day weekend, haha.

My Mister took me to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie last week, I’ve always thought the storylines were silly, but the movies are certainly entertaining. Worth the look.

Everyone knows I love terrible horror, but this went beyond terrible. I can’t name another horror film that I’ve wanted to turn off halfway through because I’ve cared so little about the plot. I guess Sarah Michelle Gellar fans might have liked it, but to us it was just a movie comprised of lots of minute long shots of people walking towards things, little tension, and very little to relate to.

I think their efforts to build tension were what damaged it, they gave little away about what was going on, they went too far with this at times I thought. The introduction to characters was also rushed, and didn’t give you an opportunity to relate to them or how they were feeling – resulting in nothing to engage with.

Also, it lacked in people dying. It got near the end, and both of us were asking why no one was dying. The fact that you didn’t know someone had made the first half of the film seem pointless – simply because you didn’t know.

I give it 3/10, just because I think I should give it something for trying.

Yesterday the other half an I went to see 300. He likes Miller and knows about these things, whereas I have no clue about things like graphic novels and was mostly going because I liked the trailer, and I’ve dragged him to every shitty horror flick that’s come out since October. I was surprised, I thought the film was amazing.

It was certainly visually stunning, although I’m not so sure I’d have been so accepting of the obviousness of CG had I not known it was based on a graphic novel. Either way, they really went to town on it. I especially loved this technique that I’ve only just started noticing appearing in movies, where, for example, someone shoots an arrow, the camera pans in on the arrow, time slows down and it moves around the arrow before it speeds up again, drawing you in and making you feel a part of something otherwise quite flat. It’s almost 3D without being 3D.

Gerard Butler was impressive, I’ve only seen him as the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, it was very entertaining to see him do something so different, and do it so well.

The story wasn’t that strong, it was mostly about the fighting which is fair enough, but they did manage to put enough of a storyline in to have me crying by the end of it (I felt like I’d been hit with an emotional bus, but I think that may have just been me). There were some very touching moments, some downright scary moments, but mostly, a lot of bloody moments. But even then, they were well engineered bloody moments.

The soundtrack, the soundtrack, the soundtrack, I adored it. Rocky vs classical, always a winner with me. I thought it fit the movie very well. I’d recommend the movie, assuming you can deal with slow motion decapitation… or just generally a lot of slow motion. I read somewhere they filmed most of it at 50-150 frames per second – shows just how much slow motion they did or planned to use!

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I realise now on DA you get a free prints account, so I just messed around with the options to see what would happen, as a result, this photo of the sunset over Southsea is available as a print.

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All else is going alright. Got a lot of work on at uni, but it’s all good things. Thinking of things to write about for a dissertation, working up a design for a competition, running a business focussed on environmentalism (proper website and details available next week), it’s all good.

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Thursday 21st March

Nothing!

Wednesday 20th March

Chocolate chips 0.49
Pizza 1.15
Broccoli 0.46
Butter 0.46
Chips 0.88
Enterprise Investment 30
Car Insurance 476.04 (not including this in percentages as it tips it too much, just included for records)

Totals so far…
£235.35
Necessary £179.96 76.46%
Unnecessary £55.39 23.54%