Daily Haiku:

For BP

LB

Daily Haiku:

This is quite old, when darkness began at about 6pm not 3!

I have an assignment due in on Thursday so I apologise in advance if I forget to post. 

LB

Daily Haiku:

LB

Daily Haiku:

LB

Christmas Time

I am sorry for my absence, but as everyone knows it is Christmas time and I haven't really had the chance to be like, oh yeah, must upload those Haikus. Sadly. I hope everyone has a lovely festive season, mine was quite nice really. I caught up with all my uni friends who came down, some other friends that have moved away and also got to have some nice family time. In short, I spent three days drinking and eating way too much.

I've also been working a lot at the moment because our boss has been off, so everyone else is picking up the slack. But in doing so, I now have a week to do a TMA (Tutor Marked Assignment) for my Creative Writing module, which kind of sucks. I have to a complete story of 2200 words and then a 500 word reflective commentary. Which is completely do able, there is just all the work from November that needs to be read/done so that the way I write is meant to be based off of that. If that makes sense.

For example, one of the chapters is about Character Development and we have to develop characters using different methods and then throughout the weeks, keep developing them.

So I've started, but not done some of the other stuff, like setting development and all that. I'm going up to London to see my sister tomorrow, so I'm planning to do a lot of stuff in the car and hopefully I can have it done. I will post the final piece when I receive it back from my tutor. As this is the policy about publishing uni things. 

I've almost finished The Hobbit, so they'll be a review of that soon and I've also just taken pictures of all my Haikus at the moment. So they're ready to go up. Might try and do like a week in photos thing, which is something I tried to do before just never got round to as I stopped taking as many photos as I used to at the end of the summer. Not really sure why but it's something I miss a lot. I'll be doing less hours soon, thank God, which means I can actually study and write and have copious amounts of free time to do all the wonderful things I've missed. 

Well that's all for the moment. Like I said, hope everyone's had a nice time, even if you're not a Christmas person (which I am not), it's nice to just chill! (:

LB

Daily Haiku; "Loneliness"

LB

(I am aware of my misspelling) 

Daily Haiku; "2.45pm"

The days grow darker

But I have missed the stars

Shining in the black.

LB

A Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

*Warning this review may contain unintentional spoilers! Which is to say that my opinion on what is or isn't a spoiler is not necessarily the same as yours!*

After seeing The Hobbit twice already, once being opening night (duh), I feel I can give a full bodied, hopefully not too biased, review on possibly the best film of 2012. 

I debated whether to incorporate the book in this review, as I started reading it after watching The Hobbit the first time round and am now at a point after the film ends, if that makes sense. However I decided not to as I think if people compare books and films too much, book readers will always be disappointed that it wasn't followed exactly or characters weren't as they imagine, the Harry Potter films spring to mind and I will eventually review The Hobbit as a book. 

All I will say on this matter is that, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro and all the other screenplay writers did a hell of a job incorporating the book to work for a film audience. I can't imagine any fans screaming at the screen, 'This is all WRONG!'

So, first things first. I haven't seen the film in 3D. I don't like 3D films all that much, it's much like the debate of colour TV back in the day. You didn't need colour to help an audience understand what is going on in a film or TV show, the actors, props etc tell you that, much as 3D doesn't add any storyline to a film. It just costs more and hurts my eyes after a while. 

Visually, I think the film is stunning, the CGI on the dwarves being a favourite. I feel it wasn't too overdone, the actors still look realistic, adding a twinkle to their eyes, length to their noses and obviously making Gandalf look a lot taller. The variety of camera shots used helped keep me engrossed, although I feel that I always look at different camera shots as I took Film Studies, but I digress. 

I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a lot of doubts about Martin Freeman as Bilbo. Most I have no real basis for, other than that I was like, er... Watson cannot be Bilbo, just no. But I will take my metaphorical hat off to him, as he was brilliant. I think he really made the character come alive with his facial expressions and gestures not just through his dialogue and it was nice to see a sort of underdog hero who hadn't used a sword before. I think it made it easier for the audience to connect with him and bring out a universal adventurous spirit, willing him on.  

Plot wise. You don't need to have read the books to enjoy the film and trying not to give too much away, the way it begins is a nice way of tying things together to start the audience off on this adventure and I am gutted that I have to wait another year for the second instalment. There aren't really any lulls in the film that make you wonder why Peter Jackson bothered with the scene. Everything is relevant and all the scenes flow really well into one another.

Like I said before, I don't want this to be a comparison with the book, but I feel the need to add this, there are nice little nods to the people that have read the books. Obviously the first time round, I didn't notice these and this didn't take away from my experience of my film. Come the second time, having read the first half of the book, I did notice them and chuckled to myself and I really like it when directors add these into films as it's almost like an in joke but without being mean to people that don't know the joke. If that makes sense. 

Something that I thought put the film above Lord of the Rings. (We will go with Fellowship, as that was the first in that trilogy of films.) Was the humour. This film is actually hilarious. The wit of the characters, as I mentioned Freeman's gestures,  just, I think Fellowship was a bit too serious and this isn't at all, loads of people laughed throughout and there is one particular scene with Radagast where I was in stitches at the silliness, but it's not embarrassing. 

The soundtrack to the movie is awesome, although, this is not a negative, it may just me being, well me. But at some points I swear it sounded very Zelda; Skyward Swordesque. I'm not saying it was ripped off or anything, just that it reminded me of it. I think the music really adds to the tone of the scenes, like when the a massive wide shot is used and you see the company walking in this open wilderness and then the score blares out, just excellent. The songs also gave it that very old feel. Which sounds stupid but I think it's one of those small things, like costume, that give it a feel of authenticity.

Finally what made the film for me were the Dwarves. They were fantastic. Just as a collective they have so much more character then I expected and the company just made it feel more adventurous and I wanted to go with them. All the actors seemed to bounce off of each other so it made it seem so realistic that they were actually a group of dwarves in Bilbo's house eating dinner and then travelling. I recognised a couple of them but couldn't tell you where from. Thorin's character was amazing as the scorned dwarf king. I can't stress enough how believable they were. So I do urge you to go an watch The Hobbit.

Overall. 5/5, 10/10. Whatever the scale it is at the highest end. And I do think that I enjoyed it more than Lord of the Rings, which I feel bad for in a weird way. I just think it was more fun. And everyone should definitely see it! 

LB

Moleskine Monday.

Something I do. Every Monday.

(with you)

LB

Introductions if you please.

Hello random people who may or are most probably not reading this.

I keep meaning to start a blog and actually stick to it, which is actually more difficult then I first suspected. But a lot of people do them for University and I think it will get me into the habit of writing more, which I have started doing on my tumblr, as I need to let people see my work etc. I also want to write reviews and articles on books, films and copious amounts of hair products that I buy and use. Relevant in that order. I'm also big on Haikus. It started off as an activity, to write one a day for a week, but I probably write (or at least think) of one every single day for the last 3 months. So there will be a lot of those here in the form of pictures from my moleskine and perhaps other writings. But we'll just stick to the Haikus for now. 

So that's the plan for this blog. Whether or not it works out I do not know. Perhaps I will genuinely set alarms to write things on here. Like an article or whatever once a week, that would be good. We shall see. So I feel I should give some information about myself? I don't really know the protocol for this sort of thing.

My name is Leanne Bignell and I am 20 years old, very almost 21. 
I live in the South of England and although I love the beach I miss London and being in a city so much.
I change my mind about everything constantly.
I am studying my English Literature degree.
I work at Costa Coffee in a small town full of obnoxious people who need to learn that they are not the centre of the universe. I would like a job where I can wear my hair down and not get covered in coffee grind. Although, I am excellent at making it. 
I am travelling to China and Japan on the 26th of July. 
I live for books and words. 

I cannot think of anything else relevant, not that any of the above is, to say. I am sure my personality will shine through at some point. I think I'll jot down some ideas for a piece, probably about The Hobbit as I am currently reading it and add some old Haikus over the next few days or so. I need to stick to this invisible readers.

LB