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Thor (2011)
Thor (2011)
2011 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
The first Thor film gets a bad wrap, and I think it's due to a combination of people forgetting just how good it is, and it perhaps being tarnished by it's underwhelming sequel, when in reality, Thor marks Marvel Studios first steps into more cosmic territory, a realm that was once deemed a little too silly for the general public, and pulls it off in style.

Firstly, translating the many characters of the Thor comic series is no easy feat. They all talk in a Shakespearean dialect, and have ridiculous costumes. The script though is fantastic. The Asgardian characters are still very bombastic, but when mixed with humans from Earth, it's becomes naturally comical. It doesn't feel corny, and somehow, it works very well.
As for the costumes, everyone just looks badass truth be told so hats off to the costume department.

Chris Hemsworth is the embodiment of Thor, and it's truly difficult to see anyone else in the role. He's charming, funny, and has just the right amount of god-like angst, and it's easy to see why he's become a firm favourite as the MCU has continued to expand.
The same goes for Tom Hiddleston as Loki. His portrayal of the God of Mischief is equal parts sinister, slimy, and sympathetic. He's the villain that you can't help but love and it's a testament to his performance that Loki has remained a mainstay in the MCU, a franchise that is often guilty of the one-and-done method when it comes to villains.
The cast is rounded out by a stellar lineup, including Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Jaime Alexander, Stellan Skaragård, Idris Elba and even includes a bigger role for the always excellent Clark Gregg. This film also serves as the introduction of Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, another MCU staple. It's a strong cast list without a doubt.

The action set pieces are all pretty fun, and the effects still just about hold up. I'd argue that Thor looks better than the first two Iron Man films in that respect. Asgard looks great as well.
Another thing I absolutely LOVE about Thor is the music score by Patrick Doyle. In terms of original orchestral music, it's probably by favourite within the MCU (possibly on par with Infinity War and Endgame) but it's fantastic, and gives me goosebumps every damn time I watch this movie

Thor is action packed, with a fantastic script and score, and a great cast with well fleshed out characters. Bringing Kenneth Branagh on board as director was a great choice, and overall, the film deserves way more love than it gets.
Ignoring the first Avengers movie, Thor is the crown jewel of phase one!
  
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
1968 | Classics, Sci-Fi

"When I was seven, my parents were living again in Buenos Aires, and they were going to watch movies all the time. Maybe that day they could not leave me at home because there was no one to take care of me, so I remember we went with my sister and my parents to see 2001. And we were on the first row of the balcony, so we were in front of the movie. And the monkey in front of the monolith, the tunnel of light at the end of the movie, the fetus floating at the end of the movie — all that happening in front of my eyes was, for me, like my very first drug experience — or transcendental experience — ever. I was blown away by the images. And maybe it’s a fake memory that I have, but I remember — during the movie, at that very early age — it seems to me that I liked it much more than my parents, because even then, when I talked about it with my parents, they didn’t really care much about 2001. And for me it became like an obsession. Every summer, or every two summers, the movie was replaying in some theater in Buenos Aires. And I would go again and again and again to watch it. Also because, for me, it was the ultimate image of what the future world could become. And I thought that when I would be maybe 30-40 I would really be living in a world in which it would be easy to go to the moon or do things like that. And to this day when I rewatch that movie, I feel it’s still representing the future in a very accurate way. Besides that, the dresses are very pop art. Since then I’ve seen it like 40, 60 times and I never ever get tired of replaying it. And sometimes even for New Year’s Eve, instead of going out partying, I want to start the year in a good mood so I just stay and put the movie on my DVD player. I know that that movie also — because it’s very tricky — I would say later in my life when I was a teenager doing mushrooms or taking acid, mostly it’s because I wanted to have the same impact in my brain that that movie had when I was a kid. And you can clearly tell that Enter the Void — it’s not an homage, but it’s a movie extremely inspired by 2001. And since then, I collect every single poster of that movie, every single lobby card. I have an obsession. I want to possess that movie, which is totally unpossessable."

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Champagne Holocaust by The Fat White Family
Champagne Holocaust by The Fat White Family
2013 | Alternative, Psychedelic, Punk
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I feel like this could be an old song but it sounds very modern as well. I love how sleazy and 70s’ it sounds. I picked it because I went to see Fat White Family a few years ago and before I went to see them I'd stopped playing guitar for a long time, given up on the idea of starting a band and had lost interest in music a little bit, I'd been in bands for years but nothing had ever happened. Then I started going out with a guy who was really into music and he took me to see Fat White Family and loads of bands actually around that time, but I saw Fat White Family play in The Macbeth in Hoxton. “It was so exciting! I hadn't really expected anything, I‘d just heard the name and I thought it sounded stupid. I felt like I walked in completely by accident and then I saw them and it felt how it felt and I just knew immediately that I wanted to start playing guitar again and make loud noises with people and have that feeling more. I knew that I wanted to start a band, basically. “I love the distortion on the vocals, on a lot of our earlier recordings I was putting distortion on the vocal, it's a little bit less now but it's still always there. I think it smooths everything over, or sands it down. I really love the tension and release in ‘Auto Neutron’, there's that moment halfway through where he screams and all the music gets loud and I've listened to it over and over again, trying to work out how that sounds so good. That exact moment is so perfectly timed and mixed. “Fat White Family are so guttural and thrusty on stage. It's passionate. It's hard to explain, but it's just really cool. As The Big Moon we really try to feed off the crowd and what they’re doing, you have the odd show where everyone's just standing staring at you and in those situations it feels really strange to be onstage at all and to be making noise, you realise how weird it is that you stand on a box and make loud music and people just watch. “It’s the shows where people let their hair down and have a crazy time that are the best. That's why we go to gigs, to have a physical experience and be there in a place with a load of people you'll probably never see again, but you'll have bonded by the fact that you love this music. You throw yourself into each other. It's so important that we have a reaction like that."

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Bo Burnham recommended Raw (2017) in Movies (curated)

 
Raw (2017)
Raw (2017)
2017 | Horror

"A recent one would be Raw, the Julia Ducournau film. I love that film. I had sort of finished my movie so… Or no, I hadn’t finished it — maybe I was just about to shoot my movie — but I watched it three times in theaters. I can’t believe that’s a debut. It only feels like seasoned masters are able to really manipulate an audience, beat to beat, to really feel like you are being so perfectly manipulated, and you’re just in the hands of someone who has complete control of you. It’s just unbelievable to have out of the gate. But also, she does an incredible — and it’s something I was trying to do in my movie — she is able to just really ground all of her stylized sequences really perfectly in the felt naturalism of the movie, and she does it in such incredibly sly ways that are so, so smart. Like, you know — spoiler — the finger eating scene. The fact that the beginning of that scene is all about them waxing. Like, the waxing is an incredible way to ground the physical reality of their bodies in something we can all relate to, in terms of, you know, none of us have ever eaten a finger, but we all know the feeling of hair being pulled out. It’s a really relatable and yet traumatic pain that we’re seeing and thinking about. It’s similar in the way that the animals are put in in the beginning. Because the bodies are treated so real and so relatably, then when this surreal stuff starts happening, it feels so goddamn real. She’s just eating half of a finger and people were traumatized by it. You know, it’s actually not that gory of a movie. It’s not that extreme of a movie, but she slyly grounds it in realism. And then there’s just these beautiful images over the whole thing. It’s such an economic use of set pieces. The blue paint and the yellow paint, and getting together and turning green. Even her under the covers, that feels like a set piece. She’s so economic with her use of action and framing, and it was something I really wanted to try to do. I felt like I didn’t have a good reference for “How am I going to integrate the stylized sequences I have in my mind into this natural world?” Then when I saw her movie, I’m like, “Oh man, this is exactly what I want to do.” She just has a really incredible eye for what is significant, and all the set pieces are just very muscular. Knowing the set pieces are made from simple clean action that is understood with iconic, and icons are simple. To know that things that are iconic are often very, very simple."

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We Were the Salt of the Sea
We Were the Salt of the Sea
Roxanne Bouchard | 2014 | Crime, Mystery, Philosophy, Psychology & Social Sciences, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Ode to the sea, that would describe this book the best, I think. This novel could make even the coldest heart to fall in love with this powerful God’s creation. 🙂

Catherine was looking for her biological mother, and one day she found her, but she was dead. There were so many unanswered questions left, and Catherine was trying to find out, who her mother really was. The characters chosen for this novel were incredibly complex. Their thoughts and feelings filled this book with different states of mind and different perspectives. All the characters had their own unique personality, and sometimes, they were really mysterious to me. I needed quite a bit of time to analyze them. I didn’t have a particularly favourite character in this book, I think they all had their pros and cons, making them all very believable and realistic.

The narrative of this novel was very smartly written, drop feeding the reader with the investigation’s findings, and opening the characters bit by bit. It was quite a slow burner for me, and I really missed some good twists and turns, but I think this novel concentrates more on the character’s feelings and their search of true selves, rather than trying to solve the crime. I really liked the setting and atmosphere of this novel, and the whole plot was soaked with sea love. The author has a passion for sailing, and you can truly feel her love for the sea when she explains the bond, which sea brings out in sailors. Authors expertise shines not only through the sea love but also through knowledge of boats and fishermen’s routines.

The writing style of this novel was very beautiful and incredibly poetic. The chapters had pretty decent length and didn’t leave me bored. The language of this book has quite a lot of sailing terms and is filled with French charm, so I had to look up some of the terms, which sounded alien to me. 🙂 I did like the ending of this book, I think it rounded the story quite well, however, this book makes your brain work, and even though there is a clue of who Catherine’s father is, I still couldn’t figure it out. (I am too lazy 😀 ) So, if you read this book, please let me know in the comment section down below 😉

So, to conclude, if you like sea, boats and a little bit of crime, filled with charming prose and unique characters, then this book is definitely for you. Summer season is just around the corner, so don’t forget a copy of this book, while enjoying that drink on the beach 😉