Bites and Bits \\ This week

Hello, Hello

Borboleta - the wild cat in my backyard peeking in the stairs for food 

Since the last post about my latest obsession about horror movies that I haven't publish anything! Shame on me!
Since then I've only seen one more movie - unfortunately I didn't realize until the end that it was a 2009 sort of remake of the Friday 13th - and it was a little blah. Not scary at all, visually strong and gory but not scary and too long! No doubt I will be searching for the first one to see.

But let's not talk about movies again. After that I went on a reading spree! I started to organize and took a deep look at my e-books; and then it was just choose and read. Which lead me to think that the best investment I did this year (after my new glasses) was the modest tablet that I got. It's not the most fancy thing ever, but for reading books and comics is beyond perfection.

But back to the books that I've read; I mainly read two authors Sherrilyn Kenyon and Nora Roberts.
From the 1st one: Dark Hunter Series - Fantasy Lover, The Beginning (short story), Dragonswan (short story), Night Pleasures, Night Embrace, Phantom Lover (short story), Dance with the Devil, A Dark Hunter Christmas (short story) and Kiss of the Night.
From the 2nd one: Blithe Images (short story), Islands of Flowers (short story), Search for Love (short story), Song of the West and The Hearts Victory.

Seven books and seven short stories O_o hmm (but who is counting right?... oh yeah right... me)

Right... can I mention that I read fast? And by fast I mean like lightening speed. oh and that these books were kind of small too (well at least half of them). It's a good thing that I don't read like this all the time, I would be out of books to read really fast.

But life isn't just having fun.
In the past week I was really moody, I had things to do but I had some kind of block (loads of layers of different kind of blocks). Pretty much as I was when I wrote this personal rant. But fortunately I broke the blocks and was able to function again and work too. I think the thursday holiday helped in that a lot.
I feel inspired again and I manage to advance in a couple things that I needed to do. *ohhappyday*

In those days I also try spotify and in a couple days ruined all my free hours of the week. But I managed to find some nice folk bands that I've been enjoying to listen - The Civil Wars (I've got this friend and Devil's Backbone), Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros (I'm addicted to their Home music), Fleet Foxes (the video below), The Lumineers (my love goes to Submarines), Beirut, The Decemberists (really like June Hym), Foster the People (Pumped up kids) and Noah and the Whale.



I'm a person that doesn't enjoy going to the beach, or even a person that enjoys the summer too much. I don't like the heat, I don't feel comfortable in summer clothes. I like wind and wearing scarfs with cardigans. So my summer trips are mainly in my room. It might be sad to some, but I like it this way.
I'm happy today - I managed to do what I had to do. I have more exciting things to do next week. I draw some nice sketches for notebooks/notepads that I will be doing this week (hopefully). My grandma's birthday is this week, and we started to celebrate already today with chocolate cake and port wine (which are two really nice things to have at any time). Over all I feel that I accomplish something, and that's good (I think).

Bolo Brigadeiro \ Nom nom nom 

7A \\ Weekend Movies

(attention, it might have spoiler alerts - consider yourself warned)

I have always felt curious about movies. Recently that curiosity moved towards horror movies. When I start to see properly a new genre of movies I feel the need to watch some of the considered classics!

Saturday, for no apparent reason, I felt it was perfect to see Halloween and Michael Myers. I've embarked in a marathon of Halloween movies.
Only after I watched a view that I realized there was more, and many not even related with the first/original movie.

I started properly with the first movie of 1978 - Halloween, directed by John Carpenter, with Jamie Lee Curtis in the main role of Laurie Strode. A quick movie, quite scary - the ambience is very well constructed, the characters are not very deep, but that's perfect for the genre of the film, and for an independent movie at that time, that was a lot! - and probably that's why it was so successful. It's a movie full of gore, there's a lot of chasing and in the end no one knows where Michael Myers is.
1981 - Halloween II directed now by Rick Rosenthal, still with Jamie Lee Curtis in the main role of Laurie Strode -  it's a bloodier and scary continuation of the first film. There's a lot more deaths, more violent too. The whole movie happens just right after Laurie Strode got to the hospital -  continuing the first movie, and the whole plot happens in this small hospital with barely any staff and patients. Some of the scenes in the hospital basement remind me of A Nightmare on Elm Street but it was only released three years after, so it might be other way around the influence - if there was any.

I wasn't aware of next movies (in chronological order): Halloween III: Season of the Witch in 1982; Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 1988; Halloween 5 - The Revenge of Michael Myers in 1989 and in 1995 the Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, so I didn't watched them yet.

I jumped to the 1998 movie Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, again with Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. This happens twenty years after Michael's disappearance. Laurie never got convinced of her brother's death in the fire at the hospital, because his body was never found. She changed her identity, and now is a teacher and director of a posh private school. She also has a son that recently did 17 years. She is psychotic and over controller mother, but she as a point, after all her brother might come back anytime!
It's an ok movie, but in the horror genre it doesn't scare at all. It has some nice persecution scenes, but that's it. The ending is epic, and pretty much seems like the end of Michael Myers.

I haven't see the 2002 Halloween: Resurrection (again with Jamie Lee Curtis), and started to watch instead the Halloween (2007) and the continuation Halloween II (2009) by Rob Zombie. And oh boy! Rob Zombie restores parts of the original storyline but adds so much more to the story! Not just to the story itself but also visually. I don't know if it was because I saw the unrated versions, it's way more violent and gory - sometimes in a disgusting way (like just in the beginning of the Halloween II when Laurie it's in the hospital, all bloody and the doctors are taken care of her and there are some detail shots of her wounds). Both movies are really long, about two hours each, for a horror movie that's a lot! But there is always something to see, a new thing happening, so there isn't a moment of boredom in the movies.
Comparing the Laurie Strode character, I think she, as a character, lose a lot, she is more fragile and thinking well, in the Rob Zombie version the main character is Michael Myers. You can follow Michael path since he was a bullied child and killed is older (and slutty) sister, sister's boyfriend and his mother's (asshole) boyfriend, and then when Michael was arrested at mental disorder facility, because of that. How Dr. (jerk) Loomis was important in his daily routine, and also how his mother's weekly visits were important to him. How he snaps when someone talks about he's little sister, or when some pigs try to violate a girl in his cell and he end up by killing them all and escape from prison. After that is halloween and Michael tries to get to his sister. In the first film she thinks that she killed him, but soon you can found out that he's not dead and he will be back - after all he was just a psychopath boy that wanted to gather back his family! They all died in the end - happy ending? Maybe not, horrifying ending? Well probably, after all it's a horror movie.

On Sunday night I was feeling that I need to change subject so I choose something lighter to watch, something that have been on my watch list for awhile - Ultraviolet, a 2006 movie with Milla Jovovich.
Downside of the movie, I kinda wanted to know more about the characters background stories, there were a lot of questions that I wanted to be answered, but maybe they'll do a sequel!
I adore the opening credits with all the comics references, unfortunately its fake, I mean, there is no Ultraviolet Comic Series, though I think they would be epic, or at least good.
Other issue in the movie is so many references to other movies, scenes and actions that make you think I've seen this before! Which would fine to me if there was something more relevant in the plot, but the plot isn't very deep. Some of the other movies that remind me of were Tron, Matrix, Underworld, Star Wars and Æon Flux, to name a few.
It's entertaining but for such nice graphics it asked for a better character development.

And that was it for this weekend, I hope to see the rest of the other Halloween movies really soon.

Bites & Bits | é um ciclo vicioso {personal rant}

Hoje acordei a pensar na vida.
Isto de acordar tarde não dá com nada. Acordo com a mente turva e primeiro que clarifique um pensamento coerente, pode demorar algum tempo. A solução aparente seria deitar-me mais cedo, mas na verdade é que se estou a fazer algo interessante não quero interromper o fio à meada para ir dormir. Outra solução seria pôr um despertador... e depois não ignorá-lo.
A parte mais parva desta conversa toda é que este diálogo repete-se ciclicamente, todas as semanas. Penso é desta que me levanto cedo e faço 1001 coisas. Sim, resulta um dia, no outro já tenho sono, ou não tenho nada muito importante para fazer que justifique acordar já já.
Uma desgraça!

E como uma desgraça nunca vem só...
A minha cabeça está sempre a pensar em mais coisas para fazer, até parece que só conhece a soma e a multiplicação, sejam novos desenhos, novos projetos... Tudo é possivel! Mas o tempo não estica, e aqui a moça tem uma maneira muito peculiar de trabalhar. O que muitas vezes resulta em stress desnecessário. E quando a prima preguiça e irmã procastinação vem visitar e instalam-se alegremente sem vontade aparente de partir, cria-se um 31 de tal ordem!! Que por norma significa um par de dias a comportar-me como uma barata tonta cheia de stress que não sabe o que fazer! Até acalmar e achar uma solução... ou o contrário.
É um ciclo vicioso, mas hei-de quebrá-lo!