"The Martian" - l'éloge du film

So last weekend I went to cinema to watch "The Martian". It was friday noon so I had my own private film showing and I was really excted. The movie was great. I watched it in 3D so I could appreciate some special effects (like with the storm) and I could just stare at my favourite actor (who unfortunately wasn't showed too much, but maybe that's why I was so thrilled to watch it). This movie has everything what I want from the movie - excitement, some action, humour, good soundtrack, good actors, well written script and beautiful views. One scene was touching when the main character portrayed by Matt Damon asked the commandor (Jessica Chastain) to talk with his parents, yeah, that was moving. And it's an adaptation of a novel by Andy Weir.

So now a few pics from the movie and a teaser:

"Technically I'm not even sure if it works, but let's face it. I invented it so it works." - Howard Stark

For a long time I didn't want to watch a TV series called „Agent Carter”, I didn't like the character in the movie „Captain America: First Avenger”, so it wasn't high on my must-watch-list. But recently I've watched the last episodes of „Gotham”, „Arrow”, and I've realised I don't have anything new to watch while I'm eating diner. So I read what the plot was about (and I saw that terrible poster, like they didn't have any specialists in Marvel. They can do such amazing things like The Age of Ultron trailer and they can't make a decent poster for their new baby „Agent Carter”?) and I saw that cast includes Dominic Cooper who plays Howard Stark (Tony's father) and this made me to watch it.

So we meet agent Carter after the end of the Second World War. She's still in pain after loosing the love of her life – Steve Rogers. And that's good, because if she just agreed that he's gone and now she has to move on, well that would mean she didn't really love him. But she did. A lot. So here she is, an English tough girl in New York, who has a secret job in SSR, an agent totally underestimated because of her sex (let's remember it was before women got rights), her life is pretty miserable, she doesn't date of course, she tries to do her best, but her colleuges just want her to make a coffee and bring lunch. So when she meets Howard who wants to give her a secret mission, says he can trust only her, she's delighted. And the adventure starts, she has to take back some of Howard's inventions that nobody gets hurt. And there's Jarvis, Howard's butler, who is supposed to help her any time.

So I've watched the whole season one (eight episodes, YAY!) and I've changed my mind about Peggy Carter. She's a strong woman, she can kick some ass (one guy claimed that five guys did beat him, not a girl), she's tough, smart and has a funny accent. But my absolutely favourite character is Howard Stark. He's like his son (well, Tony is like his father, but you get the point). He's bright, genius, womanizer, playboy, millionaire, inventor and above all a good human being. He can be arrogant, selfish, sometimes unpleasant, but you have to admit he has a reason. Have I mentioned he was a genius? Well he is. And that's why he's one of the founders of the SHIELD. Unfortunately, we know his fate is to die with his beloved wife in a car accident which wasn't a car accident, but a murderer comitted by Hydra, so this TV series allows us to know him a little bit better than just from Tony's memories in “Iron Man 1,2,3”.

Stuff

It's a Pyrkon weekend! Like every year there's a Pyrkon in Poznań, a great event which gathers all fantasy, science-fiction and comic book fans, something like Comic-con in San Diego, USA, but a little bit smaller. Like they say about their mission on their website:

 Comic-Con International: San Diego is a nonprofit educational corporation dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular artforms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.

Unfortunately, I couldn't participate in it this year, but I'm going to next year. I just have to prepare my costume. A propos costumes, I've seen a lot of different and creative outfits this weekend, like: Sailor Moon and her friends: Sailors: Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury, some elves, hobbits, Darth Maul from Star Wars, and many many others. So I have to beat all of them next year to get the award for the best costume: 5000zł. Awesome, right?

Well, may, 8th I'm going to cinema for a marathon with the Avengers from 10 pm till about 6 am, I can't wait to watch it. I have a great seat and I hope there won't be any teen groups talking, throwing popcorn, laughing or kissing loudly, I hope there will be only devoted fans like me, who will appreciate the 3D technology, Iron Man, Winter Soldier and Hulk. There will be 3 movies: The Avengers, Captain America: Winter Soldier and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. So I have to be „sober” and fully concentrated to the end because the last movie is a premiere, and the other two I have already seen (they're great by the way), and I still have no idea how I'm gonna do this. I think I'm gonna take a lot of coffee and snacks, maybe some redbull drink or something like that.

By the way, when I mentionned Winter Soldier, it reminded me about a video on youtube featuring Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie:

Funny, right? I think it's the only funny ice bucket challenge vid I've watched.

"You have failed this city!"

Today I'm gonna write about "Arrow" - a TV series about a comic book superhero Green Arrow. (WARNING: Spoilers!!!)

My name is Oliver Queen. After five years on a hellish island, I have come home with only one goal: to save my city.

These are Arrow's words which open every episode.

Oliver Queen is a playboy billionaire (just like Bruce Wayne - Batman), he has his own company (like Bruce Wayne), he loves his city (like Bruce Wayne), but his perfect life is interrupted by an accident (which actually wasn't an accident), his dad dies (like Bruce's), but Oliver manages to escape to an island called Lian Yu (purgatory) (not like Bruce Wayne),

 where he meets Yao Fei, his first teacher,

 Slade Wilson (friend and enemy), Shado (friend, lover, Yao Fei's daughter) and many many other people. He spends there 5 years (well not exactly, because one day ARGUS hires him and he travels all around the world) until some fishermen notice him and take him to China, from where he came back home - Starling City. Of course everybody thinks he's dead, and when they find out he's not, they're not as happy as we could think. The only person who's truely happy for him is Thea, his younger sister. From now on Oliver decides to become someone else - Green Arrow, a hero or vigilante (basically like Batman) who uses bow and arrow to put a fear of God in criminals (Batman has his own special belt - who should know what I mean, knows it). Naturally he has a superhero indentification: "You have failed this city" and a cool costume - a green leather outfit.
The writers introduced some other characters from comicbook like Tommy Merlin, Laurel and Sarah's father det. Lance, Malcolm Merlyn (Magician), Moira Queen - Oliver's mother, Captain Boomerang, Barry Allen (Flash), Ra's Al Ghul, Nyssa Al Ghul and of course the members of team Arrow: Laurel Lance, Sarah Lance (both Black Canaries) and Roy Harper (Arsenal). But they also created some new characters like John Diggle ( a nod to the creator of the comic book) and Felicity Smoak who becomes a love interest for Oliver, she's an IT girl, at first she works for Oliver, then she becomes he's partner and mybe something else, especially after watching this video:

A trailer of first episodes of the third reason (including Ra's Al Ghul): 

And now a trailer for last 5 episodes of the third season:

And some pics:

Some scary scars after 5 years on Lian Yu

Some nice views for women;)

Deathstroke aka Slade Wilson

an authentic conversation of Oliver and Felicity

League of assassins (in Batman they're called League of Shadows)

from left: Laurel Lance, Slade Wilson, Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen, John Diggle, Thea Queen, Roy Harper

Slade's mask on the island, when I first saw it, I thought that nothing good could happen on this island

 

Felicity Smoak

I can't wait for the next episode (wednesday) because last episode ended not so well because of Thea's death, so now they will to resurrect her in Nanda Parbat's water. Well, she will come back to life, but she will change, like Robin in "Batman under the Red Hood". In general Arrow and Batman have a lot of common, they have the same enemies, Gotham is next to Starling City, so they should meet, but they won't because of the producers. That's why we won't see anymore Captain Boomerang in "Arrow" or Harley Quinn (an Easter egg in one of the episodes). Arrow knows only Flash, but he will meet the rest of the Justice League, well the character, but they hire another actor so it's still not cool. Arrow is awesome, especially when he tries to act like a normal human being, but he forgot how to do it, so that's why it's so funny sometimes and unpredictable.

"Gotham is mine!"

Welcome after Easter break!

Today I'm gonna write about "Gotham".

'Gotham" is a TV series which shows what happened before Batman came to the city. 

First episode presents Jim Gordon (a detective from homicide department), his fiancée Barbara, his partner - Harvey Bullock and one of the most important characters in the series - Bruce Wayne. 

They show the murder of Bruce's parents and detective Gordon tries to find the murderer.  

Of course in every episode there is a lot of easter eggs, which I love. I love finding future Batman's enemies - Gotham villains. So we have Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Scarecrow, we have a first version of poison which will create Bane (Viper-> Venom), Harvey Dent.

Harvey Dent

Viper

An awesome thing is the beginning of friendship between Bruce and Jim. And the complicated relationship between Bruce and Selena.

When I watched the first episode, I was terrified by the atmosphere of the Gotham City.

Imagine there's no hope. Cops are corrupted, two mobs try to destroy each other and rule the city, the mayor is corrupted, it's always dark, there are dozens dead bodies nobody cares about and than comes James Gordon. A little light of hope in the dark Gotham.

Perhaps the producers showed even Joker as a young Jerome, who killed his mother who worked in a circus.

 He was ruthless and laughed a little bit like Heath Ledger in "The Dark Kinght", but earlier there was an easter egg in one of previous episodes - a guy laughed a lot like Joker in Arkham Asylum, so maybe authors want us to guess and fight, or maybe they can't decide if they want to show Joker.

 I would forget! There was an episode entitled "The Red Hood", which was Joker's first nickname. But (warning: spoilers) tjey killed all of the "Red Hoods" so maybe it's a dead end.

Imagine Smoke + Mirrors - the newest Imagine Dragons' album

Well recently I bought the newest Imagine Dragons's music album (that super extra double golden limited edition with 20 songs) and I'm listening to it right now. I've already known a few songs from it, but now I'm listening to “Friction” and I think it's excellent.

In general I'm not disappointed, I like this kind of music, especially if there's a lot of drums and/or guitar (and bass). 

There has to be a drum:)

Maybe they don't have another “Radioactive” but it's still good.

Imagine Dragons were formed in 2008 in the USA in Las Vegas by three Daniels and Ben (or officially Dan Reynolds, Wayne Sermon (whose name is also Daniel), Daniel Platzman and Ben McKee).

From left: Daniel Platzman, Ben McKee, Dan Reynolds and Wayne Sermon

 They were supposed to be called “3DB” but for some reason they thought it was a bad idea. I have know idea why;) The name “Imagine Dragons” is an anagram of their life motto, but they don't want to reveal what exactly it is. So there are many people trying to guess, one of the suggestions was: “My green gonads” whatever does it mean;p They said in one of the interviews they will reveal the true anagram but at the end of their career to get our attention again. I hope it won't be soon.

Their first album called "Night Visions" was a great succes, they even won a Grammy Award for the best rock performance (or something like that, I don't care, what matters is that they won:))

 It's an exceptional band because I can listen to them with my mom and it doesn't happen very often. So they make music for everybody and their lyrics have some meaning, the music is different from this crappy thing (can I use “crappy” or is it too rude?) served on MTV, Viva etc.

They usually walk like "The Fellowship of the ring", Dan looks like Gandalf with hobbits, because he's very, very tall:)

"You are being watched..."

So now I'd like to tell you about one of my favourite TV series: “Person of Interest”. They've made four seasons for now and none of the episodes hasn't disappointed me. And that is an achievement, because it's not very common for me not to be able to predict an action or a conversation, this production always suprises me. It's so unusual for me that I'm not getting bored with it.

"You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every day. I know it because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the governement considered "irrelevant". They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find you" - that's how almost every episode starts. 

It's a story of a Machine designed by Harold Finch – a computer genius. The Machine was supposed to predict national and world's threats and lead the government how to avoid these catastrophies. It includes not only terrorist attacks, but also murders of “irrelevant” people, which the government doesn't want to protect. That's why the Machine gives Finch their numbers that he could save them. Of course there's a catch – he never knows if he gets a number of an innocent person or a guilty one. And he needs help because he had a serious injury of his back, so he gets help from John Reese, a former CIA agent, spy, and on general awesome guy (played by Jim Caviezel, so it's nice to look at him;)). During the series they become best friends and save a lot of people. They also use some help from NYPD – det. Carter and det. Fusco. In the seconds season there's also agent Shaw, another smashing super cool awesome person who knows all the martial arts and how to use every gun. And she's hot and sometimes (or maybe most of the times) she doesn't know how to act like a human, which is funny or scary, it depends on the situation. If Mr Reese is a scalpel, she's a hammer - like Finch once said.

In the second season there's also another cool hero – a dog called Bear, who understands only (I think it was) Finnish (but I'm not sure) 

because it used to be one of the dogs trained specially on army purposes, but it got to bad hands of some New York's mob and Mr Reese saved it.

From left: det. Carter, Root (sometimes evil, sometimes good), Harold Finch, John Reese, det. Fusco, agent Shaw.

Bear:)

The worst enemy so far

A pic of Finch and Reese working

The Machine shows also timeline which explains some plot

They have a board where they put photos and other informations about victims and criminals

And for the end something funny:)

I really recommend this TV production cause it's groovy, full of unpredictable action and humor.