Movie Review Monday!

So today, the day after the Oscar's, I have three, count them THREE, movies to review! Two of which I know were up for nominations, and one which was just too darn cute looking to pass up. So, let's start it off:


"Can You Ever Forgive Me?" (directed by: Marielle Heller)

Normally, I turn around when I see a Melissa McCarthy movie, and this is because the brand of comedy she does just seems very cringe-worthy to me. Do I think she is a bad actress? No, but personally, her brand of comedy is not necessarily what I subscribe to. So, to see her take the leap into something a little different seemed like a time to give her a chance and watch the movie. Now, I missed this in theaters, but I was able to rent it on iTunes, so I am sure there are probably a few things I missed. But overall, the film itself was quite humorous.

The film is about biographer Lee Israel, and how she forged letters in order to get money, as she appeared to be falling on hard times in the movie. Whether this is true or not, I am sure we will never really know, but I started to get invested when she tried to get her cat looked after--I'm sorry, I own a cat, and if I brought her to the vet and was told I couldn't get her looked at or be able to give her medicine, I would probably resort to something drastic as well. So, suddenly I am invested, all over a cat.  A FREAKING CAT! And there were quite a few times when I was almost yelling at my screen saying for her to take care of the cat! And yes, I cried when (spoiler alert) the cat died.

The banter between McCarthy and Richard Grant (who plays the very flamboyant Jack Hock) was quite witty, and had me laughing quite a few times. I do feel, however, that parts of the movie were rushed, especially when she started getting into stealing real letters, but seriously, how often can you really show trying to sell fake letters? Despite all the "wheeling and dealing" that they say goes on in the collectors world (and I would so believe it, because you see it ALL THE TIME in ANY collectible world), I would have liked to see more of the side of how the FBI got involved. It felt way too rushed after the initial set-up, and therefore got a bit boring too fast. Despite well-given performances by all, the script just went wooshing by, and didn't seem to allow for you to catch it.



"How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World" (directed by: Dean DeBlois)

I never saw the first two movies in theaters, despite eventually seeing them and seeing just how much Toothless is like my cat--seriously, my cat is Toothless, attitude and all. So, when I saw the previews for this, what actually hooked me was the Light Fury. Yes, I know, seems like a very silly reason to be hooked into going to a movie. But I am SO glad I saw this one in theaters.

This movie brings about the closure of the Dragon chronicles in such a way that it definitely feels like you got closure, with Hiccup realizing he has started something that might be detrimental to his home--overpopulating it with dragons he and his friends save. Now, while this might be a noble pursuit, it's not helping anyone on Berk. So, in order to help his dragon friends, they pack up and try to find the Hidden World, a tale that Stoick would tell young Hiccup about. Along the way, they have even more problems to deal with as another enemy tries to kill off Toothless and allow for all the dragons to be controlled.

First of all, the script is fantastic, along with dialogue that is wonderfully written, though I will be honest, my favorite line from all the films is still back in the first one, "Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile." There are quite a few witty remarks, as well as parts that made me cry. Not going to lie, the speech Stoick gave young Hiccup about love and loss had me in tears. Also, it seems that these movies have just set the bar WAY up in the air in terms of visual effects, because this movie was just STUNNING! Honestly, Dreamworks outdid themselves with this movie in terms of the visuals. And the little love story going on between Toothless and the Light Fury is just TOO FREAKING ADORABLE!

By the end of the movie, I had laughed quite a bit, and I had tears in my eyes all over again, and I really don't cry often at movies. It really was a truly wonderful ending to this trilogy, and I hope they don't ruin it by trying to go even further. Honestly Dreamworks, do yourselves a favor with this and go out on top!


"Green Book" (directed by: Peter Farrelly)

I had wanted to see this when I first saw trailers for it, and never got a chance to until this weekend. I am lucky that it was still in theaters, and that's probably because both Vigo and Ali (sorry, cannot spell his first name for the LIFE of me) were up for Oscars. And honestly, after seeing the movie, I can see why!

The movie talks about the real-life relationship between Dr. Shirley, a pianist, and his driver, Tony, as they go on a tour in the Deep South during the 1960s. Let that sink in for a minute. Think about the time frame, think about everything that could go wrong. And it does. Honestly, the racism and stereotypes are very much in your face in this movie, and while some make you want to shudder, others do make you giggle a little, although afterwards, I did not feel good about the giggling. Regardless of those moments, watching the real friendship that forges between Shirley and Tony is beyond touching and it's one of those that you know lasts for a lifetime (and it did, with them dying within months of each other in 2013). 

The banter was great, and there were quite a few touching moments of friendship. There was even the moment when, in the downpour, Shirley questions his own identity to Tony, asking, "...then who am I?" There were times when I honestly thought I was watching like the male version of "Driving Ms. Daisy" and yes, I know that Morgan Freeman was in that one as the driver. But there were definitely some messages in this movie that should be felt even in today's day and age, that should be carried throughout life. "You never win with violence."

Dragons and Unicorns, SPS

Happy Self-Promotion Sunday, my fellow readers! I hope things are going well with everyone, as the countdown begins before I go on my hiatus for my graduate program. I hope everyone will wish me luck with that, as it's meant to take a whole month. Like I said, I will do my best to make sure I do a post every now and again, but my production will be much slower going. Plus, my Dremel tool, which helps me with sanding and refinement of my sculptures, has died. I need to get a new one. I guess it was time, I had that thing for 2 years. So sculptures will definitely be taking a bit of a hit for the time being, as anything sculpted is being halted while I wait to get a new one. This will probably be for the best as well, so I can focus solely on painting projects for the next few weeks, especially my charity project and finishing the design of that. I do want to make sure that that is ready in time for the last ever BronyCon.

But, in the meantime, I have a bunch of new pieces, especially up on RedBubble, and a few on my For Fans page, please make sure for the latter that you go vote for those. I'll post the link for that at the bottom.

Now, on Redbubble, I got a LOT of new stuff. Some really cute stuff too! I'm quite proud of the designs, to the point where even I want to buy them, and normally, I hate owning my own work (I'd be criticizing it all the time). Check out the latest designs below:

St. Patrick's Day Bear 

Ride This Rainbow 

No Evil Night Lights 

 Bob Ross Bear

I do have a few finished figurines, but not many and they probably will not be posted to Etsy until after my first convention of the year, if they don't sell at the con. But, I have finished my Gwenpool and a Moondancer mini figurine. Quite proud of how they both turned out. Hopefully, by next week, I will have the Shinex and the Furfrou done, as well as a few more figures for my advent calendar done.

 

Happy WIPW

Hello my fabulous readers and welcome to Work in Progress Wednesday! As my graduate program begins to wind down, I will be able to post more of these as my work load dictates. Remember, come March, I am going to be on a hiatus while I take my graduate program comprehensive exam. I will do my best to at least try and get out either a Self-Promotion Sunday post or a Work in Progress Wednesday post, but I do ask for your cooperation in this as I go for my second masters.

In the meantime, please make sure you go over to For Fans By Fans and vote for my current Care Bear submissions, as well as my latest My Little Pony Design:

 Kirin/Nirik Design

 Heart Bear

Zentangles of Luck

Now, a few new pieces to start showing off. First up, an update on the minis that I am making for the advent calendars I am doing for charity auctions. It's slow going, because these are such tiny ponies and they because very intricate, but it will be worth it in the end:

Speaking of intricate, some of you might have remembered this Sleeping Beauty knight I was sculpting. I did a little bit more on her yesterday, first time in a long time, because this is one of those projects that need to get sanded down as I go along rather than at the end like a typical project. She still has a long way to go, but hopefully, in the end, she will look very cool. Here's the progress so far (by the way, I am NOT responsible for the drawing, but it is the inspiration for this piece):

Couple of Pokemon in the works, Mudsdale, Aipom, and Furfrou:

Another Pokemon (Shinx) and working on transforming this Twilight into a Moondancer from the new series (although I AM tempted to do it old school colors):

Another Last Unicorn, using a G2 pony (sometimes, these are the best ones because they sort of match the style of how Amalthea looked in the movie):

Lastly, working on a Gwenpool (she still needs her weapons) and turning this Care bear into a Cupid Bear (yes I know Valentine's Day passed, but I still want to make it):

Happy Self-Promotion Sunday!

Hello fellow readers! So, a new con is on the radar, so lets update the convention list, shall we?

CT GamerCon: March 23rd and March 24th
Undiscovered Realm Con: May 4th and May 5th
Hudson Valley ComicCon: May 11th and May 12th
MinCon: July 13th
LockCity ComicCon: July 27th
BronyCon: August 1st to August 4th (TO BE DETERMINED BUT WILL BE ATTENDING NO MATTER WHAT!)
LI Tropic Con: August 18th

I am always for smaller conventions, because those are the ones that everyone can get to. Without the smaller cons, the bigger cons would not exist. I think the smaller cons don't get the attention they deserve, so hopefully you will come check me out at one of these conventions.

In the meantime, let's check out the newest pieces. It's not a lot lately, because I have been working on my major charity pieces plus my grad school classes, so it's been very involved. I should be able to post more about it on Work In Progress Wednesday. But for now, I got a few minis for you, both of them Pokemon. I have two more in the works as well, but for now, check out my Purrlion and Pancham, and don't they look cute:

Happy WIPW!

HELLO READERS! Oh my goodness, I can FINALLY post something for Work in Progress Wednesday because I am hitting a point in my classes were I am able to sort of kick back a bit! That's mostly because I am both ahead and at a standstill at the same time. I'm ahead because I have completed pretty much all the work I need to do, but I am at a standstill for pretty much the same reason. So, with that in mind, yesterday I had a snow day and I got to do a bit of work on a BIG project I am doing--a charity piece that I am doing for BronyCon. This is one I have been teasing for a while, and so I will show a little more. This piece involves a lot of little pieces, and it's something that pretty much anyone should be able to use.

Another hint: in 2013, there was a My Little Pony one of these items, and as far as I know, I haven't seen any since.

Last hint: I am not just referencing G4 ponies for this--I am even going back to G1 and G3 for holiday ponies.

Give up?









I'm making an ADVENT CALENDAR! That's right! This advent calendar is going to have a lot of winter themed ponies on it, as well as the Mane 6 and a few others on here! I'm even making an OLAF pony! See if you can spot him in the picture! But regardless, this has been such a HUGE undertaking! I am hoping that this piece goes for quite a bit of money when I do actually donate it. I am coming up with a design for the center of the calendar itself, paying homage to the Mane 6 of now with their inspiration counterparts! Hopefully everyone likes this piece and when it's done, it helps to rake in some dough for the charity that BronyCon always tries to help.

Keep an eye for more updates on this piece!

Movie Review Monday (Belated) Plus...Play Review of Mockingbird!

OK! So I meant to post this A WHILE ago, but I was super sick the last week and a half that I just couldn't do it. And I do mean super sick. So today, we have TWO reviews, and one of them is of a play I saw recently: the Aaron Sorkin take on "To Kill A Mockingbird" starring Jeff Daniels...yes, that Jeff Daniels!

But let's first start with the movie I FINALLY saw, "On The Basis of Sex!"

"On The Basis of Sex" (director: Mimi Leder)

 

I originally wanted to see this movie when it first came out, as it was obviously very historic in it's own way and with all the nonsense happening on Capitol Hill, The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been a fixture for many of us, especially with the new "RBG" movie coming out prior to this movie. Now, did I think this would be a stellar movie? No, I did not. But then again, not all great movies need to be flashy in order to be good. And yes, this is not a movie that is going to win any sort of Oscar, but that doesn't mean this movie was horrible. In fact, this was a very wonderful movie. Despite the fact that many things were obviously exaggerated (seriously people, if you have EVER taken even ONE law class, you would know that it would NOT be possible to attend your own classes and your significant others' classes, no matter how hard a worker you are), the intention of Ruth (played fabulously by Felicity Jones) is there to make known--that she wants to help change things in the United States--is not lost to anyone. While she does get sidetracked--and I am not diminishing that you can still effect change by teaching it--Ruth ends up getting back into the ring when her husband Martin (affectionately played by Armie Hammer) presents her with a case of sex discrimination against a MAN. That the tables could be turned to try and use the opposite sex to help the cause of women is almost something that Ruth didn't seem to consider. But it's a FABULOUS case of quid pro quo and makes for something exciting!

The dialogue is fabulous, the wit and humor provided give you a good chuckle. While obviously things are changed around, it's a wonderful piece of cinema. And I highly recommend looking at the ACTUAL case, as it was significantly different scenario than what they show in the movie: Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld



"To Kill A Mockingbird" (adapted for stage by Aaron Sorkin)

When I was gifted tickets to this, I originally groaned. Not going to lie, this book has been done to DEATH for me. I mean, who hasn't read this book or performed this play to some extent in middle or high school? Seriously, by the time you are done with it, you never really wanted to see it again (save for a few people who enjoyed it, and honestly, I question who could enjoy it with how depressing it is, in spite of wonderful dialogue). But, the person who gifted me the tickets has never really steered me wrong when it came to shows, so I decided I would go in with an open mind. And boy am I GLAD I did! This play is BRILLIANT! The way that it has been adapted has allowed for a lot of the themes and the tone to still be prevalent, with the children--Scout, Jem and Dill--providing the narration while also being a part of the story. Jeff Daniels provides a command performance as Atticus, although many people will say that there are some differences between the book version and the play version, and honestly, that's fine. In fact, both Sorkin AND Daniels address this sort of thing:

This play TRULY rings forth with dialogue that many people could probably relate to today, and many themes that, in our current political clime, seem all too familiar. In a sense, Sorkin has brought forth Harper Lee's original dialogue and given it a modern voice, the sort of voice that we all need to recognize--not everything can be rationalized, not everything can be explained away. We might all want to try and be fair to those we know, but there comes a point when we can't, when we need to decide. And this play forces us to really take a good, long look at what we should "All rise" and stand for.

Happy Self-Promotion Sunday!

Hello all you fabulous readers! I am finally back from my sickness, although I am still not at 100%, but I am getting there. It's a slow process, considering I had two different strains of the flu at the same time (yes, you read that right--two different strains of the flu at the same time). So, not much to show tonight, considering I am still recovering, but definitely a few things. First up, please go and vote for my new designs that are on For Fans By Fans. I submitted my Kirin/Nirik design, as well as one of my Care Bear designs. I'm waiting to see if another one of my Care Bear designs gets approved, so keep an eye out for it. Please go and check them out, and give them a vote:

Care Bear Design

Kirin/Nirik Design

Next up, my newest pony! I just finished this Zilla Flurry Heart, which includes styling the hair rather than sculpting. This was a first for me, so I was asking around on how to make the hair stay. Someone told me they had done glue, so I decided to try spray Mod Podge, which seems to be holding pretty well so far. Plus, I added a crown with some gems, to show off her princess status even more. Plus, it just adds to the cuteness factor. So check her out on my Etsy page soon!

Happy SPS!!

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Self-Promotion Sunday! Today, I am updating the list of conventions I will be attending this coming year, because I cannot believe I forgot one or two of them in the initial list! So with that in mind, here is the current updated list (which we all know can get bigger):

CT GamerCon: March 23rd and March 24th
Undiscovered Realm Con: May 4th and May 5th
Hudson Valley ComicCon: May 11th and May 12th
MinCon: July 13th
LockCity ComicCon: July 27th
BronyCon: August 1st to August 4th (TO BE DETERMINED BUT WILL BE ATTENDING NO MATTER WHAT!)

In the meantime, I have been SWAMPED lately with both work and grad school, which given that I am still learning to balance the former, and almost done with the latter, is not surprising. I have also been extremely sick, hence my absence from last week. I have been coughing so badly that it makes me shake. This is not the first time I have been sick this school year, and it's actually becoming both frustrating and frightening. Frustrating because this is about the 3rd or 4th time within 6 months that I have been sick, and frightening because of that same reason. So it has made doing any work very hard to do because the coughing has been causing a lot of shaking. I hope to have more answers this week.

But in the times that I have NOT been shaking, I got these two ladies done. Since She-Ra is on the rise again, I figured to use some baits I had to make her mount, Swift Wind. Maybe I will make a few She-Ra figurines from some EQG Minis. But these girls should be up on my Etsy soon, when I can stop coughing.

Happy Fluttershy Friday! (#116, 117, 118, 119?)

Hello everypony! And happy Fluttershy Friday! I am back from a week of being extremely ill, and am back in the swing of things! I have 4 new Flutters to show off this week, including a new Flutterbat! Let's begin!

The first two are Flutters using the new Cutie Mark Crew figurines, the mini ones. Now, at first, I honestly thought I was going to hate these things. They looked too weird, like they were trying to be chibi but not quite. But since I got the bigger one, I have succumbed to this cuteness. So now, I have an original Fluttershy and a custom Flutterbat! Aren't these two adorable??

Now, the next two are sort of on the fence. First is a zilla size G4.5 Fluttershy, no real importance or uniqueness. I honestly was originally considering making her into a Flutterbat, and I may still do that.

Lastly, is another fashion size Fluttershy, this one the one that had the really long mane/tail that had weird strings in it. This one I got recently and didn't realize that some of the strings were cut off. Honestly, her hair was in such a state that I am surprised that I didn't give up and turn it into a bait. I am wondering if I should make this girl into a Rainbow Powered Fluttershy.

What are your thoughts on the last two? Any suggestions?? Should I keep them or bait them?