Trainwreck

I didn't know who Amy Schumer until I saw her on 'The Graham Norton Show' and I thought she was hilarious. When watching her in interview, I kept thinking "I want her to be my friend" and ever since, I was really looking forward to seeing the movie 'Trainwreck,' which she not only acts in, but also wrote the screenplay. And I really enjoyed it, especially since I saw it with a wonderful group of friends.

'Trainwreck' is about a journalist for a magazine, Amy, who, when she was a kid, her dad told her that "monogamy is not realistic." Now she is an adult and lives by this way of life, until one day she is told to write a feature piece on sports doctor, Aaron (played by Bill Hader, who was brilliant in 'The Skeleton Twins'  that I saw last year with the same group of friends). How she feels about Aaron is different to how she's ever felt about anyone before; the movie looks at her relationship between him, her father and her sister, as well as her struggle with  her own personal problems. The movie was a lot more emotional than I was expecting, but that was a good thing, because it was much more than just a comedy. It was funny, but also very moving, especially when Amy opens up and when there are scenes about her dad. Overall, Amy's lines are so funny, with my favourite scene definitely being the ending, which without spoiling  I'm going to call it the "cheerleader scene."

Funnily enough, the first people I had a full on discussion about this movie, were two friendly police officers. It was at night when I saw the movie and because I was the only person on the train platform on my way home, the two policemen who were there, started conversation. I started off telling them about the movie and they asked whether I would recommend it for them, which I admitted that it was more targeted for a female audience, but just because I think that it's main target is women, that doesn't necessarily mean that guys wouldn't enjoy it. But I would recommend it as a good chic flick. One of the policemen then said that he wants to see 'Jurrasic World' (which I personally would not see and I thought that our taste in movies were definitely different), but then we started talking about 'Inside Out' because all three of us saw it and all thought it was incredibly written, especially how it explains depression to a younger audience. 

Anyway, as I said, I think 'Trainwreck' is great to see with your friends for a girls night out. Also, I do believe it has 86% in Rotten Tomatoes, which just shows that it is a very good movie. 

For No One

I just realised today that I still haven't featured a song by The Beatles, which really is terrible of me, because I absolutely love them. My all-time favourite song of theirs would be 'A Day in the Life' from their album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' which is a fantastic album, as it also has my childhood favourite song 'When I'm Sixty-four' (which I would sing with my dad impersonating the instrumentals) as well as other classics like 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' and 'With a little help from my friends.'

But despite my love for that album and those songs that I've mentioned, the song which I'm talking about today is 'For No One.' This is from the album 'Revolver' (another great album), the song sung and written by Paul McCartney and it definitely is one of my top favourite songs of his. It's a very short song, only lasting two minutes, but those two minutes are incredible. Even John Lennon said that it was one of his favourites of Paul's work. It's about the end of a relationship, where love just died for one of them, when it "should have lasted years," however it can be interpreted differently to different people. I know that I interpret it slightly differently, with a whole backstory to how the love died, but I think that's because I just love the song so much that I've dedicated a lot of thought into creating an extra narrative, sort of like the unsaid words within the song. Like the fan fiction of the song, and one day I might even write it. But the lyrics do stand out, with them really placing you into the singer's emotional state; the use of speaking in the second person, which is especially affective. It's an incredibly moving piece, also with brilliant instrumentals.

And in her eyes you see nothing

No sign of love behind the tears

Cried for no one

A love that should have lasted years

Have to say, that I'm also a fan of this album cover

Life Drawing Class #3 and #4

Despite being sick the past couple weeks, I've still been going to my life drawing classes, which have been a great break from the being stuck and confined to bed. In my third class, I was pretty much a zombie and was falling asleep between each sketch, so I have to thank my two friends that do the class with me, who let me do that. And luckily this week, I was well enough to actually stay conscious, so yay! But these are a couple of drawings from the past two classes. This week I think I may have gone a bit overboard with the shading with charcoal overall, but I think I'm just experimenting with trying to make my drawings look more three dimensional. 

Week #3 from the 10 minute pose

Okay, my plan was to show one picture from week 3 and one from week 4, but I was stuck between two of my sketches for week 4. I couldn't decide which one was my favourite and I ended up messaging my friend and asking them their opinion and ended up having a whole big discussion about the different shading between the two. In one of them, I liked how I used the shading to create the torso, while the other I liked how I used movement with the shading to create the hip. It was a lot of fun to analyse my sketches, which I haven't really done before, and it made me feel as if I could actually be an artist (not a very talented one, but an artist non-the-less). Actually, in these classes, the teacher always says that my work is bold, which I take as a compliment, because why not? Anyway, at the end, my friend decided that the shading of the torso won out, which I think is a good decision because that one was also drawn in the ten minutes, while the other option was drawn in forty minutes. 

Week #4 from the 10 minute pose

On another note, I'd like to thank everyone for their patience with me over the past few weeks while I've been unwell, and I promise that next week I'll be back to writing regular posts again. 

Hold it against me

Sorry for not writing much over the past week. I am still really sick and have been devoid of energy and have been stuck in bed for many of the days. I'm so sick of being sick and can't wait to get better. Anyway, I wasn't sure what song to write about today, but last night I had a dream that had Sam Tsui in it. Sam Tsui is a youtuber who does covers of songs, who I have been a fan of for quite a few years. I still remember the first time I heard his voice: my friend had just discovered him and in class when we should have been doing research for a project, she showed me some videos of him singing. And I remember I actually teared up because his voice was just so beautiful. He is able to turn songs that I wasn't a massive fan of, into something so moving and angelic. The prime example of that is his cover of the Britney Spears song 'Hold it against me.' I have never liked Britney Spears. Never. I never liked her voice, or the music because it just sounded completely fake and I just didn't like her when I was a kid and don't like her now. However, Sam Tsui turned 'Hold it against me' into a song of absolute beauty. The original, in my opinion (which is a really harsh one- I'm sorry if I offend anyone who is a Britney Spears fan), sounds trashy, to be honest, but this cover is far from it.

My favourite song that Sam Tsui covers is 'Jar of Hearts,' which was also the first song I heard him sing.  I also love his cover of 'If I die young.' Those two are definitely the top favourites out of the huge selection that he does. And I just have to say, I love all his covers because MAN!!! this guy has an epic voice that I am completely and utterly in love with. But for today, here is 'Hold it against me' sung by Sam Tsui who is also on the piano and accompanied by Kurt Schneider. Hope you fall in love with his work as much as I have:

Unwell

I am so annoyed with myself. I haven't been sick since 2012- three whole years where I haven't even had a runny nose. And I had this impossible dream of maybe never getting sick ever again (because why not dream big?), and now that dream is obliterated completely. On Saturday night, my chest and throat felt a bit weird and that night I had nightmares and got hardly any sleep, so on Sunday (even though I was coughing continuously all day), I blamed my drowsiness on the nightmares. But last night was another horrible sleep of pretty much coughing up my lungs and waking up this morning with a fever, still coughing non-stop,  and with my least favourite: sniffly and blocked nose, which is making my voice sound like an old lady. I had to face the facts: I'm unwell. NOOO!!!! I've let myself down! I had to call into work today and tell them I couldn't come in, because no one wants someone serving them to be coughing all over their food and who looks like the living-dead. I'm also one of those people who hates taking medication- absolutely hate it and try to avoid it as much as possible. I've made myself numerous cups of  ginseng tea, also camomile tea with honey, made myself a lemon syrup and have eaten so many oranges in the past two days, but today I gave in and took some strong cough medicine and panadol... I feel like it's not working.

But I'm not going to let this small blip of unhealthiness stop me from writing, because there is a song for everything. So today's song of the day is Matchbox Twenty's  'Unwell'. It's not actually about the immune system failing on you, however it is a fantastic song.
But in terms of this particular cold, I guess the bright side to this is that when I do get better, I'll have a new aim to beat my record of 3 years of non-stop health.

From page to screen: "Paper Towns"

I have a few favourite books, and two of them are John Green's 'The fault in our stars' and 'Looking for Alaska,' which are his two greatest books. His other books, in my opinion, weren't that special; they were good, but they didn't stand out like those two. I read 'Paper Towns' last year and thought it was an agreeable read, but as I said, it didn't exactly shine out on the bookshelf. However, while I was reading it, I was thinking "this could work really well as a movie. In fact, I think the story could be told better as a movie." This opinion was confirmed earlier this week, when I saw 'Paper Towns' at the cinema. I absolutely loved the movie- I loved the 'Paper Towns' movie better than 'The Fault in our stars' movie.

Brief synopsis: set in the final weeks of high school, the main character, Quentin, is shy and not very outgoing, who has been in love with his popular, unpredictable and mysterious next door neighbour, Margo, since they met. "Margo loved mysteries, so she became one" and all through their high school life, they didn't have anything to do with each other, until one night, Margo climbs into his life (quite literally, through his bedroom window), asking if he could be her get-away driver for the evening. She is on a mission to pay back and "bring the rain" to her ex-boyfriend and her so-called friends. Quentin takes the risk and agrees to a night of being a fellow "ninja," and next day, Margo is gone. No one knows where, and Quentin, alongside with his two best friends and Margo's best friend, try to find and understand the clues to find Margo...

The movie stuck true to the book, which was great!  

It was so enjoyable to watch, with it brilliantly cast, with Nat Wolff as Quentin and Cara Delevingne as Margo. I just have to say, it is pure coincidence that I have written about two movies recently that both star Nat Wolff (him being one of the leads in 'Stuck in Love'- another side note: he was also Isaac in 'The fault in our stars'). But the best chemistry was definitely between Nat Wolff with Austin Abrams and Justice Smith, who played Quentin's best friends, Ben and Radar. Watching the three of them was as if we were watching a real group of best friends; talking over each other and joking and making fun of each other- it just seemed so realistic, which, in movies, is always a pleasure to watch. Because it's been a while since I read the book, I can't go into the details about the text itself, so instead, I'm just going to continue praising the film. It's very rare when the movie is better than the book- another exception includes 'Princess Diaries' (fantastic movie, but the books seemed to drag on a bit)- I don't know what it was that made the story more 'movie-material,' but it was somehow. I highly recommend seeing it.

Life Drawing Class #2

So, today was the second life drawing class and I didn't know it was possible, but my hands got even more covered in charcoal than they did last week. There were more explosions from my charcoal, with pieces chipping and flying everywhere as I was drawing. I think I have become even more enthusiastic now that I have discovered the wonderful world of charcoal.
Even though we had a different model and different poses this week, the structure of the class was the same as the last:
-five sketches with two minutes of each pose, which unlike the previous week, wasn't my best one. I think it's because I had to draw over each sketch, so the page looked really messy. I think next week I'll attempt smaller sketches to put on the one page. However, so far, I've realised I draw "big and bold" rather than "small and tidy."
- then two sketches of five minutes:

-followed by two ten minutes

-and instead of a single forty minute piece, we instead did two twenty minutes, which I preferred doing. This is because last week I found that the forty minute one was too long having finished the body by half that time, so I felt compelled to do the finer details and attempt the face to fill in the remaining minutes. And the face I drew didn't come out very well, so this week I promised myself to not try to draw faces.