drama – Book Dust Magic

Movie Monday: House of Gucci #MovieMonday #FamilySaga #Fashion

Movie Monday is a feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

Today I want to talk about a movie I watched yesterday. It is a drama about Gucci family that features so many great actors, but it also has captivating story.

House of Gucci

Yesterday me and my husband watched House of Gucci. It was available on HBO so we took an advantage of that.

I have heard good things about this film and waited on my chance to see it. It is on a longer side (2h 38m) but it was so entertaining that those two and a half hours passed by very quickly.

To be honest, when it comes to general culture there are still so many things I don’t know. Gucci family are ones I know the surname of because of their famous fashion brand, but anything about them is a great unknown to me.
So basically, I went into this movie completely blind, having no clue what happened to Gucci family members at all.

Overall, the story is sad and unfortunately true. It was a shame that one powerful family went down the hill so fast and how it took one person to wake up the worst in them.
Also, it made me wonder how greedy one can truly be?

The cast was amazing, their performance astonishing. My father who watched this movie months ago still can’t believe that Lady Gaga can act so well.
To me, everyone was perfect, but the one who stood out from them all was Jared Leto. I marvel his acting skills the most, but I can’t turn a blind eye on his capability to change his looks completely for a role. Once again he did it here (but let’s not forget all the costume designers and make up artists who did great work there), and I see, he is doing it again for his next role.

Al Pacino, Adam Driver, Salma Hayek, Jeremy Irons… There were so many good actors that anything but perfect performance would be acceptable.

Overall, a great movie that I even dare to call a family saga and one I recommend wholeheartedly.

Movie Monday: A Dog’s Journey – I fell in love with it #ADogsJourney #ADogsPurpose #Movie #MovieReview

Movie Monday is a feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

It’s been a while since I’ve done Movie Monday but this weekend I watched a movie I fell hard in love with, so I have to tell you guys about it, in hope you will give it a watch too.

A Dog’s Journey

It has been a while since I did a Movie Monday feature here on my blog, and to be perfectly honest, the reason for it was that I haven’t go to the cinema in a very long time, so I fell discouraged to talk about movies I watch on tv.

However, this weekend I watched a movie that just came out on DVD recently, and since I completely fell in love with it, I have to tell you all about it (okay, not all, but my feels at least).

A Dog’s Journey is a movie that melted my heart in one warm caramel. I don’t even remember when was the last time I felt so many positive emotions during one movie as I felt when watching this picture.
It talks about life of a girl from perspective of a dog who’s purpose is to keep her safe.

What I didn’t know (because, obviously, I live under a rock) that this movie is a sequel to another movie that came out in 2017: A Dog’s Purpose.
Still, even though I haven’t watched the first movie, I could still follow the story without any problem, because A Dog’s Journey stands perfectly on it’s own.
Nevertheless, I plan to watch A Dog’s Purpose next weekend (and maybe I’ll feature it in my next Movie Monday).

As soon as I finished this wonderful film I messaged my friend who has the similar taste to mine with recommendation.
Now I’m doing a similar thing to you, people who read my blog: I wholeheartedly endorse you to give A Dog’s Journey a chance because I assure you: you will probably love it.
If you end up loving it just as half as much as I did, I am sure you will not regret 109 minutes of your life, because it will be time well spent.

Movie Monday: The Last Summer – a solid teen picture #TheLastSummer #MovieReview #Netflix

Movie Monday is a feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

Today I talk about teenage movie everyone talked about when it first came out.

The Last Summer

If you’re active on twitter, you had to hear about The Last Summer. I feel like everyone talked about it when it first came out, and the reviews were pretty much positive.
I made a mental note to watch it when I’d have free time, and now when I finally do, I had to give it a chance.

The Last Summer is a teenage drama that follows multiple characters and their stories. All of them have their last summer before they go to college.
This is a story about self discovery, friendships and family dynamics. In other words, this is a story about life.

In general, I liked the movie, even though if I’m being honest, it was a bit boring. I think if the story was told in a different way, it could have been better, but it wasn’t bad at all. It was a solid movie, nothing more. I don’t think it brought anything new to the table.

Out of all the stories, I liked Phoebe’s the best. I think it really stands out from the others.

I watched this picture together with my fiance and his impression are similar to mine.

Overall, this is the perfect summer story to relax with, but nothing more then that. I think it is worth to check out so I do recommend it.

Movie Monday: Before I Wake – magical realism with horror elements #BeforeIWake #MovieMonday #MovieReview

Movie Monday is a feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

This week I want to talk about the movie I watched few days ago, that touched my heart.

Before I Wake

There’s not much one can do when all she has to do is rest, then watch plenty of movies (and tv shows).
I was lucky enough to find some good ones for the past few days, and today I want to tell you all about the one that impressed me the most: Before I Wake.

Before I Wake was recommended to be by my friend recently, because it’s a good story with horror elements, and she knows how much I enjoy horrors.

At first I was sceptic whether it’ll be just another horror that I’ll forget as soon as it’s over, but I trusted her and gave it a shot with some expectations. They weren’t extra high, but they surely weren’t low either.

The story follows a young orphan boy who was adopted by a young couple who lost their son few years ago.
The story is actually magical realism and the boy has the ability to transfer his dreams in the real world.
Everything is fine and magical while the boy sleeps well, but what happens when he has nightmares?

Guys, this movie is one of the best I’ve watched this year.
I have no doubt that the story will stay with me for the longest time, and I will recommend it to everyone I know, who still hasn’t watched it.

At first I thought this was a horror, but as the story was developing, it transformed into a beautiful piece of art that touched my heart, and I still shiver when I think about it.

It talks about child’s perspective on life and hard circumstances when one is still very young, and the love children and adults need.

I highly recommend Before I Wake to everyone. I hope this movie will touch you as it has me.

Movie Monday: Searching – unique and intense #MovieMonday #Searching #MovieTwit #MovieReview

Movie Monday is a feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

This week I want to talk about the movie I watched a while ago that has left a huge impact on me.

Searching

A while back I watched one of my favorite youtubers, Nikki Blackketer, mentioned in her vlog a movie called Searching. She went to the screening of it and ended up really enjoying it.
Once I heard her opinions about it, I knew I had to watch it myself.

Since it was never in theaters or any kind of screening here in Croatia, I had to wait until it was available to stream, and guess what? The waiting was worth it!

Searching is crime drama with unique way of story telling. I have never watched anything similar before, and I was positively surprised.
You see, the whole movie is filmed as screenshots (and screens in general) of computer, mobile phones, television inserts, with interesting and gripping plot.

The story follows David Kim who’s daughter went missing after she was studying with a group of friends.
One of the things she left behind was her laptop. Now, with an aim to find her, her father breaks into her computer and searches for any kind of clues.
While finding signs and hints, he comes to conclusion he didn’t know his daughter as good as he thought.

This movie was so good, I would highly recommend it to everyone who likes mysteries. It took a while for me to get used to the way it was filmed, but once I got into the story, I was really invested.
In a matter of fact, I was so thrilled I didn’t want to be bothered by anyone! I just wanted to have my own piece while watching, so I wouldn’t miss anything.

I really appreciate the way Searching was filmed, I’ve never seen a movie delivered in such an original way, but I hope there won’t be dozens of movies now imitating this piece.

Overall, if you have an opportunity, I highly recommend you to watch Searching. I hope you will like it as much as I did.

Rivalry, Revenge and Bitches: Tell Me a Secret by Jane Fallon (Book Review) #BookReview #WomensFiction #Revenge #TellMeASecret

Title: Tell Me a Secret

Author: Jane Fallon

Publisher: Penguin, Michael Joseph

Date: January 10th, 2019

Pages: 404

Format: eARC

Source: from Publisher for a review

Review:

Two years ago I read Jane Fallon’s My Sweet Revenge and I really liked it. You can read my review here. I loved how it was a perfect read for book clubs, because there was so many things people could discuss about, and I am happy to say that with Tell Me a Secret the case is the same.

This book would make a perfect book club pick. There are so many small details and clues readers could pick up, and also characters’ actions they could debate on.

What I liked the most about this novel were it’s characters. Almost all of them had strong personalities and they felt real.
I was always character driven reader, so it is really important for me to have opinions about characters, whether that be positive or negative opinions. There is nothing worse then flat heroes, and this book is full of impressive people.

The story follows Holly who just got a promotion in the company she works at. She is a screen writer, and now is in charge of others writers for the teen soap opera they work on.
After her promotion, strange things start to happen to her. Her scripts are all messed up, her colleagues get personal emails from her, that she hadn’t sent, and even her boss gets one.
Someone is trying to sabotage her, so she wouldn’t keep her work position.

Tell Me a Secret is mainly focused on friendships and rivalry. It talks about real friends and fake ones, and how far people would go when it comes to relationships with others.
It’s second focus is family and importance of people that are close to us.

There is no love story, which was kind of surprising to me, but I also have to stress out that it wasn’t missing at all. I think that this novel was complete and amazing without romance.
So if you’re not a fan of romance, here’s the book for you!

This book made me think and question why people lie to make themselves look better in others’ eyes.
I hate lies and don’t like people who tell them. I almost never lie, so reading about pathological liar in this book was kind of interesting. Still, I rolled my eyes at that character so much and thought she was just pathetic.

The end was so much different then the one I would chose to have in my real life, if I was in Holly’s shoes. I guess that just proves that Holly is bigger person then me.

In the end, I just want to mention that Fallon’s voice is so good that it was a pleasure to read this story.
Some parts were dragged, and maybe the novel could have been a bit shorter, but still, I appreciate every single chapter of this book.

And the cover… OmG, Jane Fallon always has these awesome book covers with food or drink on them, that are simple but attractive. You can not notice her book with those covers!

Overall, I would recommend this book to readers who like to read about friends and enemies, family and lots of drama.
If you like to discuss about books you read, this one is a perfect choice!

Movie Monday: A Monster Calls #MovieReview #MovieMonday #Movie #AMonsterCalls

Movie Monday is a feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

This week I watched the saddest movie ever, and that is all I’ll say.

A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls is a well-known novel by Patrick Ness. It is a middle grade novel that talks about the boy who’s mother is sick, and the way he deals with her sickness, with the possibility of losing her.
I haven’t read the book, even though I always wanted to.

This week I had a chance to watch the movie, and even though I planned to read the book before, I decided I would give a movie a try anyway.

I watched it alone, and I am so glad I did, because the whole time while watching it, I was a mess. This movie destroyed me with it’s sadness and I was crying the whole time.
I watched many sad movies in my lifetime, but I have never ever cried so much, as I did when watching A Monster Calls.
I also have a need to stress out that I am not a big crier.

The story is not only sad, but also very beautiful. I can’t compare the book and the movie since I haven’t read the book, but I can tell you that the movie is very well done. I liked not only story, but the picture and the effects too.

It has 7,5 points on IMDb site, and it’s for a reason.

I’m not going to tell you too much about it, because I think it’s the best to go into it without much expectations, but I will tell you that this movie is not pure drama, but has fantasy elements too (the monster our main character created to deal with his mother’s sickness) and some parts are also animated (stories that the monster tells).

The cast is well known which surprised me. Felicity Jones plays the mother, Sigourney Weaver grandmother, and Liam Neeson gives his voice to a monster.

I think A Monster Calls is one of those movies/stories which after you finish you feel like you gained something out of it, like you are wiser then you were before.

I would highly, highly recommend it.

Movie Monday: Lion

Movie Monday is a weekly feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

This week I watched an emotional movie based on true story, that will probably stay with me forever.

Lion

lion-movie In my opinion, there’s only few movies that come out in a course of a year, that have such an emotional impact as Lion had on me.
Maybe in that sentence I said too many, now when I think about it. Because I am trying so hard to remember when was the last time I was so touched by the movie I watched, and in this moment, I can’t remember it…

Lion is drama, based on true events described in memoir called Long Way Home (now renamed into Lion) by Saroo Brierley.

In whole honesty, it is hard for me to tell you what it is about without spoilers, but I will try to keep those at minimum.

Lion is the story about lost boy. About Saroo who, as little kid, fell asleep in train and traveled 1600 km without anyone noticing him. He found himself in India, where people spoke different language then him.
After spending months living on streets and, after some time, in orphanage, he was adopted by Australian family.

As a grown up man, he decided to find his real family to let them know he was alive.
But finding his family wasn’t easy.

Every year before Oscars, I like to watch as many Best Picture nominated movies as I can, before the ceremony.
Why?
I like to guess who will win (and sometimes I even bet).

This year LaLa Land is main favorite (as I understood). I still haven’t watched that movie (I plan to this week), but I can’t even imagine that any movie would be better then Lion.
I just can’t.

This movie is not just entertaiment (in fact, it will ~~probably~~ make you cry), but it is an eye opener.
It made me see some things I didn’t before, and it also reminded me how privileged my life is.
I am not a fan of that word: privilege, but when I think about lives of children with fate similar to fates of children in this movie, I can’t think of any other word, because the word privilege describes the truth.

As I already said, this movie is highly impacted with emotions.
Me and my boyfriend both cried multiple times while watching (don’t tell him I told you that).

I truly think that there is no human being who wouldn’t get emotional while watching this masterpiece.
Trust me, the tears will fall down your cheeks, so prepare tissues.

Note: Picture in this post is not my property but taken from IMDb site and is property of The Weinstein Company.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower: book to movie comparison

perks-trunchy

(Kudos to my cat Trunchica for volunteering to be my model. She did her job like a pro!)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is my all time favorite movie (in case you didn’t know).
The one and only reason I bought myself an overpriced copy (It was overpriced in my case, because few weeks later I realized that I could have ordered the same edition online for 10 $ cheaper) of this novel as soon as I saw it is because I was so in love with the movie.
My biggest fault is that I waited for years until I finally read it.
Why?
Because I heard that the movie is so much better.

And I agree.
This is one of rare cases when most people would agree, I think.
Don’t get me wrong, this is an amazing book, full of beautiful quotes and, in my humble opinion, everyone should read it at least once.

I am truly sorry that this book wasn’t translated into Croatian when I was 15 years old shoolgirl.
I know this book would be my saving grace, I would get so many life lessons from it, and, maybe, it would help me in a way.
Help me understand someone else’s decisions, as well as it would guide me when making my own.

And that is another reason why I just love this movie.
It showed the world the story that needed to be told.. Even in countries where this modern classic was unfamiliar, people now have a chance to observe it.
As for my country, because of the movie’s success, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is now translated.

I am in love with this story and characters, and I couldn’t help but imagine Logan, Emma and Ezra (and everyone else) the whole time I was reading.

The book is very short, but still some parts of the book weren’t in the movie (from what I understand, they decided to cut some parts so the movie would be appropriate for every age rang), like teenage pregnancy and abortion, as well as scenes with Charlie’s hallucinations.

One of my favorite (and saddest) parts was the poem Charlie was reading (too bad that scene got deleted from the movie).
I don’t know if Chbosky wrote it or is it by someone else, but it’s incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking.

If you want, you can listen to the poem here , read by Logan Lerman (it’s a deleted scene from the movie).

Movie Monday: Too many movies to put them all into title

Movie Monday is a weekly feature here on my blog, in which I’m rambling about movies I’ve watched lately.

I feel like I haven’t posted Movie Monday in a while, and I watched A LOT of movies lately, so this week this meme will look a bit different then it usually does.

I’m going to mention movies that I have watched in the last couple of weeks and write just a brief reviews for them.

Nerve

nerve Nerve is the latest movie I watched. I saw it yesterday, in the company of my sister and her husband. We all ended up liking it very much, which was quite surprising for me. I didn’t expect for it to be that good, but I wanted to watch it because I love Dave Franco, and I like Emma Roberts. This movie is based on young adult book that I haven’t read, but I would like to. I have to admit that I didn’t do my research so I don’t know if this is a standalone story or is it a part of the series.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

fantastic-beasts

Me and my friends decided to spend American Thanksgiving Day in movie theatre. I wanted to watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ever since I found out that Ezra Miller has a role in it (in case you didn’t know, Ezra Miller is my favorite actor (+Leo Di)). When the movie trailer saw the light of the day, I expected for this movie to be amazing.
The movie is full of beautiful scenes, great effects and tone of humour (even though it isn’t a comedy), but the story itself is predictable. I figured out everything there was to figure out, and I am not the smartest person in the world.
However, I have to stress out that I watched many interviews with actors and I think producers, PR team or whoever is in charge for those sort of things, are ones responsible because they forbid one actor to talk about his role and, that way it was easy to figure out certain things. They also gave a statement that another certain actor will play in movie number two, so they gave away a spoiler that way.
Ezra Miller was the best actor in the movie. That guy can really play every role. I am so glad his career is turning big lately. He really deserves it.
Eddie Redmayne was also good, but the more movies with him I watch, the more it seems to me that he plays his roles the same way, if you know what I mean.

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

scouts-guide The best comedy I have watched this year! I watched it with my sister’s husband. It was so funny, I laughed so hard that even their dog came to check out what is happening to me. This is perfect movie to watch with friends. I dare to say that the story itself is stupid in a way, but the movie is so entertaining and funny that you’ll be glad you picked it up.

Hacksaw Ridge

hacksaw I went to see Hacksaw Ridge into movie theatre with my boyfriend. This movie is based on true events that happened in Vietnam war. The story follows a soldier who refused to touch any weapon, because of his beliefs. The movie is really good, but you should be warned that it contains really explicit scenes. I watched a lot of war movies, but this one was the most detailed one I have ever seen.

War Dogs

war-dogs War Dogs is a drama about two guys who made money by selling weapons to American army. It is based on true events.
To be perfectly honest with you, the reason why I decided to watch this movie are it’s two main actors. I always loved Jonah Hill, and Milles Teller is one of my favorite actors from his generation. I always watch their movies, so this one was a must.
The story is pretty entertaining and I had a good time watching it, even though I understand why some people would find it boring.

Note: Pictures in this post is not my property but taken from IMDb site.