Tag: Karl Urban

CHILLIN’

By mumofthreedevils on July 30, 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

So, after a really stressful day yesterday, we ended it on a high note.

There was an Unlimited Secret Screener on at the cinema that we’d got tickets for weeks ago. We nearly forgot about it!

I wasn’t really in the mood for it.
Ian wasn’t particularly in the mood for it.
We thought it might have been ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ which neither of us are particularly wanting to see and vowed to leave the cinema and go for a pint at the pub if it turned out to be that.

The film turned out to be ‘Crawl’ which is due for release here in the UK on 23rd August.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
You’ve been warned.

Now I like a good animal attack film occasionally and this one wasn’t too bad.

The story in a nutshell is a young girl goes to find her father during a category five hurricane. They both end up trapped in the crawl space under their house being hunted by alligators.

There are a few good ‘jump right out of your seat’ moments but in the end, the actual attacks are a bit flat and to be honest, a little too much.
The amount of attacks and injuries sustained by both girl and Dad and still survive are just too much.

The fact is, you don’t come out of a death roll with a 12 foot alligator with nothing but a few puncture wounds on your shoulder. You’d be lucky to survive a death roll full stop!

Anyway, it was entertaining enough to stay to the end. I can safely say we won’t go and see it again. Might buy it on DVD when the original price goes down a bit.

Anyway, after yesterday’s ordeal with the bank and Paypal, I am determined to put my feet up today.
I have two 12.5 hour shifts ahead of me and then I have 12 days off!!
I can’t wait.

I have just started watching the new Prime original series ‘The Boys’ with one of my favourite actors, Karl Urban. So far, so good. Will review later. I will continue to watch that later, but first I am going to watch ‘A Star is Born’.

I still haven’t seen it and people keep telling me I should.
I have been put right off seeing it because of that bloody song, Shallow.
Before the film aired, after the film aired, during the Oscars, every talk show, EVERY TIME I TURNED THE BLOODY RADIO ON!!… there it was.
I was sick to death of it and it put me right off.

Now all that hype has died down, I am intrigued and want to see what all the fuss was about.

So watch this space.
I will give it a little review later.

I CAN HEAR A PIN DROP!

By mumofthreedevils on September 12, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

Bliss.

Absolute silence.

Everyone is out to work or at college/school.
Even my Mum has said she won’t be round today.

All I can hear is the hum of my computer….. and it’s calling!!!

I do have to gut the kitchen at some point today but for now……
I’m enjoying the quiet and I’m going to read/edit a 4 chapter fic I’ve just written and then post it.

I think I’ve learnt a lot with this one.
I need to work on story development and fleshing out details.
I think I get from place to place too quickly and I think that stems from having no idea where the story is going to start with!
I’ll just have to see what kind of response it gets when I post it.

Anyway, I’m in the middles of 4 days off. I’ve been loving my shifts just lately.
I actually got to the cinema twice over the weekend.

We finally went to see ‘Pete’s Dragon’

I’ve been wanting to see it for a while as one of my celebrity obsessions is in it.
Karl Urban.

The highlight was seeing him sneezed on by a fluffy green dragon!
I enjoyed the film a lot more than I thought I would and it will definately be getting added to my Karl collection when it arrives on Bluray.

The second film was ‘Ben Hur’
I have to be honest from the start. It doesn’t hold a candle to William Wylers astounding Epic from 1959 starring Charlton Heston and I didn’t expect it to.
Hollywood seems to have lost the ability to make epics quite like that anymore without succumbing to masses of CGI and foregoing a script and story.

With that said I found myself really enjoying it.
It felt a little rushed because apart from a few minor scenarios from the 1959 version, they kept to the same story, tweaking it here and there. This meant cramming a 3.5 hour story into 2 hours!
The acting was OK but could have done with a better script in places.
I felt that Morgan Freeman was actually the disappointment. Unusually wooden and he felt out of place.
The sea battle was amazing. Love the addition of the poor sucker strapped to the front of a ship as it rams another one.

The scene I was waiting for was the chariot race! It did not disappoint.
The 1959 films chariot race is something to behold. No CGI, just man and beast and practical stunts.
Horses died making that film and it actually helped to get laws changed to protect animals being used for film and TV.
That said, that scene is cinematic history and will never be achieved again.

The new Ben Hur also has an amazing chariot race.
Beautiful horses, actors and stunt men actually racing around an arena. It was exhilarating. The only noticeable differences were with the use of CGI for crash scenes and horses escaping into the crowds in the arena.
They could do much more with the devastation of a crash than they could in 1959.

I’m a bit of a sucker for Roman/Gladiatorial dramas. Could be something to do with the costumes and muscles but when one of your favourite actors is fleshing them out it’s irresistable!!
Toby Kebbell played Messala. Mmm Mmm Mmmmm.

While I won’t rush to the cinema to see it again (I would actually kill to see the 1959 one in the cinema!!) I will be adding it to my collection when it arrives on Bluray.

So, fiction, kitchen, and?…….
We’ll have to see what I’m in the mood for later!!

YUM!

By mumofthreedevils on May 25, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

Have to say I’m Loving the new Dr McCoy poster for Star Trek Beyond.
Karl is looking super scrumptious!

THIS COULD BE A PROBLEM

By mumofthreedevils on May 18, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

Before I went back out to work 8 years ago after being a stay home Mum for around 12 years, I was kind of a failed Graphic Designer who ended up in Customer Services.

I say failed Graphic Designer because I did 2 years with a computer Graphic Design company in the days when it was not possible to do business Graphics ‘in house’.
After 2 years at Graphic Design college, I never picked up a pencil again!

Then, when I moved to be with my then boyfriend, I simply gave up and got the only jobs I could in customer services for various stores.

During my time out as a Mum, I re-discovered my love of artwork.. BUT.. I still didn’t pick up a pencil. I did it all with a computer.
For a few years I actually sold my artwork to help fund going to conventions with my husband.

I worked with Corel Draw and a very old paint package called Photostyler.
I loved the way photostyler wasn’t too clean with it’s finish and left images looking like oil paintings.
Sadly this is lost to me now as Photostyler simply will not run on up to date Microsoft products.
I don’t have the patience to learn Photoshop and when I look at the amazing artwork that is being produced by talented youngsters on Tumblr now, I simply couldn’t compete anymore.
So I collect their artwork instead!

One thing I always knew while doing this artwork is that I just LOVE faces!
I loved the eyes and the smiles and I loved collecting images to work with.
Working on them in close up was very personal.

This is one facination that remains to this day.
I love faces.
I particularly love smiles that make eyes light up, cheeky grins and fun loving actors.

So my facination continues through my obsessions and with each obsession comes a need to not only find out as much as I can about an actor and his back catalogue of work but to collect images.
Official promotional images, photo shoots, candids, everything!

It struck me like a ton of bricks today that I may have a little problem.
Call it a mid-life crisis if you will, but looking over some of my obsessions over the last few years I have noticed something.

In 4 years, I have collected 961 images of Karl Urban.

In 2 years, I have collected 742 images of Joel Kinnaman.

But…. and here is my problem…. in just 5 months, 153 days to be precise, I have already collected 771 images of Adam Driver!!! Over 70 of those have been in just the last couple of days, eclipsing Joel and at the rate I’ve been collecting them, it’s just a matter of time before he eclipses Karl too!
That’s an average of 5 images per day consistently since december 18th.
This obsession is not going away anytime soon!!

To be honest, I don’t want it to.
I collect images like some people collect stamps.

As I sit here thinking about it, I’m seriously considering dusting off the old pencil set and practicing some sketching again.
I’m really rusty and don’t know if I’ll have the patience for anything but it will be fun trying!

OUT OF THIS WORLD MOVIES, OLD MEMORIES AND NAUGHTY SECRETS

By mumofthreedevils on May 15, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

The thing about obsessing is the wonderful things that are discovered because of it.

I believe I’ve mentioned before about the knock on effect that obsessing can have.
You’ll start to like an actor, for whatever reason, and then you just have to see more and more of their work.
You end up watching some out of this world films you may have passed on when they went through the cinema simply because something about them didn’t ‘click’ with you enough to make you want to see it or you simply didn’t even know the film existed.

Some of my favourite films of the last couple of years have come from digging into an actors back catalogue of films.

Before Karl Urban became known for Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Dredd, he made some wonderful New Zealand movies.
The Price of Milk is a beautiful, if a little strange, movie that really tickles me.

Without my initial interest in Karl Urban I would never have know about this film.

Joel Kinnaman was a difficult one as his back catalogue of work is predominantly in Swedish!!
Finding his films with subtitles that are well translated was a bit of a challenge.
Even so, ‘In Your Veins’ has become one of my favourite films.

Jake Gyllenhaal is more of a case of finding a film I didn’t like!!
Bubble Boy springs to mind…. what a piece of shit. I couldn’t even get half way through the film before giving up.
Anyway, as much as I love him doing his action movies like Prince of Persia and Source Code, I also love his recent serious films, Nightcrawler, Southpaw and Demolition.
But after all that it still falls to the obligatory chick flick, rom com to become my favourite.
Love and Other Drugs is a beautiful film that has a bit of everything and one that I missed in the cinema because it didn’t catch my attention at the time.
Romance, comedy, drama and an absolutely adorable Jake.

Oscar Isaac, what can I say?
After Ex-Machina and Star Wars TFA, I dipped into his back catalogue too.
Revenge for Jolly has become a firm favourite. What an absolutely INSANE film!

But again, this is a film I’d never even heard of and would never have seen had I not been looking into Oscar’s back catalogue.

So now we get onto to the current KINGS!
My absolute number one Prince is of course Adam Driver.
It’s difficult to pinpoint my favourite film from his back catalogue because there are quite a few but if I was pressed I would have to go with Hungry Hearts which is an incredibly heart wrenching film and This is Where I Leave you, another rom com and family drama.

And of course, my prince has a ‘would be’ Emperor in Domhnall Gleeson.
I am currently working my way through his back catalogue of work and as it stands, About Time is fast becoming a favourite!!
I seem to be a bit of a sucker for rom coms!!

What I have noticed about Domhnall is that he’s at his best playing the awkward, gangly, bumbling type and he has the most incredible smile!
None of which comes into play as Emperor…. oops sorry… General Hux!!

It is my current batch of Domhnall movies that brings me onto old memories.
While watching Unbroken, set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, I was reminded of an old movie I haven’t even thought about in years. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence!!

What an amazing film with a stunning soundtrack. It’s one film that has never made it to my DVD collection after the move from VHS tapes….. until now. I think it is now even more poignant as it stars the ‘all too missed’ David Bowie.
It will be arriving in the post tomorrow!

So, now onto the naughty secret.
Go on, admit it, you read through this post just to get to the ‘Naughty Secret’!!

Anyway, I don’t shy away from my obsessions when it comes to my blogging but recent obsessions have taken me into a world I never thought I’d venture into.

Fan fiction.
The thing about fan fiction is that it can take you anywhere.
You start with the foundations from a film. The characters, the places, the feel of the universe they are set in and then you can literally write what you want.
You can take stories in any direction. You can ask the ‘what if’ question all the time and completely re-write what we already know into something completely different.

The last couple of weeks have seen my falling into an abyss of naughtyness.

I have always seen myself as a very open minded person when it comes to different kinds of relationships and this is something I hope I’m passing onto my kids.
However, when it comes to relationships I have always stayed with the ‘boy meets girl’ scenario.
Just look at the rom com movies I love. They make me feel all squishy and lovely.

So when I started looking at some fan fiction a few weeks ago, I kind of fell into a well and couldn’t get out.
I found myself reading about ‘boy meets boy’. Kylo Ren and General Hux to be precise and I found it incredibly…… erotic!
It certainly didn’t leave me feeling squishy and lovely. In fact I can’t tell you how it left me feeling but I’m sure you can imagine.
Forget 50 Shades of Grey!! This stuff is amazing and I am completely smitten with the idea of Kylo Ren and General Hux falling in love.

Then this morning I stumbled across this absolutely stunning piece of artwork by a fellow Tumblr.
idksomestff.tumblr.com

It sums up the Kylux fandom in one, sweet, kiss.
I can’t stop reading the stuff and I’m not ashamed to admit it!

I must sincerely thank solohux and hollycomb for introducing me to this world and Holly…… I await your updates on ‘Under the Ruins of a Walled City’ with baited breath.

DISH OF THE WEEK #68 MASHUP

By mumofthreedevils on April 17, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

So I haven’t done a Dish of the Week since mid March.
Why?
To tell the truth I’ve been too pre-occupied with Adam Driver who has already been Dish of the Week Twice since Xmas and bubbling just beneath the surface of Adam would appear to be Oscar Isaac.

I say “would appear to be” because he’s kind of taken me by surprise.
I did make him Dish of the Week #65 in between Adam at #64 and #66 but it’s been pointed out to me this weekend that I have watched 7 films with Oscar in over the last week or so alone!
Robin Hood, Two Faces of January, Mojave, W.E., Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Revenge for Jolly and In Secret.

Add to that list, previous viewings of Ex-Machina and Inside Llewyn Davis and I can safely say I have a good understanding of Oscar’s work and acting style. Oh! not forgetting Ticky Tacky. A short film he made that’s a little strange but has a wonderful reaction to eating donuts that makes me giggle every time!!

Anyway, I couldn’t decide who to make Dish of the Week #68 so I decided to look at the obsessions that have cropped up after re-kindling my love of movies.
A mashup of 5 actors I would go and see at the movies any time!!
Considering my age I suppose you could also call it a mid-life crisis!
Whatever you want to call it, it started when the youngest of the kids was old enough to be left with a big sister for a few hours back in around 2012 and has since blossomed after investing in Unlimited Cinema cards just over two years ago.

If I include Oscar, which I think I’m going to have to, there have been 5 obsessions.
Karl Urban, Joel Kinnaman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac.

I think that’s quite an eclectic bunch!

King of the pile has got to be Adam Driver.

As much as I say I obsess about him, I think it now goes a lot deeper. I have found out about the man and his life and he has completely surprised me.
A fellow blogger came to my defence after I blogged about being angry with my family for making fun of me at Adam’s expence and I think they summed up my feelings perfectly.

They stated…..
The admiration that you have is for a really great human with a lot of deep and interesting layers, on TOP of finding him handsome. So although you don’t know him in person, you actually know him PERSONALLY cause you’ve dug deep into who he is under the exterior. So, you have a passion for him.

There you have it. Admiration and passion.
Sums it up beautifully and I look forward to where it will take us over the next few years and ‘hopefully’ beyond Star Wars.

Adam has had an amazing start to his acting career.
‘Star Wars’ may have thrown him into the limelight but I believe that ‘Hungry Hearts’ has probably showcased his acting ability more than anything else he’s done so far and ‘This is Where I Leave you’ shows his lighter, more mischievious side.

He’s currently filming Episode 8 of ‘Star Wars’ and will be filming the last ever season of ‘Girls’ later this year. After that there may be some room for a film or two before Episode 9 of ‘Star Wars’.
Until then however, he has two films in post production. ‘Paterson’ is to be showcased in Cannes in May but beyond that I don’t know what kind of a release it will get and in it Adam plays Paterson and it’s the tale of a bus driver and poet.
The other one is ‘Silence’ with Liam Neeson and Andrew Garfield. Adam plays Father Francisco Garrpe. It’s set in the seventeenth century where two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and propagate Christianity.

I think one of the things that endears me the most to Adam is his complete lack of the need for celebrity.
He’s happiest when he’s doing charity work and I think that says a lot about a person.
Unlike a lot of actors who can be very narcissistic, Adam actually finds the limelight very difficult. He loves his work but ultimately shies away from adulation and compliments.

OK, back to the rest of the pack.

Karl has had a rough couple of years personally with the separation from his wife of 11 years and he seems to have taken a bit of a time out because of it.

However, he has two films due out later this year.
The third installment of the Star Trek re-boot franchise ‘Star Trek: Beyond’

And a re-make of the Disney classic ‘Pete’s Dragon’ in August.

Joel Kinnaman has been enjoying life taking time with his girlfriend and family.

After Child 44 and Run All Night last year he’s landed a recurring role in ‘House of Cards’ and has one movie in pre-production and two in post production, one of which is ‘hopefully’ going to be one of this summer’s blockbusters, ‘Suicide Squad’. (See previous post HERE)

Jake Gyllenhaal just keeps going from strength to strength.

After ‘Everest’ and the incredible ‘Southpaw’ last year, he has one film due for release at the end of the month here in the UK. ‘Demolition’ about a man who struggles to come to terms with the death of his wife in a car crash.

He has a film called ‘Nocturnal Animals’ in post production, ‘Life’ and ‘Okja’ in pre-production and ‘The Man Who Made it Snow’ just announced.
He is currently filming ‘Stronger’where he plays Jeff Bauman, a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 who helped the police track down the killers while struggling to recover from devastating trauma.

Finally we have Oscar Isaac.

Oscar has two films in post production, ‘The Promise’ but I don’t know when it will be released and ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ due for release next month.

He also has two films in pre-production, ‘Suburbicon’. A crime mystery set in the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, where the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and betrayal.
Directed by George Clooney and written by the Coen brothers.
And ‘Annihilation’ about a biologist who signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition where the laws of nature don’t apply.

Of course Oscar is also currently filming for ‘Star Wars Episode 8’ as he reprises his role of Poe Dameron. Hopefully we will aslo be seeing Poe Dameron in Episode 9.

So for now, I will leave you with one of my favourite photos of Adam and Oscar together.

Heaven on a stick!! My ovaries have just exploded!

WHERE DID IT ALL START?

By mumofthreedevils on January 2, 2016 • ( 1 Comment )

After getting the first wash load on for the day, I have been sitting here, still in my PJ’s, wondering.
Wondering how I’ve been getting so hooked on certain actors in the last few years.

The obsessions have only really started in the last few years.
The first real obsession was Karl Urban back at the end of 2012 and the film that kicked that one off was Dredd.

The second was Joel Kinnaman and the film that kicked that one off was Robocop.

The Third was Jake Gyllenhaal and the film that kicked that one off was Southpaw.

The fourth was Adam Driver and if you’ve read any of my last few blogs you’ll know that this is a very recent obsession and was kicked off by Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Each obsession starts with the need to ‘catch up’ on the work that the actor has done.
This alone can be frustrating.
TV shows that aren’t available on any platform.
Films that have seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet.
Films that are available but in a foreign language WITHOUT English subtitles!
It’s a challenge and I think that’s one of the things I enjoy.
I end up watching shows and films I wouldn’t have ordinarily watched and end up either being a little disappointed or completely blown away!

Thankfully, with Adam Driver, he’s still very fresh on the market.
With the exception of one movie I’m waiting to be delivered, I’ve now seen all the films that he has semi-starred or starred in.
I’ve also caught up with all 4 seasons of Girls which I have to say, was unexpectedly brilliant!
I am now eagerly awaiting season 5
From here on, it’s all new movies that aren’t even released yet and he’s signed a contract that ties him to at least the next 2 Star Wars movies!!

But back to the reason for this post…. where did it all start?

Growing up I was always into movies.
There was no internet and no video recorders so the only way of getting any information on actors and films was through magazines and TV or radio interviews.
My computer currently has folders of pictures that I can look at and print at my hearts content.
Back in my teens, this would have been known as my bedroom wall.
At one point my picture archive was all four walls and my ceiling. The pictures had been glued on with wallpaper paste.
I just kept overlaying as new pictures and interests came along.

Until I started earning my own money, my only access to movies was the TV and an occasional trip to the cinema.
3 channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.
That was it, until channel 4 came along.
The only movies were on Sunday afternoons where we were treated to classics like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Roman Holiday, Ben Hur.
This is where my love of movies started.
Classic actors were the order of the day.

I think that if the internet were around back then, Gregory Peck could quite easily have been an obsession!!

Anyway, when I started earning my own money things started to take a change.
We had the arrival of our first multiscreen cinema which meant that I could indulge myself with movies whenever I wanted.
By then we also had video recorders so I could start collecting my favourite films to keep and watch whenever I wanted. I no longer had to wait for them to be shown occasionally on TV.

I think the major change came at the end of the 80’s
I landed a job working on computers that I had never even touched before in my life.
Star Trek the Next Generation arrived and re-lit a fire in me.
As a child I always watched the Classic Trek on TV and loved watching the late night Sci-fi movies, but as none of my friends and family were into it, I kind of kept it all locked up.
Then when Next Gen came along, I was earning my own money, had my own transportation, access to the internet and I decided to join a club where I could share my interest with like minded people.
And then I went to my first convention!!
What an eye opener.

I suppose this is where my first real interest in an actor came into play in the form of Jonathan Frakes who played Cammander Riker in Star Trek the Next Generation.
I thought he was the bees knees!!
So tall and beautiful eyes.

Within 4 years of joining the club, I had married the captain, done countless conventions and started creating artwork to sell at collector fairs.
Doing this artwork was my hobby as a stay home mum and was a way for me an Ian to continue going to conventions and collector fairs.
It meant a perfect excuse for me to trawl the internet for news and photos.
We started to broaden our interests into more multi-media.
Shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stargate, Earth Final Contflict, Kindred the Embraced, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Vampire diaries, Pretender, Hornblower and Highlander.

Various actor interests like David Boreanaz

Mark Frankel (RIP)

Tom Welling

Jamie Bamber

Ioan Gruffudd

and then I suppose my first real obsession, Peter Wingfield!

Methos, the 5000 year old immortal in Highlander was intriguing to say the least.
Like a couple of my current obsessions, he wasn’t/isn’t a classically handsome man.
But also like a couple of my current obsessions, I found him very attractive!

This obsession developed to a point where, for a short while, I helped to run the UK side of his fan club, the PWFC.
Sadly, with the arrival of baby number 2, I just didn’t have the time to carry this on and had to give it up.

Collector shows were becoming harder and harder to do because I couldn’t give my time to the preparation that was needed for them.
Then back in around 2005/6 after struggling to keep up with the shows after baby number 3 and with Ebay taking over and ruining collector fairs, it was time to call it all a day.

For the next few years I became a Mum.
I had an ordinary life and watched the occasional movie and TV show.
I even got a real job!
Then as the kids got older and I was getting more and more time to myself again, I started to get back into my movies.
With the availability of any information and photos available on the internet, I was able to take an old hobby to a new level.
Dredd kicked it all off for me again and then when all of the kids were old enough to be able to take care of themselves for a couple of hours Me and Ian invested in Unlimited cinema cards that allow us to go and see whatever we want at the cinema at the drop of a hat.
We have had these cards now for over two years and I can safely say they are the best decision we have ever made.
I don’t feel guilty going to see a film multiple times.
Which is just as well because Star Wars is heading for visit number five!! later this week with my Brother.

I’m rooting for Ren!

I look back at my hobby as a child with magazines and limited TV and I compare it to today, where in the last 3 weeks I have had access to 4 viewings of Star Wars, every photo under the sun of Adam Driver, most of his back catalgue of work available on various platforms and every TV appearance and interview available on Youtube and I realise….

IS IT ANY BLOODY WONDER I GET SO OBSESSED?!