lately.

You might have noticed, it has been a bit quiet around here the last weeks. I already mentioned, there soon might be some changes in my life, and to achieve these changes I had to invest some time, but on the weekends I still tried to enjoy my free time. And I wanted to share some impressions with you, I captured via Instagram. 

lamento.

Look! Evening Hymns have a new video, and I really like the visuals in here. And Jonas is trying to start a beard-competition with Mr. Fitzsimmons, I guess. ;)

I hope they're adding Munich to their current tour scheme, would be a shame to miss them.

eavesdrop.

Guys, it's time for a recap on the last few weeks. I don't really want to reveal too much, as I am a little superstitious about things like that and don't wanna jinx anything, but rumor has it, that some big changes are awaiting me in the foreseeable future. But when decisions have been made, I'll let you know.
Besides that, nothing much happened. actually. There were fantasies about going to several summer festivals such as the austrian STUCK! which I had already mentioned in another post, or the DOCKVILLE Festival in Hamburg, but travelling to Hamburg turned out to be even more expensive than the tickets for the event. But I was lucky to finally witness a live show by the lovely Other Lives, who made quite an impression. What a passionate and professional bunch of people they are, who  immediately make you want to join a band, too!

So let's just quickly move on to the book and movie reviews.


THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:

BEAUTIFUL DISASTER by JAMIE McGUIRE

Ok, by this time, I arrived in the romance department of the young adult genre but I don't care if anyone thinks that's too gooey and all cliché. When you don't have a romance yourself, you'll just have to find yourself a substitute, right? And here we have a bad-boy-meets-innocent-girl-who-turns-out-to-be-not-so-innocent-after-all-story. All in all I can say that something was there that kept me excited about it, but inbetween there where some decisions made by both protagonists who just seemed somewhat inexplicable to me. But as I had no expectations at all to this book, I still felt positively entertained. (3/5)

BEFORE I FALL by LAUREN OLIVER

Contrary to Beautiful Disaster, here I HAD big expectations, having read Lauren Oliver's DELIRIUM before. This is her debut novel and it is highly praised in the YA-scene. We get to know 15 year old Samantha Kingston. And we get to know her on the day she dies. Until then, Sam is an obnoxious little bitch, and not knowing what to expect as the book continues, I had big problems in the beginning with the dullness of all the characters including the protagonist. I simply didn't think it could live up to DELIRIUM when I had read the first 50 pages. Nevertheless I kept on reading and by the time I finished this book Lauren Oliver had turned my point of view to 180 degrees. That alone made me decide to give this book the highest rating. But not only my POV changed, but of course the protagonist  evolves during a very brief amount of time, due to that fact, the author makes her live through the exact same day over and over again. (5/5)

FORBIDDEN by TABITHA SUZUMA

There is a good reason why the cover of this book is black. The whole story is just so desperate. But although this book might leave you sobbing at the very end, it is so very well written to be enjoyable nevertheless. Ms. Suzuma makes you love her protagonists right from the beginning. I think it takes a lot to write a story about incestuous love and make the readers review their mindset about this taboo topic. It also reminded me a lot of the recently watched "Fish Tank" because of the whole catastrophic family situation in which two young teenagers are forced to take responsibility at a very young age and need to deal with the lapse of a careless mother. (5/5)

HUNTING AND GATHERING by ANNA GAVALDA

I liked this book a lot because of its great mixture of humor and desperation. Four very different lonesome personalities come together and find their peace of mind when they decide to live together in a shared appartment. I also watched the movie adaption right away, and will write more about it in the movie section. (4/5)

BREAKING BEAUTIFUL by JENNIFER SHAW WOLF 

Another rather disturbing topic is focused in this book. 17 year old Allie looses her boyfriend in a carcrash, she herself survived it concisely with disfiguring scars on her face. She lost all her memory about the accident but has the feeling the death of her boyfriend is more of a relief than a loss. Further on in the book the reader finds out more about their forerun relationship in several memory flashbacks and why Allie not only has a scarred face but also a scarred soul. For me the book was really interesting but at some point you just want to shake the protagonist awake to reveal the truth about her dead boyfriend.  (3/5)

THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

One Word: Ewwwww! There are some disgusting scenes in that movie. But nevertheless I thought it's worth watching. This is a story about a seperation, dealing with it and having to choose sides. Making mistakes, regretting and forgiving. (6/10)

2 DAYS IN NEW YORK

Quite nice but unfortunately not as hilarious as the previous one 2 DAYS IN PARIS. Most of the jokes seemed very forced and it didn't really seem to have a bigger message. (6/10)

ADVENTURELAND

I had kind of a thing for Jesse Eisenberg this month, huh? Adventureland is a solid mixture of a teenage comedy and drama, nothing less nothing more. One point more for Eisenbergs adorableness..(does that word exist?) (7/10)

SOME BOYS DON'T LEAVE

Brevity is the soul of wit. (Yes I just looked that proverb up) This short movie was way better than a lot of the other full-length movies I watched this month. We have only two protagonists, ex-boy and girlfriend. And he literally just can't leave the once shared flat because he is unable to emotionally move on, which I think is a nicely interpreted methaphor. (8/10)

IN TIME

I thought the concept of the movie was really interesting (is there a book on which the film was based, haha, I'm already assuming this, since screenwriters seem to run out of ideas for a while now) but..uhm..I was very tired while watching the movie and it was really hard to keep myself awake, which says a lot about the tension of it, right? (5/10)

ALIEN

This movie is a great example that people are able to create a suspenseful atmosphere with much less possibilities than moviemakers have nowadays. I was sitting there with my hands in front of my eyes because I couldn't pretend what was coming next. On the other hand, of course, some effects appeared to be somewhat ridiculous but that only added more fun to it, I guess. (8/10)

THE OTHER WOMAN

A movie about a young woman, who – sort of – crushes the marriage of her boss when he falls in love with her and chooses to live with her instead. Having just lost her newborn child, she tries to focus on her stepson from her husbands former marriage, but she is struggling with this rather difficult child and his real mother who constantly gives her the feeling that she is a verdant, useless person. Although the story seems quite interesting there was something about the movie that made it hard to enjoy. (5/10)

ENSEMBLE C'EST TOUT (HUNTING AND GATHERING)

I challenged myself to watch this adaption of the previously read book in it's original language, and it worked quite well. As I mentioned, I thought the movie was a good implementation of the book. Audrey Tatou seemed perfect for the main role, and all the other characters where just as adorable. (7/10)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET

This was a rewatch resulting out of nostalgia. And I still think this was a really great interpretation of Shakespeare's classic. DiCaprio is just gorgeous in here. (8/10)

diver.

Guess who's not in Salzburg right now!?! I already missed Stay+, yesterday, with whom I got obsessed the last few weeks. And today it's going to be Nite Jewel, I would have loved to see her live. Both of them will probably never ever play in Munich. ( I am never going to stop wailing about this!!) And here's a new found love that of course skipped Munich, too on their current tourdates. Say hi to Lemonade, who remind me a little bit of Zoot Woman, as I am listening to them right now.

In other news, the review on July is already in the queue, gotta finish this one book first. 

shrines.

Infinite anticipation!

 
Stuck! Festival - Trailer 2012 from Stuck! Festival on Vimeo.

(Although I didn't really figure out, yet, how to finance this trip to Salzburg, but be sure I already took part in one or two competitions! Hrrhrrr.) In other news, I'm really pissed right now, because Purity Rings long awaited full-length album is not available on Spotify - probably only in my country. FTS!

Over and over and over again.

submerge.

Ugh, I give up being in time with that monthly review. Though the third day of the month isn't really belated, is it? It's just my high aspiration to perfection I need to overcome. Well I planned to write all the book and movie related reviews yesterday, but then I crawled into my bed exhaustedly and woke up around 11pm and no shit was done. I didn't even mind the two longlegged fellows hanging right over my head on the ceiling. (Yes, I'm talking about spiders, here.)

So what happened in June, you ask? I went to 5 live shows. That's usually a rate of 3 months or so, when you live in a musically frustrating city like I do. (I can't emphasize it enough, peeps!) Yet, I am glad there is this "new" club called KONG I'm having high hopes on. They hosted a show with my new found love BEAR IN HEAVEN..(Spoiler alert: Record of the year!) 

I didn't find much time reading or watching movies due to that thing called social life, I guess. ;) 

And...as I already mentioned in the previous post, I did my best being all clumsy and here we already come to the part that is related to the post title. I flooded my apartment (or at least part of it). Actually...it wasn't really me, but the stupid rainstorm that had to surprise me on that day I forgot to shut my windows before leaving for work. Astonishment accomplished, Petrus! Gladly nothing was damaged, considering the fact that my computer was standing right in the middle of the pool! You can imagine the shock and the pleasure, getting rid of the mess and all that water. But two hours later it already looked liked nothing had happened. I'm glad I didn't have had any plans for that evening. Also, I am surprised I didn't get sick standing in the water with bare feet for so long. 

Ok, so here are the things I enjoyed last month, starting with the (few) books I read.

THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:

THE GLIMPSE by CLAIRE MERLE

So, by now, thinking about that book, I probably already forgot half of what happened. I even had to revisit the résumé on goodreads to get started writing a few sentences about it. Basically this book is yet another dystopian setting, where people are divided in Pures and Crazies. The author draws a futuristic scenario where flawless human beings exclude allegedly mentally ill people from their society. And of course we have our 16-year-old heroine who starts realizing that a lot of things are going wrong in her world. And although the cover of the book seems to promise a decent amount of romance, this was, to my disappointment, a rather dry detective-like story. (3/5)

MATCHED by ALLIE CONDIE

I have been lurking around that one for a long time. Most reviews I read had been very positive, but I always feared this would be too gooey for my taste. Way off the mark! This one, contrary to "The Glimpse" stays with you for a while and makes you want to crave for the sequel (yes, we have another trilogy here) and I would have ordered the second book right away if wouldn't have to pay back a severe amount of money to my electricity provider. The synopsis is summarized quickly. Cassia is living in a perfect world. Literally. Everything is prescribed by law. The food you get to eat. The job you will take, the person you will marry and the day you will die. All for the sake of getting perfect results and getting rid of distractions that make people think too much and dysfunction. I thought this was a very interesting scenario and this series lines up easily with some impressive dystopia like "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent". (4/5)

I am also halfway through another book, which was a present from our a intern, whom I helped with her exam preparation. It is "Hunting and Gathering" by Anna Gavalda, and I can already say that I really love the humor of this author. With that book I also got the DVD from the screen adaption and I'm looking forward to this one. 

THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:

JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME

Ok, first of all, I am fond of Jason Segel. So my judgement might be a bit biased. Meet Jeff, who...uhm yeah, still lives at home, and is sort of seeking the true meaning of live and gets all superstitious when he get's a call from a stranger asking for Kevin (you might be right, if you guessed there is no Kevin living at his house). Jeff takes the next bus to the city, because he is confused and feels he needs to get out or something, and sees this guy sitting in fron of him with a basketball shirt and the name "Kevin" on it. That's when Jeff is finally hooked, and tries to convince his indigenous brother, who alongside is struggling with his wife, about his new found destiny, he isn't sure about himself, yet. All in all, a diverting comedy with a Jason Segel you will enjoy if you love him as much as I do. (6.5/10)

CONTAGION

Packed with so many hollywood allstars this movie mostly lacks of character development. Kate Winslet for example whose talent I appreciate a lot, doesn't get the slightest chance in a movie like this, to show what she is really good at. You might also want to take my advice and don't eat while watching this movie, especially not during the Gwyneth Paltrow scenes. It's for your own good. What do we learn from this contagious blockbuster? Uhm, exactly...nothing. (5/10)

TAKE THIS WALTZ

Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams playing that couple that seems to fit so well but, in the end, still gets eaten by daily grind and boredom. But that's not it, yet. It is more a portrait of a young and insecure woman who is constantly searching for a higher meaning of her life and struggles with a sadness that overwhelms her and seems to be incurable. I didn't like her character much until the point where she says "Do you have any idea, how much courage it takes to seduce you?" And that's where I found a part of my own past personality in her.  (7/10)

FISH TANK

Talking about past lives. Meet Mia in her Fish Tank desperately searching for a way out. Growing up in a likewise neighbourhood I could perfectly relate to this young girl who is so angry and yet so passionate and strong. In my opinion this young actress, Katie Jarvis, does a much better job than I hoped I would see from Mr. Fassbender. In it's realistic setting it also reminded me a bit to "Weekend" which makes me want to observe the british film industry a little more. This is how brilliant filmmaking is done. (9/10)

WITHOUT

This one was listed as one of the International Independents at the still ongoing Filmfest in Munich. It is about a young girl breaking with her everyday life while taking a job as a nurse for an elderly person. When the host announced, this will be an oppressive experience, I sank back into the seats, daunted. Having seen some emotionally disturbing shit, I actually swore to myself, not to consume much more of these kinds of movies. But to defuse this a little, it was, in the end, indeed rather innocuous. But still, while watching the movie, I always expected some unsettling things to happen. And infact, the movie was built to make the audience wonder, what the hell is actually going on here, which was one of the good aspects. And if you like movies, that leave you riddled about what really happened and what didn't, you will probably enjoy this one. (7/10)