How did they do the lion?!

Warning - there are plot spoilers re: 'The Chronoicles of Narnia' in this post so watch out! Before they start, I'll write **SPOILERS** so you'll know to avert your eyes if you haven't watched it!

Watched 'The Chronicles of Narnia' yesterday - I thought it was an absolutely lovely film. I don't usually like films that last over 2 hours as I get antsy, but with this one, I didn't even notice time had passed (like what happens in Narnia itself - hee!)

The kids' acting is superb and they are so cute. Georgie Henley, who plays Lucy, is fantastic, and a natural. But all the kids are good. Tilda Swinton who plays the witch is really scary and so perfectly cast. Mr and Mrs Beaver, voiced by Dawn French and Ray Winstone (whom I met a couple of years ago when he was filming here and he was really nice), are absolutely hilarious! James McAvoy as Mr Tumnus is really very good - you kind of want to adopt him and take him home. Although he has a tiny role, Jim Broadbent is excellent. But then, he always is.

And Aslan (voiced by the great Liam Neeson - who sound as good as Sean Connery, but without the accent)... well, i'll leave Aslan for the end.

**SPOILERS**

The film starts off in the real world with WW II bombs falling on the Pevensie household. This scene was excellently done, I thought, as it realistically portrayed how scary it must have felt to be bombarded in your own home.


When Lucy first enters the land of Narnia through the wardrobe, she looks totally surprised, fascinated, shocked with awe. I told myself: "This kid is either the best actress ever or this is the first time she's seen the set" It was so natural, so genuine - the wide eyes, the look on her face. Turns out, I was right! Apparently she was so excited about seeing the set that the director blindfolded her and carried her on, then started to film. Amazing... and very clever of the director.

What else? Tthe battle sequences are very cool and a bit reminiscent of 'The Lord of the Rings'. The costumes are very good - except, I hope they use faux, and not real, fur for the kid's fur coats - and so are the make up and special effects.

Which brings us nicely to Aslan, the lion and true king of Narnia. WOW. That's really all. WOW. Not one lion was used in the filming of this movie. Aslan is completely CGI but I swear he is the most lifelike CGI character I've ever seen on screen. I mean, I'm sure fur must be so difficult to replicate but it is perfect, it sways in the wind. And his face is gorgeous. I was so impressed with Aslan as a whole... he even walked like a real lion. Fantastic!

Here's a link to the Narnia film website - it's great fun!

Some trivia (my favourite!):

• The movie was shot in chronological order.
• As a thank you gift for being in his movie, Andrew Adamson gave each of the children an iPod. When Georgie Henley got hers she thanked him whole-heartedly, but once he was out of earshot she turned to her mother and said, "What is it?"
• The actress who plays the grown-up Lucy is called Racheal Henley... I wonder if she is Georgie's sister?
• Skander Keynes, who plays Edmund is the great-great-great grandson of naturalist Charles Darwin. The name Skander is of Turkish origin meaning Alexander - oddly enough his character Edmund Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia is obsessed with the delicacy Turkish Delight.
• Anna Popplewell, who plays Susan, lives around the corner from co-star Skandar Keynes.
• No trivia on William Mosely, who played Peter!
• The director's name is Andrew Adamson, who was also responsible for the two shreks and has the most apt surname to direct this film - Adamson... son of Adam! If you read the books or saw the film, you'll understand!

I'm not going to go into the merits or not of this being a 'Christian' film or whatever. Yes, CS Lewis did write the book based on Christian beliefs and Aslan is obviously the embodiment of Christ. But, after all, the values he preaches - of kindness, valour, loyalty and love, should make sense to everyone, whatever religion they believe in - or even if they do not believe in any religion at all.

**SPOILERS END**

As a purely cinematic experience, it definately gets a big thumbs up from me. If you haven't seen it and you plan to, be sure to stay till after the credits start as there is a short scene with Lucy and the Professor.

Oh, and by the way, like Tilda Swinton, I haven't read the books either... so my first new year's resolution is to read them all in 2006!

Bleeeuurrgh!

The title above and the cat to your right (also found at stuffonmycat.com), accurately discovers the way I feel after:

1. Lunch at my mother-in-law's consisting of nibbly starters - and those of you who know me well, know that I have to have a taste of EVERYTHING - which included salmon (very fitting, especially since she's Scottish!), salmon paste, cheese scones and garlic bread - yummy! This was followed by turkey, stuffing, potatoes, parsnips, brussels sprouts and other stuff I've forgotten but ate anyway - yummy! Then lemon mousse, chocolate mousse and ice cream (I had a tiny bit of each) - yummy! And then, just as I was going to explode, out came the coffee and these little homemade teeny-weeny cakes in three varities - yummy, yummy! Needless to say, I tried all of them... everything was absolutely delicious but I wished I had worn a skirt with an expandable waist.

2. Tea at my mum's where I only managed to force down some Christmas pud. But mum, bless her, made up a little goodie bag for me to take home and eat for lunch today. However, the way I'm feeling it might go to the cats instead. Then again, you never know with me.

3. Drinks at my uncle's. A glass of home-made mulled wine and one little cheesecake which I regretted as soon as I was half-way through it but couldnt be bothered to get up and throw it away. So I ate it.

Something like this happens every Christmas day... and I never learn! Oh well, thank goodness Christmas only comes once a year!

Merry Christmas and all that

Hope you had a great Xmas Eve (we spent it watching 'The Office' DVD's - classic! - with Witchie, Queen Pea & Consort) and munching on nachos and choccies. And here's to a really merry Christmas full of good food (yeah, I like eating!), company & cheer!

The First Annual Bloggy Awards

Yesterday evening will be forever remembered as the 'What Fun We Had!' evening. Yes, the Bloggers meeting was a phenomenal success. The food, company and conversation were all top-notch and the whole evening was, simply put, a buzz - mainly due to the amazing organisational skills of one Maltagirl who not only took it upon herself to book the venue (and order a scrumptious cake - yum!) and hassle to find a date when we were free, but also to organise the very first 'Bloggy Awards' whereupon all those present were awarded a very well-crafted 'B' (for Blogger of course!) in various categories, made by Maltagirl herself (ably aided by Little Sis).

I am proud to announce that I was awarded the 'B' for 'Best Guest-Blogger' - thank you very much everybody for your support! *wipes tear of emotion a la Halle Berry*. Robert got the 'Gieh il-Blogosfera' (I think that was what it was called) - a prize he truly deserves!

The arm-candy (ie) fiances and husband, did not go home empty-handed either as Maltagirl presented them with a lovely plaque entitled 'I love (heart) my Blogger' which I am going to stick on the wall in our study as a permanent reminder for the hubby, in the unlikely scenario that he ever forgets. By the way, the hubby himself has professed that he had a wonderful evening and thanks Maltagirl heartily for being "so kind and so nice".

Insomma, you bloggers who were in Malta and didn't make it - you missed out on a fantastic time AND a prize... so I suggest that you clear some time in your diaries for next year from now and make sure you attend the second evening/ceremony!

Doin' the Dance of Joy!

Today I gave my last lesson before the Christmas holidays. Yesterday and the day before we had the school play and I must say the kids were great. I admit I got a tiny bit emotional at the fact that they got it exactly right and that the hours spent ruining my voice screaming at them with veins popping out from my forehead were not totally in vain (or in vein hee!)

Anyway, today I came home at 1.30 pm and did a little dance to celebrate (the cats were very confused and immediately ran into another room). I can't believe it. I have a week off from work! I keep on having to say it aloud to actually believe it.

You see, for those of you who didn't know, I started my new teaching job in mid-October, a mere day after I left my old job. Since then, I have been teaching every single weekday (I even teach on most public holidays) and writing articles, to make ends meet, on Sundays. I haven't had a single day off and as, I'm sure you can imagine, teaching is an extremely stressful, although very rewarding, job. So, basically, I've been a stressball since October. A much happier stressball than I would have been had I been at my old job, but a stressball nevertheless. The main thing that kept me going was that I would soon have the luxury of a whole week off. And here it is - yippee!

So here is my list of what I want to do during this week:

1. Do the Dance of Joy (tick)

2. Take a nice long bath every evening. Erm... not that I haven't been having baths, but the ones I have been taking are those 5-minute, in-and-out jobs just before I have to leave the house for yet another lesson. The ones I am going to be taking this week shall last a minimum of 45 minutes, with hot water being added as needed and lots of bubbles courtesy of Marks and Spencers' cherry bubble bath foam.

3. Enjoy our bloggers meeting tomorrow! Especially since am now a bona-fide blogger, Sharon.

4. Rent and watch the final series of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', which I have been meaning to finish for around 3 years now - arg!

5. Eat a lot of mince pies. And chocolate log. And Xmas pudding. Insomma, you get my drift.

6. Sleep.

7. Sleep some more.

8. Go to the cinema and watch a whole film without nodding off during the interval.

9. Catch up on my reading of Television Without Pity.

10. Watch 'The Office' dvds with my hubby, with the cats on my lap and the heater full-on (it's a gas heater of course or else we wouldn't be able to afford it hehehe!)

11. Read -'real' books, not magazines, kiddies songs or drama excercises.

12. Not have to shout at/see kids for at least a week - BLISS!

If you have any more ideas, lemme know!

reesa on Wired Temples

I'll be guest blogging on Wired Temples Today, tomorrow and Sunday - the pressure! Wish me luck!

Euro hee!

Found in the letter pages of one of my mum's magazines:

I overheard a girl at a fete asking a visiting dignitary what he did.

"I'm a Euro MP," he replied.

"Does that mean you get to meet the people at Disney as many times you like?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not," he replied, to her evident sympathy.

Rain, rain go away.

Yesterday it rained for what seemed like ages. Is was ages... it woke me up at about 5 am and it was still raining when I crawled into bed at about 10 pm. As the song goes, I can't stand the rain. I simply can't understand people who say "Oh I love winter" - what is there to love? Especially here where it is so humid that the cold gets into your bones; where any amount of rain is bound to cause mega car stoppage, floods inside and outside houses and walls to fall down. Here in my house, I have a flooded entrance and bathroom - great.
Besides, as everyone who knows me knows, it only takes a whiff of cold weather for me to suddenly develop the flu.

So, yesterday, I ventured out of the house at 4.30 pm (only because I had to go to work). In the process of getting from car to workplace, I wet my shoes and therefore, socks. So I spent a couple of hours with wet feet. By the time I got home at 7 pm I just knew I'd be sick today. And lo and behold, I woke up with what felt like glass in my throat, as well as 101 fever. There was no way that I could miss work/teaching so I duly had a couple of panadols with my honey and lemon and braved the great outdoors, feeling absolutely ghastly. After 2 classes I had to do an interview with someone for a magazine and then go to various places with the hubby to do things I had been putting off for ages and which simply had to be done today.

After each place, I kept on saying to myself: "Just one more place, just one more and then I'll go home". In the end, after nearly fainting at SISA supermarket, I gave up and came home to chicken soup and bed. Or so I thought. I decided to put the p.c. on - BIG mistake! I couldn;t resist the 'pull of the blog'. So here I am typing when I really, really should be in bed. And even worse, I stupidly opened my work email and have a nice big stack of emails which need to be worked upon - boo! Will this day ever end?!

*groan*

Welcome to reesa's world...

It's been a long time coming... ever since discovering Maltagirl's blog early last summer and being sucked into the local blog world, I've been what I suppose you would call a 'quasi-blogger', giving my two-cents worth by commenting on various blogs - mainly wwwitchie's and maltagirl's - and having a blast reading them and others.

I'd been meaning to set up a blog for ages but mainly due to a p.c. which was built in the 1930's (or at least, it seemed that way), I had to wait until I could afford to buy a new, decent one and... voila! Here I am, typing on a keyboard where the buttons don't stick and it hasnt even crashed once yet - yay!

Anyway, for those who know me - as a voluble (word courtesy of wwwitchie - the rest of you can look it up) aspiring actress and drama teacher, as a writer of articles and a girl with stars in my eyes, albeit with feet firmly on the ground - I hope that my little bits of sporadic writing will amuse you and even, perhaps make you think. But be warned, I don't purport to make this blog into a place where the meaning of life or similar is dicussed, but rather as a place to vent feellings and thoughts... and have some fun!

Oh, by the way - a big thanks to Toni and Robert for giving me the push I needed to start off!