Things to do: Winter Edition

• If you have a fire, use it to toast marshamallows or crumpets
• Scented candles make a home smell lush
• Go sledging if there's snow
• Buy a huge mug for hot chocolates and cosy up with a good book
• Recommended reading for Christmas: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, A Christmas Carol, The Night Before Christmas...
• Or watch a film; Edward Scissorhands, It's a Wonderful Life, Elf, A Muppet's Christmas Carol, anything that's a costume drama, the Christmas episode of My So-Called Life, anything Disney or magical, The Wizard of Oz, The Snowman, Father Christmas, Little Women, The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Recommended Christmas music: A Very She & Him Xmas, Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You, A Fairytale of New York, Edward Scissorhands Soundtrack, Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler This is Christmas, Pink Martini Joy to the World
• Learn to knit
• Wrap your pjs over a hot water bottle 10 minutes before bed for toasty bed clothes
• Make hearty soups, broths and stews
• Go ice skating. In London the best places are Somerset House, The Natural History Museum or Canary Wharf
• Get back to nature and go for a walk in a park or in the country. Take a thermos of hot tea or soup with you
• Go and see The Nutcracker
• If you are in London, go to see the displays at Selfridges and Liberty
• Get Christmas themed cookie cutters and bake some yummy biscuits then ice in white, green and red
• Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland
• The Christmas Market at the Southbank
• Cosy up in festive jumpers

This Weekend...

So far this weekend:

I saw Super 8 last night at the Imax. I liked the nostalgic feel of the film - it envokes films I adored as a child such as The Goonies, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Poltergeist, and Stand By Me, yet it also lacked something. I was diappointed by the 'reveal' of what it is the children discover, and I'm still not a big fan of CGI being used for monsters/aliens etc - they just don't look organic enough, give me the puppets and animatronics from 80s films anyday.
I also tried a Krispy Kreme Creme Brulee doughnut. It was sooooo good, and I got some pretty envious looks from strangers as I devoured it.

Today I did some yoga, tried the new Special K chocolate and strawberry flavour and slept a lot.
I want to do some writing this weekend, make that NEED to, as I have once again fallen out of a writing routine. I also have an overwhelming amount of tv shows, films, magazines and books to watch/read.
I really really fancy a glass of wine too.

New films I want to see are Studio Ghibli's new film Arrietty and Audrey Tautou's Beautiful Lies.

Do You Believe in Magic?

There is a part of me that refuses to grow up. I'm not sure that I'll ever outgrow the fairy tales I loved dearly as a child, and the film versions of them. I can rewatch and reread these stories and always I am transported to another world, one where I am a child and everything seemed to magical, anything possible. I fully admit that I still like going to Disneyland too.
Of course there are fairy tales for adults; indeed many of the original fairy tales that we all kow and love were originally intended for adults, and were a lot darker than their Ladybird book/Disney versions.
So for all you grown-ups who still love magic, I have compliled a list of my favourite films and books that are sprinkled with princesses, witches and unicorns. For further reading go to http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/ a wonderful website with an in-depth list of fairy tales, and the many versions available of them.

Films:
Legend
Willow
Ladyhawke
The Dark Crystal
The Princess Bride
Labyrinth
Amelie (not a typical fairy tale but I still consider it one)
The Company of Wolves
Snow White: A Tale of Terror
Hansel & Gretal
Pan's Labyrinth
The Wizard of Oz
Return to Oz
Stardust
The Chronicles of Narnia films and original BBC series
The Neverending Story
Red Riding Hood
Alice in Wonderand (Disney)
La Belle et le Bete
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
Splash
The Little Mermaid (Disney)
Sleeping Beauty (Disney)
Donkey Skin
Cinderella (Disney)
The Sword and the Stone (Disney)
Ponyo
Spirited Away
Peter Pan (Disney)
Ondine
The 10th Kingdom (TV show)
Edward Scissorhands
Big Fish
The City of Lost Children
The Red Shoes

I've been recommended to watch No Such Thing, Alice, Paperhouse, Valerie and her Week of Wonders, Bluebeard, Suspiria and Wild at Heart also (the latter two aren't exactly fairy tales but are supposed to have an element of them in the story).
You check out more info on these films here http://www.imdb.com/

Books:
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Charles Perrault's Fairy Tales
Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
The Book of Lost Things
The Princess Bride
The Land of Oz Books
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Rose and the Beast
The Secret Garden
Tom's Midnight Garden
Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales

Also, of course the Harry Potter books and films. I read half of the first book many years ago, and watched the first film, but I need to do some serious catching up.

Rainy Days

In London it's been pouring with rain. I sat at work today with soggy jeans and socks. It doesn't help that I left my rather snazzy leopard print umbrella in a supermarket basket by accident. This weather has made me crave the sort of things I crave in autumn and winter, even though it's June and should be sunny and hot.
So instead of salads and ice cream I've been having soups with baguettes, naughty bars of chocolate and pastries and drinking lots of tea and hot chocolate and lattes.
Today at work I was thinking that the perfect way to pass rainy days is to be at home, with a post-bath warmth, snuggled into a cosy armchair with a mug of hot chocolate complete with a floating marshmallow island. In said chair you could read one of the those amazing books where you can't put it down but as you approach the end you get sad because you don't want to say goodbye to the characters (a recent example of this for me was The Perks of Being a Wallflower).
You could watch a film. What film you watch is obviously up to you. Personally I think grey days call for the technicolour brights of old classics - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Singin' in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, High Society, or any film with Doris Day, because she has such a sunny face.
Or you could simply sit, daydream, watch the view from the window and listen to some lovely crackling vinyl. Burn some scented candles too.

Bardot Top Place as Most Stylish

http://www.stylist.co.uk/fashion/10-most-stylish-women-of-all-time#
I agree with Bardot being number one, as she certainly is my style icon, but Princess Diana, Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole certainly wouldn't make my list.
I'd have (in no particular order): Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Seberg, Anna Karina, Catherine Deneuve, Marlene Dietrich, Dita Von Teese, Audrey Horne (Twin Peaks), Francoise Hardy, and Diane Keaton. I'm probably missing some.

Film and TV Delights

Style Crush: Anna Karina

Danish actress Anna Karina was the darling of French New Wave cinema, and the muse of one of it's foremost directors Jean-Luc Godard. Karina was 17 when she arrived in Paris, and unable to speak French. Living off the streets she got a break while sitting at the cafe Les Deux Magots. She was approached by a woman from an advertisement agency who asked her to do some photos. She soon became a successful fashion model and Coco Chanel helped her come up with the name Anna Karina.

It was through modelling that Godard first set eyes on her.
She wore quite simple clothes, in a slightly dishevelled way and could look both cute and dangerous simultaneously.

I Heart...

Scream 4 Review

I have to admit that I was geekily excited about the release of Scream 4. I was about 15 when the first Scream movie came out. My mum went to see it at the cinema and 'approved it' for my viewing. It was the first proper stalk n slash horror film I had been brave enough to watch and it had a cool young cast and soundtrack. From that I watched all the teen slasher films it spawned; I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend, plus all the really crap ones like Cherry Falls and Valentine. I went back to the films that Scream referenced; Psycho, Halloween, Friday 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. Then torture porn films started coming out and I went off horror films because they were too focused on gore and not suspense.

Scream 4 is a welcome return to those horror films I used to enjoy watching. It's clever, slick and made for fellow film buffs who know these movies inside out. I jumped, I laughed, I cringed. Now, I don't want them to drag out the Scream Franchise like they did with the Halloween movies and Friday 13th - but if Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson keep making them then I'm happy. Craven makes good horror, and Williamson is great at teen angst as proven in Dawson's Creek and The Vampire Diaries.

I say goodbye to the hundredth Saw film, and welcome back to smart horror.

Top Soundtracks

In no order, some of my favourites (they may be cheesy but hey, I started liking them when I was a kid!). I'm listing song-based albums here as opposed to scores.

The Lost Boys
Cruel Intentions
Pulp Fiction
Footloose
Stealing Beauty
Marie Antoinette
500 Days of Summer
Wayne's World
Donnie Darko
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
The Wedding Singer
Pretty Woman
Dirty Dancing
Clueless
Empire Records
The Craft
Mad Love
The Virgin Suicides
Boogie Nights

Ok so I'm tired, I want a glass of wine and I'm focusing on music I loved as a teenager mostly. I'll leave it at that for now, my mind has gone foggy.

Film Pick: 500 Days of Summer

I like to review new films that I've seen, but I also want to get the word out on great films that have been out a while. 500 Days of Summer is a quirky, unconventional 'love' story. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. It's funny, charming and has a fantastic soundtrack. Definitely not a typical rom-com Jennifer Aniston cheesefest, which is a relief.