Spoof or Rom-Com?

They Came Together - Film - 2014

So it was strange, I finished the Netflix original series of Wet Hot American Summer yesterday and decided to watch a film. I chose They Came Together as I was in the mood for a rom-com it did say 'semi-spoof' in the description but it had Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler in it and I love them so I thought let's give it a go. Now after watching WHAS series I had already had a healthy dose of 'What the fuck is going on?" and this movie did not disappoint.

Not knowing this before I watched the film but it was actually written by Michael Showalter (Coop in WHAS & writer of WHAS) so it had the same craziness I had just watched 8 episodes of! It had some of the same cast in it as well such as the two leads, Michael Ian Black (McKinley in WHAS), Christopher Meloni (Jean/Jonas in WHAS) and several others. So, I didn't really get the rom but I got plenty of the com.

The film is Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler) going through the story of how they met. They advise that could be a rom-com story and made into a film. It's a different take on a rom-com film with the two leads narrating their parts of the story. It holds onto all of those cheesy cliches that you always find in rom-com and either exaggerates them or twists them upside down. As ever the two leads are spectacular and they work extremely well together. The story runs through the ups and downs of their love lives and to be honest is more realistic (in some places) than many rom-coms.

It was a refreshing take on a rom-com and it was enjoyable for both me and my boyfriend. It was funny in all of the right places and it was extremely well made. 

9/10 

I would happily watch the film again; what I liked most was that both me and my boyfriend could enjoy it and watch it together which doesn't happen with many rom-coms. 

Me, Myself and I

So, someone who knows me read my blog and pointed out that if they had been a stranger they wouldn't know me from my posts. I looked back and realised I never introduced myself so firstly, welcome to my blog, I started it a while ago but as many people who start, it took a while to get into the rhythm but I have now and I think it's time to introduce myself.

My name is Kelly-Ann; when I was 16 and had to decide what I wanted to do at College I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. Then I turned 18 finished college with subjects that I took because I enjoyed them at school but I still had no idea what I wanted to do in my life. I started working full time, moved out and that was the story of my life for about two years. After one year of studying Psychology I moved on from that idea and decided to turn my love of books into something real. It wasn't until I was 20 that I knew what I wanted to do. So, from this I just wanted to point out that not everyone knows what they want to do when they are meant to, you will figure it out (eventually)

I didn't always love books, the first book I read was when I was 12 and I was on the last holiday I went on with my parents (after that I was left with family), I was bored as my older brother no longer came with us so my mum gave me a 600 page book to read. I loved it! What she thought would keep me occupied for the two weeks only kept me occupied for a few days. It was fiction, Susan Lewis and from then on my love of books grew and grew. I started to read crime for a long time Karin Slaughter, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell. I was also a teenager so I read teenage fantasy as well like The Vampire Diaries, Mortal Instruments/Infernal Devices series and Vampire Academy. My boyfriend (who I'll come to in a minute) bought me a Kindle for our 3 year anniversary and since then my library has expanded. I read books by authors that I would not normally read because they are free or cheaper on the Kindle. I have the original Kindle Fire HD and I love it! I also have the Kindle App on my phone so I can read anywhere, anywhen I want! So that is my love of my books, if I'm reading I should not be disturbed! And this is what I have chosen as my profession. Why not do something I love for a living? This is what led me to KAEditing (all explained in a previous post) it is now my baby <3

So back to my boyfriend, Sean, he is actually the one who got me into anime, gaming, comics and superhero movies. Before him it seems my life was pretty dull and boring. We've been together since we were 15 (6 years together next month) and I couldn't ask for a better person to spend my life with. We moved out when we were 18 so he could go to university and we have now moved to Ireland (where he is from). We do everything together, watch films, play games and watch anime he is my life and with him I know that I will achieve what I want in my life. He has been into games and anime for a lot longer than we have been together and he has very kindly said that he will do an interview so you can hear his views on games as well. If I say I played a game two player such as One Piece he is my player 1 :)

Now I love anime I have watched a fair amount of anime to name a few of my favourites, Fairy Tail, One Piece and Blue Exorcist. We are currently making our way through Dragon Ball now very nostalgic haha. So anime will pop up on here every now and then probably not reviews but definitely as part of discussions. I love anime and what it represents and I know you do to!

Films and TV shows are also a passion of mine - to be honest most things entertainment are- and films especially will be on here in the form of reviews. I am not a film maker but I love watching films and I know when a film is bad. My favourite time is when the boyfriend and I are at home, it's raining outside, we have a nice hot meal (that he's cooked) in front of us and we have an amazing film on <3 perfect night <3

Games will also appear. Now I have only been a gamer for about 3-4 years it took Sean a few years to get me into it! But my first series of games was Uncharted, I played through the three games one after another and I loved them. I loved the adventure side of the games, I played the first one on easy but I did play 2 & 3 on normal. Sean helped me just a little but ever since these games I have played more and more and got better and better. We have a PlayStation 2, 3 & 4 and I love all of them. PlayStation 2 reminds me of times when I would play with my older brother. PlayStation 3 was when I really got into gaming this is the console that bought me Uncharted and my favourite games so far Kingdom Hearts series. I haven't played the ones on DS yet but I love the PlayStation version and I cannot wait for Kingdom Hearts 3! Then the PlayStation 4 came out and to be honest I personally have not been overwhelmed with the games as of yet purely because either they don't hold interest for me or I haven't played the series yet such as Batman and Assassin's Creed. I do love playing games however, reading is still my favourite past time and I think will always be.  But stay tuned on here for reviews and other game news because it's not just me in the house that loves games and you might even get Sean talking ;)

So, there you have it a little introduction into me and my life. All I want from my life is to make people happy and for me happiness is when I am sat reading a good book or playing a game with my boyfriend. Reading and writing are my passions and I hope to improve and continue throughout my life; I hope that whatever you makes you happy you keep close to you and build upon. Please find all of my links below to Twitter/Facebook/PSN & even Instagram. :)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KAEditing
Twitter: @kaediting
PSN: TitaniaErza31
Instagram: Titania_Erza31
Email: kaediting31@gmail.com

I will admit that up until a few weeks I wasn't even on Twitter I have never been a big Social Media gal just as a warning I promise to be better!

Well that's all from me for now please feel free to contact me on any of the above platforms talking is another passion of mine! :)

Have a nice weekend! :)

KA xx

Daughter of Fortune

Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende 

Me and a friend decided through our love of books and writing we would start our very own book club so to speak. I will be moving away soon and it is our way of keeping in contact. She took a list of 25 books every girl should read and bought me the first two as my leaving/birthday present. The first one is Daughter of Fortune, it is set in the 1800's and the first chapter is well all about the daughter Eliza, I thought I would struggle to get into this book but actually it is far better written than I imagined. I'm not normally into these kind of books but I am going in with an open mind. I have learnt a little about Eliza at the moment she was left on the doorstep of an English family in Cuba and no one can seem to decide how she was there. Every frowns upon Indian roots and that's about all I've established so far.

After finishing the second chapter it seems that Isabel Allendre likes introducing her characters. This one was all about an Englishman Jacob Todd who comes to Chille he spends his time with the Sommers (the family that took in Eliza) and he becomes fascinated by Rose Sommers. Although I am all for learning the background I have only just started the third chapter and it seems this is once again introducing characters.

So I have just finished part one and I feel as though I have only just finished being introduced to the characters. If I'm totally honest not 100% sure where this book is going and I feel there is going to be some surprises in store for me. As this book is based in the 1800's I am reading all about the lives of people pushing the boundaries for this time period, a woman who doesn't want to marry. Stolen love that is forbidden. Virginity being given which is not something that was done at this time. There are a few sexual encounters however Allende keeps them extremely tasteful and mysterious. After finishing the first part I am now enthralled in the book. It is written beautifully and I can appreciate a good book when I read it. I am now in 1848-1849 and looking forward to reading where this story takes Eliza and her lover.

The next few chapters seem to based around Tai Chi'en and how he meets and helps Eliza get to her destination of California to follow her lover after he gets the Gold Fever, she has a miscarriage on the voyage and Tai has to care for her with the help of a whore who was also on the boat. 

So I have now finished the book and I was not that impressed by the ending. Eliza spends her journey staying in a brothel helping out waiting for her lover to appear.... However he doesn't show and Tai shows instead. There is a bandit Jacques Murieta which Eliza thinks is her lover...  The ending is underwhelming Murieta is hung and Tai and Eliza seem to have a connection and it ends.

The book is a good read I suppose but it is not one that I would read again. 
5/10 

What do you do when inspiration strikes?

I had a thought when I was trying to fall asleep last night, I had an idea for a new book (not that I've finished the one I am working on yet) and suddenly all I can think about is my new book idea I even had the prologue forming in my mind. So then I started what do you do when you get a new book idea? It's not a good idea to work on more than one book at a time, quantity is definitely not priority over quality when it comes to writing. Some writers only ever write one or two books in their career. If you start to try and write more than one book your stories may get mixed together, you may get your characters confused and you will find it hard to focus your time. I mean if you've got two going which one do you focus on? So what do you do when you have an idea for a book while you're currently in the throes of writing another one?

Well for me my ideas come to me before I go to sleep which is a pain but it's how I came up with my editing name kaediting, it's how I came up with the story line for the novel I am currently writing and it's how I figured out that the man in my life will forever be in my life. What do I do with these ideas well I am a bed person so once I'm in bed I don't like getting out (especially when morning comes) so as bad as it is, I do have my phone near me almost every night (easy access for morning reading) so I may jot some ideas on the notepad on my phone. Ideas don't usually come to me during the day so I don't have the need for a notepad and pen however, this is how I would deal with my ideas during the day.

I am interested to see what other people find the best way to note down their ideas? How do you manage all of the thoughts in your head? Do you have experiences you would like to share? 

Once Upon A Time...

Fairytales... they are read to children when they are young, films are made from them and they teach people lessons that they may not hear otherwise but what is it about fairy tales that make them so attractive to children and adults alike?

Disney have made many films based upon fairy tales such as Cinderella, Snow White and Robin Hood but the original stories are far darker than everyone knows from the Disney version. Walt Disney has tamed fairy tales to be all about princesses and princes, kingdoms and castles, magic and wonder. The question is why are these things so appealing to us?

We read the stories to our children because they teach value, to little girls they make them believe they can be a princess. For boys they inspire courage to be a hero. But there is always villains in the stories what happens with them? Do we as children and adults remember the villains in the stories how they came to be? Why they do what they do? Rarely do you see a child dressed up as Ursula or The Evil Queen. They dress up as prince and princesses, their favourite character from the stories... the heroes.

Are these good lessons for our children? Should they taught about the magic of fairy tale?

While I was growing up I had the full collection of the Disney films on VCR (yes I am that old!) I rewatched them over and over again. I had a big encyclopedia all on fairy tales, the stories and their characters but it wasn't until I was older did I realise that really the villains are the most important part.

There is always good and evil in the world unfortunately, that is how the world is and fairy tales are actually a good teacher of this. Every story follows the same logic you have the hero, the crisis, the villain and as always the happy ending. This is the basis of every fairy tale (as we know it) but is this how they were intended when the Grimm brothers or Hans Christian Anderson penned these timeless stories?

Our children run around in their prince/princess costumes make believing that they are in the Enchanted Forest slaying those dragons but what about the villains. What are they doing in our children's minds?

Why you ask do I think that villains are the most important part? Well that's because they represent the doubt, the hurdles that we have to go over in life, the small part of the world that is evil for everyone. True Love? Well yes that does exist but no-one has a perfect relationship where there are no arguments, no doubts in the mind or problems they have to overcome. That right there is the villains in reality.

Every part of your life will have a villain of some nature, they may only be small specks in the grand scheme of your life but they are still there and they are important. To overcome a villain in the stories the heroes must use their courage, their intellect and their wits this is why they are important. Without the villain Prince Charming would have never given into his love for Snow White. Without Ursula, Ariel would have never been able to see her Prince for the first time. Without the evil stepmother Cinderella would have never learnt to be kind and good to every living creature. The villains are there to provide a challenge, to see how far you are willing to go for what you want.

For example, in a relationship, a villain may be the small doubt in the back of your mind do I want to spend the rest of my life with this person? You overcome that by thinking do I want to live the rest of my live WITHOUT this person?

The villains teach us each and every day that if you want something you have to fight for it, you have to use the gifts you have to overcome the obstacles. Some are greater than others but these can always be overcome if you truly want them to.

Now enough about villains what about why are we so interested in these stories? Easy answer because they make us feel good. Why do you think MOST (not all) movies and books have a happy endings, the writers don't want their audience to be sad the point of writing or creating something is to make people happy. So you ask why weren't the fairy tales originally written that way then? Why have we changed it? Well all the thoughts we have now are based upon the fact that we grew up thinking that Hercules was a hero of Greece and he sang and danced his way through life. If Disney or any other franchise that has used Fairy Tales stuck to what they were originally maybe we would all be thinking differently right now. That is to say not all of them are bad when they were written Snow White for instance the Grimm Brothers gave her a happy ending when they wrote her story.

So what was the point in this post? Fairy Tales are classic stories which have been told since they were written, there has been many adaptations of some of the more popular ones such as Cinderella so what makes them this popular and how can you write something that is seen as a classic?

When writing you are writing for yourself, what makes you happy, what would make you keep reading the book. When writing always think to yourself would I read this? You can't expect someone to read something if you wouldn't read it yourself. The reason I mentioned fairy tales was because they have a very good structure that is useful for any story.

You have a main character
You have their problem (be it a person, a situation)
You have their solution
You have their ending

These are very basic ideas for a book but if you think about stories you will always find these elements. Before writing you need your base to build upon for example:

Questions to ask yourself
Your main character:

• Would they be more suited male or female? 
• What do they look like?
• What do they like doing as a hobby would this be shown in the story? 
• What's their past and background? & How has this background affected them? 
• Do they need a love interest? (is this something that would fit into your story or not) 
• If yes, what kind of love interest? (you may not want it to be the focus of the book so make sure they are a secondary character) 
• What kind of person are they? Are they good or bad?
• What other relationships do they have? Do they have a family? Do they have friends? 

These are just a few questions to ask yourself and if it helps maybe pick a character that you already know and do this on them, it may help you to structure your ideas. 

I hope you enjoyed reading please feel free to comment with anything further you would like to add. 

Gomu Gomu No ... Awesome

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 - Playstation 4

Now let me start off with the fact that I LOVE One Piece. Oda has created a world enriched with loveable characters, amazing powers for everyone and the kind of place everyone wants to be a pirate. I haven't played the second one but I did play some of the first, I didn't really like the first one due to some gameplay annoyances such as the camera. This was the main reason for not playing the second one despite it having an original story (something I will rectify). However, I have now played the third one and let me tell you from the first to this one HUGE, MASSIVE, GIGANTIC differences and they are well amazing!

I played the game as two player but this does not take away from the story or the gameplay.

The game is based upon the Anime/Manga and has stuck fairly closely to the original story bar a few changes which have been made for the benefit of the game. It goes all the way through from the beginning of Luffy's journey to Dressrosa (roughly at the stage where the Anime and Manga are at now) A lot more stages have been included in this one such as Thriller Bark which were not in the first one which puts points on for me. (Although Thriller Bark was my least favourite level)

The maps are incredible, they are huge and allow for thousands of enemies to be on the screen at one time. Which amazingly does not cause any frame rate drop. The game awards you for the amount of enemies you kill as well as the combos in either the Kizuna Rush or the people you and your partner take out together. Kizuna Rush is another added feature which just makes this game, it is so easy to use, you can pick up to five partners and do a special combo attack, each enemy you take down using this also provides you with Beli's allowing you to upgrade your characters quickly.

The coin system which has been in all three games has been refined and it now much easier to use but you still have to use some strategy when assigning the coins to each character.

This game as with the others has massive replayability with the dream log, in which you can unlock all the other characters such as Ace, Moria and Shanks to name a few. You also get rare coins by playing as certain characters on certain levels which you earn the special coin for to give them their second special for instance. This gives you motivation to replay the story levels as well as the extra levels they added through the dream log.

The whole game I played as two player and it was incredible, at no point were there lapses, there was no issue with both of us playing, there was enough enemies that we could achieve an S grade on the levels. With the wide range of characters to choose from I could easily continue playing this game for weeks without getting bored. Each character has been equipped with different moves and specials that make you want to play each and every one of them.

I love One Piece as an anime so the story also appeals to me and I will never tire of going through Luffy and his crew's journey.

10/10

The only thing I could fault the game for was some slight camera annoyances however, it is not worth deducting a whole point for. For the price of the game it is well worth it.

I have continued to play this game and I have now discovered once completing the Dream Log there is a further Nightmare Log (WTF!!!) it's a bit insane, all level 75-100 so we are going through collecting the break coins so we can level up the characters before attempting that one! 

Knick Knack

Knack - PlayStation 4

So I know Knack came out at the beginning of the generation however, I have been unwilling to play due to the bad reviews it got. I had the opportunity to borrow the game for free so I thought what the hell it can't hurt right?

I played the game in co-op I was the second player. The story is well a bit mismatched if I'm honest something about goblins and ancient relics? It didn't thrill me enough to keep me interested we did finish the game based on...  Well we don't like leaving things unfinished.

Knack as a character was excellent, the voice actor was good despite little Knack not talking. He could be amusing in places and he had spirit. The second player (me) was his imaginary friend. I was not acknowledged I disappeared for cut scenes, the camera just followed knack and I didn't talk or well do anything except die and kill a few people. The human characters were okay bar the fact that they had no emotion a friend dies or they find a lost love and their reaction is mediocre to say the least. The only human who shows any emotion is Lucas the kid.

The concept is actually really fun and interesting. Knack is made up of relics and he can get bigger and smaller and gain different pieces for example ice pieces. Where this is all cool, looks amazing it could've been better. When you are a different Knack such as ice knack you don't get any special powers the only thing your pieces are useful for are opening doors! After 13 chapters of collecting relics to lose them to a door it gets pretty tedious.

Speaking of tedious combat. The combat consist of square. That's it. Especially for the second player. Knack has some special moves but they aren't that special just take out a lot of guys. The worst part is that the two players can hit each other, so we were going for the same guys as you do because you want to get there first and show off and we just ended up hitting each other which stuns you allowing your enemy a hit (which in hard mode is a one hit kill most of the time) so you can imagine that got frustrating and petty very quickly. The final boss battle being the second player sucks, you can't do anything. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

There are a few loose ends in the story a few characters who seemed to have just disappeared. This could lead onto a second game which I kinda hope it does. I'm glad I've played the game it was...  Enjoyable (using that term loosely) I liked the character and concept just the execution could have been a bit more smooth. If you like these games such as Crash Bandicoot or Jak you'll like this game. If they're not really your thing I don't suggest playing it. Oh also if you are competitive don't be the second player you will end up wanting to kill each other. If they do make a second game a few tweaks need to be made and the game could be amazing.

5/10

It was average and mediocre but I would play Knack 2 if it was ever made.