Saturday, April 27, 2013

Hannibal - Tasty Stuff

 
I've been too busy to do any real beauty related business in the last few weeks, but I thought it'd be fun to do a little rant about one of the shows I've been obsessing over instead.
 
I've been watching Hannibal since it started airing last month and instantly fell in love. When I heard it was going to be a Bryan Fuller project, I swear my little heart stopped and I had to force it to get going again. I was a HUGE fan of Pushing Daisies and loved the style and beauty of the work he did to make every shot as gorgeous as it possibly could be on that show.
 
 
It was incredibly sad and frustrating when the show was cancelled after the 2nd season. Critics and fans all agreed it was a masterpiece, but too unique and thoughtful and AWESOME for the average TV viewer. (Yes, that's my opinion with obvious spite, but whatever...moving on...)
 
So hearing that the man who brought me one of my favorite shows was now going to do a serial killer drama... it felt like a match made in heaven. My only concern is that the same thing will happen to Hannibal that happened to Pushing Daisies. It doesn't hold back at all artistically, once again every single shot is artwork, and I swear to God food has never been filmed to look so freaking beautiful, which is wonderful because no matter what, the beauty is tarnished in your head because you KNOW that isn't rabbit!!!
 
 
But regardless of how original and well done a show is, Pushing Daisies made it clear if the masses don't jump on board, the show will tank.
 
Hannibal isn't without flaws. The writing does at times get a little over the top and some of the dialogue gets so dramatic you find yourself giggling because it passes the line in to silly, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. "Don't psychoanalyze me. You won't like me when I'm psychoanalyzed." It helps break the tension when needed to give you a breath of fresh air considering you're watching a show about serial killers and cannibals.
 
All in all though I've been incredibly satisfied with the show. The acting is great, Mads Mikkelsen is a PERFECT Hannibal Lector and though Hugh Dancy's American accent gets a little wonky here and there, you still love him in all his awkward, overdramatic glory. The only character who seems particularly out of place is Lawrence Fishburne as Jack Crawford. Why is he so bipolar? Why can't he do anything himself? And WHY does he go to dinner at Hannibal's like...EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!?
 
Lastly, the crimes so far have been awesome. From a Minnesota Man kidnapping college girls to eat them for dinner to a guy growing mushrooms off corpses, the killers are definitely unique, twisted and really fun to watch. You absolutely have to have a love of things morbid and creepy to enjoy this show, but that should be obvious from the title alone. If there's Hannibal in it, it's going to be f$#%d up. Don't be one of those people that turns on the show and gets pissed that it's violent and scary. Well duh...
 
I definitely recommend this show to EVERYONE, because I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it does well and gets a 2nd season cleared. I'm a HUGE fan of the horror genre, and though the doors have opened considerably in recent years to networks becoming more accepting of darker content, it's still a struggle to get the masses on board and for a show to succeed when broadcasting violence and scares for our viewing pleasure.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Engagement, Shoes, Foundation... Life Update!


OK!!!!! So finally back as promised with an update on all the crazy $*&^ that's been going on in my life in the last month. I have a hard time believing that it's all happened in just a month, but that's life!
 
Firstly, as my banner kind of makes obvious, I'm engaged! Steve proposed 3.8.13 and life's been absolutely nuts since! The proposal itself wasn't much of a surprise - we both knew it was gonna happen it was just a matter of getting the $$$ to make it happen. We went and picked out my ring the night he proposed and here it is!
 
 
I'm beyond in love with it! As you also probably noticed from the banner, we've set the date for 9.14.13, leaving us just barely 6 months to get the whole shebang put together. That was my choice. I'm a spazz about planning, stress and $$$, and had no desire whatsoever to stress about planning a wedding for a year or more.
 
Be that as it may, the time obviously also put us at a disadvantage to all those brides who DO plan years in advance, so I had to haul ass to find a ceremony/reception site in that short amount of time. So that's the majority of what I've been up to : )
 
Since last week, we've got the ceremony and reception site booked, my dress picked out and plans for decorations underway!  I refuse to spend a billion dollars on this whole wedding thing, so I've been working with my family and friends to cut corners and DIY as much as possible to save cash and make the day more unique.
 
The main DIY I'm doing is all paper flowers. I wouldn't recommend it to ANYONE with little patience or imagination, but to anyone out there who wants to save (a LOT) of money and make their wedding more creative, try it out! Pretty much all my free time off work I've been spending on figuring out what kind of flowers I was going to do, testing different paper types and finally, getting down to business on making them.
 
 
These are what I've come up with so far. Our wedding colors are red/white/black so I kept that theme with the flowers. I'm doing some fancy roses and SUPER easy swirly roses and will use those to make boutonnieres, bouquets, centerpieces, and anything else that requires a flower. Now, that's a LOT of flowers. Hence the working on them now.
 
My theme for wedding preparations is to do a little every day, buy what I can when I can and don't have a billion things to do the weeks following up to the day. Obviously no matter what it'll still be hectic as hell but this way I'm getting at least some of my stuff out of the way and not worrying about everything all at once.
 
I'll maybe do a post later with more info on what the style for everything is going to look like, but my MAIN thing was I had to have red shoes. I've always wanted red shoes for my wedding, and I found this beautiful pair on Amazon for a crazy good deal. They're a bit tall, but surprisingly comfy, I just need to break them in.  
 
 
I also know I'll be doing my own makeup, so I decided to splurge and invest in a fancy foundation. I tried out Lancôme's Teint Idole Ultra 24H Makeup. I tried the lightest shade they had, I believe it was in Ivory, and thought it looked fine in the store, but unfortunately it oxidized a ton when I actually tried it and I had to take it back. Thank god for Macy's awesome return policies :)
 
 
After that fail, I got a sample from the Estee Lauder counter and tried it out, and I THINK I fell in love. I'm still not 100% sure about the shade, but it's definitely better than the Lancôme one. I think it may be a bit yellow undertone for me, I'm more pink, but I'm pretty sure with my powder/concealer combo that it'll look fine. If not, try try again!



 

 

 
I got it in 1C1 Cool Bone. Crossing my fingers, I'm going to do a face comparison to that and my every day fave, Revlon's Nearly Naked in Ivory and I'll return it if it's way off.
 
I know this is kind of a random, tossed together post, but that's about what my life is right now. I'll hopefully be posting some wedding day makeup tutorials/ideas and more in general.
 
XOXOXO