Wickedfacts

Paint Color – Part One

The color of a room can and does influence our mood and our thoughts. Colors affect people in many ways depending on age, gender, ethnic background, or the geographical area we happen to live. When choosing colors for your home, it is important to ignore trends and choose colors that reflect your likes and dislikes. Trends come and go, but likes and dislikes remain much longer. If you don’t like the color, don’t use the color. The challenge faced by most people is to blend colors you like into pleasing combinations. This can be intimidating. Color is one of the least expensive design elements yet it causes the most dramatic changes in a space. It changes the look and feel of the space as well as how the people who enter the space feel.

Selecting colors for beginners can be nerve-racking. But, if you equip yourself with some basic information or a talented decorator, it can be easy and rewarding. After deciding your likes and dislikes, knowing what colors evoke certain moods is important when choosing a room color. Think about how the color makes you feel. Ask yourself, What mood do I want to create in the particular space? Which colors will help me achieve that mood?

Once you have chosen the colors you like and the colors that will provide the mood you want, limit your choices to 3 or 4 colors per room (this includes accent colors but do not include neutrals). Too many colors (even the ones you like) will make a room look crowded, cluttered, and busy. The next step is to proceed with confidence and trust that the end result will be your desired result.

In part two of this article I will describe in detail what emotions and feelings some very popular colors cause.…

Dogtooth Review

Stars: Christos Stergioglou, Michele ValleyDirector: Giorgos LanthimosRelease Date: January 25, 2011MPAA Rating: Unrated

Let’s play a game, yeah? Let’s turn on the hot water faucet and all stick our fingers underneath the stream of scalding hot water. The person to leave their finger in the longest is the winner. It’ll be a game of endurance. Does that sound like fun? Or would you rather see who can hold their breath underwater the longest? These are the games the children play in the Greek film Dogtooth.

What am I saying- “children?” They are in their late teens to early twenties. They have no names and are simply known throughout the film as brother, older sister and younger sister. They live in a house that has a tall fence surrounding it. They live with their mother and father who have taught their children everything they know. Not all of what they have been taught is on the level. Did you know that zombies are little yellow flowers? Yeah, me neither.

Their children have been taught that they are not to enter the outside world until their “dogtooth” comes out of their mouths. That will be a sign of maturity and they will be ready to leave the confines of their home. Until then, however, they are forced to spend their days being obedient, subservient children. They are forced by their parents to play games and the winners are rewarded with stickers. These children are being taught to fear the outside world as much as possible so that they won’t be corrupted by it.

The only visitor allowed into the home is Christina, a security guard who works with the father. The mother and father have deemed her trustworthy enough to come into the home for the sole purpose of keeping their son company (wink wink, nudge nudge). Christina offers the older sister a gift, but only if the older sister reciprocates with a gift of her own. This action sets off a course of events that will disturb this family’s seemingly idyllic life.

Some movies just make you feel dirty after watching them. The Human Centipede and Antichrist are perfect examples of this and I would surely add Dogtooth to this list. It’s really exciting in the sense that I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. By the same token, it was also almost painful to watch. I literally thought to myself, “What the shuck is going on?” several times during this film. You don’t think it can get any weirder or worse, but it does. There are so many rules in this particular family setting, but the film itself has no rules. It does what it wants without caring how it looks or what the consequences might be. There are scenes when you wish the camera would turn away because it’s all so disturbing, but you’re forced to watch everything play out.

Despite, or maybe because, of the fact that Dogtooth is as brave as it is with its brutal look at a protective family gone wrong, it was nominated this year for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. If you’re looking for an escape from your everyday, ordinary movies, I highly recommend Dogtooth.…

Christopher Nolan’s Greatest Films Thus Far In His Career

Christopher Nolan has quickly risen through the ranks to become one of the greatest directors in the game. Honestly, at this point, it seems that he is only second to James Cameron when it comes to the best directors out there. He is truly brilliant and all of his movies are great.

But which have been Christopher Nolan’s best films? These are my top five favorites.

Memento was Nolan’s second full length feature movie, and to this day, remains one of the best movies to be released from 2000 to 2010. This movie stars Guy Pearce as a detective hunting down his wife’s killer. The only problem is he has short term amnesia.

The Prestige is another movie that absolutely makes the cut for me. One of my favorite movies in recent memory, The Prestige is a film that you can watch several times and learn something new each and every time. A fantastic film that didn’t get enough love.

It goes without saying that Insomnia makes the list for me. This movie stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank in a peculiar story about a murder in a town where it is always daylight. If you like murder mysteries, this is a great one.

Inception is by far and away Nolan’s most impressive movie yet. I cannot believe how incredible this movie was. This movie is impossible to explain the plotline of, but basically involves stealing ideas from people’s dreams and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Cilian Murphy, and Michael Caine.

There is one other film of Nolan’s that I feel is worth mentionng. Of course, I am talking about The Dark Knight. This is a truly amazing film and it is so much more than just another comic book movie. Everything about this film is incredible.

Until the third Batman movie comes out, this is my list of the best Christopher Nolan movies.…

Audrey Hepburn – Timeless Appeal

“After so many drive-in waitresses in movies, here is class, somebody who went to school, can spell and possibly play the girl single-handed may make bozooms a thing of the past.”

Billy Wilder

The appeal of actress Audrey Hepburn has more than survived the test of time and has, in fact, become timeless. Appearing on the outside, indistinct, innocent, and somewhat fragile with large, deep,and dark eyes, Audrey Hepburn was a distinctive personality that has successfully charmed generation after generation.

This young Englishwoman started with a stage debut in the non-musical version of Gigi and rose meteorically to stardom with her performance opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. She won the Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar for this picture and her popularity, along with her career, never looked back. During her film career she would receive four additional Best Actress nominations.

Hepburn proved to be perfect for romantic comedy starring in the classics Sabrina, Funnyface, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She was the every woman, beautiful, but not necessarily glamorous, sensual, but not overtly sexual, a woman whose naturalness appealed to both men and women.

Audrey Hepburn was certainly not limited to romantic comedy and could also shine in dramatic roles as she did in The Nun’s Story, Wait Until Dark, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Charade opposite Cary Grant. She imparted a freshness to her characters that audiences loved.

Her talent was also reflected on Broadway and she received a Tony Award in 1954 for her role in Ondine. Audrey Hepburn was as beautiful a person off-screen and she was on. During World War II she helped nurse soldiers at her father’s hospital and in 1993 was posthumously awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

In all, Audrey Hepburn would receive twenty-seven awards and be nominated for an additional twenty-four. She was recognized by everyone, the Oscars, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the New York Film Critics, the Screen Actors Guild, the list goes on and on.

But, perhaps most personally satisfying to Audrey was her signing on as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF in 1988. Her own difficult childhood provided a commitment within her to help starving children around the world. To quote Ms. Hepburn…”Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm. As you get older, remember you have another hand – the first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.”

Her elegant beauty became her trademark and the world took notice. The next time you are in a shop or store, of any kind, that sells posters or wall hangings, take a will undoubtedly find a picture of Audrey Hepburn as her appeal is timeless.…

Today in History – What Happened on the 6th of June?

Today is 6 June 2006. On This Day in…

1727 – In the middle of a performance of Bononcini’s opera “Astianatte” in front of the Princess of Wales in London, the two greatest sopranos of the day, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, came to blows. After calling each “B….” and “W….” the two women fell upon each other with “hair-pulling and fisticuffs”. The opera season for the year closed early immediately after the performance.

1816 – In “the year without a summer” between 10 and 20 inches (25 to 50 cm) of snow fell in New England in what should have been summer in the United States. That year snow or frost continued to arrive every month through the summer across the United States. The unusual weather is thought to have been a result of the eruption of Tambora (in Indonesia) the year before, the most explosive eruption of the last 10,000 years when between 37 to 100 cubic miles of dust, ash and cinders were blown into the atmosphere causing a globe-encircling curtain of dust which took some 3 years to finally settle.

1844 – The YMCA, the Young Men’s Christian Association, was founded in London by George Williams, a draper’s assistant who lived with 140 other young men in lodgings provided by their employer. Starting with prayer meetings in his room, it quickly drew in other lonely Christians who had left home to work in London in the early days of the Industrial Revolution.

1907 – The first self-acting washing powder in the world went on sale when an advertisement appeared in the “Dusseldorfer Zeitung” for Persil.

1933 – The first drive-in movie theatre opened by Richard Hollingshead off Wilson Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey on a 10 acre lot which had room for 500 cars. The movie was “Wife Beware” and admission was 25 cents per car plus 25 cents per person.

1944 – D-day. Allied forces invaded Normandy in the largest amphibious invasion in history. 150,000 troops, 5,000 ships and 10,000 aircraft took part.

1949 – George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published. Begun in 1945, he was going to call it “The Last Man in Europe” but decided to reverse the last two digits of the year he finished writing it – 1948 – and call it “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (not “1984” as is often used).

1988 – Three giant snapping turtles were found inside a Bronx sewage treatment plant in New York. Each weighed about 23 kgs and were thought to have been unwanted pets which were flushed down a toilet at some stage.…

Create a Fantasy Factory Fortunes Folder

Writers of fantasy genre movie writers are demanded to deliver fantastical concepts on a drop of a hat. With no time to actually fantasize. But most of them have a treasure trove of ideas concepts and characters. Here I summarize a few points which might help you to enjoy fantasy writing and deliver on unimaginable deadlines.

Fantasy movie writers are usually thought to be specialists and indeed they are. They imagine a world whose natural rules are also imagined. They let their imagination go far and wide and tame it with their own discipline set creative rules and their limitations and exploit them later to create the ebb and flow of the audience experience.

To be able to deliver individual briefs on time it is a good habit to have a register in which the writer keeps adding fantasy characters, ideas, concepts, notes on story, possible market, and rating them as most prepared to least prepared. which sub genre the concept comes under. Does it come under different sub genre. Does the idea has legs as in what level of potentiality exists in the concept or idea or story.

As a fantasy writing expert you are expected to come up with a product of a high quality in limited amount of time, so keeping an up to date organized fantasy factory folder is a one place to find all your fantastic fantasies available at your finger tips to use as and when required.

As detailed as organized and as thick your fantasy factory folder you maintain for your own pleasure of writing fantasy, you will find yourself that much more prepared and in sync with the market demand.

Some day if your work is appreciated to a certain level, the fantasy factory folder could it self become a fortune.…

7 Common Home Theatre Installation Blunders

Sometimes we use a huge part of our family budget on home improvements such as a home theatre system. But after buying all the essential components needed and giving all your best in installing a home theatre at your home, yet you still end up with a lousy home theatre system. If you think something doesn’t seem so right in your installation, try to contemplate on this list of common mistakes in setting up a home theatre room at your home.

1. Purchasing The Wrong Size TV

Most people think that larger TV screens provide a better viewing experience. However, a large TV will not always fit for different sizes of rooms or viewing distance. Consider the basic rule in choosing a TV for your room, the best viewing distance from the viewer to the screen should be about twice the width of a standard TV screen. In case of an HDTV, the optimum viewing distance should be 1-1/2 times the width of the TV screen. This rule can help you determine the right size of TV that you should buy for the size of the movie room at your home. Sitting too close to a TV screen will let you see the pixel structure of the image or video you are watching, which can be very distracting and disturbing for viewers.

2. Room Surround With Windows

Most TVs works well in a semi-lit room, yet darker room is more preferable for home theatre especially for video projectors. Never situate your TV on a wall faced next to a window. You can use dark curtains to cover them to make certain that the light will not pass through into the room.

3. Buying Cheap Speakers

Some people try to save money with the home theatre installation and choose to cut their budget by purchasing inexpensive speakers without considering the quality of loudspeakers and subwoofer. This does not suggest that you have to spend a huge amount of your budget to acquire decent speakers, but you have to choose the suitable speakers that can perform the well. Make sure that you listen to speakers before buying it.

4. Unbalanced Speaker Levels

After connecting the component, try to turn on the audio system. If the audio system doesn’t sound good, subwoofer dominates the room or you can’t perceive the soundtrack of a film, reading the manual can help you a lot in fixing the problem.

5. Disregarding the User Manuals

Maybe, you think that setting up the home theatre is a piece of cake. But no matter how uncomplicated it may appear to you, it would be best for you to read the manual before you start installing all the components. Make sure that you identify the functions and connections before you link up and set-up.

6. Purchasing By Brand Or Price

Nearly every one of us consider brand when shopping for gadgets and appliances. Though it is a good starting point in buying the right components, however this is not an assurance that ‘top’ brand is indeed a good pick for you. When buying the needed equipments, try to consider functions and connections before you hook-up and set-up the components.

7. Not Seeking For Professional Help When You Need It

If you don’t have any technical knowledge about setting up a home theatre system it would be very helpful for you to hire a professional installer who can take care of the installation of the home theatre and audio system. If you want to have a perfect movie watching experience at the ease of your home, they can help you build an incredible home theatre system.…

How to Check If the Online Reviews You Are Reading Are Reliable

Online reviews are easy to find nowadays. Every seller is aware of the immense power that the internet holds. It is capable of altering your opinion regarding anything. It is a known fact that you trust what past customers have to say about the product. The problem with online reviews is that you cannot see the reviewers. They may not be customers at all; they could possibly just be salespeople or marketing people in the disguise of customers, saying what they would want to say through promotions. So the next time you read your customer reviews is careful to verify whether they really are customers. Of course there is no way to verify an online review. However this article does allow you to make an educated guess.

*Watch Who Is Talking: Sometimes it is almost obvious that the online reviews have been posted by the marketers themselves. For instance suppose you were to look at hotel reviews or camera reviews, and you find them in the form of customer testimonials online. One thing is sure, that these reviews have been screened and only the best ones have been published. Simply because no one would want to put up a testimonial which puts them in negative light? So it is simply a matter of not getting influenced by the salesperson.

*Trust Reputed Sites: Branded and trusted review sites are your best recourse. This is true if you are looking for movie reviews, car reviews or book reviews. In these cases you will realize what the product was only after you have purchased it. So just don’t log on to any website looking for online reviews. They are sometimes carefully planted to influence you. Some websites have a reputation of being unbiased and it is best to listen to them.

*Watch The Links: If you were to go ahead and look for online reviews, let’s say insurance reviews. You enter a forum, read an opinion and just below that you find a link redirecting you. It is obvious that the opinion was meant to influence you. Why would a normal user post any links? So understand that it either an affiliate marketer or the marketers themselves. When you log on to get reviews, just look at the number of links that are pasted below opinions. If there are many, you are entering an ad zone and it almost impossible that you get any unbiased advice here. It is best that you go to a different site. Of course for some product reviews like hardware reviews and software reviews sites are hard to find, but there still are plenty of them. All you need to do is first check the reputation of the site you are surfing.

*Negative Content: This is one of the best differentiators between genuine online reviews and disguised promotional messages. Almost any marketer will make sure that there is no negative content about them. On the other hand not all customers may like the product. There are bound to be negative reviews. So their presence in sufficient quantity tells you, you are talking to the right people.

Online review could be disguised promotional messages. It is advisable for you to stay alert and not let them cast an undue influence on your purchase behavior.…

DVD Review of “The Hangover”

Well we have all been there! Got so drunk that remembering the night before is like trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together. But can that concept make a great movie?

The answer is definitely, Yes!

This solid comedy shows there is no need for superstar actors or crazy special effects to make a great film. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis are the main stars of this film and are hardly household names just yet. However, the execution of the film can definitely see this film go down in the “classic” direction.

This film almost takes me back to the era of the eighties where the most simple storylines made some all time classic movies.

The essence of the plot is simply a stag night in Vegas which went a bit too far. The fact that the story centres around a bunch of drunk guys gives the writers the license to throw some of the most random storylines together and make it funny. A tiger in my bathroom?

There are a few jokes in the film which fall a bit flat and the audiences in the UK clearly didn’t get, however the rest of the film completely makes up for it and you will spend most of the time laughing as you watch The Hangover.

The DVD picture quality is just fine. Remember this is a film that doesn’t have any major special effects or graphics so nothing to worry about there. The extras leave a little to be desired. A few behind the scenes clips and a music video aren’t enough on the extras side. A “making of” or some bloopers would definitely increase the rewatchability of this DVD.

For an easy to watch, guaranteed laugh a minute flick “The Hangover” gets a big recommendation! Because of the lack of extras though, this film is definitely more of a rent then buy.…

How Does One Become a Part of History?

Every time I watch a movie and sit through the credits, I am in awe at the number of people who took part in its production. I don’t know any one of them but I do know that every time that movie plays and people watch the credits that the people’s whose names in listed are seen all over the world by others. Even movies that are a quarter of a Century old and older still have the names of everyone who took part listed at the end of the movie to be seen for generation and generations to come.

There have been times that I wished I could take part in a movie production so I can get my name in the credits. Who knows maybe that day will come. Although I am an author and every time I have a new book published my name is on the front cover, I still hope one day my name will be up on the big screen for others to see.

I have thought also about how people who are part of the publication process of a book are usually left out of being credited with their names in the books. Except for the Author, the Publisher and the printers, you usually don’t see who else took part. Sometimes you might see who edited the book but there are probably other people who helped but are not part of the printed version of the book.

All of that seems to be changing though. Authors, publishers and others are starting to recognize that people like to receive recognition for their part in this process. The door is opening for people to share having their names put up in lights as it were to say. And when people who have their names shared in the credits of books and other productions be it a movie or whatever, they then become a part of history as those movies, books and other productions all become historical documents. People for generations to come will see the names of everyone and maybe they will wonder, “who were those people and how lucky they were to be part of making something that is seen by so many people world wide?”

Like I said, maybe one day I can help make a movie and have my name show up every time that movie plays on big screens and on TV’s in homes everywhere around the world. For now, I am content to write my books and see my name on those covers.…