The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

I haven't been to the cinema to see new films lately. But that's not too bad because this means I finally got a little time to catch up on all the ones that I never saw but always wanted to see.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of these films on my Watchlist, I even had the DVD for a while already and now I've finally seen it.

And I enjoyed it so much! It is so relatable and I will tell you why after a short summary for those who don't know what the film is about.

The film is - who would have thought - the story Walter Mitty who is day-dreamer working in the photo archives of a magazine calles LIFE. He escapes his boring life by descending into his fantasy world which is filled with adventures and love. But one day, when his and lots of other jobs at the magazine are threatened he goes on an adventure that turns out to be even better than the ones in his mind.

I was very touched by the film because I am a very dreamy person myself. Sometimes I imagine these great things happening to me or I dream of being someone else. Who doesn't? And occasionally, when returning to the real world I don't even know if the stuff I just imagined really happened or not.

Songs of the Week [4]

It's Music Monday again.

This week's list is full of new releases, finally this new year is gaining speed when it comes to new music and I really like it.

But luckily there's a lot of other good music out there lately and you'll get another taste of this on this brandnew Songs of the Week list.

It felt a bit like I was putting together a roadtrip playlist. The ORACLE told me to Drive into the Wild West. At first It Gets Cold but then we meet the Summer Girls. But I'll Never Be Like You, because you're taking this musical journey for the first time. I heard it in the wrong order before... Anyway. Here we go.

5 reasons why it's great that The X Files is back

Sunday - or should I say Monday - is the day! Time zones are a weird thing sometimes, aren't they?

Anyway, it's the day The X Files will be back!

I never thought Mulder and Scully would be back again on my telly, but they are. I really hope the show has gotten even better with age (or stayed the same, that would be alright as well). And fingers crossed that I will find a way watch it and I won't have to wait until February. I can't avoid social media for a month.

To celebrate the return of one of my favourite TV shows I thought it would be nice to list five reasons why I am really happy and excited about it being back.

Songs of the Week [3]

Hello, hello! This week's playlist is a fun one. Maybe I was in need of a bit of happiness, but not too much. I'm still a fan of slightly sad lyrics.

I think were all up for a bit of happiness after the world has lost some of the greatest artists over the past weeks. (I'm talking David Bowie and Alan Rickman here, for those who missed it, what seems nearly impossible, but you never know.)

Anyway, I've been searching for some special songs this week and I think I've found them: Another surprising comeback single, a song of an artist turning into a slightly different direction and an actor turned singer of which I didn't know until last week. Oh, and that chart song I just can't get out of my head.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The book I'm presenting today is an old one. But a good one. Probably my favourite book of the early 20th century (at least of the one's I've read so far). And it's one of those books I've even got two editions of, the German one I read when I was younger and the original English version I read when I was able to understand it.

The book is called Rebecca and it was written by Daphne du Maurier in 1938.

And I'll be telling you about it, because I've got the feeling that Daphne du Maurier, who has written it is way too underrated. Sometimes people I talk to about her know the stories, but don't know she's written them. They all think it was Hitchcock, because he made the films.

Daphne du Maurier was born on 13. May 1907 in London and began writing when she was 18. At first she wrote a lot of short stories, but then also novels, plays and biographies. As she married she moved with her family to Cornwall, where most of her stories take place, because the wild, stormy weather and wild past inspired her imagination.

Songs of the Week [2]

Are you excited? It's new music time again, like every Monday. I hope you had a good week back in normal holiday-free life last week.

This playlist turned into something more emotional this morning. I had picked the songs already over the weekend and written most of it down.

And this morning I woke up to the news that David Bowie has died after fighting cancer for the past 18 month. I was confused and a bit in shock. It was weird to hear that after I was listening to his new album only yesterday and had a Bowie-day as I chose to listen to loads of his old songs as well afterwards.

Anyway. I hope you enjoy the new playlist with the new, a bit more emotional ending due to today's news. Here we go.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

I haven't reviewed a film in a while, have I? Actually, I haven't even watched a lot lately either...

Of course I've been to the cinema to see Star Wars - Star Wars: Episode 1 was my first grown-up film I saw in the cinema in 1999, hence how could I not go and see the new one and I loved it. But there's so many reviews of The Force Awakens out there, I didn't want to add one more.

One of the only other feature films I've watched throughout this holiday season was Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

I've never seen the film before, but it has been on my Watchlist nearly since it was in cinemas in 2011. And now I'm glad I finally watched it, because it was really good.

The film directed by Lasse Hallström (Chocolat, Casanova) is about, well, salmon fishing in the Yemen. But it's not as boring as it sounds, seriously. I first thought it's about people going fishing, but it's about much more.

The head of the Yemen, Sheikh Muhammed bin Zaidi bani Tihama is an avid fisherman and wants to bring fly-fishing to the desert of his country.

Songs of the Week [1]

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had a great start into 2016. I actually did. I was visiting a good friend in Zurich and we had a joyful time wandering around the city, eating too much cheese and watching the NYE fireworks at the lake.

I'm excited to start the fresh playlist for this year - Welcome to the Songs of 2016. Follow this playlist and you'll be able to watch it grow throughout the year.

I was slightly excited for this week's Songs of the Week. I hoped to find a lot of new songs for you, but most of them are from last year. I'm so outdated. But seriously folks, I've found some songs that are really great and by artists of whom I hope that they'll be doing great in 2016. Except for Radiohead of course, they're big already.

So here we go - check out the first 2016 Songs of the Week:

"Zwischen den Jahren" - The must-sees for your holidays

Hello there. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends. I surprisingly did.

I know, I know. I already said my goodbye for this year, but I couldn't resist writing another post - a post full of things to fill your days until the new year begins.

In German there's even a saying for these days between Christmas and New Year: "Zwischen den Jahren" (literally translated to "between the years"). This goes back to ancient Egypt and the "invention" of the modern calendar. They had twelve months with 30 days, but already a year of 365 days. So they put the remaining days at the end of their last month and therefore it are the days between the years.

Anyway, enough about that. Maybe you're one of the lucky people who haven't got to work until next year and hence have a lot of time to spend with family or friends going out or staying in. And in that case you might search for something to watch and here's where I come in.

Songs of the Week [Christmas Special]

Ho! Ho! Ho!

It's the week of Christmas.

Time to belt out your favourite Christmas tunes. I've picked my favourite ten song for today's Songs of the Week Christmas Special.

I bet your all busy decorating and wrapping presents, so let's just dive straight into the music - just click play on the playlist and read why I choose these particular songs.

Christmas Countdown: Festive Films

And the Christmas Countdown continues. Only 8 sleeps until Christmas Day. I know I sound like a little child with this, but I am actually excited about Christmas every year. I love everything about it. The decorations, the food, the music, getting together with friends and family and just having a great time.

And I love all the Christmas films out there of course and that's what this post is about: The films that make the excitement about the holidays even bigger. I feel like it's the ones you can watch every year and don't ever get tired of.

Songs of the Week [51]

Hello fellow music lovers!

It's time for some more great songs to listen to, isn't it?

I've got another six special ones for you this week, that are all good enough to have made it to my Playlist of 2015.

I really hope you enjoy this week's songs, here we go:





Under The Stars - John Legend



The first one is one of these typical festive season songs created by John Legend. But it is one with something really really really special. And yes, it was necessary to put the word "very" three times into that last sentence.
 The song features the sound of real stars. I repeat, real stars - these bright things burning in the sky. The sounds were recorded by scientists at NASA, who transform the light curves of stars into sounds that humans can hear. It's beautiful. If you want to know more about it, check out this article about it on EarthSky and to listen to the sounds the stars make go to NASA's Kepler project page.

Christmas Countdown: Festive Books

Only 15 sleeps till Christmas day. Are you already feeling festive?

I am. We've finally put up all our decorations and I like how cosy and christmassy our house looks now. I can't wait for the 24th, when we put up our tree.

To get you into the mood for Christmas, today marks the start of my Christmas countdown on this blog. Therefore I'll bring you three posts in the next weeks until Christmas, with the best books, films and music for the Advent/Christmas time.

And the first one today is a very special one - a guest post by Laura from Lozza's Book Corner. I asked her to pick her favourite Christmas books for you, so you can have a wonderful time reading "under" your Christmas tree. What's nicer than getting cozy with a blanket, a lot of candles and reading a cute book.

So here are Laura's suggestions for a good Christmas read. Click the titles to go to Laura's reviews of the books.

Songs of the Week [50]

Hello, hello! How are you all? Gotten all your Christmas presents yet?

If you haven't switched to your Christmas playlists yet, I've got some new songs for you again.

After that slightly depressive but beautiful list last week, I tried to make it a bit happier this week with all the Christmas partys coming up now.

I might have failed with the first two songs, but they were just to great to not be put on this weeks list. And the remaining four are the ones for your happy list.

My 5 Favourite Podcasts

Some of you might know that I'm an avid podcast listener and actually somehow kind of working on one. The others know it now.

I am one of these people who get quite bored doing stuff around the house like washing the dishes or doing the hoovering. That's why I need a second thing to do.

Listening to podcasts is a great alternative to listening to music or the radio. Don't get me wrong I love my music, you know that. I've got music playing in the background whilst working, reading and other stuff. Sometimes you need something else...

Songs of the Week [49]

Hello everyone!

Hope you're all well and enjoying the run-up to Christmas.

This week's playlist is a quieter one again. I reckon these grey and cold November days are just the right setting for some quiet, somehow mysterious and beautiful music.

So without further ado, here are this week's Songs of the week.

alt-J // Autumn Tour 2015

So this was the last gig for this year then. And my "concert season" ended on a high.

I have already told you about Alt-j and their music here last year and also about how great it was seeing them at Southside Festival 2015.

Hence, I don't think I have to say a lot. It was even better seeing them on a proper concert of theirs comparing it to their festival set.

Musically they really are geniuses, it's very different from everything else I've heard so far and very, very cool. And the light show is stunning. If you're not totally amazed by how it works with the music and rounds up the show just perfectly, you probably won't be happy about any gig...

Here's some more pictures, that don't even show properly how great it looked in reality.

Songs of the Week [48]

It's Monday!

No, I'm not as excited as it sounds about that fact, but I actually am excited about this week's songs.

I've found some quite new artists for you this week on a little hunt on Soundcloud. I enjoy listening to the suggestions I get due to artists I already like.

Most of the time I've got the music playing in the background and once in a while there's this one song that makes me stop and listen keenly. And it's exactly these songs then make it onto lists like this one. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

15 Questions About SPECTRE

I've been to the cinema to watch Spectre yesterday. It's been fun, I really liked watching it.

I'm not going to write a proper review. I'm quite sure all of you, who are interested in the James Bond films, have read loads of opinions already and/or seen the film.

But whilst watching it and afterwards I asked myself some (partly strange) questions... And I couldn't resist writing them down for you, so here we go:

1. Is this 007's Happy End now?
2. When did I start liking Daniel Craig as Bond?
3. Why wasn't Andrew Scott more of a psycho and why couldn't I stop thinking about him as Moriarty?
4. Why did Daniel Craig get the line "Did you miss me?"? Isn't that Moriarty's question?
5. Is the punctuation in the question above right?
6. Why is it bothering me that Christoph Waltz is dubbing himself?
7. Is he really evil or why is he never playing a nice guy?
8. How did Madeleine get undressed whilst sleeping when they were at L'Américain?
9. Was the rat a real rat or a drone?
10. Was Q really surprised that Bond stole the car?
11. When did Ben Whishaw get so cute?
12. Why was I not able to stop thinking about him murdering all those women for his perfume?
13. Why did it take me till the end of the film to realise that I really don't like Ralph Fiennes' German voice?
14. What happened to Monica Bellucci's character? Was she really picked up by someone?
15. And above all: Is James Bond a Timelord? And if so, when will he finally meet the Doctor?

Alright, that's it. An insight into my weird mind. I hope you enjoyed that. I'm off to watch last night's Doctor Who now, maybe Bond's already in it...

If you've got any questions to add to the list, let me know.

Love
Julia x

Artist Rendezvous: Some Kind Of Illness

Today it's your chance to discover a new band: Some Kind Of Illness.

They are an Indie band from the North of England consisting of the brothers Paul and Mark Hinks.

The sound of their self-titled album is ambient, relaxing and calm. Some parts remind me of meditation music whilst some others are a bit more uptempo (really just a bit) with more guitar sounds and rhythm, but still unwinding. The long instrumental parts during the songs are calming and the mystic vocals give the songs a special touch.