Artemis Fowl Book Three: The Eternity Code ~ review

Title: Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code
Author: Eoin Colfer

The Eternity Code is the third book in the Artemis Fowl novel series by Eoin Colfer and was first published in 2003. The book follows Artemis Fowl the Second in another exciting adventure as he and his servants, Butler and Juliet, team-up with their elves ally, Captain Holly Short, and the dwarf thief, Mulch Diggums, to take back fairy technology in the form of a cube that had been stolen by an IT billionaire, Jon Spiro. This review would contain minor spoilers, so for those who have yet to read the novel, you've been warned. Now, let's start!

In this book, readers once again were thrown into yet another adventure with Artemis Fowl. The story starts when a business deal with a cunning American industrialist, Jon Spiro, went wrong, and the C Cube, a mini supercomputer created by Artemis Fowl from stolen fairy technology, was stolen from him. As the C Cube could reveal the underground population of fairies to the dangerous man, Artemis Fowl would have to get some help from his fairy allies to get the C Cube back from the manipulative hands of Jon Spiro. To do so, he would need the help of Holly, Mulch, Foaly and Juliet. Although Butler was not able to help him getting back the C Cube due to an unfortunate event, he would still lend his help to Artemis in the final part of the plan, which unbeknownst to the fairy folk, would involve them.

Asia's Next Top Model Cycle 2 winner!

Congratulations to Sheena for winning the second season of Asia's Next Top Model! By winning the title, Sheena had won herself a Subaru XV (that's an awesome car!), a chance to be the face of TRESemmé for one of their 2014 campaign, a chance to appear in a spread and on the cover of Harper's Bazaar Singapore and Harper's Bazaar Malaysia, a three-month contract with Storm Model Management in London, and SGD50,000 cash prize. As a fellow Malaysian, I'm very proud of her achievement and she definitely had made Malaysia proud of her as well. Kudos to her.

Also congratulations to both Philippines finalists, Jodilly and Katarina, for winning second and third place in the competition. I'm sure in a lot of their fan's hearts, they are the true winners. I always knew Jodilly can go far in the competition; she took great photos and she has a great personality as well. As for Katarina, she has one of the prettiest face in the competition and she improved a lot from where she started. Out of the three finalists, I believe she's the only one without a modelling background, so she should be proud of herself because she can compete at the same level as the other two finalists despite the lack of experience in the industry.

Overall, this season is a very exciting season; wonderful contestants, amazing locations, and beautiful, gorgeous photos by the contestants. I'm hoping we can still get our Cycle 3 of the reality show and hopefully it will take us to another country for another great season.

Again, congratulations to Sheena! And also great work by those behind the scenes of this show, you guys have done a great job in making this season happen. Thank you!

Image from Asia's Next Top Model Season 2 website.

What to watch? ~ 2014 movies: April

Usually summer movies start to play in May but it seems that there might be too many blockbuster movies nowadays that some of them had to be moved to end of the year around November and December, or to March and April. While I think it's good to have more blockbuster movies in a year, but too many of them could be troublesome too as it will be too competitive for the movies to fight for audiences attention and it could result in some of them to be overlooked. It's sad if those overlooked movies are the good ones but in movie business that can't be helped I guess.

Now let's look at the movies that will be released in April 2014 (based on the release date in Wikipedia which usually follow the release date for the US) that I look forward to.

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

A highly-anticipated film by Marvel Studios, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first to be released this year out of two films (the other one would be Guardians of the Galaxy). To tell the truth, I didn't watch Captain America: The First Avenger at the cinema, and even when it was aired on TV, I never watched it from start to finish, only a few scenes here and there. The film did look interesting, but I never really care about the character I guess. But for this sequel, I was interested to watch it and the trailer looks good too. And guess what? I did watched it! Yes, I already did! It's ironic when a movie with America in the title didn't even open in America first. Instead, the movie opened in some other countries a week earlier than in the US (including Malaysia where I've come from). Directed by the Russo brothers (Anthony Russo and Joe Russo) and starred Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Emily VanCamp, Frank Grillo, Robert Redford and Hayley Atwell, this film will be released in the US on April 4, 2014. It's a good movie, I highly recommended it!


2. Oculus

This movie is only in my radar since a few weeks ago. It's a horror movie about two siblings who want to prove that the death of their parents were caused by an evil entity that possessed an antique mirror in their house. The trailer looks interesting but what pique my interest is the mystery behind the mirror. Was it really a supernatural being? Or was it something else? The movie also looks to be focusing more on the psychological side of horror instead of blood and gore, which is also a good thing for me. Starred Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Annalise Basso, Garrett Ryan and Rory Cochrane, Oculus will come to cinema near you on April 11, 2014.