Yesterday I watched Dorian Gray, the newest screen adaption of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The plot in short: Extraordinary beautiful and innocent, Dorian Gray arrives in London to move into the house he has inherited from his cruel grandfather. There he falls under the influence of charismatic, but amoral Lord Henry Wotton, who introduces Dorian to the hedonistic pleasures of the city. Henry’s friend, the artist Basil Hallward, paints a portrait of Dorian to capture his youthful beauty. When Dorian becomes to see the painting, expresses his desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait would age rather than himself. A word and a blow. Dorian stays as good-looking as ever while his portrait ages, reflecting his increasing excesses of debauchery and violence.

I haven’t read Oscar Wilde’s novel further than the second chapter, but after watching this adaption I’m glad I didn’t read the whole. Especially Gray’s character seems to be painted very superficial… always this oh so perfect face of Dorian (sorry, Ben Barnes :P) with no glimpse of human feeling, not even in the beginning. The repeated shown sex scences were anything but erotic. Generally all those symbolic scences that should highlight Dorian’s sinfulness are awkward and quite clumsy! My no-go favourite are the scenes were Dorian’s portrait is seen or let’s say heard – as the picture smacks, grunts or rattles… a crazy noise that reminds me of some cheap horror films of the 1980s! xD

From the starring’s point of view, I like Colin Firth as Lord Henry Wotton. As an unmoral aristocrat he did a quite good and convincing job. Ben Barnes as Dorian Gray was nice to look at, but not very outstanding in my eyes. And the other actors / roles… no one kept in my mind ;)

All in all, this movie definitely lacks emotional weight. This is a pity as the storyline with its themes of aestethicism, hedonism and influence are all relevant even in today’s society.

The last weeks were really labour-extensive. I had to do my regular work and to write my bachelor thesis besides this. After my first thesis, that I finished in January, I thought the second one will be less effort but I was mistaken. The guideline said it only has to be 5.000 to 7.000 words including the internship’s report – sounds fair, doesn’t it? The number of words is less as needed for my first thesis, but nevertheless I had to do the literature research and an empirical study which is both very time-consuming. So all in all I dare say that the efforts for the first and second bachelor thesis were nearly similar in my eyes… but let’s drop this subject now.

On Wednesday this week I finished this second thesis!! It’s title is “Kollaborative Anforderungsanalyse durch Workshops bei der Webentwicklung – am Beispiel des ‘Best Performance Circle’” or in English “Collaborative Requirements Elicitation through workshops in the context of web development – using the example of the ‘Best Performance Circle’“. I’m glad that I finished it in time so that I can hopefully do my finals at the end of July!

As I wrote in my prevoius post I intended to watch BBC’s adoption of Elizabeth Gaskell‘s Victorian novel North and South – and so I did. The story is settled in the Mid 1800′s and it is about Margaret Hale and her move from the South to the town of Milton in the industrial North of England after her father decided to leave the clergy. There she and her parents struggled to fit in this industrial society that seemed so alien to them compared to the Southern way of life. In Milton Margaret got to know the formerly poverty-stricken cotton mill-owner Mr. Thornton (played by Richard Armitage, who was actually the reason that I watched the series).

Their relationship to each other got finely twined with the theme of prejustices of class and circumstances. I was fascinated by the well-shown contrasts of the North and South, the class as well as the gender differences. Margaret grew up on the peaceful Southern landside in a warm climate where wild roses flourished. In contrast there’s the town of Milton in the North of England: all grey in grey, without any flowers raising hopes in the poor workers’ hearts – the scenery and colours were well choosen and I like the lot of metaphors dispersed in the series. There’s for example Margaret’s first visit in the cotton mill and her first encounter with Mr. Thornton… she’s standing in this noisy hall full of machines but nevertheless there’s some peace around expressed by small “cotton flakes” flying around her and the lovely piano music in the background.
There are widespread different views of the situation of the work class, behaviour, industry and religion as well, stated in great dialogues and metaphors as I have to say.

Of course the love story between Margaret and Mr. Thornton is another main theme of this story, and it is very enjoyable and heart-rending to watch it (and probably to read – sorry I haven’t read the novel (so far), but now I am really tempted to do so). Their love did often seem doomed to fail. Well, the story is similar to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in some ways, but in some ways also more complex to me.

The actors are choosen well in my eyes. Especially those of Margaret and Mr. Thornton. They perfectly show the differences of the two roles in character, behaviour and appearance. Sorry for being a bit skin-deep now, but in my defense I have to say that both actors’ appearance is an amazing metophor for the differences of the North and South! :P Margaret Hale’s (played by Daniela Denby-Ashe) round face and her spirited bearing is in contrary to Mr. Thornton’s (played Richard Armitage) clear-cut profile, subtle expressions and body language. Oh, it’s great! Armitage has not the typical “pretty boy” look but nevertheless he exudes a great deal of attraction through the whole series to the delight of me and some others, I guess :)

Summa summarum this 4-parts series is higly recommended. I’m glad that I watched it, but I’m also interested in others’ thoughts and opinions regarding North and South. So have you seen it? What do you think?

Recently I remembered the times in Helsinki when autumn was already gone and winter was just around the corner. It was dark, grey and not much to do as I had finished my courses quite early in the semester. And when I was sitting in my room in front of my laptop, intending to write on my bachelor thesis, I had the idea to watch some movies and series. One series that I wanted to watch was BBC’s Robin Hood. Unfortunately the internet connection at the students’ house was slow so that I didn’t manage to watch the Robin Hood series that caught my attention.

Two weeks ago this very same intend crossed my mind once again… when I remember correctly it was on a Sunday afternoon when I browsed over the American TV series The Legend of the Seeker based on The Sword of Truth novels by Terry Godkind. Back in Helsinki I watched its full first season, I broke off at the beginning of the second season as it started to get quite trivilized. However I can’t deny that I’m fond of adventure series: during my childhood I already liked to watch Xena the Warrior Princess and Hercules or similar 90′s series. And therefore I was in gleeful anticipation of watching the Robin Hood episodes – fortunately the download took not too long.

I guess everyone knows the legendary adventures of the outlaw Robin Hood and his fellows, at least from Disney’s same named animated feature of the 70′s! Robin Hood and Maid Marian as foxes, Little John as brown bear, …

The whole series is not very bloody and at the beginning the actors especially whom from Robin himself didn’t persuade and impose me, there was not much impression left behind… Robin looks like a soft boy and not like a man just returned from the Crusade. Actually I like the actor of his beloved Marian, Lucy Griffith, as she fits in this role quite well – a (head)strong noblewoman, beautiful and quick in mind, and destined for kill by her second admirer Sir Guy of Gisborne at the end of the second season.

Well, Sir Guy of Gisborne’s and the Sheriff of Nottingham’s roles make the BBC series quite interesting as they have multifaceted and very nasty characters. Additionally Gisborne’s actor, Richard Armitage, did a very good job and therefore he was much-admired under the female audience – wholeheartedly comprehensible in my eyes!! :D

Although the third season is by far not that good as the first and second one I watched the series until the end. But altogether I enjoyed the hours with Robin and his fellow outlaws — much much much better than all these American crime and doctor series on TV now!! Yuck!
Oh my, oh my… I like Richard Armitage’s performance in Robin Hood, so I will watch another TV project with him as actor – have already targeted one series: North and South, also a BBC production. I think I will blog about this then as well…

Long time no posts here… In the last weeks and days I was really busy with writing my research based bachelor thesis with the title “Virale Recruiting-Videos als Unterstützung des Employer Branding klein- und mittelständischer Unternehmen am Beispiel der Akquise von HochschülerInnen “. On Tuesday I was finally finished with it!! *cheers* After printing and binding it to a book I will hand it in tomorrow or the day after tomorrow… let’s see when I have time. I hope I’ll get a good grade for it so that all the work was worth the trouble ;D

Tomorrow my 15-weeks long internship at PDAgroup will start. This is a medium-sized company offering enablement trainings for SAP business partners nearly all over the world. I’m already very curious about my workplace and the people there and of course about my given tasks! :)