Movie prop: The cryptex from The Da Vinci Code

I am an avid collector of movie memorabilia.  The strangest the gadget, the more I covet it, and if the movie happens to be one of my favorites, it is even better.  

I have talked here of Beetlejuice's Handbook for the Recently Deceased, the Jurassic Park cryocan, Lucian's necklace from the Underworld movies, the H2O Just add water locket, The Illusionist locket, Lana Lang's kryptonite necklace... Most of the time there is no official product, and I have to find an artist to make it, or buy it knowing it is a knock-off made by someone else.  I really don't care, as long as I have it in my hands.

This time the coveting came after we came back from Paris.  After visiting the Louvre, the church of the Saint-Sulpice and seeing the Arago medallion markers, I rewatched The Da Vinci Code.  And I found myself wanting to own my own cryptex.

Naturally, I knew the official replica made by the Noble Collection was out of question.  I cannot justify spending that much in a movie prop. It is true that it is absolutely gorgeous.  But no.  There is a smaller version that is more affordable, and may be something you may like to consider.  I myself was interested in this one, until I saw some reviews that said it was not very sturdy, and the rings and the opening mechanism did not work very well.

Instead, I went looking for a non-official version.  And I found it!  And for the price that I paid, I think it is a very worthy investment.  I chose the white ring version, as it is the one most similar to the movie prop.

 

This is a knock-off, but it is very well made, EXCEPT for the fact that it has 6 rings of letters, instead of 5 like the original cryptex.  Can you believe I had not realized this until I tried to change the password combination?  But, you can bypass this problem if you use A-P-P-L-E-S, with an extra S that the movie riddle does not have.  

My cryptex is absolutely made of metal except for the letter rings, that are some kind of plastic, although you would not guess it by looking at them.  It is heavy, and big!  It measures about 14 cm long, and it opens!

It comes in a gift box, with a card (in case it is for a gift), with a screwdriver, 2 screws, 2 black cord necklaces and a pair of The One ring from The Lord of the Rings, one smaller in silver and one larger in yellow gold.  Naturally, they are not real pieces of jewelry.  And instructions for how to change the opening combination.

 

See how bit it is!

You can open it, of course

 

 

I will not use the rings (neither will my husband).  The important thing was that I wanted to have inside the cryptex the final clue, but obviously it did not come with it.  A pity, truly, that even the official one lacks that detail. But!  I can make my own.

 

I searched the web for pictures of the clue prop, and I found several that were good.  Here is a still of the movie in which you can see it:

 

I took the biggest one, cleaned it and enhanced the lettering in Photoshop.  Then I removed the background color and printed it on parchment paper.   Then I added a red edge made with printable cotton paper, and glued it with double-sided tape to the clue.  Here is the result:

 

LOL, you can see my mermaid leggings!

I curved it with the help of a brush

I love how well it looks!  I am so happy with my cryptex, it will go to the shelf with the rest of the movie props I have.

 

 

If you would like to have your own cryptex clue, HERE is a free printable for you to make it.  As always, please feel free to print as many times as you like, and pass the file along to anyone (links back are nice too!).  Just please do not sell the file or your creations.  Thank you and enjoy! ♥  

New furnishings for the living room

I found Kassandra today very busy, hanging up some pictures in her newly finished living room.

"What are you up to today?"

"Good morning, dear.  As you can see, I am dressing up my walls.  Since we are so fond of cinema, I have chosen to decorate with some movie posters."

"What have you got for display?"

"Well, in the first place, some classics that we adore.  Dracula, as it could not be any other way.  I absolutely love Coppola's movie!  It may not be completely faithful to the book, but I so enjoy the cinematography, the costumes, and the absinthe scene... Oh, that is one of the best I have seen in any film!  And Blade Runner, another of out favorite classics.  But of course, something more modern:  The Justice League.  The actor that plays Superman is one of my favorites.  He looks so handsome in that picture, don't you think?"

"Why, yes, of course.  I assume you have seen "The Witcher" as well?"

"But of course!  I cannot wait for December to start the second season!"

"And this other painting over here?"

"That is the lovely Nadja, from "What we do in the Shadows".  She is a riot; if she was real I am sure we would be great friends.  That picture is featured in the opening credits of the show."

"That is so fun!  This place looks really neat to have a movie marathon afternoon."

 "Why, thank you, dear!"

A new book title available in my shop!

Do you remember the movie "Beetlejuice"?  Are you a fan of him, or Lydia? Then surely you will like a miniature Handbook of the Recently Deceased to put in your dollhouse - a clever and subtle way to haunt any dollhouse without the creepiness!  Just put it over a table, on the top of a shelf or forgotten in the attic... and who knows who can have left it there? 

With the book also come 2 fliers to summon Beetlejuice and 3 of his business cards.

Now available in my shop!

Movie review: Byzantium

It has been a while since I watched a vampire movie.  And I am glad I watched this.  Even though it is far from perfect, it is a nice watch.

Just like the poster says, it is directed by Neil Jordan, and it reminded me a lot of Interview with the vampire: the pace, the photography, the way you begin to get acquainted with the characters... It is very dignified, if one keeps in mind the kind of vampire movies that go around these days.  I have taken out of the poster the magazine reviews, so you can judge for yourself.  One of them said "Twilight for grown ups".  It is definitely not that.

As with many vampire movies, we get to see flashbacks, which I found far more interesting than the modern story, that frankly, it kind of irks me.  I am tired of whiny teenage vampires that find their existance awful but lack the courage to end it, and when they find a person of the other sex suddenly it all gets better.  It has been overused, and I do not find it enticing anymore.  I guess that's what earned it the comparision to Twilight, but it is the only thing they have in common.  This movie is psychologically violent, and I found disturbing the way that women get treated on it.

As a novel thing, these vampires do not have fangs.  Instead, they grow their thumb fingernail when they need to feed to punture blood vessels.  I did like that a lot.

The pace is slow, as we have almost 2 hours of movie ahead, and very few characters that lack the personality to carry the story by themselves.  Specially since most of the movie the action is set in present time, and with the action centered in Eleanor, the teenage vampire.  However, we get to see Jonny Lee Miller (the Sherlock Holmes of Elementary) as a villain.  Probably the best drawn character, as you get to hate him from the very beginning.  Gemma Arterton is also superb in the way she represents the vampire mother, but as I said, the character's history is not very credible, specially the present time action.

Don't get me wrong.  The movie is not terrible, but the script is not well-thought of, and has many points that makes you wonder what the writers were thinking, if they had been thinking at all.

SPOILERS AHEAD!  DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED!  SPOILERS AHEAD!

I will not describe the movie, but I will point out some problems that I found with it:

- The title, Byzantium, refers to two things that appear in the movie: one hotel that is named so, that gets turned into a brothel; and a blade that appears a total time of one minute, brought back from Byzantium by one of the characters, and that is not relevant to the story at all.  I do not get why the need for such title.

- If you name one of the characters Ruthven, I expect him to be a vampire.  Lord Ruthven is the name of the vampire in John Polidori's novel The Vampyre.  I thought it was a wink to vampire enthusiasts which of course would know this information.  It turned out not to be so.

- I did not like the fact that vampirism was a brotherhood in which no women are allowed.  More so, you only get to be invited to join if you are wealthy, of noble breeding and deemed "worthy".  It strikes me fancy that you are considered worthy even if you are a degenerate pervert that takes teenage girls to brothels to be turned into prostitutes, you do not have a coin to your name, and you are a thief that took over the fortune of your deceased friend.

- Moreover, you get turned into a vampire if you go to a desert island and enter into a cave so something that we do not get to know what it is bites you and turns you into one.  If you do not want anybody to enter the cave unauthorized, you hire humans as keepers to guard the place.

- Clara shoots Ruthven in a leg before she takes the box containing the secret map and flees to be turned.  She said later she had had mercy of him, and she should not have.  Honestly, if a man kidnapped me, turn me over to a brothel, made a prostitute out of me, hit me and raped me each time he saw me, the first thing I would do once turned vampire would be to kill him.  But of course, the script needed him for the next turn, which was:

- Ruthven finds out, we do not know how, that Clara has had a girl and that she put her in an orphanage/convent for girls to be safe.  He shows up in the convent in the middle of the night, demands to see her, and the nuns not only agreed to that, they let him conduct the interview in a corridor, without supervision.  We are supposed to think that he has pay them off to look to the other side, but it is so stretched out I do not believe it.  Specially because Clara was paying the nuns for her daughter's expenses.

- The Brotherhood has needed 200 years to find Clara in the same town that she was turned (such as the story is told, I do not have the impression Clara and Eleanor ever left the place).  Really?

- The fact that Darvell killed his brother to protect Clara came out of nowhere.  Were we supposed to think that he loved her/ was sorry about that happened to her?  They barely interacted with each other in the flashbacks to warrant an ending like that.

END OF SPOILERS  END OF SPOILERS  END OF SPOILERS  END OF SPOILERS  

I am not sorry I watched but it could have been better with some minor details fixed.  And probably with a little less running time and some deleted scenes that were unnecessary.  But still, good for a rainy afternoon. 

The Illusionist locket: a Review

By now you all already know that I adore lockets.  Well, last Christmas my mom gifted me one of The Illusionist lockets made by Jim Anderson of Illusion Lockets.

Even though it is not made of a precious metal, it is one of the loveliest locket I have ever seen.  Not only for the amazing design that works exactly like the one in the movie "The Illusionist", also because it is handcrafted of wood, and polished shiny.  The wood is so soft it feels like touching a violin.

As stated, you open it just like the one in the movie.  But, did you know that the one that appears in the movie are actually 2 different lockets, one for the oval shape and one for the heart shape?  The magic of movie production makes them look like one, but they are not.  Jim Anderson has achieved what Hollywood could not!

My locket is made of Honduran Rosewood, has a sterling silver bail and a white butterfly.  Here are some pictures of my locket:

The locket phases

Back of the oval shape

Back of the heart shape

As you can see, you can safely storage two pictures inside.  They are framed in brass components that help the locket rotate into the different positions.  When you buy the locket you can choose between sterling silver, 14 carat yellow gold or 14 carat white gold bail (prices adjust accordingly when you make your choice).  You can also choose if you want a wood or an acrylic locket, as well as the material of which the butterfly will be made of: white acrylic, sterling silver or 14 carat yellow gold.

What you will get with your order is:

- the locket of your choice

- two lovely presentation jewelry boxes (one inside the other)

- a certificate of authenticity, stating the number of your locket, the wood it is made of and the signature of the creator

- a picture punch - to punch your pictures the exact side you need them to be to put in the locket

- double sided tape

- instructions showing how to open the locket and to put inside your pictures - if you would rather watch a video on how to do this, MetroHero2012 has a great one that can help you.

I absolutely love my locket.  I have had many people asking if it was "just like the one in the movie", and if it did really work, and where they can get one like it.  I am always pleased to show it and see the amazement in their faces when they see it twisting and opening.

Here is a short video showing how it works:

I hope if you get one, you will be as happy with it as I am.  Thanks, mom!

The Raven trailer

Oh my goth, it's going to be AWESOME!!

See the video.

Absinthe in the movies

I watched a couple of days ago the new Dorian Gray movie - starring Ben Barnes and Colin Firth. Even though I expected it to be better than it was (big disappointment on that), I was so happy to see that they included a scene (around minute 7) in which you can see a glass with Absinthe, an Absinthe spoon with a sugar cube and a carafe of water:

It only lasts some seconds, and there are no more scenes with Absinthe on them, but it was wonderful that they depicted the French ritual in the correct way.

In case you are curious, I know some more films with Absinthe scenes on them; probably you have seen them too:
- Dracula by Bram Stoker (Francis Ford Coppola) - they prepare it with the French ritual too - one of my favorites and the best depicted Absinthe scene that I have seen.
- Moulin Rouge - they drink it as a shot, if I recall correctly.
- From Hell - Johnny Depp prepares it using the Bohemian (Czech) ritual, which by the way, was invented circa 1990, nearly a century later than when the movie takes place. Mistakes of Hollywood...

You can check the Blog in the Alandia website for more Absinthe movie clips.