Mononoke's Stag and Kristen Stewart's Face

So over the festive period I found myself watching Snow White and the Huntsman which only strengthened my belief that Kristen Stewart should never be allowed in a movie theatre, let alone in an actual movie, ever again.

Shockingly the movie was awful, so much so that even the amazing outfits and overly pointy crowns of the Evil Queen couldn't make up for it.

There was one stand out moment however that actually made me spit my tea all over the couch, and that was the unashamed theft of the stag scene.  As Snow White comes out of the forest she sees the big white deer that is supposed to represent the God/heart of the forest and one of the dwarves says: "No one has ever seen this before".  Well that is just a big fat lie as I am pretty sure every child in Japan from 1997 onwards has seen that stag, under that tree, on the island in the lake as it was lifted straight out of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke.

Scene from Snow White

Stag from Princess Mononoke

I couldn't find the exact screen shot but watch the film and you will see it is exactly the same!  Not only the deer but the little white forest spirits, that lead her to the stag in the first place, are stolen.

Snow white's stolen tree spirits

Miyazaki's original tree spirits

Now I get that Hollywood borrows from Japan all the time (see star wars) but what really annoyed me was that Snow White was sooo bad and Princess Mononoke is soooo good!  It also irritates me that now people are talking about this theft, and Kristen Stewart is being mentioned in the same paragraph as Princess Mononoke and may lead to people linking them together and deciding that they should remake Princess M with Kristen Stewart as the lead. Shoot me now.

If this does happen we can at least be thankful that Princess M wears a mask so we don't actually have to look at Kristen Stewart's face so much.

Rant over.

In honour of the amazing Deer God I have collected some fabulous Stag inspired hats for you. 

I fall a little bit more in love with this man every time I look at this photo

I also found this which has to be the greatest hat stand ever made!

I feel a Ghibli appreciation blog may be coming soon...

This Is The End

Unless you are Canadian and spend your time in the hills living with bears, you will know that today, the 21st of December 2012 is, according to the Mayan calendar, the end of the world.  To be more precise, the ancient Mayans measured time in baktun with each cycle lasting 394 years.  Today is the last day of the 13th and last baktan, thus in the words of Jim Morrison, this is the end.

Mayan Warriors totally knew how to rock a hat.

This news has of course led to people doing crazy things such as fleeing to apparently sacred mountains in France, creating survival groups that have been recruiting members with specialised knowledge such as hunting and medical skills, and apparently Americans stocking up on Machetes.  All of this and more can be found at the handy apocalypse information website www.december212012.com 

The calendar may end today but unfortunately at some point during the last hundred(s) years the post-it note telling us how the end will come fell off and so we are left to ponder the possibilities.  The poets tell us it could be fire...

or ice...

The Astronomers think it will be a meteor or planetary body colliding with earth.

The night sky watchers say it will be alien attack.

This wins as far as hat awesomeness is concerned

The old skool dooms dayers are putting their money on the return of the plague.

While the younger generations are gearing up for a zombie attack.

However the end may come if you are sitting at home right now looking like this...

please stop it.  

The end of the world is no reason to look like an idiot.  If we are going to go then go upstairs put on a nice dress and your best hat and pour a glass of wine (wear trainers not heels just in case the zombie lot are right).

Alternatively we can go speak to the still alive Mayan types who say that it isn't actually the end of the world just the end of an era.  My sister cut of her dreadlocks last week after 9 years.  That was the end of an era and didn't get anywhere near as much press coverage.

I guess the guy in charge of calendars figured that he had gone far enough and some other calendar workshop monkey could finish the job. Epic fail.

See you tomorrow.  Maybe.