When Loki decides to attack Earth, it's up to the superheroes, Captain American, Iron Man, Thor, and Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk, along with the Black Widow, to step in and fight alongside Nick Fury.

That's quite a few massive egos in one team. How does that work out?

Quite well actually, and one of the main reasons for this is that Joss Whedon, who was at the director's helm, is a genius. 

It's not easy to bring together four big guns into one ensemble, and then mix them with equally important supporting characters, and make it a success. But that's exactly what Whedon does. Creator of the hit TV show Buffy along with Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon has spun together a believable and strong tale of action, adventure, and lots of humour thrown in generously. And to no one's surprise, every character has their own part to play, with no one cutting in to another's role.

Robert Downey Jr.'s deprecating charm and wit is out there as always, and he's managed to deliver his role as Iron Man/Tony Stark with an ease many would envy. Not just a comic element, his role portrays emotional power as well. Chris Evans does well as Captain America, although his perfection can seem annoying at some times. Chris Hemsworth is still rocking the Asgardian armour as Thor, delivering a strong and stable performance. Mark Ruffalo is perhaps the surprise as Bruce Banner. In his Banner role, he seems vulnerable, yet sweet, making a great contrast with his angry green half. And their chemistry together is amazing, which makes it all the more exciting to watch.

Tom Hiddleston's Loki is evil to the core, making it great fun to watch them try to defeat him. His complicated, twisted mind has been shown well. 

Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D. is suitably dangerous. Scarlett Johansson's portrayal of Black Widow perhaps echoes more to those familiar with the Whedonverse of strong, intelligent women who have an emotional side. Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye had a smaller role but did it well, although a backstory there would've been more interesting. 

There are many scenes that lend themselves to a laughing audience, or one gripping their seats. I shall not, however, spoil it for you. There are alien races apart from the Asgardians, there are some absolutely hilarious comic moments - even during the climax action scenes - and there are some losses.

I saw the movie in 3D, and after the initial discomfort that sets in, I actually forgot I was watching it in 3D. I think though, that that's what one needs: watching 3D and forgetting it's in that format and immersing in the movie and how good it looks, without worrying whether the alien is going to fly straight towards your nose or not.

The movie may be slightly longer than most, at just over two hours, but is a fine amount of time to develop the story well and leave the audience waiting for more. And it's not the CGI that dictates the flow of the movie, and for that I'm extremely thankful.

It's a dysfunctional motley of heroes we've got, but they put on a show. And what a show it is, conducted by the ring leader, Joss Whedon, who must really take a bow for his accomplishment.

A super-hero film that relies on great acting, fine direction and a whole lot of gritty pizzazz. Watch this movie, because it's one of those rare gems that really does live up to your expectations.

A historic event happened just two weeks ago - the first Middle East Film and Comic Con took place in Dubai, UAE.

See all the pictures from the two-day event here.

I won't go into detail about what happened; I'm hoping the pictures are sufficient. I will say though, that if you like John Rhys-Davies, Luciana Carro, Jason Momoa, Mark Sheppard and Max Landis, you WILL enjoy those photographs.

The second day of the event, I'd decided to cosplay as Princess Leia from Star Wars.

After months of being asked the same question over and over again when...wait, just read:

XYZ-person: "Oh are you cosplaying for MEFCC?"
Me: "Yes! As Princess Leia."
*pause*
XYZ-person: "The...uhh...gold bikini?"

I quickly learned my answer needed to be this: "Yes! As Princess Leia from A New Hope, NOT the Jabba's lair version."

I still got gold bikini comments though. 

So HOW does one get the Princess Leia look?

First, don't do what I did, which was make my Mom run around Dubai's shops looking for a white dress that could work. For one, that can make your Mom slightly annoyed (mine wasn't thank goodness, but I could sense through the Force she was soon to be), and second, you will not find it even if you do look. Honestly, we looked and looked and looked, and NOTHING looked right.

What you should do instead is this:

• Google Image Search "Princess Leia white dress" and print off images that look closest to the look you want and as large as possible
• Procure a mother like mine who, without me asking her, comes up to me and hands me her 6-yard white sari and says, "Make your dress from this." Alternatively, go to Meena Bazaar or Satwa and find white cloth. Coz let's face it, my Mom is something awesome.
• Also buy "butter crepe" the same colour as your dress material, for lining.

AND NOW FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT BIT:

• Call this number 050 349 2209 or email bhambra.preeti@gmail.com. Save this number because it is the single most important thing this blog post is giving you. That number will lead you to Mrs Rani Kaur, who is my friend Gurvinder aka Preeti Bhambra's mother, who stitches like something out of a dream. Her fitting is perfect, her ability to sense what you want and how you want it is impeccable, and it doesn't cost you a bomb.

She took one look at the photographs, and I could see her creative brain whirring away. I came back a few days later and the dress was ready! Also, the belt I used is Gurvinder's, so having cool friends with awesome accessories also helps.

Now for the hair.

• Find a friend like Shruti who, like my mother, just comes up to me and says, "Find me a YouTube tutorial and I'll do your hair."
• Find one that involves socks. Like this:

• Realize that while it takes three minutes in the video, it will actually take close to an hour.
• Find clean socks.
• Become the Princess when the buns are done!

It was a lot of fun cosplaying; also because so many people recognized who I was meant to be, and came up to me. I took pictures with Yoda, Chewbacca, along with random visitors at the event who asked if they could click my picture, if I could stand in a picture alongside their kids (yes, really!), and the best part was when two people came up to me at different times and said, "Your costume is the best we've seen throughout the event."

And for that, I shall thank (in Oscar-acceptance speech style): my Mom for the white sari and introducing me to Star Wars, my friend Gurvinder and her Mom for the awesome work on creating the dress, and Shruti for completing the final piece of the Leia puzzle and making me rock my buns.

In other news, Star Wars day is coming up... May The Fourth...and there's an event to celebrate it. Click this link for more info on NerdyCon DXB 2012. I'll be there, though not in costume. I'll be in one of my awesome MEFCC t-shirts I bought: "Luke Habibi I am your father" or "Shou Droids?"

See you there, and may the Force be with you. Always.

(Long post ahead, but I guarantee sci-fi fans will enjoy the read)

This year, I seemed to be taking all sorts of chances with the Emirates Festival of Literature...picking authors I hadn't heard of. Whatever will I do next?

So why did I want to go for Alastair Reynold's session? Simply because the topic said: "Beyond Rocket Science: Exploring the fine line between science and fiction". That's all it took for me to go click and buy the session.

Picked @AquilaRift's session for its topic; hadn't read his books then. Just finished Terminal World. Hooked. Thanks @EmiratesLitFest #EAFOL

— Devina Divecha (@DevinaDivecha) March 10, 2012

Woohoo. I was first through the doors for @AquilaRift's session at @EmiratesLitFest #EAFOL

— Devina Divecha (@DevinaDivecha) March 10, 2012

Oooooh. @AquilaRift says Star Wars is more 'science fantasy' but realistic science fiction can be Star Trek. @EmiratesLitFest #EAFOL

— Devina Divecha (@DevinaDivecha) March 10, 2012

. @AquilaRift says the movie Avatar has clever thinking of alien ecology and physics of alien planets. @EmiratesLitFest #EAFOL #scifi

— Devina Divecha (@DevinaDivecha) March 10, 2012

I love that I am in a room with people asking serious questions about aliens & more scifi. At @AquilaRift's session @EmiratesLitFest #EAFOL

— Devina Divecha (@DevinaDivecha) March 10, 2012

There is the cutest 7-year-old (ish) kid asking a question abt matter and anti-matter to @AquilaRift at @EmiratesLitFest #EAFOL

— Devina Divecha (@DevinaDivecha) March 10, 2012

Terminal World signed by @EmiratesLitFest author @AquilaRift #EAFOL picplz.com/z0SwV

— Devina Divecha (@DevinaDivecha) March 10, 2012

I stumbled on Darren Shan quite by mistake. I was hunting around my library for books to borrow (I took home seven, yes that's right) and I saw a little card next to a row of books that read: "Emirates LitFest author". That piqued my interest along with the books in question being in the Young Adult (YA) section.

So I picked up an omnibus of the first three books in a series: Cirque du Freak, The Vampire's Assistant, and Tunnels of Blood.

I was impressed. While I may not be the conventional YA target market, I do enjoy YA books a lot. These were branded as "horror", though I didn't get very scared. Perhaps Shan had it down pat when he said at his session that his books are a mixture of things; indeed, the Darren Shan series is more action/adventure...with characters that happen to be paranormal.

Anyway, I decided to go to his session and I'm glad I did. Shan knows how to put on a great show for his audience; with three readings, tips as well as good-naturedly answering all the questions put to him, the session was a blast.

Shan said he has published 30 books including three for adults, but has "written lots more that have never been published."

He also read three excerpts from his books, including one from his new zombie series that will be published this year. And as he said, they're suitably gruesome. A friend of mine told me later her 10/11-year-old son was very excited to hear the reading and said he absolutely had to read that book when it did release.

Boys.

But what I really took away from that session was his writing tips, which are really quite helpful to those young, budding writers out there (including myself!). I even highlighted at the end the tip I found most insightful: 

• "Don’t be discouraged if you write a story you don’t like."
• "If you are writing for yourself and not for school, write the sort of stories you would like to read."
• "If you are a writer, read different types of books and watch different types of movies."
• "I don’t think writer’s block exists except in very few cases. I think a lot of young writers use “writer’s block” as an excuse."
• "Writing is hard work."
• "To write good stories, you have to write bad stories first."

Thanks for coming down to Emirates LitFest, Darren Shan. I bet you've inspired many young kids out there to get reading and dabbling in writing.

And judging by the insanely long line of kids wanting your signature in their books...you're doing a fine job. A fine job indeed.

An author, whom I must admit I hadn't heard of before this year's LitFest*, said something I whole-heartedly agreed with:

"It’s almost blasphemous to say this in a panel of writers, but a bad adaptation is when the movie is literal." - Tom Rob Smith

*I shall add, Tom Rob Smith, that I've since purchased your book Child 44 and hope to dive into it soon.

He was speaking amidst the film panel at the Emirates Litfest 2012, on Friday, March 9. This was also my first session this year, and I'm happy to say I felt the weekend would go well with such a cracking start.

The panel consisted of Smith, Mark Billingham, Nicholas Sparks (whose solo session I already blogged about) and Chan Koonchung, and was chaired by Paul Blezard.

Movies and TV shows are such an integral part of my life; I've got rows and rows of (original) DVDs lining the shelves in my living room, and I've been known to maniacally click on Amazon.co.uk's Black Friday deals two years in a row now - the first year I came away with the entire boxed collection of Agatha Christie's Poirot, and the second time got Star Trek: The Original Series.

Poirot is perhaps a good starting point. Based on the books by whodunnit writer extraordinaire Agatha Christie, the TV-movies are mostly excellent adaptations of her stories. But not all movies get it right.

My friends know I quite love the Harry Potter series. But I've no qualms in admitting the first two movies in the franchise were, to me, absolutely awful. Why? One massive reason stood out amongst others: it was too literal. Which is what Smith said.

He went on to add that, in his opinion, the novel was the product, whereas the screenplay of the movie was the template. Sparks agreed with Smith and said as an author, one should be willing to see the movie "can be different from the novel".

• Smith - Jurassic Park
• Billingham - Jaws and the Godfather series
• Koonchung: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Sparks: Forrest Gump

There was a bit of a hilarious discussion on how important an author on a movie set really is. Billingham said the writer probably comes below the caterer in the grand scheme of things. He added that most movie production teams ask if the writer wants to get involved and secretly hope they won't get involved at all.

Even another session with YA horror author Darren Shan, later in the day, brought up the topic of movies. I haven't seen the film myself, but Shan seemed surprised he was happy with it. He said: "I didn’t think I would like it (the movie), but I did. It wasn’t perfect but it was a nice freaky film. But I really liked the manga adaptation."

Going back to the film panel, I really enjoyed the discussion that morning - along with discussing what the authors think of their books being brought to life, there was a lot of insight on how the film industry works and the lack of 100% control these authors have over the screenplay.

A lively session, which I'm glad, as a movie-buff and bookworm, I attended.

And when I saw it was based on a book...well I had to read it, didn't I?

I'd never heard of Nicholas Sparks before this. A Walk to Remember is the first book I read, which, oddly enough, made me cry some more, even though I already knew the story. 

And every book of his since has left me clutching at the tissue box like it was my best friend. He's one of those authors who manages to make you feel like you've been hurt, in love, happy, sad, and every gamut of emotion there is ... he makes you go through exactly what the characters go through.

So when I heard he was carrying out not one, but two sessions at the Emirates Festival of Literature 2012, I squealed and booked my tickets.

The first session was a film panel, which I plan to cover on this blog soon. The second was a solo interaction with him, in conversation with Paul Blezard.

The line to get into the hall that was hosting his event snaked back all through to the other end. And unpredictably enough, it wasn't just women that were queueing up, but a whole host of men as well. Who knew...romance still lives!

It was packed inside, with attendees scrambling after seats upfront like they were gold dust, and when the session was about to begin, the enthusiasm in the air was thick.

We learned a lot about Sparks' life, and certainly, he delivered hilarious, painful, emotional and happy anecdotes.

Little, random nuggets I noted from the Q&A session:

• Before hitting the publishing jackpot, he had a job selling pharmaceuticals.
• The Notebook is the story inspired by his wife’s maternal grandparents.
• He used a self-help book on how to find an agent for his first book.
• After sending his manuscript of The Notebook to 25 agents, only one said yes.
• Though born in different years, he shared a birthday with his younger sister, who unfortunately passed away due to cancer in 2000.

But now I'll go back to A Walk to Remember. Here's something he revealed during the audience Q&A that shocked the socks off everyone:

A Walk to Remember was written in eight days, where he wrote for 16 hours every day.

Wow.

After learning most of his books were inspired from real life (friends and family), I was curious to know where this book came from. Someone beat me to asking this question.

Here's what he said (yes, word-for-word as I was taking notes in shorthand):

"A Walk to Remember was inspired by my family. Jamie Sullivan, the character in the book, is my little sister. Just like Jamie, my sister wore the ugly brown cardigan [to school] every day and bought the Bible with her to school every day. Like her, my sister didn’t care about that [people taunting her]. And she had a really simple dream ... her dream in life was to get married. And I was like, “That’s it?” Anyway, my little sister got cancer, and like what happened with Jamie Sullivan, there was a boy and like Landon Carter, this boy knew he could never, ever fall in love with a girl like her, but like Landon Carter he did. And like Landon Carter, he too knew what her dream was and so even when my little sister got sicker and sicker and we all knew that she wasn’t going to make it, he got down on his knees and asked her to marry him. I remember thinking that’s just the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for anybody. And I remember after I wrote A Walk to Remember, I sent it to my little sister. A few months later I was talking to her, and asked, "did you read it yet?", and she said, "no." I asked why not, and she said, "Because I don’t want to know how it ends.""

And as Sparks often said through the one hour: "That’s a good story."

I must say though, the line after that one-hour event to get books signed by Sparks was immensely long:

Which is why I was glad I got his signature on my dog-eared copy of A Walk to Remember earlier in the day after the film panel.

He was really great at the signing; he took the time to speak to everyone queued up, even said my name was a beautiful one (I nearly squee'd out loud), and then got up (yes, really) to take photos with everyone who asked...including me.

...that's a good story, isn't it?

2012 Reading Challenge

Devina has read 17 books toward her goal of 100 books.

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17 of 100 (17%)

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I was a nine-month-old when I started talking. I was two-and-a-half years old when I started reading. I've never stopped either, thank you very much.

I decided to set myself a target for number of books I'd read this year, after reading this post on my friend's blog.

As you can see, I've decided to read 100 books this year. If you think this is too much (roughly works out to two books a week), then let me say when I was unemployed (read: before April 3, 2011), I'd read about 3-4 books a week. I'm voracious in this matter, left completely unsatiated when I finish a book...I need more. And more. And some more.

This may explain why I believe I own over a 1,000 books - I last counted them at 800-ish and that was five years back.

When I joined TwitBookClub it gave me a way to read books I'd ordinarily have never heard of before. Which means most of the books I've read this year, are for the first time. I've also discovered a like-minded bookworm at my place of work, who has just lent me a steampunk-influenced novel. This means I've more options to explore by way of finding books to devour.

I'm currently on track with my reading challenge...17 books down, 83 to go. I also read more than one book at a time - one on my desk where my laptop is, one on the dining table/living room area, one in the bathroom (ohhh yeaaaah) and one for bed (normally this is a free read on my phone's Kindle to help me fall off to sleep).

Release the reading Kraken, I say.*

*only attendees of that fateful TwitBookClub session will get this

My review of Book 1: Fallen
My review of Book 2: Torment 

Spoilers and all that but read on anyway.

If there were any hopes the third instalment would give us something, or even something to praise, then they have been cruelly dashed with the nonsense I read through.

The book takes off from the end of the last one, after the mini-battle, where Loopy Luce decides to take off on a time-travelling jaunt on her own. Why, you ask? Because she can and she's an obstinate little chick who is the sort to throw tantrums. Anyway, off she goes, despite everyone saying: "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" because if there's one thing I learned reading these books is that only reverse psychology works on this girl.

I think, in her mind, conversations are like this:
Everyone: Don't do it Luce!
Luce: That...means...DO IT!
Everyone: No, it's bad for you!
Luce: THAT MEANS GOOD! *claps* 

She then waltzes through time through each of her past lives watching herself die everytime. Then if that was not enough, she goes into what the author hilariously calls "3-D" (HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA) and merges with each of her past lives. And dies.

THAT'S IT! That's the plot! The story is essentially one chapter multiplied into numerous chapters. Each chapter is her finding a past life, dying, then moving on to another time period. Alternate narratives are Broody Daniel also moving back in time, running behind Luce but never quite catching up because he's just too slow or stupidly lands where she's already been and moved on. And when she meets her past Daniel, it's ALWAYS: they meet, they fall in love, they kiss, she dies. REPEAT! She doesn't care one bit about taking control of other Luce's bodies and selfishlytaking over their last moments.

There's also an annoying gargoyle called Bill, and never mind how people she knew in past books betrayed her. Gargoyle Bill says: "Hop into this dark shadow and travel across time, and while you're at it, kill yourself with this dangerous weapon," and Luce jumps to please. What. An. Idiot.

We have no idea exactly why she wants to time travel except when she blabbers something about wanting to understand her relationship with Daniel and wanting to know if he really loves her, or some such psycho-babble. But hey, by the end of the book, we still don't know why they love each other, what on earth the curse is all about and why they get so goopy around each other? Characters keep saying, OMG YOU'RE SOUL MATES. Yeah...but why???

Luce is still whiny, as I said, defying everything everyone says because she thinks she's all that. Daniel is still tortured, and decides that he is so totally going to tell God (yeah, really) that he wants Luce to die again and again and again BECAUSE HE LOVES HER! LOVE WILL TRIUMPH and blah blah blah. Apart from the fact, as I mentioned: there is no foundation to their "love". Nothing!!! It's just lust, based on descriptions of how she feels his abs and wants to kiss him and gets giddy when she sees him. 

I loved (when I say loved, I mean I howled in a combination of laughter and misery) where Luce claims she loves Daniel because: "she just does". HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA. It's a never-end loop of I love him because I love him because he loves me because I love him............. *brain freeze*

There's a very pathetic reveal of the evil character, and everything that happens in this book is "destiny". Can't understand what the hell Daniel is telling God? IT'S DESTINY! Don't know why Luce runs back in time? IT'S DESTINY! Don't understand why you've wasted money on this book? YUP...IT'S DESTINY!!! Why is there no character development? Oh this is a hard one...let me think...could it be...destiny?

I think me reading these books and reviewing them, so you don't have to, is a pretty big public service.

Rejoice, for I have saved you all.

Apologies for the multiple uses of caps lock key. Yes, I was shouting in my head as I wrote this, so outraged I was at all the senselessness.

The doors shut in our face. "You can't enter right now," the waitress said.

A posh voice said: "Let them in." And the gateway into the new local comedy night: One Night Standup, was opened to us.

The posh voice belonged to Hisham Wyne, whose accent, most of us thought, escalated to a grand scale of I'm-Really-From-Blighty from a lower scale of Obviously-a-Fake-Brit, through the night (you know I'm not being mean, right Hisham?). He's also someone I've known for nearly 8 years now, and the organiser of the monthly free event meant to foster the local comedy scene.

When I got the event invite, I wasn't sure if I would attend. But I needed a good laugh, quite desperately, and I felt I should go to support the community, and a friend. Off I went, wondering whether I would enjoy it. The knowledge of never having been to a live standup show before was also daunting...what if it wasn't my thing?

We crowded into the inner room of 1Up at the Boutique 7 Hotel and Suites, TECOM (the way to get to the bar is quite interestingly a staircase that looks like the Dubai Metro entrance), and waited. True to Dubai fashion (or desi fashion imported to the country, some might argue), the event started a half-hour after it was scheduled to. But I was glad I got there early; some who landed up late had to be content with perching themselves outside the room and watching the acts on a TV screen.

The room quickly filled up, bursting to the seams - I had to move my high bar chair a few times to prevent brushing against the fellow standing in front of me. The air was rife with the smell of chips, ciggies and booze. We waited.

And then it began. Hisham opened the night, poking fun at himself and more. Then after pulling chits out of a fishbowl, the comedians moved on the stage to make us laugh. After a few acts, there was a 15-minute break with an excellent live acoustic performance (what was the singer's name? He was so good. Plus later on the band said they were from north of England, which is my home ground...or...err...study ground), and then back to comedy it was.

It's hard to do that you know - comedy. Making your friends laugh is one thing, but standing in front of a crowd - a hard-to-please crowd - is another. There were, quite honestly, varying degrees of success. Some comedians had me laughing so much, I was worried I'd topple off my high seat in pure mirth (Hisham, put up some pics from the night and tag the comedians; I want to know which performers were my favourites!).

A mutual consensus was reached between me and my friends: the Emirati comedians were insanely and excruciatingly good. Perhaps the cultural relevance helped, but they knew how to play the audience, knew how to get our stomachs knotted up in laughter. Well done. We even loved the opening act: a Pakistani (was his name Salman Qureshi?) whose Superhero-in-Dubai jokes were pretty hilarious. I know I've missed a lot of you, but I was too busy balancing myself on my chair trying not to fall off in doubled up laughter to take notes or photos. Overall, an excellent night out and time well spent.

Now to scrub away the reek of cigarette smoke from my hair.

Muchos gracias to my fellow tweeps - @VonSkunk, @Lenaro, @DaddyBird, @Azabith and @DerrickPereira - for the company.

For more information, check out One Night Standup on Facebook.