Hello Everyone :-)
I did something uncharacteristic the other day. I went to the pictures with other people. I’ve been going to my local Odeon alone a lot recently because for me the cinema isn’t something you need to share with others; in fact if you have someone letting you know their every thought as the film progresses, it can be quite annoying. But it seemed appropriate that I go with a group of my girly mates to see ‘Bridesmaids’.
‘Bridesmaids’ centres on Annie (Kristen Wiig) whose best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting married. Annie’s life slowly starts to unravel as she tries to plan the best send off for her best friend.
Undoubtedly the glue that binds is Wiig who also co-wrote the script. Annie could have been so annoying, she’s unaware of how her actions affect others, she’s masochistic in relationships and constantly makes decisions that are to her own detriment but in the hands of Wiig she becomes someone you want to be friends with.
The whole cast is brilliant actually. Rose Byrne who plays Helen is amazing; she really nails the passive aggressive bitch thing. Rudolph is lovely as Lillian who lets her wedding run away with her and her friendship with Annie comes across as completely genuine. The other Bridesmaids, newly wed Becca and stressed housewife Rita, make the most of their small but funny roles but Melissa McCarthy has great comic timing as Megan in a role that I was expecting to be Alan from ‘The Hangover’ with XX chromosomes but turned out to be the most sensible character in the whole film.
There is a romantic subplot but, unlike some rom-coms, it plays second fiddle to the comedy and rightly so. Jon Hamm is the complete opposite of his ‘Mad men’ persona in this. Ted is slimy and stupid but gorgeous and he has Annie at his beck and call.
Chris ‘Roy from the IT Crowd’ O’Dowd is really good as Officer Rhodes. His relationship with Annie is sweet and believable and I thought while it added a different dimension to Annie’s character, it also contributed to the laughs.
There are so many bits that are laugh out loud funny but some of it does drag in places. The dress shop scene starts well but could do with losing a few minutes (there’s only so much of someone defecating into a sink I can handle).
Having said that the comedy in the film covers such a wide spectrum it’s lovely to see. It spans from the weird of Annie’s room mates (Matt Lucas is brilliant, Rebel Wilson is also good but has an accent that strays from English to Australian) to the daft things Annie and Lillian do together to the crudeness of full on toilet humour. It’s not too clever but it’s not constant knob gags either and it never descends into anything mean or exploitative so there really is something for everyone.
There is so much to like about this movie. It’s so nice to see a film (let alone a comedy) with women in the leading roles and none of them are one dimensional, eyecandy airheads. Wiig has proved her comedy prowess in previous small roles (Adventureland, Paul and Knocked up amongst others) but hopefully this will make her the ‘go to’ for female led comedy because cinema is crying out for one.
So let’s have today’s…
Reasons to be Cheerful
1. Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield are dating! Super couple or what?!?! He's one of my favourite actors at the minute and she is in two of my top 10 favourite films of all time. I love it!
2. Glastonbury coverage took up most of my weekend. I sat in the living room at 7 o’clock on Friday with a cup of tea and didn’t move till midnight. U2 were good, Bono annoyed me because he kept singing bits of other people’s songs which I could potentially deal with but he chose to sing the Beatles and as far as I’m concerned you just don’t touch the Beatles. My Friday highlight was (unsurprisingly) Morrissey. He was great.
I think Saturday was the best day. The Gaslight Anthem, Tinie Tempah, Friendly Fires, Jessie J, Aloe Blacc were all great. Coldplay really surprised me, I can take or leave them really (except ‘Shiver’ that song is one of my favourites) but they excelled themselves on Saturday, I really enjoyed them. The stars of the day though had to be Elbow. Guy Garvey is such a lovely front man, in fact the whole band have a massive affection for their audience, I think that’s why they’ve had such a dedicated, enduring fanbase over past 20 years.
Sunday kind of fell a bit flat for me, Pendulum and QOTSA were obviously awesome but the discovery of Raghu Dixit was a proper hidden gem, their music is so dreamy.
All in all and excellent weekend of telly. My highlight was Ed Sheeran who I’m developing an unhealthy obsession for (I’ve watched his BBC Introducing set 8 times already and pre-ordered his album). He’s a cute as a button, hugely talented and has a voice as clear as a bell. Lovely.
3. It’s my 22nd birthday on Thursday :-) I’m going for food and cinema with my two best friends. I will of course let you know what I watched (and more importantly if it as any good) later this week.
Enough for today.
Goodbye till next time :-)
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Hello Everyone :-)
As I’ve previously mentioned I’m a massive fan of Formula 1, however I’ve only gotten into it in the past 2 or 3 years. This month ‘Senna’ was released, a documentary directed by Asif Kapadia and based on the life of Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian three time Formula 1 world champion. On Tuesday I went to see it.
The film opens with footage of Senna in 1983 racing go-karts, he starts racing in Formula 1 the following year and the film tracks his progress from then on until his tragic death in 1994 at the San Marino Gran Prix in Imola.
I left the cinema in love with him. The film paints a picture of a man full of passion and emotion that will push himself to the limit to win.
His huge faith in religion is prolific throughout the film and I found it reinforced the idea that he was very much his own man with uncompromising beliefs. There is mention of Senna’s charity work, he quietly donated millions of his personal fortune to various children’s charities during his career and, before his death, laid the plans out for his own charity which later became the Instituto Ayrton Senna.
His passion is palpable throughout the film. In 1991 at the Brazilian Gran Prix, so desperate was he to win a Gran Prix in his home nation that 7 laps before the end of the race, when his gearbox jammed, he carried on despite only having 6th gear. At the end of the race he passed out and had muscle spasms in his shoulders which made lifting the trophy excruciating but he did it anyway.
He comes across as having such national pride at a time when his country was full of social and political unrest. The film not only shows his love for his country but his country’s love for him. There are so many clips of Brazilians talking about Senna and how he is their nation’s pride. When he died 3 million people lined the streets of São Paulo to bid farewell to their hero.
I think the sad thing about it is there was such a lot of material (about 15,000 hours); many things had to be cut. The incident where Senna stopped in the middle of a race and ran to the aid of French driver Érik Comas (in doing so risking his own life) who had crashed, only appears as footage over the end credits. Another omission is the fact that after the fatal crash, in the wreckage of Senna’s car the team found an Austrian flag, which the Senna had planned to wave during his victory lap in tribute to Roland Ratzenberger who had died the day before during a qualifying race. Unfortunately you just can’t include everything. What they did include was brilliant and by avoiding talking head clips and pacing the film perfectly, Kapadia has crafted something cohesive and cinematic to boot.
My one and only criticism is the fact the film makes a villain of Alain Prost. The Antagonists of the piece are Prost and former FIA boss Jean-Marie Balestre. It’s set up to appear that Balestre favoured Prost because he was a fellow Frenchman. I will concede that Balestre seems like a proper bastard and he seemed to make decisions that deliberately hindered Senna’s progress. I think the way Prost has been made to look was slightly unfair. He’s made out to be like some weasely awful bloke. In reality I doubt he was that bad but I can’t comment because I was about 1 at the time. Saying that it is the rivalry between Senna and Prost that gives the film its shape and without him the film wouldn’t be anywhere near as engaging.
This is a remarkable piece of work. Partly genius directorial choices and partly the fact that it is an extraordinary tale of a man who was arguably the best Formula 1 driver of all time. I don’t think it’s just because I’m a fan of F1 either, the setting is inconsequential really because he is such a magnetic personality, that’s what draws you in. It’s the best film I’ve seen so far this year.
Now it’s time for…
Reasons to be Cheerful
1. This is a quote from JJ Abrams on the new Star Trek Movie
"I think the studio agrees that the most important thing is that the movie be good. No one wants to make something that makes its date, but isn't worth your time. I want to make sure that whatever we do, whenever it comes out, it is something people will have a great time watching."
I cannot begin to tell you how much that statement fills me with joy. This is what I’ve been saying for ages, the story is what matters. JJ, on behalf of fans of your first Star Trek film I’d like to say, take as long as you want, we Abrams fans have ‘Super 8’ to look forward to in the mean time so go for it, write us something brilliant.
2. This weekend is Glastonbury weekend! I’m not going but I will be watching as much as I can on the BBC coverage. Headlining this year is U2, Coldplay and Beyonce. In fairness I don’t own any CDs by any of these people but I think they’re all perfectly capable of carrying off the headliner role. Other highlights for me are Morrissey Biffy Clyro, Elbow, Tinie Tempah, Aloe Blacc, Pendulum, Plan B, Primal Scream, Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes, The Vaccines, Jessie J, Friendly Fires, Queens of the Stoneage, Clare Maguire, Cee Lo Green and so many more!
3. Trailers and pictures for the new Muppet movie are starting to trickle out :-) It’s out in the UK next February but you can see some stills here.
Enough for today!
Goodbye till next time :-)
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Hello Everyone :-)
I’ve been saving this up because I thought I’d write about the last three Dr Who episodes of this half of the series together. So in this blog entry we’re going to deal with ‘The Rebel Flesh’, ‘The Almost People’ and then move on to ‘A Good Man goes to War’. I’m going to include spoilers because they’ve all been and gone and if you haven’t caught up on the IPlayer by now you’re obviously not a real fan.
So there.
Deal with it.
So ‘The Rebel Flesh’ feels a lot more familiar compared to the Whovian love letter that was ‘The Doctor’s Wife’. The Tardis Trio arrive at an island acid mining facility set in the not too distant future where dangerous tasks are carried out by ‘gangers’, replicas of you that can be destroyed without harming you and that can only exist when you’re plugged into a machine. It’s basically all gone a bit ‘Avatar’. Then there’s a freak solar storm and Bob’s your Uncle, there are gangers running around without any need of their human counterparts. Then it all takes a turn for the worse when the gangers (who have memories and emotions just like their original templates) decide they want to live the lives that have been given to them, lives the humans won’t give up without a fight. So there’s a great deal of running around, the gangers steal some acid suits which give them the upper hand and in a cliff-hanger that had me squealing and running around the house like the girl that I am, we were left with the Doctor having his very own ganger.
‘The Almost People’ follows on exactly where the previous episode finished. The ganger Doctor learning to cope with 900 odd years of memories (there’s a lovely bit to appease the super fans where the ganger Doctor starts quoting previous regenerations of the Doctor "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" and the mention of Jelly Babies made me smile), ganger Jennifer fooling Rory into thinking she’s the real thing and Amy being a bit of a bitch to the newly created Dr Two. There are a lot of interactions between the Doctor and Amy that remind me of the episode ‘The Beast below’. He gets a bit shirty with her which I kind of enjoy because it just reminds us all that the companions are not always purest of heart and that sometimes, for all his compassion, the Doctor gets annoyed that humans aren’t always the nicest life form in the universe.
They’ve really gone for a moral message with these two episodes which I didn’t mind too much. A lot of it is about tolerance and prejudice and while I think it’s handled well most of the time, however in parts I did feel like I was being force fed the ideas behind it all.
Another little niggle was the naff CGI. There are two instances where ganger Jennifer goes all CGI, once where her head goes all Stretch Armstrong on your ass and the second where she turns into something that looks like the Gary Oldman Spider/Crab man from the film ‘Lost in Space’. Both times the CGI is shocking in comparison to the prosthetics and make up expertly applied to the gangers to make them look all melty and what not. Sort it out Moff!
I liked the fact it wasn’t a traditional monster, I suppose it could be argued that both the gangers and humans could be monsters, after all the humans are pretty awful at times. There’s a bit where Rory and (unbeknownst to him) ganger Jennifer come across a pile of bits of old gangers that have been left to rot by the employees of the plant, also human Cleaves is the first one to draw weapons when she kills one of the gangers for no reason other than she decided it was an ‘us and them’ situation.
I was very impressed by a couple of the performances. Arthur Darvill shines once more as Rory and his compassion for Jennifer is adorable. Raquel Cassidy is really good as Cleaves, ballsy to begin with but softens up towards the end and Sarah Smart plays Jennifer on the borderline of mentally unhinged. For the umpteenth time this series I’ve been seriously impressed by Matt Smith. He acts his little socks off in these two episodes.
Get ready for a big statement… He’s overtaken Tenant as my favourite Doctor.
There’s a nice little ending for the immediate story with Cleaves getting a cure for the clot in her head and realising the importance of tolerance. Two of the gangers get turned into proper humans Pinocchio style and the three of them walk off into the headquarters of their company ready to bring an end to the mistreatment of gangers (this bit reminded me a bit of the end of ‘Moon’ where Sam brings down the moon mining organisation).
So overall not groundbreaking stuff but provided enough for me to be thoroughly entertained throughout.
But that is not where out tale ends good reader.
After the ‘alls well that ends well’ ending for the gangers the Doctor, Rory and Amy head back into the Tardis and Amy starts having really bad stomach cramps. Rory, naturally, comes to the aid of his wife only to find the Doctor telling him to step away. The Doctor says and Rory are coming to get her as we find out the Amy we’re looking at is in fact a ganger and the Doctor melts her with his sonic screwdriver. The real Amy wakes up in a little white chamber to find she’s 9 months pregnant and has just started contractions.
OMFG!!!! MOFF YOU LEGEND! You mastermind! I love it!
So after all that awesomeness I couldn’t wait for the next episode.
‘A Good Man goes to War’ starts with Rory threatening a fleet of Cybermen meanwhile on Demons Run (a secret military space base) Amy is talking to the newly christened Melody about her Dad. It’s another one of those ‘Amy sounding like she’s talking about the Doctor and then you realise she’s actually talking about Rory’ type things that I still like because I love how much Rory loves Amy and vice versa but I think they need to stop it now. We know its Rory that Amy loves so let’s just leave it at that. This is when we meet Lorna Bucket. Lorna is a Cleric from the Gamma Forests who claims to have met the Doctor before. She gives Amy a prayer leaf with the name of her child written in the language of the Forest.
Back with the Doctor and Rory, they secure the location of Demons Run by destroying the Cybermen task force and then set about amassing several people that are indebted to the Doctor. So the Doctor, Rory and their band of comrades rock up to Demons Run and send all the Clerics running scared. There’s a cute little scene with Rory, Amy and Melody where we discover the Doctor speaks baby. Then there’s a Basil exposition scene where it’s revealed that Melody has a bit of Timelord DNA due to the fact she was conceived on the Tardis. Lorna Bucket, on over hearing Madame Kovarian explaining the trap she’d left for the Doctor, runs in telling everyone they’re in danger when the headless monks show up and kill her, Dorium and Commander Strax (the Sontaran).
We then find out that Madame Kovarian has done a bit of a switcharoo with poor little baby Melody and Amy has in fact been carrying around a ganger version of her baby. When it seems that all hope has gone River Song shows her face and pretty much tells the Doctor he’s getting too powerful and is losing himself to anger and his own wrath. Then the pay off we’ve all been waiting for. The Doctor demands to know who she is and the Doctor and River have one of those conversations where very little actually gets said then he tells Amy and Rory not to worry and speeds off in the Tardis across the Universe to bring back Melody. Amy, rightly so, gets annoyed and demands to know what’s going on. River then lets us all in on the secret, she is Melody Pond; she is Rory and Amy’s daughter.
They must have ransacked the wardrobe department to get all the costumes for this. This episode features Judoon, Sontaran, Silurian, Dorium Maldovar, the Clerics, Captain Avery and Toby, Headless Monks and the Cybermen. If that sounds like a lot it’s because it is a lot. There’s an awful lot happening in this episode and the sheer number of characters involved just adds to the confusion. That said, it all looks very glossy and slick, especially when you compare it to the shoddy CGI in the last couple of episodes.
I didn’t just find the number of characters confusing the sheer speed of the episode left my head spinning. Dr Who is supposed to be fast paced, I know that, but this was insane. I had to give it my complete, devoted attention and even then I watched the episode a second time just to try and straighten it all out in my head. Also Lorna Bucket. Why? The way she was introduced made me think she’d be an important character but it was all a bit anti-climactic, the Doctor didn’t even remember her. Maybe it’ll be a pay off for the next half of the series, maybe the Doctor didn’t know her because he hasn’t met her yet? It seems the way with this series that even when we have an episode that explains something it throws up something else and we end up asking another 5 questions.
I found this episode notably darker. I know this whole series has been a bit dark (with the exception of ‘The Curse of the Black Spot’) but in this episode the Doctor seems uncharacteristically malicious. I suppose he’s meant to be so River can come in at the end and berate him for being so vengeful. It seems like it’s building him up for a fall. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an episode on it’s way like the ‘The Waters of Mars’ where the 10th Doctor thinks he can change the future because he’s the last time lord and goes too far.
I’d just like to say that before I saw this episode my family and I took bets on who River Song was and I got it right. As soon as the words ‘Melody Pond’ leapt from the Doctor’s mouth it didn’t take a word association genius to make the connection. Although we discovered the origins of the mysterious Doctor Song her relationship to the Doctor is still not fully resolved. The audience is just left to assume that she’ll ultimately become the Doctor’s wife.
I must confess I did feel slightly let down by this episode. It didn’t leave us on a big a cliff-hanger as I’d have liked and although I was entertained the pace and amount of characters made my head spin. Ultimately it was fine, not great, just fine.
We shall see our favourite Timelord in September in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ (I know, what a title!!!).
I’m going to forgo my usual ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ because this week Ryan Dunn, star of Jackass, sadly passed away. I love the films and the TV show and the Jackass franchise has provided entertainment to millions, due in no small part to Dunn. His likeability endeared him to audiences and his loss will be felt by his friends, family and all his fans. My thoughts are with his loved ones at this difficult time.
Goodbye till next time :-)
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Hello Everyone :-)
I’ve been away, as you can see by my lovely tan, and I was a little bit lax before I went (I was a bit preoccupied with changing money and packing and the like) so here’s something I should have posted a couple of weeks ago.
On 31st May I sought out a film that I’ve been keeping tabs on for a while. I went to see ‘Third Star’.
It starts with a party for James (Benedict Cumberbatch) who has terminal Cancer. He heads off to Barafundle Bay with his three best friends Davey (Tom Burke), Bill (Adam Robertson) and Miles (JJ Field) for a last road trip before the end. On the way they meet some interesting people, lose quite a few of their belongings and find out some secrets about each other.
It looks totally awful wrist slashing depressingness on paper, but it really is more than that on the big screen. I found it surprisingly funny and very touching.
I think it’s safe to say this film had the smallest budget of any film I’ve ever seen. In fact the screening I was at had a Q&A (the first Q&A I’d ever been to, I was very excited) and before the film played Vaughan Sivell (the film’s writer and one of the producers) introduced it and gave us a statistic to chew on, Pirates of the Caribbean 4’s budget for advertising on the London Underground (that’s just the Underground in London, never mind the countless bus shelters and billboards in the rest of the country) was more than the entire budget for ‘Third Star’. I don’t know why this surprised me but it did. Needless to say I think ‘Third Star’ did more with its £1.5 million than POTC4 did with its £250 million.
I’ve no doubt Sivell and the others involved in the production of the film are rubbing their hands with glee at the recent success of (your favourite and mine) Sherlock. It is undeniable that Cumberbatch has been catapulted to leading man status and with his army of ‘Cumberbitches’ (yes that is what they call themselves) I expect that this film will reach people that ordinarily wouldn’t have bothered with it and I’m glad because it’s great.
The whole film is carried on the shoulders of the four leads and I thought they were brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch plays James and I think he does a great job. His role is weird because it’s partly him enjoying his last trip with the boys and partly him trying to set his affairs in order and then him trying to cope with the physical pain of his affliction. So there’s an awful lot packed into one character but Cumberbatch does it well, there’s plenty of emotion conveyed by those elfin features.
Adam Robertson who plays Bill makes him so likeable. Bill enters whole heartedly into the spirit of the trip, the ‘getting back to nature’ of it all. Miles in the antithesis of this. JJ Field plays Miles as a city loving playboy who is brutally honest and I really enjoyed his performance. He’s the least sympathetic of all the characters but I think he has the biggest (I hate this word) journey.
My favourite character was Davey. I think in my group of friends I am the ‘Davey’, not to the extent of his character but I recognised a lot of myself in him. Davey seems to be the youngest of the group but also the biggest worrier. He’s essentially been there for James right the way through his illness and feels a bit of resentment towards Miles (which manifests itself in a hilarious fight) because he hasn’t been around since James got the dreaded news. Tom Burke is such a magnetic screen presence I could not help but watch him. He has the loveliest face (which helps) but also is fantastically comedic and sincere when he needs to be.
In their individual performances the actors are wonderful but as a whole they manage the task of coming across as genuine friends and I really believed it. They play off each other so well you’d be forgiven for thinking they actually had known each other forever.
There has to be a mention of the scenery. Pembrokeshire is absolutely beautiful and it is shown off in all its glory in this. I was so taken by it I wanted to learn to drive just so I could go there and see it myself then I remembered I hate and am awful at driving.
Some of the film got on my nerves a bit. There are times when the camera drifts in and out of focus which makes you feel a bit queasy (I was on the front row of the cinema which added to the feeling of nausea) but then I think you’re supposed to feel a bit sick because that’s how James is feeling. It worked but I’m not 100% sure it needed to be there.
There are some great funny scenes like there’s a big fight in a pub, an encounter with a winged boy and a meeting with a beachcomber. The banter between the boys is my favourite though, I laughed properly loud at some of the effortless exchanges between them. These are really essential scenes because without them the subject matter could properly drag down the audience. Also I found it added to the realism. When people have cancer things don’t suddenly stop being funny, you don’t stop making jokes and things. Yes it does bring things into perspective but part of that is the realisation that we are a brief sneeze of time on this earth and you might as well have a laugh while you’re here.
Ultimately of course this film has at its heart very sensitive, dark subject matter and it definitely shifts more towards that as the film reaches its conclusion. There is a scene that I found very tough to watch where in the night James is in a lot of pain the others can’t find his medicine bag. Cumberbatch howls, he sounded like a wounded animal and I found it very difficult to watch, especially as all his friends can do is look on helplessly.
It really is a film that makes you feel. You will come out of the other side of this feeling like you’ve been well and truly rung out, but in a good way. There is a place for it out there in the world of film and I hope it finds a bigger audience than it has had in cinemas. Vaughan Sivell said at the Q&A that the film was due for a September DVD release and I urge you to hunt down a copy or find somewhere that’s still showing it. I think this film deserves to be seen.
Now…
Reasons to be cheerful
1. There is a plethora of Superhero movie fare either out or ‘Coming Soon’. We’ve just had ‘X:Men First Class’ (which I still haven’t seen yet), Green Lantern is out today and Captain America is out at the end of July. As I have previously alluded to, I go weak at the knees for a Superhero so this is shaping up to be my favourite summer of recent years :-)
2. I’m going to see ‘Senna’ on Tuesday! Me and my Mum are borderline obsessed with the F1 and although Ayrton Senna was around before I got properly into to the sport I’m very aware of who he is, especially as his nephew Bruno is a current F1 driver. Needless to say I’ll be letting you know how I get on.
3. I hate to be a narcissist but it’s my birthday soon :-)
That’ll do for today!
Goodbye till next time :-)
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