5 as opposed to 2

I live my life according to lists, schedules, charts, spreadsheets and statistics. Don't know why, it just seems to work for me. I have a writing schedule that means I don't have to wait around for 'the muse to strike', it's there waiting for me when I press play on the pre-designed writing playlist. I have a financial record that I use to chart how much money I spend according to day, week, month and 12-week periods. I have a dinner schedule, for what I have on each day. And I have a blog posting schedule.

This year, I want to post 54 blog entries. That's because I only really did 42 last year, and therefore doing 6 more than 48 will mean that I do an average of 48 a year, which is 4 a month, which is roughly 1 a week. Because I'm still kinda new to blogging (only a year and a bit), it's still a bit shaky. I'm sure next year I'll have set down on which days I want to have them done by and actually do them on time, instead of starting them at one point and then doing them weeks later.

54 posts means 10 months of 5 and 2 months of 2. I had thought that February was gonna be a month of 2 (since it's the shortest) but it turns out that it's a month of 5 and now I have to cram in three extra blog entries when I hadn't really planned on it.

How do I know which month is which? I'll tell you, it's how many films I saw that month. Now, I saw 5 in Jan easily, and I thought I was only gonna see 2 in Feb (if we're counting Pointless), but then my brother got me to go see Paul with him, so there we go. Now I have to see 2 other movies (or things I can review).

And neither of them will be the Sodding Fighter!!!

So yeah, I should probably try to establish a spreadsheet or record for my sleeping patterns and times, maybe that would enforce some kind of regularity upon them. Maybe if my sleeping habits knew they were being watched... ah, who am I kidding. I'm sitting writing this at 04:11am, my sleep pattern is screwed beyond belief. I just hope I can get some decent hours in during the first two weeks of March, because after that things are gonna get more stressful again. I just know it. Maybe I can find some way to quantify stress and put that on a spreadsheet as well...

RABBIT HOLE

So since I was suddenly thrust into seeing 5 movies this month, I saw Paul on the 25th, this on the 26th and Drive Angry on the 27th, which meant that all three seem to have blurred a little together for me, which is very, very weird, because they are all highly different movies.

This film, based on a play by the same writer, deals with the loss of a child by a married couple and how they deal with the grief of that devastating event. The performances are excellent, the mood is set just right and the whole film is just on the right edge of painful to watch.

The thing that really surprised me about it was that it was a film by John Cameron Mitchell. Now, I'm a fan of Mr. Mitchell ever since we were forced to watch his masterpiece HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH for class. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in Hedwig, which convinced me that this guy is a sheer genius. But seeing as how that was about a German Transexual Rockstar and his next film (SHORTBUS) was about a repressed woman experimenting in an orgy club... this film kind of seems like his cop-out in order to go mainstream and get more recognition.

But is that a bad thing? I mean, this was a great movie, it did everything just right and it landed Nicole Kidman and Aron Eckhart. Eckhart is probably one of the best working actors in Hollywood today, he always gives a great show, and Kidman hasn't really let us down since Batman Forever (but we don't like to talk about that one, do we).

The one thing that this movie really, really does well is that it doesn't make us feel sorry for them. This grieving couple, who have lost their little boy... we don't have to feel sorry for them, the film doesn't demand that. It simply show us what they had to do to feel better. I respect that, it doesn't force its messege down our throats.

All in all, it's definately worth a watch, but it is a bit depressing.

Next up: DRIVE ANGRY.

Single's Day

So today is Valentines Day, the day that everyone spends with their loved one and scoffs chocolate. Naturally, society being the way it is, this means that it's basically a one-way Christmas, where women expect men to fawn over them.

As I'm sure you can gather, I'm not a massive fan of this day in the year. I've spent the vast, vast, vast majority of my life single (apart from a few slip-ups), I tend not to associate too heavily with the other gender.

I'm kinda 'anti-relationship', which means I find it difficult to hang out with some of my friends when they are in relationships, which for some can be a great deal of the time. I've never really seen the upsides to them, but then that's mainly because I've never actually been with anyone I really, really, really liked. Or ever actually met anyone that I really, really, really liked. Maybe. I think.

Take two of my married friends, for example. They've got a new place, they've got a kid, they've got jobs. And they bitch at each other. And not just at each other, at people around them, people who don't want to be caught in the middle of it all, people who think that maybe it's not worth being their friends anymore because they don't really like seeing what this marriage is doing to them. They don't.

But that's just me. (Cue Dalek voice) *What is this emotion that you call laaarrrvve?* (End Dalek voice).

PAUL

So I initially saw the trailers for this movie and thought 'Is this a Pegg and Frost too far?' Should they simply get on with the third Cornetto movie and then be done with it? Because that's what we're all waiting for, so why don't they? But then I looked back at the various things that Pegg and Frost (as well as Wright and Hyne) have given us over the years.

Spaced.
Shaun of the Dead.
Hot Fuzz.

Yeah, they've earned my ticket to this movie (which incidently my brother paid for and I completely blanked paying him back, must do that). It may not be quite what I was after in terms of the next Pegg and Frost, but they've got my attention and they're not going to lose it anytime soon, unless this film turned out to be really, really bad.

And it wasn't. This film is a pretty solid 7 out of 10, as Joe described it. It's not quite as hilariously cutting as their previous movies have been, but it's got the whole ET-loving thing down, it manages to be just as respectful yet mocking as Shaun and Fuzz were to their respective genres (Zombies and Cop Movies respectively).

I think the one real downside was the voice of Seth Rogen. I mean, don't get me wrong, Seth's had a great career over the last few years, there's barely been a movie out that he hasn't been in, but I honestly didn't think we needed him for this one. His voice isn't his best feature and I don't think he really added anything to this movie that someone else couldn't have done just as easily, if not a bit better. That's pretty much my only complaint other than the happy-clappy ending, but I was expecting that anyway.

Best voice cameo in a while, though.

Next Up: RABBIT HOLE
(Because I've given up on seeing the frickin' Fighter)

Funny how that works

The eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that I just posted four entries at the same time, but they were all dated on the day they were actually written. That's a bit weird, right? I mean, why does this particular website work like that?

Don't know, but it means that in a few weeks, when everyone (who am I kidding, nobody reads this thing) has forgotten, it'll look like I didn't leave the blog for a month without posting an update, no matter how many I was tapping away at in the mean time.

Do I have anything else to discuss in the mean time? I don't know, everything seems to be going okay, I'm good on the writing front and I haven't recieved any post demanding money in the last few days. Heard from my brother, have been watching copius dvd's. I may have missed my class on wednesday, but then apparently I didn't actually miss much.

Yeah, everything seems okay, so you might as well just look on out for the film review. Oh wait, I haven't actually *seen* The Fighter yet. So I'm gonna talk about something that isn't a film. Ooooh, breaking the mould!

POINTLESS (filmed on 13/02/11)

So a while back, Coates says that we can get tickets to go see QI being filmed if we go see Pointless being filmed, since it's not as popular a show, I'm guessing. So we took a trip up to London, walked around South Bank for a bit, shot through the tube system, got lost in a MASSive White City Mall, then stood outside BBC Television Centre for an hour and a half until we got inside. Then we got to sit in the FRONT ROW. I was actually within licking distance of Alexander Armstrong.

And I loves me some Alexander Armstrong. I should have brought the script for Fantasy Incorporated with me, I could have thrust it on him with instructions to give it to Ben Miller. Or would that have been taking the piss?

Basically, I've never been to a filming before, I'd never seen a show being shot. Yeah, there's a lot of technical stuff going on all around you, yeah there's stopping and starting, yeah there's a compare who's trying to keep you interested. But all in all, the time flew by, the progress of the game was fascinating, it was actually really funny (especially when it turns out that nobody there likes Kevin Spacey!) and it was, all in all, a thoroughly pleasent way to spend an evening. We even got back to southampton for about 11pm.

It was interesting to see, and I'm going to have to check up all the episodes of Pointless on the iplayer for the next few days, since I think they'd actually got some footage of me, Coates and Macina in the front row cheering and whooping. I might actually be on TV. That's a scary thought for all you TV license payers, eh? So yeah, this makes a change from a film review, doesn't it? I think I'll do a few more of these every now and again. I'll definately do the QI one when we go see that!

Next up: The Fighter.
(He says for the 2nd time)

Writer's Block

Now, I've always believed that writer's block is something that happens to people that think they're writers, as opposed to people who are actually writers. That may sound overwhelmingly arrogant, but bear in mind that this is me talking here, and I am overwhelmingly arrogant.

I've never before suffered from writer's block. I write for a couple of hours every single day and even though I know most of it actually isn't that good, I'm still kinda happy with the way it turns out. I'm not that difficult to please, it turns out, which helps. But right now...

Basically, a little while ago one of my classmates told me about a BBC sitcom competition that closes mid-February. Now, as it's for untried writers and my friends are entering, I thought 'awesome, I'll get right on that'. And I did, I've had the idea for Barstaff knocking around in my head for a while now and I want to get it onto the page.

And it sucks.

I mean, seriously, I typed it up, did a second draft and we had a read through of it this afternoon. And yes... it sucks. It is not so good. I don't actually like it and it's not funny.

Now, that's not that easy to take. I feel really quite disappointed in myself, and that's not something I'm used to (although looking at myself, I probably should be).

To make matters worse, my classmates then read out their entry for the sitcom competition and it was sodding hilarious, simple and brilliant. It really blew mine away.

Which didn't help.

Ah, man up already.

Naturally, I shouldn't just take this and let it get me down, I should do something about it, go back to the drawing board and carry on. Problem is I don't think I've got it in me. I've never really considered myself to be a comedy writer, I was only really going for this in order to actually send something off to the Writer's Room. Is it worth it?

...

...

...

Yeah. It is. I'll redo it. I'll sit down and I'll make myself do it. Because that's just what I do. Writer's block is something that happens to people who think that they're writers, but aren't really. It isn't something that happens to me. And while that may sound overwhelmingly arrogant, just remember who you're talking to here. I'm the writer. Someday, someone else will realise that, because I knew it all along.

TRUE GRIT.

Right, this is a re-adaptation, in an odd way. Obviously, John Wayne was in a version of this film back in the 60's, but that doesn't make this movie a remake. This is an adaptation of the original novel and tries to stick even closer to it than the Wayne version did. If it did that or not, I don't know, since I haven't seen either the Wayne version or read the book. So I have to judge this film purely on its own merits.

Pretty good. Pretty damn good.

Surprisingly easy to follow for a Coen Brother's film, since so many of their offerings are jarring and confusing, with hints of true brilliance smothered beneath bizarre stories and twisting narratives. They are the masters of what they do, I'll give the Coen's that, but I'm just not sure that I always like what they do. They're definately an acquired taste.

So, True Grit. This is a classic story of a girl seeking revenge of her father's murder by an outlaw, and hiring a US Marshall to do it for her. They team up with a Texas Ranger and head out into the hostile Native territories in the north, in order to track the murderer and the gang he'd fallen in with down. That's it, a very simple and effective story.

The thing that makes this movie is the quality of the performance from Jeff Bridges. Jeff is never one to let us down, he always, always gives an awesome show, but this is probably one of his most memorable. He's gruff, he's rude, he's arrogant, he's drunk, he's so decidedly human that he makes other humans look like cardboard cut outs. The others... well... they all do their bits good, most especially Ed Corbin, who's cameo as Forester is simply joyous to watch. The dialogue is another star, the overly complicated and slightly out of place talk of the Old West is kind of pointless yet really interesting to listen to and muddle through.

I've always compared the dialogue of all westerns to 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford'. Now that wasn't a particularly enjoyable movie, but it certainly felt damn authentic, since the Old West American accents were so thick that they needed subtitles. Grit was almost there with that, Bridges certainly was, but the rest of the film was a little left behind and stagnant compared to him. Mattey, the main girl, seemed to lack any kind of actual development in her character, she kind or remained the same throughout, which was a little disappointing, I was expecting a bit more.

All in all, pretty good movie, but not all that memorable with the exception of Jeff Bridges, who was brilliant.

Next time: The Fighter (I think)

One of 'those' moods

This one probably won't be a fun read, but I feel compelled to just sit here and pour out all the bile that I've been thinking about in the last few hours. I tend to get like this when I know I have to be up at 8am and it's just gone 5am and I'm still sitting at my laptop, unable to summon up enought energy to sleep.

My ultimate question is:
What is the sodding point?

I mean, I'm sitting here, counting down the days until I have to leave university and life will SUCK. I'll have to find a job, something that my skills will make strictly limited. I'm either with a bar job for the rest of my life or finding some bullshit 9-to-5 office job where the dress code doesn't account for ties (yeah, right), since the chances of me actually making it as a writer are somewhere in the microscopic region.

To be fair, I shouldn't say that life ahead will definately suck more than now, now is doing a fair job of sucking. It seems like every week I get sent another letter from some other fucker demanding money from me (the Student Loans Company, the University, the Council, the Door System people, the fucking homeless guy on the corner) and they all seem to think that I'm the cure for their financial woes.

I'm constantly edgy, I seem to have lost all my sense of fun, I keep accidently loading on more and more responsibility upon myself and I just don't seem to give a fuck about all the things that I used to enjoy.

I had a falling out with a friend a little while ago about the nature of children. Now, I won't go too far into it, but there was the potential there for us not just to be friends, but she really, really wants kids and has it arranged to be a mother soon (I'm not really sure of the specifics). Now, despite all my reservations about children anyway, the one thing that keeps knocking itself into the back of my head is this:

Why would anyone want to bring a kid into this world? There are stabbings in the news every few days, the banks are drowning in their own incompetence, our governments are slowly revealing that they are, in fact, pantomime villians, unemployment is at an all-time high, coupled with national depression and suicide rates. And the best part is that nobody seems to give a shit, you know? People just keep their heads down.

And why shouldn't they? Who honestly wants to look around outside and think... 'yep, I can dig it'. Who's life is so financially secure that they think they can support someone else? I'm not having a go at parents, really, because I don't understand their situations and I hope I never will.

I think about the burden that I am on my parents. I look at the amount of money my dad has calculated that I owe him for the house I'm now sitting in. It's a fair amount. I'll never be able to pay it back to him. Simple as that, I will never be able to afford my own home. I'm living off his charity.

So why the fuck do we bother?

What the fuck is the point?

But then, this was all started as a 'pointless exercise', wasn't it. So, why don't you, my apparent 8 followers, let me know. What the hell is the point of all this crap? And ask yourself if I'm really in right mindset to do a film review right now?

THE MECHANIC.

Yeeeaaahhh....Nah. Not that good. I feel that ol' reliable, Jason Statham, has been a bit of let down ever since the Expendables, but then I'm trying to think of good stuff that he's done other than Snatch and Crank. Hmm... imdb time...

However, this is a remake of a 70's Charles Bronson movie about an assassin who works freelance for a secretive government agency and takes on an apprentice due to the guilt of his most recent job. The apprentice is the son of his last mark.

Now, I like me some Jason Statham. I loves me some Ben Foster. Hell, Tony Goldwyn was in this movie and I like me some Tony Goldwyn as well. Know what's even better? No romantic subplot, no female lead character. Even sodding better.

It's just that it's dull.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see some of the work that goes into these assassinations, the preperations, the weapons, the delicate precision, but the entire movie was carried with an apparent lack of pace that made it simply uninteresting to watch. While I'm fine with the concept, there was something severely lacking in the execution of this movie.

That's all there is to it, really. Just sloppy camera-work, pacing, tension, characters. It was all kind of flat, sort of like a bland comic book, rather than a movie about hitmen. And lets face it, we all love us some hitmen, despite that we have an overly romanticised view of them, along with so many other bloody things. So yeah, not so good, really.

Next: True Grit.

Ageing Day

So today I turn 27. I'm old. Whoo-hoo.










.... Yep, that's all I got on that subject.

BLACK SWAN.

Right, so this is probably one of the most hotly discussed movies to be coming out around now, which is actually not saying much, considering the august company it is standing in for this year's Oscar Season. King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Fighter, True Grit, a bunch of others. But that being said, all of these things lack one critical element.

Only Black Swan is directed by Darren Aronofsky. This is *the* Darren Aronofsky, the man who brought us Requiem for a Dream, Pi, Below and The Fountain. This man is the king of messed up cinema, a legacy of films following after him that have their audiances scratching their heads and brutally supressing all the memories at the same time.

Believe it or not, that's actually something to be proud of. This guy's career is so brilliant that a movie about a broken down wrestler (The Wrestler, an unbelievable character piece that didn't get the recognition it deserved), is actually the curve-ball in his line-up of work.

The other reason that The Wrestler is a curve-ball is because the characters are warm and empathic, easy to identify with, which isn't the case with most of Aronofsky's films, especially Black Swan. This is a film about distant and cold people orbiting each other without interacting.

Basically, the film is abotu a young girl slowly going through a mental breakdown when her perfectionism at her chosen craft, Ballet, pushes her beyond her normal limits and she goes for her chance at the title role. It could probably be said in a slightly less complicated manner than that.

Girl. Mental breakdown. Goes for the big shot. Freaky body horror. Girl on Girl. Bizarre twisting reality.

Oh yes, this film pretty much has it all, beautiful set pieces and parrallels to the story of Swan Lake itself.

My only concern is that this may be too much for a 15-Rating. It's not explicitly gory or horrifying, but I found the subject matter to be too heavy for the rating it was given. I know that it certainly resonated deeply within me, so I'm not sure that teenagers should be taking it on. Maybe that's just me being greedy, however, not wanting to share it. Because it's just that good. Actually no, it's just that mind-blowingly great.

I don't think it's quite the equal of 127 Hours for sheer power, but it's underlying insidious horror is masterful. Well worth it.

Next up: The Mechanic.

What's the point?

Seriously? 1 hour? That's it? This week, my class time has been reduced to 1 hour. 1 measly hour. With Mike off ill and Sara having cancelled her wednesday class last week, that gave us 1 hour in uni and that was yesterday. And I pay £3,000 a year for this? Wonderful, I tell you, just wonderful. I might as well have not bothered getting out of bed at all.

I heard somewhere that I'd have to pay an additional £500 for every extra class that I wanted to sit in on (and there are two on a thursday that I do). Now, considering just how much actual class time I actually seem to get, if anyone tries to actually charge me for this, then they can quite frankly make out with my overly rounded backside, the pedantic pissants.

Money problems seem to be a recurring theme in my life at the moment. The Student Loans Company insists that I owe them about £2000, the University is cancelling my Bursary and the Council keeps badgering me about Council Tax that I don't actually owe them. It gets a bit much.

Is it just me or am I
getting more annoyed?

The Council stuff is easy to sort, I'm just kinda surprised that it hasn't been done already automatically, it's not like I didn't register or enroll. I just need to get the uni to send off a form on my behalf, but the fact that this keeps cropping up has me concerned for my tennants.

Not that they really deserve that much of my concern. Anthony's good company and we'll always have a chat, but he isn't big on communal tidying. Richard really, really, *really* isn't big on keeping anything clean. I don't think he's ever even washed a dish while he's been living here.

God damn I miss Sabeen.

Right... THE KING'S SPEECH.

When my parents saw this film (about a week before I did), in their cinema in St Andrews, the movie recieved standing applause at the conclusion. It didn't quite get the same treatment from moviegoers in Southampton Cineworld, but as far as I'm concerned, it sodding well deserved it.

I also saw that MovieBob thinks this film is simply Oscar Bait. Now, he makes fair points, it's got all the trappings of an Oscar lure, but I really don't think that makes a difference to just how damned good this film was. I mean seriously heartwarming, seriously well played, seriously good.

There's not too much I can say about it, really. It tells the story of how Prince Albert, who would go on to become King George VI (dad of Queen Elizabeth II), tried with great difficulty to overcome his crippling speech impediment, which would be vital for the coming years, with the build up to the Second World War in progress. It's a much bigger issue than it might appear, at least for Albert, who has spent his life in the shadow of his much grander family and their harsh 'old-school' ways.

The friendship between Bertie and Lionel is touching and rocky and taps into the class struggle that Oscar loves and people just seem to empathise with.

The performances by Rush, Firth, Bonham-Carter, Gambon, Jacobi and Pearce are simply brilliant, they fully capture Britian in the late 1930's and are truly moving.

Basically, this film may have been designed in order to hook the producers some Oscars... but it deserves everything that it catches. Because it simply is that good.

Next up: Black Swan.