Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Ein experimenten- Ze varied wunderbar effects of having nuzzing to do after university
It's great how different people have reacted to the sudden lack of grounding that is our release from the woes of higher education. I should state in this first paragraph that all of these following observations have been made by myself in both real life and, unfortunately, through the great universally accepted spy-network Facebook
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
"Strangers don't last long here"- Rango review.
Rango,the first Nickelodeon animated feature film in the same vein as Pixar and Disney have been making for over a decade, comes out on DVD this Friday. Which is good, because it means I'm able to finally publish my review of this exceptional film, the one I started when just after I'd seen it in the cinema months ago. So, seeing as it's high time to give Rango the going over it deserves, let's get started.
Any initial quality of the film that you infer from the size of the audience when I went to see it (I was one of only two people in the cinema, let alone the screen, and the second person was that one I'd gone to see it with) should be thrown away. The lack of an audience can be put down to the facts that the only showing that week was at 10 o'clock in the morning on a Friday, when most kids would be in school, and that as poor students we'd both been waiting to have the money to go, so we were five or six weeks past its release.
Any initial quality of the film that you infer from the size of the audience when I went to see it (I was one of only two people in the cinema, let alone the screen, and the second person was that one I'd gone to see it with) should be thrown away. The lack of an audience can be put down to the facts that the only showing that week was at 10 o'clock in the morning on a Friday, when most kids would be in school, and that as poor students we'd both been waiting to have the money to go, so we were five or six weeks past its release.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Film review- The Adjustment Bureau
One of the benefits of being back at my parents' house is that they like to rent DVDs most weekends. That means that all the films I've seen pass by the cinema and thought "I really ought to see that" are now re-emerging and I'm working through them.
Did I know how many there were? No. Not until I was wandering the aisles of Blockbusters with my dad and started picking up case after case, telling him what each of them was about, pointing at others, assessing whether they've been rumoured to be critically good or not.
The first film rented was The Adjustment Bureau. It stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, but I think the person who steals the scenes they're in is from the supporting cast- one Anthony Mackie as Harry Mitchell, a member of the bureau who is disillusioned with their work and helps Damon's character, politician David Norris. It's no small feat to be the stand-out actor in this film, however- both Damon and Blunt offer solid and nuanced performances, Damon in particular, and the supporting cast from which Mackie rises includes the cornerstone actors Terence Stamp and John Slattery as Mitchell's seniors within the bureau. Despite that, he still stands head and shoulders above his colleagues.
It is worth noting that, in watching this with my parents, the concept behind the film is exceptional, brilliantly mind bending and yet easy to follow, as evidenced by the fact that my mum didn't stop once to ask what was going on. As yardsticks of overcomplicated narratives go, Mum is top-notch. If an audience won't get it, mum says so. However, having followed the premise that every single person has a Plan written for them to control their Fate along with the less strong Chance and Free Will (used for minor decisions, such as "your toothpaste, or what beverage to have with lunch"), Mum then stated the film was "creepy and mades you feel funny". In that the ideas behidn the film made her question if such a thing could happen with that sort of thing. Don't worry, it's not going to have that affect on you, it's just a hypersensitivity she alone possesses- me and my dad were fine. It's a cracking premise, though, and as I've said, the performances are more than worthy of carrying it.
Which is why, as is so often the case now, the resolution and the third act really just disappoints. It had so much that went before it to run with and, in a neat and hastily resolved quarter of an hour (if that) threw away any chance of being exceptional and daring with it. Which is ironic, as Mitchell states that the humans who the bureau have diverted away from greatness could have been so much more, were it not for the unquestioning execution of the Plan for each of them. Had the script not been so blindly followed and a more daring, deviating conclusion been thought up it would have been an exceptional film, deserving of the quote the DVD cover and TV adverts are repeating ad nauseum. "Bourne meets Inception" it wasn't, but could have been.
Did I know how many there were? No. Not until I was wandering the aisles of Blockbusters with my dad and started picking up case after case, telling him what each of them was about, pointing at others, assessing whether they've been rumoured to be critically good or not.
The first film rented was The Adjustment Bureau. It stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, but I think the person who steals the scenes they're in is from the supporting cast- one Anthony Mackie as Harry Mitchell, a member of the bureau who is disillusioned with their work and helps Damon's character, politician David Norris. It's no small feat to be the stand-out actor in this film, however- both Damon and Blunt offer solid and nuanced performances, Damon in particular, and the supporting cast from which Mackie rises includes the cornerstone actors Terence Stamp and John Slattery as Mitchell's seniors within the bureau. Despite that, he still stands head and shoulders above his colleagues.
It is worth noting that, in watching this with my parents, the concept behind the film is exceptional, brilliantly mind bending and yet easy to follow, as evidenced by the fact that my mum didn't stop once to ask what was going on. As yardsticks of overcomplicated narratives go, Mum is top-notch. If an audience won't get it, mum says so. However, having followed the premise that every single person has a Plan written for them to control their Fate along with the less strong Chance and Free Will (used for minor decisions, such as "your toothpaste, or what beverage to have with lunch"), Mum then stated the film was "creepy and mades you feel funny". In that the ideas behidn the film made her question if such a thing could happen with that sort of thing. Don't worry, it's not going to have that affect on you, it's just a hypersensitivity she alone possesses- me and my dad were fine. It's a cracking premise, though, and as I've said, the performances are more than worthy of carrying it.
Which is why, as is so often the case now, the resolution and the third act really just disappoints. It had so much that went before it to run with and, in a neat and hastily resolved quarter of an hour (if that) threw away any chance of being exceptional and daring with it. Which is ironic, as Mitchell states that the humans who the bureau have diverted away from greatness could have been so much more, were it not for the unquestioning execution of the Plan for each of them. Had the script not been so blindly followed and a more daring, deviating conclusion been thought up it would have been an exceptional film, deserving of the quote the DVD cover and TV adverts are repeating ad nauseum. "Bourne meets Inception" it wasn't, but could have been.
Monday, 13 June 2011
A Summer's Afternoon in a Meadow
A relatively long post today, but hopefully succinct. Choosing To Die finished not quarter of an hour ago on BBC2. Sir Terry Pratchett exploring the nuances of being able to tell when you want to go, weighing it up against guessing when you will no longer be able to do it yourself, trying to be dignified in dying- an outstanding programme, with exceptional people. Peter Smedley and Andrew Colgan were two outstanding gentlemen who knew that it was all they had left, in the time left when they still could, to end it before they were no longer able.
I have always been so assured of my own immortality. I turned 21 not six months ago, and waste some time in quixotic planning of things I may or may not ever do with my life. The one thing I do know is that, as for me death is the end of it and there is nothing on another side or in another world, I would never, ever want to give up.
And the thing is that these men haven't given up.
I have always been so assured of my own immortality. I turned 21 not six months ago, and waste some time in quixotic planning of things I may or may not ever do with my life. The one thing I do know is that, as for me death is the end of it and there is nothing on another side or in another world, I would never, ever want to give up.
And the thing is that these men haven't given up.
Saturday, 11 June 2011
'Blank Blankerton' has skewered you. Return fire?
Ah, social networking. That dangerous wasteland of procrastination, of studying other people in a manner which would be considered not just an invasion of privacy in real life but also downright sexually delinquent, of an oxymoronic name given the readiness with which the rules of social engagement go out the window.
(Poor pun number 1- on one level, people disregard the social rules; on another, you're viewing the website in a window. Har har.)
I, recently, changed my esteemed and oh-so-nurtured Facebook settings so that the langauge everything is written in is "English- Pirate". Almost a year ago I did much the same thing, which lasted all of about a month before I changed back to regular English, sick of the amount of things I could no longer understand. In the time between both of my forays into social network Privateering it appears I've got my sea legs and sea lingo a little more sorted, and therefore the first instance of anything I didn't understand or deduce the meaning of occured only two and a bit months in. I was informed, among the masses of notifications about messages in bottles, scrawlings on planks and other such peg-legged punnery, that I had been skewered.
(Poor pun number 1- on one level, people disregard the social rules; on another, you're viewing the website in a window. Har har.)
I, recently, changed my esteemed and oh-so-nurtured Facebook settings so that the langauge everything is written in is "English- Pirate". Almost a year ago I did much the same thing, which lasted all of about a month before I changed back to regular English, sick of the amount of things I could no longer understand. In the time between both of my forays into social network Privateering it appears I've got my sea legs and sea lingo a little more sorted, and therefore the first instance of anything I didn't understand or deduce the meaning of occured only two and a bit months in. I was informed, among the masses of notifications about messages in bottles, scrawlings on planks and other such peg-legged punnery, that I had been skewered.
Friday, 3 June 2011
This was a triumph.
This post is unique for several (read many, many, many) reasons.
First- I am no longer, technically, an undergraduate student. Huzzah! And poignant goodbye to what has been.
Second, out of almost eighty, this is the first post in which I have succeeded in embedding a video- and that video is, indeed, plenty apt and also "cracking".
Third- it's prose heavy. I'd apologise, but it's meant to be.
Here is, from Portal (Portal 2 was released recently, buy it) the end credits "Still Alive" written by Jonathan Coulton. It sums up these two days, and these three years, and (effectively) these fifteen years of education, in my honest opinion. This has, well and truly, been a triumph.
Today has been, all in all, pretty good. To the point where there is too much to mention should I be trying to record an entire day's activity in a single Facebook status or "tweet". Everything except blogs have word limits.
So the day began with a really early morning start, in typical insomniac and scalding-shower-alertness style at just before eight. A cup of tea followed, along with much recital of quotes I would, it turns out, not need or forget in the exam.
The next stage of the day, or significant stage, was either realising how sunny and nice it was as I left the house before eleven or the reason I was leaving the house at that time- to sit in The Novel Cafe and review notes and themes etc with the esteemed and beautiful Kristina Roberts and Kat Haylock. Both of these women got me through today, no word of a lie.
Having done all that it was time for a brief trip on campus and a brief spell of about half an hour on a triangle of grass in front of the George Fox building (he was a quaker, dontcha know- I was a quakin' for my second and last final). I ate a bacon and egg sarny. It would have been a salami roll, but while I deciphered the text up close with my faulty eyes a hand, belonging to a beautiful red head, swiped the product away. I protested by way of complaint, and haven't stopped going on about it all day, including the "diary entry" post being written now (considered this evening).
Between then and the next notable event in this post some sort of exam happened... Oh, wait, it was my last exam ever. Oh well. I finished it with twenty minutes to spare and decided, after a debate, to walk out early. The reason? I'd never done so, and wanted to feel the "thrill" (that's right, Haylock, mock all you want) of it just once.
The Writers' Society hoodies arrived two days ago, and this evening we got to see and collect them from the resplendent Laura Dallison, Social Secretary. They look awesome.
Then there was the drinking, and the Writers' Society meeting. We held it outside in the brilliant sun. I read a poem, like a girly girl, which was corrected by my peers and encouraged. Ta. Then it was back to the bar.
On returning to the bar, we ran into the stoner crowd again, those who will waste their lives on substances not substance they've been part of and will probably die forty years before us. The good news? Haylock hadn't returned home, and fled them to talk to us. Cracking. After merriment, an evening spent fighting, drinking and making our fathers proud, we returned to town and home, via two places of distinction.
One- the ice-cream shop that has recently opened on campus, with every flavour under the sun including rum and raisin, which I partook in. Then, to wind up the evening, myself and a burgeoning, potential writer in the form of David "The Prospero" Helm ventured towards The Stonewell Tavern, where I had never been. In terms of what's on tap and the music they had in tonight, it's on a par with The Dalton Rooms and The Robert Gillow. And I had a free pint. And they played James Brown's "I Feel Good", which I said I was likely to break out of when in the bar after the exam.
So there we are- a day, after two or three (I'm not sure) days of rough sleep and shit cramming and worry over examinations, in which everything tied up. It all came together, it all ended, and, hey- I'm still alive.
First- I am no longer, technically, an undergraduate student. Huzzah! And poignant goodbye to what has been.
Second, out of almost eighty, this is the first post in which I have succeeded in embedding a video- and that video is, indeed, plenty apt and also "cracking".
Third- it's prose heavy. I'd apologise, but it's meant to be.
Here is, from Portal (Portal 2 was released recently, buy it) the end credits "Still Alive" written by Jonathan Coulton. It sums up these two days, and these three years, and (effectively) these fifteen years of education, in my honest opinion. This has, well and truly, been a triumph.
Today has been, all in all, pretty good. To the point where there is too much to mention should I be trying to record an entire day's activity in a single Facebook status or "tweet". Everything except blogs have word limits.
So the day began with a really early morning start, in typical insomniac and scalding-shower-alertness style at just before eight. A cup of tea followed, along with much recital of quotes I would, it turns out, not need or forget in the exam.
The next stage of the day, or significant stage, was either realising how sunny and nice it was as I left the house before eleven or the reason I was leaving the house at that time- to sit in The Novel Cafe and review notes and themes etc with the esteemed and beautiful Kristina Roberts and Kat Haylock. Both of these women got me through today, no word of a lie.
Having done all that it was time for a brief trip on campus and a brief spell of about half an hour on a triangle of grass in front of the George Fox building (he was a quaker, dontcha know- I was a quakin' for my second and last final). I ate a bacon and egg sarny. It would have been a salami roll, but while I deciphered the text up close with my faulty eyes a hand, belonging to a beautiful red head, swiped the product away. I protested by way of complaint, and haven't stopped going on about it all day, including the "diary entry" post being written now (considered this evening).
Between then and the next notable event in this post some sort of exam happened... Oh, wait, it was my last exam ever. Oh well. I finished it with twenty minutes to spare and decided, after a debate, to walk out early. The reason? I'd never done so, and wanted to feel the "thrill" (that's right, Haylock, mock all you want) of it just once.
The Writers' Society hoodies arrived two days ago, and this evening we got to see and collect them from the resplendent Laura Dallison, Social Secretary. They look awesome.
Then there was the drinking, and the Writers' Society meeting. We held it outside in the brilliant sun. I read a poem, like a girly girl, which was corrected by my peers and encouraged. Ta. Then it was back to the bar.
On returning to the bar, we ran into the stoner crowd again, those who will waste their lives on substances not substance they've been part of and will probably die forty years before us. The good news? Haylock hadn't returned home, and fled them to talk to us. Cracking. After merriment, an evening spent fighting, drinking and making our fathers proud, we returned to town and home, via two places of distinction.
One- the ice-cream shop that has recently opened on campus, with every flavour under the sun including rum and raisin, which I partook in. Then, to wind up the evening, myself and a burgeoning, potential writer in the form of David "The Prospero" Helm ventured towards The Stonewell Tavern, where I had never been. In terms of what's on tap and the music they had in tonight, it's on a par with The Dalton Rooms and The Robert Gillow. And I had a free pint. And they played James Brown's "I Feel Good", which I said I was likely to break out of when in the bar after the exam.
So there we are- a day, after two or three (I'm not sure) days of rough sleep and shit cramming and worry over examinations, in which everything tied up. It all came together, it all ended, and, hey- I'm still alive.
Monday, 16 May 2011
Getting rid of the voice saying 'Don't make me do stuff'
Experience and epiphanies come in all shapes, sizes, places, states of undress, degrees of sobriety, degrees of intoxication and shades of fatigue. They can strike you, with short term frustration, during the first-thing wake-me-up solo fumble under the bed sheets just as equally as they can pause you mid-sip of your fifteenth 'cup o' joe' and just as potently strip away any other thought or factor you were paying attention to.
In this aspect they are like ruthless and inexplicably succesfully efficient toddlers. The other thing they share with the fledgling, wailing, sticky-fingered semi-humans is that once they have your attention whatever they are trying to show you is often incredibly and insufferably annoying, if only because you should have seen the life milestone/ dead amphibian in your kids hand (and, imminently, mouth) a lot sooner.
Such an epiphany hit me recently. Everything I have known
In this aspect they are like ruthless and inexplicably succesfully efficient toddlers. The other thing they share with the fledgling, wailing, sticky-fingered semi-humans is that once they have your attention whatever they are trying to show you is often incredibly and insufferably annoying, if only because you should have seen the life milestone/ dead amphibian in your kids hand (and, imminently, mouth) a lot sooner.
Such an epiphany hit me recently. Everything I have known
On the replacement of skill with luck in the modern gameshow
Right, prissy and pretentious 'essay title' style heading aside, let's got on with this shall we? You haven't got all day.
Gone are the days when you could win money for knowing things or being good in a field such as retaining knowledge/ intelligently matching answers with answers popular with the public/ intelligently deciphering a clue or puzzle or catchphrase. This sort of actual skill, brain power, concentration and logic has, unfortunately, been sidelined to National Lottery spin off shows, normally on air while people leave the TV alone to have dinner, the gap preempted by Doctor Who and any number of talent shows and closed by Saturday night dramas and the film at nine.
Now you have to rely on, without fail, luck
Gone are the days when you could win money for knowing things or being good in a field such as retaining knowledge/ intelligently matching answers with answers popular with the public/ intelligently deciphering a clue or puzzle or catchphrase. This sort of actual skill, brain power, concentration and logic has, unfortunately, been sidelined to National Lottery spin off shows, normally on air while people leave the TV alone to have dinner, the gap preempted by Doctor Who and any number of talent shows and closed by Saturday night dramas and the film at nine.
Now you have to rely on, without fail, luck
The curse of a good book
Reader, I apologise for being so abesnt over the last months. I promised myself that I would not, could not allow anything so pithy as a degree and the work I had to undertake thereof to stall my frequent harranguing of the proverbial ears you lend me. Clearly, I was wrong.
However, had I not been so Preometheanly chained to the rock of higher education while my coursework pecked at my internal organs, there is no way in which I would be able now to nejoy the respite with any way near as much gusto. It is this freedom, the liberation to read and write what I like now while merely dabbling in this strange trifle called revision, which bring us our next topic of grumbling.
I have a, at times unfortunate, love of books. Can't help it, that's that, it's the way my mother put my hat on (cheers Rob), etc. And now that I'm free to read what I want, I am- with some brilliant and some more tarnished results.
However, had I not been so Preometheanly chained to the rock of higher education while my coursework pecked at my internal organs, there is no way in which I would be able now to nejoy the respite with any way near as much gusto. It is this freedom, the liberation to read and write what I like now while merely dabbling in this strange trifle called revision, which bring us our next topic of grumbling.
I have a, at times unfortunate, love of books. Can't help it, that's that, it's the way my mother put my hat on (cheers Rob), etc. And now that I'm free to read what I want, I am- with some brilliant and some more tarnished results.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Cut the head off the snake and find it's a hydra?
Negativity isn't normally what I set out to broadcast to people, honest. Personal pessimism, maybe, but negativity isn't my default setting. I just try to point out the glaring flaws in a lot of peoples' celebrations sometimes, with a touch of what I like to call common sense.
I should note, before I go any further, that I am not talking about, nor will I mention again, the mass hysteria with which 24-hour rolling news would convince us the nation was gripped in the run up to Friday. Most people don't care and were sick of it, so I'm going to leave it well alone.
This morning I awoke, having spent last night sat in a pub which advertised a quiz (there was no quiz), watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead and my perennial favourite Stephen King film Misery and then spending hours writing because I was unable to sleep, in a sort of fuzzy haze. My stereo alarm was blaring at me at the regular time of 6:30 despite being on a volume of 5, and the grey dawn filtering through my skylight was burning into my corneas. It was that sort of stumbling, fumbling wake-up, until I heard a news story which snapped me right into conciousness and alert attentiveness.
Osama Bin Laden (not to be confused with one of the perpetrators of his downfall, President Obama- I'm looking at you, Fox News) has died
I should note, before I go any further, that I am not talking about, nor will I mention again, the mass hysteria with which 24-hour rolling news would convince us the nation was gripped in the run up to Friday. Most people don't care and were sick of it, so I'm going to leave it well alone.
This morning I awoke, having spent last night sat in a pub which advertised a quiz (there was no quiz), watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead and my perennial favourite Stephen King film Misery and then spending hours writing because I was unable to sleep, in a sort of fuzzy haze. My stereo alarm was blaring at me at the regular time of 6:30 despite being on a volume of 5, and the grey dawn filtering through my skylight was burning into my corneas. It was that sort of stumbling, fumbling wake-up, until I heard a news story which snapped me right into conciousness and alert attentiveness.
Osama Bin Laden (not to be confused with one of the perpetrators of his downfall, President Obama- I'm looking at you, Fox News) has died
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