Film: The Artist

It's been a while since I wrote anything for this blog, that's uni work for you! I have actually watched quite a bit of good stuff as well recently so hopefully I will remember enough about some of the things I have been watching to chatter about them!

We have also had the Oscars and BAFTAs. I watched the BAFTAs but not the Oscars, although I hear they went pretty much the same way, with the Artist cleaning up most of the awards it was nominated for and much of the other awards going to the same films too. After seeing the Artist do so well, I had to watch it. It hadn't really appealed to me as anything more than a 'something I'll get round to watching' sort of film until this point, but I was intrigued as to how it had blown a lot of other great films out of the water.

Trailer - the Artist

The Artist (in case you don't already know) is a silent movie set in the 1920s about George Valentin, a silent movie star (played by Jean Dujardin, an extremely gorgeous man) who is finding it hard to make the transition into 'the talkies'. The bright young star Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) is having no such problems, and we see her rise to fame as George's popularity dwindles.

At first I thought a) that this would be quite a happy upbeat movie and b) that it would be difficult for me to really get into and understand what was going on in a film with no words. Both of these first thoughts were actually wrong. Firstly to thought b), which I'm sure has put many people off this movie. The sound in the film all comes from music matched to the mood of the scene (apart from a very well done piece in the middle of the film, but I won't say any more as I don't want to ruin it for anyone) and expression all comes from the actors hamming it up. Sometimes their mouths move so that you can imagine what is being said, and occasionally there are traditional silent movie subtitle screens, but this doesn't happen that often. You would think it would be hard to follow but it's really not. This film is very well done actually, and I didn't expect to have enjoyed it and be saying this about it. You very quickly forget that there is no talking and become immersed in the story line of the film. There were very few moments where I didn't understand what was going on and where I lost interest, and that really surprised me given my earlier misgivings.

Jean Dujardin

As for the plot of this film and enjoyability (not a word but oh well) of this film, I was again surprised. As I said, I was expecting a very light, jovial, happy film with some light comedy and a lot of laughs. It turns out that this film is actually pretty dark in places, and there were many plot turns in it that surprised me because of the lightness I was expecting. At the beginning of the movie, we see George at the height of his career and fame. As the film progresses, events turn and George is left a broken and desperate man, grappling with his fear of 'the talkies' and his new found desolation. As there is no speaking, George cannot explain his feelings and so we see them almost through his own eyes, with dreams or symbolic references throughout the film. He starts off as such a happy character that his downfall is really sad, especially as we are brought so close to his own feelings. The audience is drawn in very well throughout this film and we can almost feel as if we are there in the movie with George.

I really enjoyed George's character and his plotline, but I can't say I feel the same about the charater of Peppy. She starts off as an extra in one of George's films, and they have an instant connection. He gives her some advice and she quickly becomes a star. She goes on to become (in my opinion) a bit full of herself and annoying. She seems like a really weak character as she doesn't have as much depth as George's character, and she did bug me throughout the film. She then takes on behaviour that seemed to me to be bordering on stalker-esque. This isn't the typical love story I expected either, but I won't say any more as I don't want to give anything away about the film; I think it is almost best viewed knowing very little about it and so not knowing what to expect.

Overall I did enjoy this film much more then I thought I would. I'm still not sure I can see why it cleaned up at all the award ceremonies; maybe it is the hype associated with this film and the fact that it is 'different', but it is definitely worth a watch if you ignore everything you have already heard about it before. You may be surprised how much you will enjoy it.

PS, there is also a really cute dog in this film.

TV - TOWIE

"Oh my God, I'm so jel!! Shuttupppppppp!" We have all heard of 'The Only Way Is Essex' (TOWIE) by now I'm sure. The show is on its fourth series of augmented reality type drama, and it's still going strong. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I have been an avid viewer of TOWIE since the first series when I heard Chris Moyles taking the mick out of one of the girls on the radio (Sam Elizabeth Faiers sounding like she said her name was "Sam Available for Affairs). I have really enjoyed this show for the last couple of years, but I have to say, I think it's going downhill (if that's even possible).

The original cast was fairly small and all seemed to know each other. They all had their dramas and tantrums within a little group, and even though we know it's set up, the plot flowed fairly naturally. Now, the cast has expanded, which isn't necessarily a good thing. The chemistry and personality that the original characters had seems to have been lost, with only two or three of the current characters being ones that started the show. Now we seem to have family members, distant friends and random women all creeping in to jump on the TOWIE bandwagon. Mark Wright's cousin? Harry's boyfriend? Strange girls Kirk met at a petrol station? They've all had their 15 minutes (and sometimes much more) of fame. As a result, the scenarios are much more forced. There are plenty of moments that you know that the characters aren't really friends and wouldn't usually spend time together, but they have been forced together for the good of a juicy story line, and sometimes it just doesn't work.

For example, the new girls Billie and Carla (or maybe it's Cara, I don't actually know as I refuse to view these two as proper characters on the show) suddenly seem to be best friends with everyone. I'm sorry, I know people are always saying "small world" but I can't believe it's that small. Kirk met Billie at a petrol station and he and Joey briefly dated the pair last season. Now they are at Lauren Goodger's girly get togethers, they are Lucy's shoulder to cry on and I believe they were present at Lydia's birthday meal. I suppose this is the problem with this kind of augmented reality; people are brought into the show and forced to become friends with other members of the cast to diversify story lines and get them more screen time.

This leads on neatly to the situations that you can tell the producers know about but just force the characters into, or even set up themselves. To be fair it does make for some brilliant TV at times, like the time that Lauren Pope caught Kirk out on a date and he called her friend Maria an extra, but we should probably remember that these are real people, and these are their lives we're watching fall apart on national television. It just seems a bit cold hearted really. The story lines used to be funny, bitching, quarrelling, yelling, more bitching, but I don't like some of the more recent ones. Lucy and Mario's problems a couple of weeks ago was almost enough to make me stop watching. This probably sounds strange as it is tame compared to most of the stuff in the soaps or even on Jeremy Kyle, but I didn't like the way it was used on the programme.

For those who don't know, Lucy is dating Mario, a ladies man. He loves her but is mad at her because she cheated on him in a drunken one night stand, but they are back together and happy-ish. In the episodes a couple of weeks back, Lucy went to some of the other girls and said to them that she was suspicious becuase Mario wouldn't let her look at his messages. The other girls (in typical TOWIE inflammatory nature) said she was right to be suspicious and that something obviously wasn't right. This is all fine, but then then Lucy was shown alone in Mario's flat (where she doesn't live) deciding whether or not to look at messages on his iPad and then eventually looking at them and bursting into tears. She then goes back to the friends to explain that she had found 50 plus messages to other girls.

My issue is this: surely the producers would have known whether or not these messages were actually there, because if they weren't there wouldn't have been a story line worth pursuing. So I'm thinking either Lucy had already discovered these messages and then had to stage this moment again so it could be filmed, or the producers encouraged Lucy to look at the messages while filming to get the reaction. I think both of these are pretty cruel things to do. From what I can gather, TOWIE have specific filming days, so it's not like they are followed around by cameras waiting to capture something exciting like in documentaries or whatever. So Lucy must have been told to go to Mario's flat and look at his messages. I know that the people in TOWIE get paid to do this and there's the argument that once people have become desperate for fame and let themselves into the public eye in such a way as the cast of the show have done, they should expect stuff like this. I can see the point of this, but I still think it is cruel to film the break up of a real reltionship like this.

To be fair, it could all be completely staged and none of this could of happened, meaning I'm just a loser who reads far too much into what they watch on TV, so in case that is true, I am going to shut up about this now and end by saying that, aside from all that I've rabbited on about, for some reason I still can't tear myself away from this programme, so rant over and I will probably write a post far less caring and intellectually questioning this show soon, and far more along the lines of how much better I think Chloe looks with lighter hair and how much of an idiot Joey Essex is.

Ps, I'm sorry I couldn't be bothered to put any photos into this post, google image searching seems to just come up with tons of pictures of Mark Wright with food in his mouth or Amy Childs getting out of cars, and I don't think we really need to see any of that!!

Film - The Help

So The Help is the latest film that I'm going to comment on. I have mixed feelings about this one. The Help is set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi and is the story of a white writer recording the experiences of the African American maids that look after white families in the town of Jackson. This film is based on a book and when I watched it, for some reason I thought that it was based on a true story, i.e. a film documenting the writing of a book that actually exists. This is actually not the case, but I think I enjoyed the film much more thinking that it was. I'll come back to this later on, but finding out that this story was a total fiction written in 2009 by a white American woman makes me re-think my enjoyment of it.

 Trailer

Putting this aside, I thought that this film was excellent. It is very long for this type of film at about two and a half hours, but it doesn't drag at all until the very end, and this is only because of the winding down of the story. The acting in this film is very good, and unsurprisingly many of the actresses were nominated or won awards for their performances. I expected the writer (played by Emma Stone) to be the main character, but she is actually more of a side character with a couple of the maids (notably the characters played by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer) taking the main spotlight.

Some of the characters are very easy to warm to in this film, while at the same time some are very easy to hate. The white household women are all very prim, proper and bitchy, and treat the black 'help' horrendously. The film highlights the fact that the help look after these women when they are children, love them and care for them while their mothers are busy socialising, and form real bonds with them. Then, as they grow up and have their own children, the black women that took care of them just became 'the help', and in some cases aren't even allowed to use the same toilets as the rest of the house. So the white women are easy to hate in this film. The maids are brilliant. They are funny, sarcastic and full of life and there are loads of funny bits which will have you laughing (and some really shocking bits). But at the same time there are many poignant moments giving plenty of opportunities for tearing up. The maids really love the children they look after, but their mothers seem to have little time for them and scold them unnecessarily. The maids are horrified by this but are powerless to intervene and put these women right. There is also problems in the personal lives of the maids, showing all aspects of their lives, not just their work.

There are some white women that do do right by their maids, most notably the writer and one of the other women in the neighbourhood (played by Jessica Chastain). The relationship between Chastain's character and her maid (played by Spencer) casts a direct comparison to the other bitchy white women, with Chastain's character showing kindness towards her maid, as well as sharing her vulnerability with her. It makes you wonder why all of the women don't behave like this, and because of this Chastain's character is by far my favourite in the film.

My main problem with this film though is the stereotypes it adheres to. Both the black maids and the white women are basically exactly what you would expect. Even the Chastain's character who treats her maid far more kindly does so in a very typically 'story-book' manner, with Stone's writer character feeling like she is on very traditional quest to get the maids' voices heard.  This wouldn't bother me if the story were true, if it was (as I originally thought) a film documenting the true story of how the book was written. As I said, the film is in fact based on a book written in 2009. This kind of takes some of the magic away from it as the story line feels almost predictable.

I haven't read the book so I can't really comment on it, but it does seem a bit of an odd time to write about the Civil Rights movement and the relationship between black maids and their white households. She may have done her research very well, but really what does the author know about living and the maids real experiences during this time? The book has received criticism for adhering to sterotypes in the way that it does. It makes you wonder how true to life this film is and how much it just plays up to the stereotypes we are all familar with.

For me, this takes some of the power out of the film. Yes, the plot line and the acting were excellent and go together to form a brilliant, poignant and funny film but it just seems a bit hollow when I think that it was written so recently and so far away from the actual events of the 60s. 'The Help' is definitely worth a watch, as on the surface it's a great and really enjoyable film, but just don't think too much about how and why it was written!

Book Review - Never Let Me Go

Would you believe it, I haven't actually watched any TV worth commenting on for a while! I seem to have rediscovered reading for pleasure, something that I lost interest in when I realised that my uni course consisted almost entirely of extremely unpleasurable reading. I may throw a few book posts into my blog in the future.

So, Never Let Me Go (for a fuller summary of the plot, follow this link).This book is written by Kazuo Ishiguro, a Japenese-British author. I read Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (also a not-very-well-done film starring Anthony Hopkins that leaves all of the best bits of the book out) for A Level English. I can't say it was a favourite of mine at the time; the book is full of so much subtle symbolism that you find yourself thinking 'did the author really give so much significance to so and so glancing out of a window'? The protagonist who narrates the book is also somewhat irritating throughout most of the novel, although I think this is the whole aim of the book, as we begin to feel more sympathy for the character as the story progresses, and it is only once I had finished the book that I realised I had enjoyed it.

Never Let Me Go is pretty different to The Remains. I was expecting symbolism galore and artsy messages like with the other book, but symbolism was not the main theme of the book as far as I could tell (although of course there were plenty of symbolic elements). The book is centred around an adult called Kathy reliving memories of her youth and looking at them again with adult eyes, with the added dimension that Kathy and the other characters are clones whose sole purpose in life is to grow up and 'donate' their organs to the rest of the population. This book isn't remotely sci-fi though; the clone and donation aspect is only really discussed in terms of how that affects the lives of the characters, not in a science fiction sort of way, and it works really well (as I'll come back to later).  

This book feels like it is written quite simply, with the narrator's style flowing casually through the story. I felt pretty detached from this book until near the very end; like The Remains, I don't think I realised how good it had been until I'd finished it off, and then I wanted to read it again almost immediately, feeling I would appreciate it much more the second time round. Having said that, this book is weirdly addictive. Even though there isn't even that much of a gripping plot line with no real major events, there is always the feeling that over the next few pages you will find out something totally integral to the plot.

It's the clone dimension that makes this book a real page turner. That the characters are clones is hinted at throughout the book, and it is easy for the reader to work out their true purpose in life from fairly early on. However, within the story anything to do with their destiny as organ doners is shrouded in euphemism, and the characters seem to live a pretty normal life. Kathy and her friends are puzzled by aspects of their lives and make guesses as to what different things mean, and this curiousity is passed onto the reader, leaving me desperate for answers by the time I reached the final section of the book. As I said earlier, the ending makes the book and it is during this part that we get the answers to the questions that Kathy has been alluding to throughout her story.

The ending also makes you realise how attached you had become to the characters. The main voice of Kathy holds little emotion in my opinion, almost as if she has resigned herself to her fate and wants to factually record the musing of her earlier life. Because of this, the emotion that I felt at the end of the novel really surprised me. I won't say anymore so that I don't ruin the ending for those of you who read it, but this is a truly brilliant book that I urge everyone to read, even if it doesn't seem that way to start off with. I can't really express how much I enjoyed this book so read it yourself and see if you agree!

Never Let Me Go has also been turned into a film which I haven't yet seen but I'm sure I will feel the need to write about as soon as I have watched it judging by the trailer:

Emmerdale

Instead of doing dissertation research or perhaps reading about Ginzburg or crime in early modern pubs, I am going to write about Emmerdale.

What I like about Christmas Emmerdale is that there was no unecessary tragedy, violence, death or depression to dampen our day... All of that came a few weeks ago with Cain's attack and is now just a standard underlying theme.

So the main event in the village is the revelation that Zack was Cain's attacker... dun dun duuuunnnnn!! If I'm honest, I'd kinda guessed; he was the only one with motive who wasn't being fixated on, and it's always the one that no one expects. There was a nice little emotional exchange between the father and son which invoked two seperate emotions within me.... The first was wonder at Zack's accent. Let's be honest, he's a character with few words so suddenly hearing him speak for over thirty seconds solid made me notice his accent. Is it real? Does the actor who plays him actually come from somewhere up Nawth? Either that or this man is a genius......

The second thing I felt (after my wonder had subsided) was that I actually felt a bit sorry for Cain. This episode was very well written so that it made us do that, and it also threw up interested questions when Zack kept saying stuff like 'I'm your father, I had to be the one to stop you.' But then we probably shouldn't read too much into Emmerdale, I should probably write more stuff about how with a hat on Cain actually looks passably attractive.

Other Emmerdalian developments: Debbie and Andy. This whole thing just makes me go 'ew'. It's always only mentioned in passing as well, so it's a bit like everyone is kind of thinking 'this is pretty strange, if we need to have a story line on it let's just skim over it'. They've moved now from turkey baster type arrangements to actually having sex to attempt to conceive another kid. Debbie doesn't seem pleased (but then when is she pleased about anything?) and gets some wine to get things on the move. I read in the TV mag that next week Andy starts to have feelings for her.... Urgh here we go...

Just to end with another gross story line, Laurel and Ashley making out in Leeds followed by her whispering to him 'I'm just going to nip into a rather interesting lingerie shop..' Seriously woman, get back to Marlon!!

Christmas TV

I've not written here for longer than I would have liked, and there has been so much TV since! Christmas nowadays obviously means TV specials and if I was more cynical I'd say this spoils the fun of the holiday... But I'm not and I have Sky+ so I can spend Christmas day with my family and then the next few days catching up!

I shan't bore you with a whole post for each show I watched over the holiday season, I'm just going to comment on a few of the mains ones instead.

Michael McIntyre's Christmas thing

I actually really enjoyed this. I feel like Michael McIntyre has been around for years now but it's surprising how much new material he can come up with.. I suppose it is his job. To be fair I'm a bit rubbish about comedy and I would have preferred it was just an hour or however long of just Michael McIntyre, but he did manage to get some really good (I say good because they're pretty famous rather than because I like them that much) guests like Jack Dee, Rhod Gilbert and some other people I can't remember. Miranda was on, usually I loathe this woman, I think she is so annoying and just makes me want to run away and become a man so I don't have to share a gender with her, but she did a little skit thing with Smithy from Gavin and Stacey and it was actually bearable. It's great that Michael McIntyre's still doing TV like this, I thought once he'd been a judge on Britain's Got Talent he wouldn't do much more stand up, but I read an interview he'd done and he said that he intends to continue, which I think is great. I know a lot of people find him really annoying but I think that's one of his charms, especially when he bobs about and his flops around comically. So yeah, loads of laugh out loud moments, lots of great guests if you like lots of different people, good show! Oh apart from Pixie Lott.. Is it just me or did anyone think she kept missing her cues and was out of tune?

Agatha Christie's Poirot

This I enjoyed again, Poirot isn't something I've ever really sat down and watched, rather it's been on while I flitted in and out, so this was new for me. As usual whenever I watch a murder mystery, I spent the first half totally confused (and this was a confusing one with loads of outside references and an extra plot line going on) and the second half trying to guess whodunnit (and I was actually right with this one!) The actual story of the murder was good, if predictable as you kind of know by now how these kind of things are written, and you can spot who's going to get bumped off a mile off. Nevertheless there were some clever bits, and as I said there was an extra plot line going on to do with Germany and Hitler and the War that was thrown in there to confuse you a bit. My favourite part of this show though is by far the little tottery walk that Poirot does, and the way he talks half in Belgian and half in English.

Endeavour

This was the Morse prequel, sort of like Morse's first case. I've never actually watched Morse, only the sequel to it (weirdly), so I can't really compare it, but then I don't think comparing it to the Morse series was really the idea. Again, I think the plot was fairly predictable; there was a bit of romance, some brooding and moping around and a young Morse briefly being kicked off the case for so-called bad behaviour. Of course, in the end (and after a few false starts), it's Morse who cleverly works out who did it (which I guessed correctly again by the way!), and collects the baddie to take them to prison. Like with Poirot, it was quite a complicated story with an extra bit to it, and some bent coppers thrown into the mix as well. I'm sure there were probably links to the Morse series we all know, but as I haven't seen it I wouldn't know! The only thing that bothered me about this was the guy who played Morse kept doing something funny with his hand, like over-gesturing or over pointing at people.... I'm sure I am the only person that ever notices stuff like this.

Outnumbered

Usually I love Outnumbered but this was actually pretty forgettable I think, especially after the end of the last series. So it's Christmas day and the family are going on holiday and 15 year old Jake has a hangover... 15, really?! They start them young these days apparently! I could be wrong actually, maybe he's 16, that would make it slightly better. I think Outnumbered has lost something as the kids have got older; they're actually acting now rather than sort of messing about like they did when they were younger. As I said, this episode was pretty forgettable, so much so that I can't think of anything else to write about it!



 I'm sure I've probably missed out an amazing bit of Christmas TV and I'll have to do another post on this but I'm lacking the brain power to think about it right now and this post is long enough already, so there you, Christmas TV!

Insidious (scary horror movie)

I don't usually watch horror movies, and haven't for years but I was coerced by some friends, and so we spent an evening watching Insidious.

This movie stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne (two of Hollywood's new up and coming beautiful people) as the parents in a family that move into a new house. Once they move in, strange things start to happen..... I know what you're thinking, that sounds like a pretty standard, boring horror movie plot, and that's what we thought before we watched it.

For a bit, stuff goes *bump* and people run about screaming. There's also a lot of scary, tension building music and tons of those 'don't go through that scary looking door/up those stairs/ladder/leave the house/leave the baby in there you total idiot. Once the story kicks off though (and to be fair, it takes a while; the film seems to keep its options open about which direction to go in for the first half of the film), it actually very much surpasses the boring bio.

This film is scary as well. Ok, I am a total wimp and spent most of the scary bits hidden behind a pillow, but I got the general gist, and if I was accidentally watching and something scary happened there was plenty of screaming. The scares are based on building up tensions and suddenly showing something (most of the time), resulting in me feeling like I'd run a marathon or something once we had finished watching it. It's my favourite kind of scary though, keeping you interested and freaked out throughout the film, but not too traumatised afterwards.

Scary lady woman thing from the film :O

The storyline helped with this too. It did start off a bit weak as I said, but once it got started, it leaves you guessing and working things out until, dropping gentle hints until the 'big reveal'. After the 'big reveal', it all got a bit odd and unrealistic, but nonetheless was still entertaining, possibly for less scary reasons now though. The effects/costumes/looks of some of the evil folk are a little bit dubious as well once you get close up, but that just gave us something to giggle at and take a break from being freaked out.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this film if you like scary stuff, or even if you just fancy something different. It is enjoyable on its own without being classified as scary, and manages to hold together a fairly decent plot line throughout, but still has plenty of scary bits to keep you on your toes!