Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

  Nine-year-old Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) struggles to deal with the loss of his father (Tom Hanks) after the 9/11 attacks in New York. Following the tragedy, he becomes distant from his mother (Sandra Bullock) as he tries to comprehend what has happened, and why people commit such atrocious acts on other human beings.
  A year later, after gathering the courage to search through his father’s untouched belongings, he finds a key hidden in a vase.  Oskar embarks on a scavenger hunt across New York to locate the lock that fits the key, seeks emotional closure of his father’s death and on the way makes some extraordinary friendships.

  Horn’s cinematic debut is sensational: his portrayal of a confused child trying to grapple with the motives for such a hateful act is convincing.  His naïveté towards “why a man flew a plane into a building” doesn’t detract from the intelligence Oskar is possessed with, despite clearly sitting some way up the autistic spectrum.  The traits he clearly inherited from his father give the impression of an amiable, curious young man, albeit one with inconceivable issues to deal with.  He manages to overcome his phobias and defies other potential obstacles along the way: “I didn’t know what was waiting for me. Although my stomach hurt and my eyes were watering I’d made up my mind that nothing was gonna stop me. Not even me.”

He is a boy with maturity, independence and unwavering determination to discover why his father possessed the key and to solve the mystery – much in the way his father would set up treasure hunts for Oskar to complete.  His father, jeweller-cum-amateur explorer is clearly a family man, and Oskar’s idolisation of his father is endearing.  Oskar and his mother eventually come to terms with what has happened and their relationship is strengthened; an unexpected and charming ending.

This is a film less about the conclusion and more about the journey.  It really doesn’t matter about the key and the lock – it’s more about the people he meets; his sharing of his inspiring story, and their responses.

It’s a shame that Bullock and Hanks didn’t get as much screentime as they deserve, and there was a sub-plot involving Oskar’s grandfather which was incomplete, but overall this is a memorable movie made ever more touching by its tragic non-fictional origins.

Based on the 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a poignant coming-of-age story, intertwined with themes of courage, loyalty, friendship and – perhaps most strikingly – self-discovery.  I like to think that the tragedy of 9/11 made Oskar a strong and mature young man.  It is often difficult to find oneself after unthinkable anguish and grief, but the best of humanity is demonstrated in those who – when they may be emotionally clouded – still seek the silver lining.

8/10

Review: Titanic (in 3D)

James Cameron’s melodramatic retelling of the infamous RMS Titanic voyage gets a 3D uplift for the modern age.  It seems a bit dated to be doing a review of a film first released 15 years ago, but the themes and morals conveyed by the story are timeless.  What’s more, the re-release coincides with the centenary of the ill-fated journey, making it perhaps even more poignant than back in ’97.

If anyone has been living in a cultural vacuum for the past decade and a half and hasn’t seen the film, now is the perfect opportunity to do so.  And you must. For this is a story that needs to be told and demands to be heard.

In a nutshell - and I say this because the 3-hour-plus epic could consume a 500-word synopsis alone – begins with 101-year-old Rose DeWitt retelling her personal experience of the Titanic passage to a team of divers attempting to salvage artefacts from its wreck.  We are transported back to April 10th 1912 where a fortunate encounter occurs between unwilling bride-to-be Rose and Jack Dawson, a free spirit with no stable career and who won his ticket on a whim in a “very, very lucky hand of poker”.  A friendship blossoms between the unlikely couple after Jack stops Rose’s attempts to jump off the ship into the icy waters to escape her overpowering fiancé.  When the liner hits an iceberg in the middle of the night - and only several days into her maiden voyage – Jack and Rose fight for their lives on a ship that carries far fewer lifeboats than passengers; against an ill-informed crew, and against society’s own prejudices against those of the lower social classes, who end up being locked into the lower realms of the ship whilst everyone else is seen to. The tragic ending is no less emotional in 2012 (after countless viewings over the years on VHS and DVD) than it was when I first watched it.

Set against a backdrop of gender inequality and a profoundly hierarchical society, Titanic seems a world away from 21st century values of egalitarianism and social parity.  But it can teach us so much.  Never to return to a society where these values are accepted.   To appreciate the need for better safety standards on passenger liners.  And as Cameron himself said: “Above all the lesson that life is uncertain, the future unknowable…the unthinkable possible.”

Titanic is a spectacular blend of period drama, romance and thrill.  But it’s not without its share of comedy and ironic cultural references.  My favourites being Rose’s swipe at the gentlemen whose company built the Titanic when he attempts to show off about the majesty of the ship: “Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay? His ideas of the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you”, and Rose’s fiancé’s dismissal of Pablo Picasso as an artist who “won’t amount to a thing”.

It’s worth mentioning the 3D itself. I was surprised to see that for once in a 3D movie, the visuals weren’t darkened or shady.  The subtlety of the effects was perfectly balanced so that you are always aware you’re watching a 3D film without the clichéd “let’s show things flying towards your face to show off what we can do with 3D” effect.  Particular note should go to the scene where people are stranded in the water – it looks alive and heightens the fear and panic.  The same goes for the original production itself: despite being the most expensive film ever made at the time (costing $200million), Cameron manages to keep a distance between the inevitable grandeur of his creation and the story he is trying to tell.

Nominated for 14 Oscars (and winner of 11 - quite rightly!), this fictional story of star-crossed lovers is an outstanding piece of entertainment on its own, but where Titanic impresses most is in its sensitive portrayal of a real tragedy. Although Rose is not real, when she said to Jack “I’ll never let go”, we know she spoke for hundreds of survivors who, faced with the imminent tragedy of losing loved ones, promised they would never be forgotten. And with Cameron’s masterpiece, I hope they never will be.


10/10

Review: The Hunger Games

You’d be forgiven for thinking that you need to have previously read the books to appreciate The Hunger Games, but you’d have to concede – as I did – that you don’t need to be a fan of futuristic sci-fi to appreciate that this film is about much more than special effects flamboyancy. 

Set in a dystopian near-future where the Capitol restricts what its population can and cannot do, the annual Hunger Games are about to take place.  Established after the nation plotted a failed revolution against the repressive state, the games exist to put the population in their place and remind them who is boss.  One young boy and girl from each of the districts takes place in a live, televised fight to the death.  Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take the place of her younger sister and, along with Peeta Mellark, the two of them represent District 12 in a battle where there can be only one winner.  But can they bring themselves to kill each other?

Peeta (Josh Hutcherson, Journey to the Centre of the Earth) and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar-nominated for Winter’s Bone) have different game plans: Peeta decides it would be better to die without fighting, as he refuses to let the Hunger Games turn him into a monster; Katniss, however, decides she cannot afford to take that chance.  She has a little sister to protect.  The moral dilemma that the film exposes with ease is whether it is better to do what is right, or what is necessary.  These two ideologies are played out very well, and what is more memorable than the deaths themselves is the characters’ introspective moments of deep thought, and they friendships they form as they struggle to harm each other (even the tough Katniss, upon having an epiphany of love for Peeta, battles with her conscience). 

Based on the best-selling novels by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games is enjoyable for anyone who hasn’t actually read the books (although if you get chance, I strongly advise you do!)  Granted, it isn’t very convincing that a few participants get killed in the first few seconds of the battle so dismissively (I just don’t think people would find it that easy to do), and the jargon of the novels is sometimes not as well explained as it could be, but this film is far more compelling than Battle Royale, the 2000 Japanese film it is being compared to.

I can’t wait for the sequel!

7/10 

Review: 21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street is one of the funniest films I have seen for a long time.  Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum is one of the strangest comedy double acts I’ve encountered since Hill appeared with Russell Brand in Get Him to the Greek.  Again, Hill is on top form and ensures that – strangely – it works.

Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) went to the same high school, but their paths never crosses.  Schmidt was an unpopular dork, whereas Jenko was the high-school heartthrob and always surrounded by the cool kids.  After graduation, both of them joined the police force and became partners as wardens for the local park.  But an undercover mission now requires their assistance.  As they both look young, they are to go incognito as high school students to infiltrate a drug ring that is supplying and dealing within the school.

Tatum apparently declined the role twice and needed to be persuaded by Hill.  And it’s a good job he was convinced; he seems at ease in a comedy role.  Whereas his recent performance in The Vow was virtually emotionless and unconvincing, his role as a clumsy undercover cop works because he is glorious at playing dumb.  Hill – having lost over 40 pounds to act the stunt scenes – still pulls off the jovial, fat man look with style and charm.

Johnny Depp (star of the original TV series) makes a brief cameo, and the rapper Ice Cube is relatively funny as the duo’s cop boss.  Some of the comedy was crude and frankly unfunny.  But it’s a sweet story with an unlikely bromance and sharp wit.

I can’t put it any more succinctly than the review that USA Today gave: “The dialogue is fast-paced and full of pop-culture references. It all makes for an entertaining blend of buddy-cop action and irreverent teen-comedy satire.”

Best high school comedy since Superbad (another Jonah Hill movie).  There’s a theme beginning here…

7/10.

Review: The Devil Inside

Isabella Rossi travels to Italy to visit Maria, her estranged mother of 20 years, locked away in an asylum after being convicted of killing 3 people in 1989, supposedly during demonic possession.  Isabella seeks to understand the truth behind the horrific events and to find out if her mother really is possessed.  Attempts to cure Maria using unconventional, Vatican-prohibited exorcism methods go awry, and they discover that Maria is possessed by more than one demon, which will not go quietly.

This ever-popular genre of cinema adds to its encyclopedic index a forgettable, lacklustre entry; a cliché lost amongst the listings of its scarier, more effective supernatural found-footage counterparts, such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.

The sheer lameness of The Devil Inside is difficult to overstate.  It is nothing more than a cheap, uneventful production made worse by robotic, unconvincing acting and a blatant lack of effort in creating thrills and chills.

Despite some genuinely disturbing scenes where innocent characters become possessed contortionists and an unnerving scene with Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) in her room at the Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane, The Devil Inside is, quite frankly, boring.

Amateur in all its constituent elements – acting, writing and directing – this is a movie to be avoided at all costs.  With one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying endings in recent history, this movie is frustrating as it could have been so much better.

As William Thomas of Empire writes: “Some found footage should really just stay lost.”

Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Marigold Hotel tracks the journeys – not just physical, but emotional and spiritual - of several British retirees who travel to the eponymous hotel in India to spend their golden years.  Lured by advertisements of a newly-restored hotel aimed at the “elderly and beautiful”, they arrive to find it in a state of disrepair.  But in a format reminiscent of Love Actually, the characters’ stories become slowly intertwined; unlikely friendships form and their collective experiences transform their lives forever.

Evelyn (Judi Dench), recently widowed and burdened by her late husband’s debts, sells her home in the UK and travels alone to explore a new life in India.  Once there, she undertakes her first paid job in a call centre, teaching the staff how to appear less robotic and scripted in their overseas sales calls.
Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton) have been married for 39 years and have recently lost all their savings by investing in their daughter’s failed internet business.  Unable to afford any kind of home in the UK they move to the Marigold Hotel.
Muriel (Maggie Smith) outsources her hip replacement to avoid a six-month waiting list in the UK.  It is revealed that she lives alone, never marrying or settling down after devoting her life to the care of another family.  She is bitter that she has not had the typical middle-class lifestyle.  It is made clear that she is a racist.
Graham (Tom Wilkinson) returns to India, where he was raised as a young boy until the age of 18.  He wants closure to a homosexual relationship that was broken off when his family uprooted to the UK.
Norman (Ronald Pickup) is an aged womaniser.  His attempts to seduce younger women are a façade of his unwillingness to admit to his age and his consequent undesirability for young women.  His visit to India is in the hope of finding a new lover to settle down with.
Madge (Celia Imrie) is tired of her daughter’s attempts to keep her at home.  She is energetic and seeks fun and adventure.  She travels to India for much the same reason as Norman.

Although the characters’ backgrounds and motives for emigration are diverse, they all share a common goal: that of finding the missing jigsaw piece to make their lives ‘complete’ and satisfy their own desires that when they die they will have lived a life of purpose.  Their consciences travel a road that leads them to appreciate that - despite appearances - one culture is not so different from another.

Marigold Hotel is a brutally honest account of the anxieties of being old.  But as the bonds strengthen, the retirees come to appreciate that their blooming friendships transcend the menial concerns about bricks and mortar.  Whilst they struggle with their own romantic heartbreaks, their past regrets and concerns about the future, they are forced to put their prejudices aside for the sake of understanding that there is a dazzling world to be explored far outside their comfort zones, one with endless possibilities. 

Dev Patel is great as the young, optimistic hotel owner Sonny; the production casts light on a vibrant Eastern culture in a surprisingly alluring way, and the notable performances are from Tom Wilkinson (tissues at the ready!) and the dry humour of the genius that is Bill Nighy, as his character realises his marriage is falling apart.

Supported by a constellation of names in a glittering ensemble cast, director John Madden (also director of the critically-acclaimed 1998 Shakespeare in Love) has surpassed expectations in adapting Deborah Moggach’s novel These Foolish Things.  He has crafted a timeless piece of cinema that is surprisingly moving and enjoyable for people of any age.  A moralistic accomplishment that deserves attention across the globe, Marigold should teach us all that there is always more out there.  All we have to do is look.  And as the film tells us: “Everything will be all right in the end… if it’s not all right then it’s not the end.” One simply needs to keep looking.

Review: The Woman in Black

The 1983 Susan Hill novel of the same name gets an ominous revival for the big screen, and starring big name Daniel Radcliffe who is intent on showing critics that he need not be typecast forever as The Boy Who Lived. Directed by James Watkins (who directed the morbidly disturbing and relentlessly brutal 2008 horror Eden Lake), The Woman in Black goes far beyond the traditional cliched ghost story.

Young lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) travels to an isolated island village to settle the affairs of Alice Drablow, the recently deceased owner of Eel Marsh House.

Arthur is recently bereaved and, struggling financially to support his young son, takes up the thankless job of travelling to the bleak location, separated from the mainland by a causeway which is cut off at high tide. Once there he stumbles across the unforgiving ghost of the “Woman in Black”, intent on getting her revenge for a past injustice.

The locals have been terrorised for years and attempt to dissuade Arthur from staying any longer, but he insists upon doing so in order to protect his job. Radcliffe convincingly exudes the qualities of caring father, desperately longing widower and, when he attempts to appease the ghost’s wishes, a sensible young man with a moral compass; all simultaneously and with the nexessary maturity.

Robbie Collin writes on The Telegraph Online: “Don’t be reassured by the 12A certificate: there’s barely a glimpse of anything scary in this film, but that’s precisely what makes it so terrifying.” This is not a movie for anyone with a nervous predisposition. In a cinematic age where supernatural thrillers dispense carefully crafted scares ten to the dozen at meticulously timed intervals, Watkins makes sure that the audience is unaware of the impending shock, and the use of shadows and long, empty corridors give an omnipresent sense of dread even without a crescendo of ominous music and a jump-out-of-your-seat thrill (although be assured they are out there, waiting!)

The Woman in Black has already seen success in the theatrical medium, holding the position of second-longest running show on the West End. Its remake for a modern, cinematic audience is a masterpiece of chill, suspense and enduring threat not from what is visible, but from what is hidden.

Admittedly, Radcliffe is no patch on Nicole Kidman’s performance in The Others, for example. The threat was made ever-more real by the convincing fear in Kidman’s eyes; her actions spoke a thousand otherwise trembling words. The drawn-out silent scenes of The Woman in Black do indeed add to the suspense, but are far less convincing than other modern suspense films (The Orphanage springs to mind as another example). It is difficult to disgaree with The Guardian Online’s review that Radcliffe sometimes displays an expression of vacant indifference, when he should appear to be terrified. But to give him credit, when he does look scared, it makes everyone else scared for – and with – him.

But Radcliffe should now have assuaged critics that he is far more diverse than playing literature’s most famous boy wizard (if he hadn’t already with his brave West End perofrmance in Equus) and Watkins proves himself yet again as a skilful master of British cinema. Watch out for this up-and-coming British talent.

I take my hat off to everyone involved in this film. Or I would if I wasn’t hiding beneath it!

Tuition fees: The modern face of racism.

With news that university applications have dropped 8.7% in one year across the whole of the UK, many will be speculating why this may be. Many, however, will not. To a lot of current and prospective students, the trebling of fees at most universities to £9,000 is the biggest factor.

When broken down, the results show a huge 8.7% drop in English applicants, but a less significant drop in Welsh (1.9%) and Scottish (1.5%) figures. It doesn’t need the wit of Sherlock Holmes to deduce that these smaller figures are because Welsh and Scottish students have their tuition subsidised.

Under a complicated financial equation used by the Government, English citizens are, in effect, paying for Scottish and Welsh tuition. More money is spent per head in Wales and Scotland than is in England, the justification being that they are supposedly more deprived than England. This has enabled the Scottish and Welsh governments to subsidise tuition fees amongst other things, such as medical prescriptions.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU lecturers’ union says that England is now the “most expensive country in the world in which to gain a public degree”. This is simply disgraceful. The idea of a United Kingdom is becoming less of a certainty, and more of an idealistic fantasy. Either everybody should pay the same, or nobody should pay at all.

Consider this bizarre (yet not at all hypothetical) situation: a non-British EU citizen will be able to study at any Welsh ­university and pay fees of £3,290 a year (the current level of fees which has been frozen by the Welsh Assembly), whereas an ­English ­student ­following the same course at the same university will have to pay £9,000 a year.

Not only are students within our own devolved United Kingdom getting more rights than English students, so now are foreign students. The UK government has set up a system of tuition fees which can be described in no simpler terms than astonishingly – and unjustifiably – racist.

And politicians wonder why social unity appears to be a thing of the past – it’s been abandoned at the very top of the ladder.

And that, as they say, is that.

So here I am.  I’ve come full circle.

52 weeks.  52 blog posts.  24,836 words and counting. 

What a year it’s been! Whereas 2010 brought us the coalition government, bank bailouts and a very selfish Icelandic volcano, 2011 saw Middle East revolutions, the Royal Wedding, the death of Osama bin Laden, the death of Steve Jobs and the long-awaited verdict over Michael Jackson’s death.  A lot sure happens in a year!

Even on a personal level, a lot has happened this year.  I passed first year of university, I moved out of the family home, my mum got remarried and broke the news that I’m going to have another little brother.  I even dealt with a serious case of copyright infringement! (my storywriting is just too good…) Not uneventful then!

I don’t think the final blog post would be complete without a look back at the first.  I wrote about my 3 New Year’s goals, and I’m quite pleased with my progress, even if I do say so myself.  I won’t use the word success, because the whole premise of me calling them ‘goals’ and not ‘resolutions’ is that they weren’t problems that needed resolving.  The intention was that these would merely be aspirations; created to produce a positive feeling if they were achieved, rather than to induce a negative feeling if they were not.

  1. To set up (and maintain) a blog – I have written a blog post every week all year, on a variety of topics, including but not limited to (take a breath…): technology, medicine, politics, religion, cannibalism, Pixar, the Royal Wedding, music, superinjunctions, Derren Brown, poor grammar, Harry Potter, the summer riots, 9/11, The X Factor, Karl Pilkington, Remembrance Day, the Turner Prize, Christmas and Scrabble!

    I think I can say I’ve achieved this goal! I love writing, and I have really enjoyed the sense of purpose and escapism that my blog has given me.  I’ve had such great feedback that I’ve decided to keep the blog (but only post sparingly) and use the 25,000 words I would write by blogging every week to start writing a novel (just to make a start at it!). A big challenge, I know!
  2. To trace my family tree – I realised pretty quickly that this is not only more difficult than I first thought, but that it’s not something I particularly have the energy to do right now. Unlike the celebs on “Who Do You Think You Are?” I don’t have the convenience of somebody doing it for me.  It’s something I’d like to do in a few years’ time.
  3. To break a world record – This is one I wasn’t expecting to achieve at all, but surprisingly I did.  As part of the Psychology Society at uni, we do a lot of volunteering for a local mental health charity, and at a family-oriented summer fayre in June they coincidentally had a world record attempt of most number of adults reading a story to most number of children.  In the spirit of volunteering (and my desire to fulfil this goal!) we gave it a go.  Although the record was broken again before Guinness World Records could issue certificates, I’d still like to be able to tick this off the list!

As Meat Loaf once said, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. I’ll stick at just the one goal next year as it’s quite a big one! I’ve got lots of other things to do such as run a half marathon and do a skydive, which can all add to my sense of satisfaction at the end of the year, but they’ve already been planned.

So all that’s left to say is Happy New Year everyone! The year 2012 can be anything you want it to be. .make it a good one!

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice”

~T.S. Eliot

Christmas is not a Bear Grylls survival expedition.

Reading through the newspaper the other day, I came across the cliched and predictable “Guide To Surviving Christmas” article that always appears this time of year.

The “how to avoid family feuds” and “how to keep the children entertained” sections annoyed me the most. Taking inspiration from the festive song, Christmas is supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year”.  To me, it’s a time to chill out as much as possible.

I admit that trips to shopping centres can be a recipe for disaster if you encounter anyone with a wheelchair, pushchair, free-running and/or screaming children, on their phones, with too many shopping bags or wandering aimlessly with clearly no idea what they want to buy.  If I spend more than 30 minutes in a shopping centre, I will turn psycho and want to ruthlessly murder everyone in my path. 

But as much as possible, you shouldn’t let Christmas stress you out.  Family feuds shouldn’t be happening. Take a chill pill and don’t let things get to you. Why would you be arguing anyway?

As for “how to keep the children entertained”, are these journalists forgetting that it’s CHRISTMAS DAY?! You know, the day when children get loads of BRAND NEW PRESENTS! As long as you’ve been to Poundland to buy an assortment of batteries, you should be fine.

For me, Christmas is a day where I gladly turn off my computer and my phone and avoid contact from the outside world. No texts, calls, emails or news updates.  It’s a day where if I have lots of food, get to wear a party hat and can watch the Queen’s Speech and Doctor Who, I will be the happiest person alive.

It’s not a day I have any need to “survive”, like it’s some sort of life-threatening venture into the wilderness; but a day that I gladly relish with all its peculiarities and traditions.

This year, don’t survive Christmas…live it!

Merry Christmas Everyone! :)