Some of these were good, some were great, some won’t be watched again – a good mixture then. The unwatched pile however has not had a noticeable dent.

Flight of the Conchords Season 1, having been finally acquired from Mike was watched. Very amusing. Regret watching it all in a weekend though as the dialogue could be a bit dense at times and would have really benefited from full concentration. Murray is the greatest comedy character in years. His bemusement over how many New Zealanders are mugged when he advises them to avoid crowds and stick to the back alleys is priceless.

Messengers was quite amusing, if a bit predictable. Effects were to an acceptable standard, although I think the point which grabbed my attention most was seeing William B Davis in the opening credits to be fair. His character was a bit meh

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town was quite a fun £1.99er picked up for the humour of it starring Jane Krakowski (Elaine in Ally McBeal). Amusing coming of age film which was nowhere near as good as most in the genre.

Surviving Christmas (Christina Applegate) was a pretty shit Christmas movie which I watched in April for sheer humour value. Ben Affleck plays a character who is even more of annoying whiny dick than usual. He must have really reached far inside to create him and should be commended for that if nothing else. Every character was immensely dislikeable and unbelievable. I will happily watch films but having not one single likeable character puts a huge brick wall up in front of my enjoyment of a movie.

Creep was a very enjoyable horror although the main baddie was a bit shit. Hobbling one second, beating characters who were running the next. The main character deserved to die for being stupid enough to have the Creep in the ground injured and possibly knocked out with a giant spear next to her. Rather than kill the fucker she runs for the next 30minutes(?) of the film. I’m really tiring of horrors with stupid characters and giant plot holes, at least with psychological horrors you can empathise with the victims as you are focusing on what they are going through. The director in a special feature also speaks of how you can sympathise for the Creep who captures women, keeps them in cages and then rams giant blades into their genitals. Probably says more about him than the audience I think.

I have watched quite a few films this month but can’t remember all of them unfortunately.

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What I got was, well, mince. Dire acting, pitiful jokes, ridiculous symbolism. Lesbian vampires being defeated by spurting thick white gloop all over the place with the head one killed by being stabbed by the cock sword, a sword, with a penis carved into the handle. Psychologists will find this film a gold mine into the deranged brains of the writers.

Absolutely abysmal, I had expected a Shaun of the Dead style spoof, some intelligence, not jokes which would have peaked in amusement for me at age 12. Definitely don’t intend to watch again.

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At times it could be a bit of a slog at over 2 hours long, but it was well worth it in the end. It had a really unusual style. The introduction had the screen split in halves with textual detail of who was who and hints and explanation to plots at the side, this happened at sporadic points throughout the film and is how it finished with a where are they now? section, which lately has only been used in really cheesy comedies. The other bizarre style change was during some of the sex scenes when the camera rotates so that both characters are vertical, quite strange.

The movie is comprised of three main plots, a brother and stepsister make up the real anchor of the story. One arc is about the stepsister, a second about the life of the stepbrother and a third which eventually interlinks with both of them. I was quite amazed by Lisa Kudrows acting. After seeing some of the other Friends actors films I wasn’t expecting much (yes Jennifer Anniston I am looking at you, Office Space and Derailed are your only decent attempts at acting and one of those you are a really minor character). She is superb in this. Steve Coogan plays basically a really weak Alan Partridge. Basically the same what I think is important, other people can get hurt but I’ll say what I feel, having a partner means he has to scramble afterwards to clean up the mess but it wasn’t a real departure from Partridge. That’s not to say he is bad or typecast, far from it just that you could see hints of his main character there.

I looked at it with Kudrow and Coogan and thought the main genre of the movie would be the comedy aspect but it really wasn’t. There were funny parts but no laugh out loud moments that I can remember.

Well worth watching.

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1. Our mums and dads fuck us up
2. they don’t mean to
1. but they do

It’s the opening lines from the first verse of Philip Larkin – This be the verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

Well, they needed to redeem themselves and they did so. You finally saw some characters settling into a group and some good interactions between people, although it’s still nowhere near as good as series 1 and 2. There is still a hell of a long way to go to even become as good as the worst episodes of season 1 and 2 so it’s earned a reprieve for a few more episodes. Hopefully the end of the season will be amazing and the early episodes will justify themselves on a rewatch with things you miss or don’t think are important on a first watch.

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The question is, underneath the main plot of the film what does it show of the slums and poverty in which the majority of the film is set?

The first thing you notice about the slums is the grime, the cameras chosen really show off the filth everywhere. Danny Boyle chose to shoot parts of the movies in the real shantytown of Mumbai rather than sets. The kids play cricket on the only available flat area – the airport which backs on to their homes. After being spotted they are chased and beaten by the Police. After a short period seeing their basic lives the turning point is a sectarian attack by a gang of thugs angry at people having a different religion to themselves. The police are now turning a blind eye to the brutality of the sectarian mob. The children are rendered homeless and living in a garbage dump, an even worse situation than they had been in before.

From here you see a number of different routes out of the lives of the slum dwellers. There is begging in a Fagan style gang. Involvement in criminal gangs and as a teaboy in a call centre. No positive or progressive lifestyles are shown for those in poverty in the film. This narrow look at life only focuses on the main characters and not the wider society they live in and really limits the film to be a love story set against a backdrop of abject poverty rather than a film that takes a serious and detailed look at this life. This has been the basis of most of the criticism of the film, and I admit slightly disappointed me when I had watched it. To be fair though it was never marketed as exploring these issues, I had just hoped it would spend a small amount of time looking at them rather than featuring them as the fluff for the background of the love story.

Review after review have described it as a feel good movie. Certain parts of it were certainly cheerful, laugh out loud moments. The ending is as feel good as the reviews train you to expect. Other parts of the film are far from feel good. Part of the opening of the film is seeing Jamal, the main character being brutally tortured. Seeing the poverty in the shantytowns, the exploitation of a young woman was not a cheerful part of the movie. One early scene had me squirming as some reviews had mentioned child abuse being an issue in the film and I had mistakenly thought it may be sexual rather than physical, verbal and emotional. Those last three are certainly aspects of the movie although thankfully the former was not, although it was certainly implied that a girl was to be sold to a man.

The movie is certainly entertaining, deserving of its praise and all the Oscars which may fly it’s way. It is a film I would highly recommend anyone to see. It is not however one you will be laughing all the way through as the reviews imply. When I saw it on opening weekend in a packed screen the end was greeted with complete silence. Probably the most suitable way to digest the complete story you have been shown.

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I really liked Series 1 and 2, there was a willingness to explore topics few other series would as well as quite good character arcs. With the cast moving on and a new one starting I had high hopes for the new series.

What we seemed to get was Skins to the XTREME!!!!!

We had Cook being more Tony than Tony. We had JJ playing the most annoying traits of Sid and Anwar. We had Pandora as Cassie after being dropped on her head as a child and we had Effy as Effy Max with extra smoking at every possible moment.

Hopefully this was just showing all the extreme character traits so you could identify each person easily in future episodes and this won’t be their characterisations on every single episode. On the positive side we had Effy as a pretty similar character as before, her arc will probably be the main one in the show. Katie and Emily interaction is going to be quite good if the writers show even half the skill as the previous series of showing episodes from individual characters points of view. We saw Katie being a complete bitch to her sister, but not really any insight into what her view of Emily is. Neither Freddie nor Thomas made much of an impression. I sense Naomi being the token activist with ever changing obsessions every week, much as Hollyoaks** have done with that annoying character.

I almost forgot, all the teachers were pretty bizarre too. Previously all the characters had some sort of flaw, so far everyone appears to be completely dysfunctional. Not to mention cliché person in Communications who has trouble communicating. As soon as her title was announced I groaned as it was soooo obvious given what had happened already in the episode.

It can only improve.

* Who I recently found out have finally gotten round to releasing that second album. It was quite good too. And I have just discovered they will be in Glasgow soon.
**Usually on at tea time, occasionally interesting, mostly boring.

*** Note to self, 8am = grammar broked

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Having picked The Astronaughts Wife up for one and two thirds of a pound in Grouchos I wasn’t really expecting much. Checking imdb also shows an average rating on 4.9. It was actually surprisingly good and I would definitely watch again. The film was scary, intense and quite riveting. In places you grew annoyed as some of the characters but Charlize Theron totally pulled you in. Loads of wee subtle things (Depp feeling her temperature to see if she’s ovulating) and things I hadn’t quite worked out (the constant focus and emphasis on hands moving) mean I will watch again at some point to see what I can pick out.

If I haven’t mentioned before I always spot wee things in the background of movies and TV shows, some examples include:

• Random extras and what other films they’ve been in.
• David Boreanaz doing some amazingly silly things on Angel whilst someone else, Lorne or Wes mostly, is the focus of the camera.
• Shaun in This Is England having me in stitches slyly letting someone sniff his fingers as he passes them on his way into the living room after being out the backs with a girl.

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Generally after making tea, doing dishes and catching up on random e-mails we settle down to a movie, anything from rom-com to horror to world cinema.

So far the ones which I haven’t blocked out this year have been:

Dead Creatures

Catacombs

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Crime and Punishment in Suburbia

Dead Creatures was quite a fun romp. This is described as similar to Trainspotting in style. A group of young women have been bitten and turned into people who crave human flesh and move from place to place drugging men in pubs, prostituting themselves or just attacking in dark alleys to find victims. Quite cheesy in places but enjoyable. The best scene is one of the girls leaving a newsagent with a copy of the Guardian when her arm starts to not function. The first sign that the zombieitis is starting to control her.

Catacombs was a horror set in France, bought on the cheap on the basis that it was by the people who produced Saw and also starred Pink. Her acting was actually alright until her final scenes in the movie at which point I was bursting out laughing at it, and at the plot spoilers etc. Meh, might watch again at some point.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was quite good and a bargain in Grouchos 3/£5 shite bin section (where a large amount of my movie collection comes from). Some decent acting from loads of people in their second or third films. Lots of the actions were incredulous due to shitty writing rather than poor acting. Ok subversion of slasher movie tropes.

Crime and Punishment in Suburbia was watched for the second time, and I had forgotten it starred Vincent Kartheiser (Connor in Angel). He is quite good as an obsessed stalker of the hot girl in school yadda yadda. Abusive parent played remarkably well by Michael Ironside who will forever be refereed to as Richter from Total Recall no matter what he does.

Looks like we will have to hit rom-com/comedy territory to balance out film intake.

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Russian Standard

Russian Standard has been heavily advertised in the media lately*. Tesco for a while were punting it at £25 for 2 litres which is pretty good. It has quite a nice flavour to it so I try to make sure I have a bottle in (although I don’t just now).

Volume: 1L
Alcohol: 40%
Cost: £12.50
Cheapest spotted: £12.50/litre Tesco deal.

Normally:
Cost per nip (25ml): 44p
Cost per proper nip (35ml): 62p

* Although I had bought my first bottle of it months before that campaign, trendsetter that I am etc etc.

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SKYY Vodka

SKYY has been my favourite vodka for a while now. The other half brought me back a bottle from New York and it was gorgeous. Was a bit of a nightmare to find locally though, online it was costing £22 for a 70cl!

On the recent holiday to Mexico I made sure to grab 2 litre bottles on the way back, especially at £7 each.

The odour is amazing and it is so smooth, I normally add a mixer but can happily drink this straight.

Volume: 1L
Alcohol: 40%
Cost: £7
Cheapest spotted: £15 for 70CL in Threshers, Glasgow

Normally:
Cost per nip (25ml): 53p
Cost per proper nip (35ml): 75p

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Smirnoff Black

I picked up a bottle of Smirnoff Black a while back and finally popped it open. They market it as:

Crafted in small batches, using a copper pot-still, a centuries-old distillation method, smirnoff black recaptures the rounded, lasting, uncompromising smootness once savoured by the people and the czars of old Russia.

It was ok, a bit smoother than normal Smirnoff with the same odour. Probably wouldn’t buy again as it’s expensive for what you get and there are better ones for less.

Volume: 70CL
Alcohol: 40%
Cost: £20
Cheapest spotted: £18.29

Cost per nip (25ml): 71p
Cost per proper nip (35ml): £1

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