films of 2009: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

(More of a personal re-cap than a review)



This film was quite anticipated, and was in the works for a long long time. Tarintino, having a good track record and a number of cult movies under his belt, like many of the other fans i expected ALOT from him - and my expectations were exceeded.

The film, was absolutley brilliant. To put it very simply: Its everything any tarinto fan would expect from the man himself, its quirky, its extremely violent, its obscene and very witty. Tarintinos story telling abilities are also at its best in this film, presenting it to us in chapters as he did with the kill bill Volumes, and throwing some out-landish and diverse characters in the mix.

Brad Pitt gives us a gritty and comical performance as Lt. Aldo Raine, which is met by Christoph Waltz' sinister and brutal portrayal of Col. Hans Landa.

The rest of the cast also give great performances, Eli Roth, Daniel Bruhl and B.J. Novak are all names worth remembering.

Other than what ive said, I couldn't really find a weak point in the whole movie, its just one of those films i enjoyed from start to finish.

9/10

films of 2009: WATCHMEN

(More of a personal re-cap than a review)


This is brought to us by 'visionary' 300 director and 'watchmen' fan boy Zak Snyder. It was inevitable that the film was going to be heavily criticized by fans from the start, but compared to other adaptions of Alan Moore's work, this has to be the best so far. ( from hell and v for vendetta were very average films at best, with the exception of league of extraordinary gentlemen which was incredibly bad)

If you're a fan of the original graphic novel, then you're probably already going to be biast like alot of people were/are, and you'll no doubt see flaws here and there through out the film (especially the ending which seems quite 'infamous' among the fans of the original work)

But that doesn't mean this can't be enjoyed, and as a film i think this works very well. Zack Snyder has shot this in a superb way, and ive herd alot of people say its style over substance, which i disagree with. The cinematography and special effects obviously make it a pleasurable visual experience, But this isn't on the same level as Avatar when it comes to style over substance. Alan Moore's characters are brought to life and to the big screen perfectly here, with some especially outstanding performances from Jackie Earle Haley as RORSCHACH and patrick wilson as NIGHT OWL II.

Whether you're a fan of the graphic novel, or haven't even read it, id recommend this to anyone.

8.25/10

Nameless

I saw you last night,

and i felt your hopelessness.

i don't want you to brush that off,

i want you to sincerely know that there was a moment when i was fully absorbed in all that had

dragged you down.

i felt that cancer, and it saddened me so.

never have i felt so much fear.

i can see you're running away, you might be fooling them, but you're not fooling me. But thats okay.

don't be further afraid of this my friend, please know i mean it in every comforting way possible.

you're lonely and ever so haunted, and you don't want to know the answers to your questions.

answers like that will cut you so hard, it will be something you won't be walking away from.

and that's a realisation we both cant handle right now.

and if anything, at least we have that in common, my familiar stranger.

at least theres that.

The Rain Machine.

Its around 6:30-6:45 am, i can hear the rain coming down. We've had it bad for a few days now, flat out torrential. I'm in the dark, in my room and with the TV on, but I'm not looking at it, instead I'm looking at the shadowy blue glow which is forming behind my curtains; a winters sun rise.

Without warning, the rain comes down harder than Ive ever herd it before, and for a few moments it makes a din so loud it sounded as if i giant truck was going past, except the noise wouldn't fade out as it dissapears further down the road. For the first few minutes it was sort of alarming.

I sat up and looked out my window, the rain was hailing down like a son of a bitch, and the wind was really giving it all it had; trees were bowing, bushes were being given a severe beating and the pavements were being pummelled by a weather-punch of hard, freakish rain.

I looked upon it all, and it was sort of magnificent. It was like a fearsome attempt of washing this terrible, dirty place, and that in itself (successful or non -successful) is quite a beautiful thing. Credit is deffinatley due to whoever it is upstairs operating the rain machine - who also probably just pulled a double shift.

Thanks so much.

Sick.

Sick of the scene and state of things.

Sick of snobbery in contemporary art

Sick of scene kids and the front they put on,

Sick of their fucking tattoos as well

Sick of loud and mentally under developed, pub going, league cup final watching macho bastards who refer to themselves and their friends as 'lads'

Sick of the 'big man' talk

Sick of testosterone

sick of waynes world-esque metal heads who raise their noses and look down at hip-hop

Sick of clean cut and trendy people who say rock music and its sub-genres is just 'noise'

sick of White boys dressing and acting like blacks

Sick of blacks who talk all slurred and incorrect

Sick of skinheads who have no fucking reason to be racist other than the fact that they watched 'Romper Stomper' or 'This is England' and thought it was cool

Sick of Religion

Sick of british kids who think they are' mods' - don't make me laugh

Sick of hipsters who think they are all clones of Ian Curtis and try way too hard at it

Sick of skinny jeans

Sick of 13-14 year old girls who spend their parents dough on CD's from bands which are undeniably shit - but do so anyway because the singer and/or the bassist are 'hot'

Sick of every tit on myspace advertising their shitty little band.

Sick of teeny bop blink 182 fanatics who call themselves punk rock

sick of Emo bands calling themselves 'Indie'

Sick of long hair

Sick of how originality got bombed and wiped out.

Sick of reality TV shows like BIG BROTHER,

AND sick of all the fucking Numskulls that watch it and get so worked up over it

Sick of people Hu typ all lik dis innit

Sick of slang talk

Sick of hypocrisy

Sick of greed

Sick of people who say things like ''yeh well i used to listen to that band before they became popular'' < Just stop talking you self rightous little Bastard.

Sick of TV

Sick of feminism and feminists and whatever else it comes under (i dunno, like 'cult' or 'nazism'?)

Sick of bottled water being so over priced

Sick of john wayne movies that play on M-PIX during the day - they're fucking shit.

oh, and sick of how Chuck Norris has become an internet meme - have any of you herd of Dolph Lundgren or Steven Segal?

Winter.

We're deep in September now, approaching the gloomy face of October. Its fair to say that winter is on its way and those bastard-heat- sleepless nights of summer now behind us and forgotten.

Truth is i like winter, and its not just because i hate the summer. I like winter because i prefer the cold, and i prefer the dark mornings, but its also a really pleasant and nostalgic time for me. I have alot of really nice memories in winter - of burnt orange fields of Autumn days, and of frost covered footpaths of December evenings.

Winter feels like a good time to reflect aswell. I suppose its because winter being the last season, and the last season being at the tail end of the year, means new beginnings will start soon with Christmas fading into the new year. I think reflection CAN be a a positive and REALLY inspiring thing.

Among other things, Winter of 2008 led me to the decision of meeting a girl 3000 miles away from me who i would eventually marry just a year and a half later.

So, heres to reflection and inspiration.

Cheers.

Era /

As im writing this, im not sure of the date but i know it will tell you once i've posted it.

Ive recently made the massive transition of moving to Canada, alone, to live with my girlfriend.

ive had to leave my family, and the very few friends that i had. The people i miss the most are my brother, and my best friend Jay.

Alot of people have told me time and again that ive had alot of guts to do this. i think its takes some balls, but not ALOT. see, there was this one day in september, the end of september actually. a day that i won't ever forget, and niether will my girlfriend. To cut a long story short, i had visited her in september with much anticipation of meeting her. There was an undeniable connection between the two of us, and we hit it off, to say the least. I had an amazing month with her, i got to meet her family, i got to meet some of her friends, we went to montreal together for 2 weeks, saw sigur ros live, went from metro to metro, and watched the sleepaway camp trilogy. i had the most amazing time with her, the only thing i regret is not taking enough pictures.


It came to the end of September and i had to leave. It was the most heartbreaking day of my life, truly. There was a moment before we departed where we looked into eachothers eyes and knew it was goodbye for a while. i was so overwhelmed with emotion that day and more so at that moment. when you've experienced that moment, especially when you don't have much going for you back at home except a shit pot job in an unpleasant neighburhood, you realise that it doesn't take THAT much balls to wanna move far away in order to live with the one person who truly holds your heart.

So now, some months later, after her coming to england for 2 weeks in january to spend the aftermath of christmas together, im here in canada with her. Ive learnt that goodbyes are ugly. Ive learnt that some people, will never change. Ive learnt that my best friend is Jay Short. Ive learnt that i should never have met some people, and that i should of just stayed away. Though saying that, i wouldn't of met my fiance today if i had that philosiphy in mind.

Ive learnt that i need to grow, and need to be better, to be more. Ive learnt that the world is a much bigger place than a little island called Britain. Ive learnt that chips and gravy is magnificent. Ive learnt that this blog is just becoming ramblings. Ive learnt that i cant smoke weed without feeling sick to my stomach, and i cant drink alcohol most times without getting violent, agressive and nasty.

Ive learnt that 'Sang Dencre' is one of the greatest songs ever written.


Back to the origianl idea of this blog: Era.

when i said goodbye to my family, and already having a sad goodbye to my best friend a couple of nights prior, i crossed the line into customs, went through that metal detector thing, and locked myself straight into the toilets to cry my eyes out, and pull my self together. Leaving my home country, my family and friends to live with my girlfriend in canada was the end of an Era. ESPECIALLY after everything that had happened, after all those expensive phonecalls to eachother, the conversations, the extra shifts at the cinema for cash, that bloody cold winter that year. Its what everything had been building up to. the end of an era, but ofcourse the start of a new one, and something much much bigger. infact, something much much bigger than i could ever have imagined myself doing.

This blog is just a recap on how strange - yet amazing life has been the past couple of years. The story of my life, infact.

---