Seeking a Friend for the End of the World - Film Review

Of all the apocalyptic films that I have seen, from Armageddon to I Am Legend - none have been more thought provoking than Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. This is probably because it takes the piss out of the situation. The film sees the unlikely pairing of Steve Carell and Keira Knightley when the Earth is given an exact day of death - three weeks from the films beginning. The neighbours, Dodge and Penny, pair up to achieve their pre-apocalypse dreams.

Dodge is on a mission to re-unite with the first woman he ever loved (awww) whilst Penny has the simple desire of getting home, to England. The pair have quite a journey in the now chaotic orgy-fest world, there are twists and the film is completely hilarious at points - other parts are tear-worthy and the ending was pretty lame ... well it's kind of Marmite-esque - It creates mixed opinions. One thing I was shocked at is that for once I found neither Steve Carell or Keira Knightley annoying. In the case of Carell he is not his usual try-hard self, and in the case of Knightley I realised that it is because she is not her usual pout faced self! - she has learnt other facial expression, I kid you not. 

Thoughts Provoked...

The film provokes thoughts by not only taking the piss out of the situation, but looking at it from another angle. Most apocalyptic film see the point of view of the President trying to save the day with a spaceship loaded with the worlds leading astronauts and sciencey people. This film however, sees an average bloke whose wife dips out of their marital contract three weeks before she would have achieved her vow 'till death' who struggles to take in the fact that the world is ending, and continues to go to work each day. This is where the thought provoking begins. 

In the film Dodge continues going to work for a week or so, he drives past men mowing the lawn, and visits friends who encourage their child to drink alcohol. In reality, who the hell would go to work? Nobody would need money and would have nowhere to spend it because nobody would be going to work. It would become a dog eat dog world, imagine the supermarkets when snow is predicted - except it is a snowstorm for three weeks long. Chaos. And this is the point where human kind lose their morals. Morals are only really needed in a civilised society, and society will be far from civilized. Like with the film, people went crazy doing things you never usually would - drugs, orgys, giving kids alcohol - just because you now can. 

If a person considers all the things they want to do before they die, their bucket list - ideally these are things that in a situation where you are given a period of time until your untimely death, that you could complete. However, in a situation where EVERYBODY is dying - your list will become irrelevant. Perhaps too, even the point in living - why carry on when you can't even achieve any of those lifelong dreams. There would be no laws in this time-bomb world, the biggest crimes such as murder would barely matter, as soon -you will all be dead. 

Little bit of positivity in the evening, but these are the dark thoughts provoked by a comedy...

Making pre-apocalyptic dreams come true? 

Whore - Short Story

When she walked through the front door to their house, she was the most surprised she had been in their 8 year marriage. Greeting her was a trail of rose petals – red rose petals. She had to catch her breath. ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ she thought. She set her handbag down on the dining table and hung her coat on the rack, then took a look in the mirror, re-touched her make-up and undid the first three buttons on her blouse to reveal some cleavage.

She took a deep breath and with bated anticipation began to follow the spontaneous trail, which as she discovered led to their bedroom. She took another deep breath as she reached the door, and settled her hand upon the handle as her heartbeat quickened at the thought of what was waiting on the other side.        

    

The door swung open. The coming events were not drawer dropping, but jaw dropping. Her eyes settled upon her naked, sweaty husband – who was apparently not naked for her benefit. Then her eyes examined the body beneath his. Skinnier than her, younger than her, and as she quickly noticed more flexible – the question on her lips was why, but by what she was quickly noticing, there was no need to ask.  But that however was all she managed to say, “Why?” at first she said it quietly – not heard over the screams of her husband’s whore. Then she screamed, “WHY?!?”

Social Suicide #2

I decided to look for follow-up on yesterdays blog post, and Twitter top trend - #RIPMaryDirectioner ...

I found that she was alive. 

Yesterday Twitter filled with love (mostly) and kind words for the teenager who had committed suicide, and now it has come to light that her sister did whatever the Twitter version of 'frape' is, and made her followers believe that she had killed herself - look to my previous post for those tweets. Which is probably the worst form of hacking by a friend that I have ever seen. From what I can piece together, Mary was travelling to Spain whilst her sister had control of her Twitter account and was oblivious to what was happening. 

Today I looked at her Twitter and found that she had recently tweeted! which is fairness I thought may always be a possibility, as I mentioned in the post, but the blog post yesterday was not just about what happened to her - but just the act of real-time suicide itself. 

Her sisters confession tweets. 

The reason why I was so unsure yesterday was the fact that her sister supposedly tweeted a friend of Mary's and confirmed her death - an unlikely action of a grieving sibling - but even still I found it even more unlikely that a sister would pretend her sibling had died. I find it outrageous. I grew up as one of four children (that has since expanded) and we fought a lot - but whenever I was being bullied my siblings were always there for me - something like this is just unimaginable to me. I know also that Mary isn't just pretending that her sister did it - I checked her sisters account, she tweeted that she was sorry. 

Mary has now reportedly been unfollowed and had people send her insults and say that she is 'bullshitting' - bit harsh for an innocent girl. The people of Twitter should learn the phrase 'nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all.' and apply it to situations like these. Yesterday Twitter wished that she was alive, and today upon finding out that she is not dead - they insult her? the fact that she is alive is a good thing! Utterly short-sighted and uncalled for backlash, but tomorrow Twitter will have moved on. 

Dark Shadows - Film Review

With a Tim Burton film you can expect three things: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and the element of strange.

The film begins in the 1700's with the Collins family starting a new life in America, creating a successful fishing business, building a family home (or rather Manor), and having a town built up around them - which is then named Collinsport - after the family. The young master of the Collinswood Manor, Barnabas Collins (Depp), is a rich playboy who makes the mistake of breaking the heart of a housemaid he once bedded. This housemaid happens to be a witch - and it is this act which causes her to curse not only Barnabas but all future generations of the family. If you thought you'd ever seen a possessive relationship - you've seen nothing yet. This crazy witch-bitch kills Barnabas' parents, his lover, and curses him to be a vampire and live an immortal pain that doesn't even end when he is buried underground for over 200 hundred years.

Barnabas is awoken after construction workers uncover the buried casket containing the hungry vamp. This is where the fun really begins. He awakes in the 70's, a time of hippies, Chevy's, and Alice Cooper (who has a cameo in the film).  Barnabas must learn to navigate in this new world, and soon sets out to help get his dysfunctional family back in order. Barnabas ends up falling for somebody who works for the family, again, describing her as having 'the most fertile birthing hips' that he's 'ever set eyes upon.' However soon his nemesis, the possessive witch-bitch, Angelique, discovers he is back in town and uses the most powerful persuasive tool she has - her breasts - to instigate the most epic sex scene in film history.  In keeping with his history of turning her down, and in true playboy fashion - when he is finished, he announces that is was most regrettable, and leaves. Which sets the witch-bitch in evil motion again, leading her on a vengeful mission to destroy him and his family.

This comedy certainly delivers, and Burton of course delivers, yet again, a film weirder than the audience entered the cinema believing it would be. The big fight scene toward the end is definitely over the top and when Barnabas' teenage ancestor reveals her secret - I was a little bit in shock at just how ridiculous it had gotten. The film regains its sense of dignity by the ending though, and finishes with the potential for a sequel.

The Lucky One - Film Review

Zac Efron just got sexy. He has lost his silly schoolboy crop, gained some muscles and landed himself a role as a United States Marine (Oooft). The Lucky One is an adaptation of the book by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, Dear John, The Last Song) which sees Logan (Zac) set off in search for his lucky charm, after his life is saved by discovering a picture of a woman in some rubble after a mission in Iraq.

The picture, with the words 'Keep Safe' written on the back, saves Logan's life twice - whilst others die around him. After returning to the States filled with the haunting traumas of military life, Logan makes it his new mission to track down his guardian angel, and thank her. This mission is made easier by the fact that the woman is standing in front of a landmark located in Louisiana. As you probably already know from the trailer, a love develops between Logan and his angel, Beth - but what Marine-bred-Logan fails to mention from the start is what brought him to Louisiana, and imagine being in her shoes when she finds out.

As with so many chick flicks, the film is filled with a lot of predictably, which is probably why the tears that welled in my eyes failed to fall. There were some moments which I did not see coming and characters I did not expect to see, but I predicted who the owner of the photo would be and I knew the outcome from the trailer - but it is the moments in between that you've got to look out for, these are the moments which are the most touching and gasp worthy. . . Oh and also sex scenes that made most of the all-female-but-two-audience jealous.

Zac Efron just got sexy. 

American Pie: Reunion - Film Review

American Pie Reunion contains all the same ingredients as the previous films - showing that not even age, 'proper' jobs and married life can mature these lads. Though the film does of course contain the running jokes from the previous films (Stifler's mum, 'This one time at band camp' etc.), it is still easy to understand for those who have not seen them (my boyfriend).

It has been over a decade and the old gang come together for a messy weekend prior to their class of '99 school reunion. A lot has changed in their lives: Jim and Michelle have replaced their sex lives with a son, Jim's Dad is widowed, Oz is famous, and one thing remains the same - Stifler still does not trust Finch around his mum. Despite everything that has changed in the lives of the characters since we last saw them, when they're back together they soon revert back to their old ways.

This is definitely not the best of the films, and they certainly didn't save the best piece till last, but if you have seen the previous films then you are not allowed to leave the table until you have cleared your plate of pie. Just hopefully it is not the same pie that Jim ... you know.

You are not allowed to leave the table until you've cleared your plate of pie. 

Social Suicide

Exactly 2 hours ago, a Twitter user and One Direction fan-girl committed suicide and broadcast it across the world. The teenage girl who went by the username @iMaryTomlinson tweeted a goodbye to her followers, a twitter friend, and her celebrity crush Louis Tomlinson. The use of twitter was unable to save Mary as it did for a 47-year old transsexual who attempted 'real-time suicide' but it did gain her a top trend. This 'real-time' suicide is becoming a new twitter trend with these two cases not being the first I have seen. 

Mary is however the first case I have seen with the suicide actually occurring - her death was apparently confirmed by her sister to a twitter friend (though this is not certain as I struggle to believe her sisters first concern would be to tweet). 
This story is tragic and despite the majority remarking how sad it is and trending the phrase #RIPMaryDirectioner there were still those who insulted the girl and the trend. If only it was easier to locate her - all that is known from her twitter is that her first name is Mary and that she lives in Canterbury, but with only an hour between her first stating that she planned to end her life and the final tweet it would have been a difficult yet worthy mission. 


I admit myself that I think such a public suicide in any form - whether on a building top or via Twitter - is attention seeking, but there is a reason for it and it shows that they perhaps thought they had hope for themselves, whether minute or not, there was a chance - perhaps she could have been persuaded but she was reaching out to the wrong crowd it is very difficult to save a life via the 140 character world of Twitter. Though saving a life using Twitter has been achieved by Amanda Westwood (who had never met the man) - she had a longer period of time in which to find out his address and alert authorities.


Though the facts surrounding the death of Mary are so far unknown it is a tragedy, but it is also just as tragic when people speak ill of the dead and criticized the fact that it was trending - if only it trended sooner, a life could have been saved.






#RIPMaryDirectioner

Her final tweet. 

I have since written a follow up to this story which you can find here.