Movie Review: The Five Year Engagement

The Five Year Engagement is an enjoyable rom-com that I have just finished watching. What happens to two people who are meant to be together after they have found each other? That's the searching, funny-sad question posed by this movie, a lively, original, and hilarious ramble of a Judd Apatow flick (love his movies). From the moment we meet them, there's no doubt that Tom, played by Jason Segel and Violet, played by Emily Blunt are very much in love. On top of that, they appreciate the good fortune that brought them together on a fateful New Year's Eve. They live in San Francisco, where he's a chef on the rise in a food-crazy town, and she's a psychologist dreaming of a job at Berkeley.

Well, that's one dream that isn't meant to happen. Shortly after the two get engaged, Berkeley turns her down, then an alternative offer arrives of a two-year research position at the University of Michigan. It's Violet's best shot at an academic career, so she feels she has to take it. And Tom, fully supports her and the plan. Except that when the couple move to Michigan, it turns out that his job opportunities are less than zero, the best he can come up with is making sandwiches in a Deli.

The Five-Year Engagement was directed by Nicholas Stoller, from a script he co-wrote with Segel, and like their earlier Apatow collaboration, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the movie has an unpredictable structure that works for it. It only pretends, in fact, to be about a couple who have to postpone their wedding plans, year after year. Yes, that's the basic outline, but Tom and Violet, despite their up-in-the-air circumstances, could easily tie the knot. The real issue is that marriage wouldn't begin to solve their problem — which is that Tom, his career currently dead, loses his purpose, his mojo, his joyful side. He keeps dreaming of the head chef job he could have had at Clam Bar, a San Francisco hot spot that gave the job to his buddy Alex. Tom starts to hang with a fellow faculty husband (Chris Parnell), who takes him on hunting trips, and in between shooting at deer, he grows a terrible beard and sinks into a depression. The more he sinks the funnier the movie gets. The comedy even turns violent, with gory incidents involving a crossbow and a lost toe.

Once you buy into its premise, the movie is an enjoyable bag of messy life circumstances. Tom and Violet drift, love, fight, disengage, do pillow-talk therapy, and that's all before Tom goes off the deep end. Meanwhile, the movie, like so many Apatow productions, finds  redemption in the spirit of the group — Tom's co-workers, and also Violet's amusing team psychology colleague's. The Five Year Engagement isn't a comedy about falling in love. It's a comedy about falling from love, and grasping your way back to a happily ever after.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRF_Bzuwtk

Ultra Nate: Free - One Of My Life Experience's

So before I share my embarrassing life experience, that I cringe unbelievably too when I hear this song...let me psyche myself up here...

So let me take you back to the summer of 98...it was a Saturday and there was a crowd of us guys out on a friends stag-do. So the day began in a bar at 11am where lots of alcohol was consumed prior to going on to the ten pin bowling.

It must have been 1pm and it is pretty safe to say...I was more than a tad drunk. So we bowled and drank, bowled and drank some more. From here we went on the longest pub crawl in my life that must have lasted 8 hours. Then off to an Indian Restaurant for, I'm sure, a slap-up meal but of course I can remember.

It must have been roughly midnight when we all went to the 'Mardi Gras' nightclub in Dundee. Everything was a blur, I do however remember that moment, that one moment that is making me shake right now lol...I remember dancing with this gorgeous girl, when during the song, she just stopped dancing...she pointed to the floor and said "what the fuck are those", I sobered up almost immediately, looked down and noticed I was wearing the horrible looking blue & red bowling shoes.

The girl done a quick disappearing act and so did I out the club. I walked miles home in the shoes kicking the tarmac in disgust. Thinking how many people must have seen me in these f'ing things....I never did return for my nice shoes, infact I have never been bowling since!!!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JgRBkjgXHro

The Knack: My Sharona - Song Meaning

I first heard this song in the movie 'Reality Bites' and it's no doubt a very catchy song. But i never really listened to it properly before...actually more than a bit weird.

In terms of its lyrics, they seem to portray a guy who has extremely strange intentions with...i assume, a lady younger than himself: "Always get it up for the touch of the younger kind"..obviously..his feelings have not been reciprocated by the lady...as such he is not sure where they stand: "Here's a trip to destiny to destiny, or is it just a game in my mind Sharona?". 

And what's with the line "Keeping it a mystery, it gets to me, running down the length of my thigh, Sharona....hmmmmm????

Despite the somewhat disturbing lyrical content, an awesome song!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bbr60I0u2Ng

Movie Review: ROBOCOP

Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP is capable of satisfying most audiences. For those interested in sci-fi films with substance, for those seeking laughter, the story is laced with dark humour and parody. And for those looking for a bloody revenge thriller, it doesn't get gorier or more violent. ROBOCOP is like a Michael Bay extravaganza with a brain to go along with the testosterone and adrenaline.

It's also the second VHS video I owned, after another classic that is The Lost Boys.

Robocop opens in a Detroit of the near future, where crime isn't just rampant, it's a way of life. Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is a new transfer to the police force, his partner, Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), admires his gumption but is dubious about his potential for success. He hasn't been on the job long when he comes face-to-face with Detroit's most dangerous psychopath: Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith). After humiliating and torturing Murphy, Boddicker leaves him for dead and his remains are claimed by Omni Consumer Products (OCP), the company that has bought out the police department. They decide to use Murphy's remains for a pilot cyborg policeman program. Thus ROBOCOP is born - half man, half machine, a modern day Dirty Harry with a bigger gun. Robocop is the brainchild of OCP executive Robert Morton (Miguel Ferrer) and his success angers his main in-house opponent, Dick Jones (Ronny Cox), who has his own rival program underway. Jones doesn't mind playing dirty and the success of the ROBOCOP program forces his hand.

Privatising the police force? Unthinkable? Perhaps 22 years ago, but not today. The privatisation of numerous public and/or government agencies has brought about financial windfalls for cash-strapped municipalities and, while nothing as large at the Detroit P.D. has yet been sold to a for-profit business, one senses it could only be a matter of time.

Verhoeven and screenwriters Edward Neumeier & Michael Miner gazed into their crystal balls and saw this. It should come as no surprise that there is a strong thread of social commentary running through ROBOCOP, Verhoeven did something similar (arguably less subtle lol) in Starship Troopers, another movie where the biting parody elements lifted it above the genre norm.

Verhoeven is known for his love of exploitation elements and, like Michael Bay, he is fond of on-screen mayhem. These elements are much in evidence during the course of ROBOCOP. Arguably the most disturbing sequence is the one in which Murphy meets a painful end. Nearly as violent and bloody is the climactic struggle between ROBOCOP and Boddicker. Both scenes were heavily cut for theatrical distribution so the movie could receive a rating. However, an uncut director's version is available on DVD & Blu ray, I watched it on Blu ray this morning and the transfer and sound were fantastic. These versions contain the film in its full gory glory (Interestingly, Verhoeven's original conception of the final battle was even more grotesque than the one he filmed.) There's also a little gratuitous nudity thrown in for no particular reason except that Verhoeven likes showing breasts. (This occurs early in the film during a locker room scene.)

One of the standout elements of ROBOCOP is the despicability of the villains. These aren't just bad guys, they are vile, and who deserve horrible, painful deaths. It takes a talented director to fashion characters that become targets of such extreme hatred. This is what Verhoeven wants; the more deeply viewers hate the bad guys, the more they will be involved in the outcome. It's nice for an audience to like the hero, but more important that they loathe the villains. In ROBOCOP, there's no shortage of detestable characters, but two stand out, namely, the sneaky Dick Jones and the vicious Boddicker. It's almost impossible not to cheer when their well-earned comeuppances arrive.

I see no need for the recent remake but that's Hollywood for you...seems to have run out of ideas!! Will I still watch it though? - yeah probably.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c3W5HUz7vyY

One Republic: Counting Stars - Song Meaning

I think this song is about the lifestyle the songwriter is living. He's in a busy relationship where the both of them are so worried about money, paying the bills and stuff, that they forget to simply live life and appreciate the simple things it offers...

"Lately I been, I been losing sleep
Dreaming 'bout the things that we could be

Baby I been, I been prayin' hard
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars
Yeah, we'll be counting stars"

He talks about the conduct people, including him, are living these days, not what they wish they could do, but what they're made to do, what they're forced to do. And it's probably about unnecessary work, rules and manners imposed by society.

"And I don't think the world is sold
I'm just doing what we're told"

He wants to free himself from those fake rules which are made only to keep people under control, under the 'normal' way of living.

"I, feel something so right
But doing the wrong thing
I, feel something so wrong
But doing the right thing"

In the verse "Everything that kills me makes me feel alive" it can be anything. For example, drugs, gambling, love, etc.

"Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly". Here he talks about those things we are not supposed to do and because of that we are intrigued to do them. It's better because it's forbidden. 

"Take that money and watch it burn
Sink in the river the lessons are learned"

In this part he says that the money he was referring to earlier will disappear quickly, it won't last forever. And you will truly learn the lesson when you go through a tough situation.

Or...

It could be about a long distance relationship. When he says he's been loosing sleep thinking about the things they could be, it makes me think he's just tossing and turning in bed thinking about how much more amazing their relationship would be if they were actually together.

And he's been praying hard to see her. And no more counting dollars, as in he doesn't have enough money to go see her because he's been struggling with money problems, so he's counting stars?? Long shot right??!!

In these verses, I feel like he's contemplating the situation with himself. He sees the signs that one day he'll see her, but there's just so many things holding him back with money issues.mBut he's not giving up because basically what doesn't kill him makes him stronger, and he loves her too much to much to stop trying. And he finds himself trying to save up money to see her, when he should be worrying about his bills, which is why he feels "so right doing the wrong thing" or "so wrong doing the right thing" 

I could be completely wrong, but that's just how I interpret this song.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hT_nvWreIhg

Gary Numan: Cars - Song Meaning

I think of this song being about isolation. And using 'cars' as a metaphor. Gary Numan suffers from a form of Autism called Asperger's Disorder. A car could represent isolation and distance, being in a metaphysical cocoon inside the world, yet completely detached from it. I don't know but I do know I have analysed this song for ages today.

He talks about locking himself away, and how it makes him feel safe. Gives him time to himself, and time to think, but at the same time his constant isolation makes him miserable.

When all you're world becomes too much, sometimes you need to leave it, and isolate yourself. That way you can get yourself together, contemplate all that is making you feel the need to be alone. You don't have to give yourself out to all that stresses you, and you are able to once again collect yourself and stablize once more. But, at the same time you bottle things up, and you become dependent on your isolation. Slowly it kills you, and truly is what you need is someone to be there with you, that could be what he means when he says, "Will you visit me please, if I open my door?". Eventually, after all of your isolation, you start to think too much, and your thoughts turn in a direction where they really have no business being like depression and suicide etc..

Or it could be about feeling safe in your car. Simple as that. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldyx3KHOFXw

Tim Odell: Another Love - Song Meaning

• I hear the song being about him, him being with a new partner and then describing how he can't commit emotionally to that person because he was hurt so badly by his previous (another) love. The song repeats the line "all my tears have been used up on another love" and he describes scenarios that won't be the same as they were with his previous partner.
  
  This is quite a depressing song and therefore i think the second music video that was made, tried to capture that situation whilst adding a twist and happier ending.
  
  The video has him putting up missing posters of a woman which really just represents what's been missing from his life since his old partner. He then finds the woman who represents his new partner, he runs away, not realising that in front of him is everything he is missing from his previous partner... until the end when he finally holds hands with her realising that she is what he's been missing. Adding a link to this video...check it out.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e-aaencD-dY

The All American Rejects: Gives You Hell - Song Meaning

What a song by a fantastic band, I think it's obviously a direct message to someone who broke his heart, probably because she thought he wasn't going to make it anywhere in life, and left him for someone with a promising future. Now, he hardly has to do anything besides rock out every once in a while lol, and all in all has a much easier and exciting life than the so called "successful" person with that promising future she probably left him for. The singer wants to rub it in that he's successful, while the heartbreaker lives a mediocre life instead of what she could have had with him, still working that 9-5. I say it's a direct message because of the line, "When you hear this song, and sing along, but never tell. Hope it gives you hell...etc." I personally picture the "heartbreaker" singing the song with a stressed look on her face with her friends, knowing that the song is directly about her, but everyone around her thinks its just a song.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A6APxbBYnoo

One of those bloody days!!!

I was watching my usual Sunday morning programme 'Sunday Brunch' when i felt compelled to listen to my music and share what the song means to me, or share a life event of mine that the song reminds me of.

On another note, I'm starving!!

Movie review - Maniac

I watched the movie 'Maniac' again this morning, now I'm normally against the Hollywood remakes but this was very well done...even though I almost wrote it off due to the star casting...I mean Elijah Wood..Frodo as a homicidal psycho...WTF????

The two things that set 1981’s MANIAC apart from its murder-movie brethren , Joe Spinell’s performance, and the way William Lustig captured late 1970s Manhattan at its seedy worst can literally never be duplicated, which posed a challenge to anyone attempting an honorable remake. So it’s one of the new film’s achievements that it showcases a very different lead actor and setting while still feeling like the original MANIAC movie.

So a remake of the 1981 original starring Elijah Wood who reveals a whole new side of his talents as the 21st-century Frank, and does so with very limited screen time...could it work??? The gambit here is to present almost the entire story through Frank’s eyes, an extension of the killer’s point of view gimmick (think 1978's Halloween) and slasher-movie's of the early 1980s. Putting the audience in a murderer’s shoes risks identification with his horrible acts, but the approach is defensible in MANIAC because we see everything, not just the moments in which he stalks and slays his prey, which become just part of an overall subjective experience, rather than the only moments in which we are asked to step into the madman’s mind. From start to finish, it’s a portrait of a serial killer told from the inside, not the outside.

That said, watching the almost exclusively female victims panic, plead and scream before being horribly dispatched is certainly unnerving, and the payoffs are as grisly as they were back in 1981, with graphically extreme special makeup by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger (Tom Savini's prodigy) and an abundance of wet, crunchy sound FX. The explicitness of the gore is all here, and of course Frank wouldn’t look away as he perpetrated his foul acts, so neither do we as the audience. One of the few times the camera detaches from his line of sight is during his most savage act of butchery. If MANIAC dares you to keep watching at times, it is well made enough to make you want to stick with it.

With Manhattan no longer the danger zone it was back in Lustig’s day, director Franck Khalfoun shift's the setting to an unnamed city represented by the danker sides of Los Angeles. Skilled cinematographer Maxime Alexandre turns the City of Angels into an urban hell, where the nighttime streets, subway, parking areas etc. are believably deserted and threatening. Though the location is recognisably American, Khalfoun and Alexandre grace the movie with a bleak European look, an atmosphere furthered by the terrific, vintage-sounding synthesizer score.

Moving through it all is Wood, whose brief self-glimpses in mirrors and other reflective surfaces and running voiceovers are more than enough to imprint Frank’s disturbed psyche on our own minds. As unbalanced as we know he is, Wood’s unimposing stature and big blue eyes make it plausible that his soon to be victims don’t initially perceive him as a threat, and one area in which this MANIAC significantly improves on its predecessor is that it’s a lot more credible that this Frank could forge the tentative beginnings of a relationship with a woman, in this case photographer Anna (Nora Arnezeder), who’s fascinated by the mannequins that Frank makes a living at restoring. Their courtship even allows for a couple of moments of genuine humor (“Give me a hand”) that leave's the uneasy certainty that it can’t come to a good end.

While adding such modern references such as the online dating service Frank uses, this MANIAC still feels very much in the rough, gritty tradition of horror films past. There are places when a little more reinvention might have been welcome, yet MANIAC is one of those rare genre remakes that stands as its own movie while recapturing the original’s spirit.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uD02QssnO7w

New direction for my blog...

I'm taking my blog in a new direction that I hope you all stick around for. I'm sick of typing about my illness so I am going to turn my page into a review site.

Throughout my life music and movie have played an important part in my life...especially music where it serves as a diary to me, bringing me back to certain points in my life, both good and bad, I also use music to document things in my life, by concentrating on a certain song...bookmarking a specific event that a song will take me right back too.

So first song up is Dice by Finley Quaye ft William Orbit...I love this song.

To me the lyrics take on a few meanings,
One being about losing someone you love, but the meaning of the dice...I almost think it could be about the past with the person that was lost, to the time when they were actually together and another explanation could be that the dice rolling is hypothetical/optimistic/wishful thinking...looking back on a situation and idealising it to the point of, "I've lost you, but nothing would compare to you coming back to me, taking the chance and saying you love me" I dunno, maybe it's a stretch....

The song is probably intended it to be about taking the gamble to tell someone how you feel. But it fits so beautifully to mean what i first took it to mean, so let me throw in this curve ball....

The song (at least to me) is about losing the one you love, so "I was crying over you" is the grieving" and "i am smiling, i think of you. Where your gardens have no walls" is the peace of mind they get from thinking of there loved one in a better place, where they are happy and free (no walls). And "breath in the air, if you care, you compare, dont say farewell" is the writers advice to others to just stop and realise that there still with them.

Then to be really interesting "When you roll the dice and swear your love for me". My first thought when i had this theme in my head was of the fortune teller type thing of asking a question and using the dice to give an answer (with the belief that the dead can manipulate the roll) so on asking the question, they got an answer that can put them at peace. Which nothing can compaire to.

The line "Virtuous sensibility, escape velocity" says to me how there good life means in death the can find peace, escape the velocity of every day life.


Of course I see it also as wishing for a certain loved one, a loved,
 one has gotten under your skin, controls your thoughts and only having your wishes that you will hear those words, that it will all work out. See below for the song.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RcxQxh6J83I

Acceptance

Finding acceptance

I thought seeing as I have just reached my 37th birthday, I thought i would reflect on my time with MS. I have tried to make it my bitch to no avail, so I have went down the route of acceptance, a route I fought like most sufferers.

I understand now, it's the lifestyle changes you make, that you have to make that keep you a bit more comfortable, these changes have to be embraced. I don’t do the whole getting wasted anymore, I’m a bit too old for that now.  I do however, enjoy my takeaway food...basically all that's bad for you if you read Dr Wahls books but I have cut down but struggling to stop completely. My walking has went to the dogs, so has my muscle tone or lack not to mention not being able to sleep. So gone are the rides in my Mustang of late and hello to spending some good quality time with my track suit bottoms....I swear I feel my life blood being sucked out of me when I pull these mothers on!!

So on reflection, I realised there is a very specific theme present throughout the entirety of my thoughts.  Acceptance.  Yes, just that one oh-so-simple word… Acceptance.

What did I need to accept in my life?

Let me give you some background to this…

Ok, so I walk funny, and yeah I talk funny sometimes, too.  Did you notice those massive intention tremors?  I also have a thing now that I nickname the 'Death Grip', mainly just noticed this week, on picking things up sometimes, I struggle to release my grip. My balance is non existent, restless legs, pins and needles....are you still here?

That is not an extensive list of symptoms but it gives you an insight, I maybe can't do all I did before, so I guess just because my super powers make certain things in my life more difficult, it doesn’t mean I can’t live a full life

Acceptance...

I have accepted my abilities.  I do embrace what my body can do.  I try to push my own limits and test my fears while still respecting my abilities.  My acceptance comes not only from other individuals surrounding me but also from within myself.

I guess that’s what this journey is all about anyway, right?  Finding peace from within?  I suppose my journey began to show me ways in which I needed to grow in order to not become complacent.  I probably needed my ego shot down a few notches as well but that’s beside the point!

Although I always said I accepted myself the way I was no matter what happened, did I really?  Nah.  So I was placed on a journey. I was placed on the road that was a bit rockier than the road I envisioned.

My road sure as hell isn't easy…

But at least I’m finding that peace and acceptance!

But of course I have many things to be thankful for...and we all should not loose sight of the fact...whenever you feel life has dealt you a curve ball or everything seems to be going wrong...things could always be a lot worse!!