Friday, 20 November 2009
Try not to fail just yet...
Right, I've been a little short on inspiration lately, plus I have marketing exams in less than 2 weeks, hence the lack of regular blogging. I am plotting... something though.
Monday, 2 November 2009
Film Review: Jennifer's Body
WARNING! The below post may contain some mild spoilers. I won't reveal any major plot points or twists beyond what's already in the trailers, but perhaps don't read on if you want the film to be completely fresh.
So this is the film all of the teenage boys have been waiting for. The teaser trailers hint at a brief glimpse of breast, or a smidgen of bum, but finally here is Megan Fox in all her glory. There's no need to deny it, the main selling point of Jennifer's Body has been Fox in a lead role that doesn't also involve giant transforming robots and Shia LaBeouf's gammy hand. As it is though, I feel the whole promotional campaign has been barking up the wrong tree. This isn't a film about Fox being sexy whilst eating boys, it's a film about dysfunctional and toxic female relationships, teen ones to be precise. Any woman will tell you about the 'friend' at school who erred a little too far on the side of bitchy. The one who manipulated more than she offered a shoulder to cry on. Perhaps this should be marketed as a smart girls night out rather than a wank-fest. Anyway, Amanda Seyfried is the real star as Jennifer's dowdy best-friend Needy (a play on Anita), whose female intuition leads her to realise the recent murders in their small town are down to her newly-demonic sandpit playmate, and she's the only one who can stop her.
Much has been made of screen-writer Diablo Cody's supposed feminist credentials, and there are hints of it as we get strong female leads who take charge of their own sexuality (much like the smarter Juno). However, they are ultimately pitted against each other in strung-out cat-fight rather than railing against the sexist boys. There are also moment of pure exploitation, harking back to B-movie horrors of the 70s and 80s, most famously a protracted kiss between Jennifer and Needy that's as long as it is unnecessary. On the flip-side, there is a wonderfully sweet and awkward scene between Needy and her boyfriend that's one of the most honest depictions of the clumsiness of teen-sex I've seen on screen.
Adam Brody ('The OC' and...errm...well that's it) is an entirely serviceable Brandon Flowers-esque indie singer in league with Satan, but any cute, dark-haired and eyelinered boy could have played the same part. The band are largely a disposable plot point who drop in and out of the film, there to facilitate Jennifer's transformation before disappearing until the final denouement. But there is quite a funny running joke where the band's song becomes an anthem for the town after a disaster during their gig and Needy, the only one who knows the real horror of what happened, can't escape it, much to her frustration.
Cody was always going to have trouble following the brilliant, Oscar-winning Juno, so it was a smart move to turn to the horror genre for a change of pace. Whilst the idiosyncratic dialogue that she is making her trademark doesn't seem as natural here, there are still a fair few laughs to be had. There are also some genuinely creepy moments and a healthy smattering of gore to please the horror fans. The biggest let-down of the film is probably Fox's decidedly shaky acting. She is surely well aware that she doesn't win any roles on acting prowess alone, and she plays up the sexy angle well, but it would have made for a better film if an actress with more wit and élan could have gotten their teeth into the script (excuse the pun).
Ultimately, this is a fun but throwaway mish-mash of genres. It doesn't break any boundaries but is a great foil to the ubiquitous and humour-free teen-slasher or torture-porn films that have dominated the horror market the last couple of years. Although not faultless, Jennifer's Body is more than just a vehicle for Megan Fox's "smart bombs"...
6.5/10
So this is the film all of the teenage boys have been waiting for. The teaser trailers hint at a brief glimpse of breast, or a smidgen of bum, but finally here is Megan Fox in all her glory. There's no need to deny it, the main selling point of Jennifer's Body has been Fox in a lead role that doesn't also involve giant transforming robots and Shia LaBeouf's gammy hand. As it is though, I feel the whole promotional campaign has been barking up the wrong tree. This isn't a film about Fox being sexy whilst eating boys, it's a film about dysfunctional and toxic female relationships, teen ones to be precise. Any woman will tell you about the 'friend' at school who erred a little too far on the side of bitchy. The one who manipulated more than she offered a shoulder to cry on. Perhaps this should be marketed as a smart girls night out rather than a wank-fest. Anyway, Amanda Seyfried is the real star as Jennifer's dowdy best-friend Needy (a play on Anita), whose female intuition leads her to realise the recent murders in their small town are down to her newly-demonic sandpit playmate, and she's the only one who can stop her.
Much has been made of screen-writer Diablo Cody's supposed feminist credentials, and there are hints of it as we get strong female leads who take charge of their own sexuality (much like the smarter Juno). However, they are ultimately pitted against each other in strung-out cat-fight rather than railing against the sexist boys. There are also moment of pure exploitation, harking back to B-movie horrors of the 70s and 80s, most famously a protracted kiss between Jennifer and Needy that's as long as it is unnecessary. On the flip-side, there is a wonderfully sweet and awkward scene between Needy and her boyfriend that's one of the most honest depictions of the clumsiness of teen-sex I've seen on screen.
Adam Brody ('The OC' and...errm...well that's it) is an entirely serviceable Brandon Flowers-esque indie singer in league with Satan, but any cute, dark-haired and eyelinered boy could have played the same part. The band are largely a disposable plot point who drop in and out of the film, there to facilitate Jennifer's transformation before disappearing until the final denouement. But there is quite a funny running joke where the band's song becomes an anthem for the town after a disaster during their gig and Needy, the only one who knows the real horror of what happened, can't escape it, much to her frustration.
Cody was always going to have trouble following the brilliant, Oscar-winning Juno, so it was a smart move to turn to the horror genre for a change of pace. Whilst the idiosyncratic dialogue that she is making her trademark doesn't seem as natural here, there are still a fair few laughs to be had. There are also some genuinely creepy moments and a healthy smattering of gore to please the horror fans. The biggest let-down of the film is probably Fox's decidedly shaky acting. She is surely well aware that she doesn't win any roles on acting prowess alone, and she plays up the sexy angle well, but it would have made for a better film if an actress with more wit and élan could have gotten their teeth into the script (excuse the pun).
Ultimately, this is a fun but throwaway mish-mash of genres. It doesn't break any boundaries but is a great foil to the ubiquitous and humour-free teen-slasher or torture-porn films that have dominated the horror market the last couple of years. Although not faultless, Jennifer's Body is more than just a vehicle for Megan Fox's "smart bombs"...
6.5/10
Friday, 30 October 2009
Why I'm not interesting enough, and other thoughts.
As I'm determined to keep this blog running, at least for a little while, I decided to search out some other blogs for inspiration (or, to steal their ideas). It's astonishing these people you come across, their lives full of sex, drugs, parties, music, skinny indie boys, photography, words, magazines, fashion, guerilla peeing. People who make a living out of sharing every sordid detail of their fucked up but impossibly glamourous lives. Orgies and Anna Wintour, how can I possibly compete? My life consists of the following: wake, food, work, food, work, home, food, MacBook, sleep (with the odd deviation for a film or a gig). It must be so easy for these people to write their blogs, every utterance and every unexpected encounter is perfect fodder for another effortlessly cool anecdote. How else to get noticed, than be so unrelentingly controversial and ante-upping.
It gets a little tiresome though, the constant one-upmanship and need to make every post more shocking and OMG!-worthy than the last. It must be nice to get a regular gig on an edgy magazine or website, but at what sacrifice? I wouldn't like to be overly judgemental, if that's your thing then stick to it, but there must come a point when alienating family and friends overtakes the desire to be a media darling at any cost. If you've stumbled on this post looking for more of the same (and let's face it, the above few paragraphs are a Google keywords wet dream), I'm afraid you will be disappointed. Alas, there is no prostitute living in my kitchen, and I spent London Fashion Week working in a decidedly unglamorous office building next door to Cardiff prison. Although I won't be sharing any group-sex stories anytime soon (hey, don't rule it out though, right?), I think that I can do a pretty decent job of holding people's attention just by having a little flair with words. So expect some film reviews, some discussion on feminist and other political issues, and possibly some more stream-of-consciousness personal crap, if anything interesting actually happens to me.
I realise that I've now written two posts about my writing of blogs. I apologise, but I've been in a particularly narcissistic mood. The next one will be something different, I promise.
On a completely unrelated subject, it is Halloween on Saturday. I would usually moan about the sexualisation of the 'holiday', but this year I am embracing Slutoween and going to a party full of strangers as a slutty bat. Yes, a bat. Feminist credentials be damned, I want to show off some cleavage, and wear giant bat wings in the process. These ones, to be precise:
Awesome
It gets a little tiresome though, the constant one-upmanship and need to make every post more shocking and OMG!-worthy than the last. It must be nice to get a regular gig on an edgy magazine or website, but at what sacrifice? I wouldn't like to be overly judgemental, if that's your thing then stick to it, but there must come a point when alienating family and friends overtakes the desire to be a media darling at any cost. If you've stumbled on this post looking for more of the same (and let's face it, the above few paragraphs are a Google keywords wet dream), I'm afraid you will be disappointed. Alas, there is no prostitute living in my kitchen, and I spent London Fashion Week working in a decidedly unglamorous office building next door to Cardiff prison. Although I won't be sharing any group-sex stories anytime soon (hey, don't rule it out though, right?), I think that I can do a pretty decent job of holding people's attention just by having a little flair with words. So expect some film reviews, some discussion on feminist and other political issues, and possibly some more stream-of-consciousness personal crap, if anything interesting actually happens to me.
I realise that I've now written two posts about my writing of blogs. I apologise, but I've been in a particularly narcissistic mood. The next one will be something different, I promise.
On a completely unrelated subject, it is Halloween on Saturday. I would usually moan about the sexualisation of the 'holiday', but this year I am embracing Slutoween and going to a party full of strangers as a slutty bat. Yes, a bat. Feminist credentials be damned, I want to show off some cleavage, and wear giant bat wings in the process. These ones, to be precise:
Awesome
Sunday, 25 October 2009
A slightly peculiar introduction...
I like writing, and I'm supposedly building a career on my ability to construct coherent sentences and form a narrative with a few short words. It seems a natural progression to write a blog, and everybody seems to be at it. From my musical idols, through witty and scathing reviews of TV programmes, to the over-sharing and pretentious blogs of my acquaintances, writing a blog has become the accepted method of validating your existence either as a writer, or just as a tech-savvy and interesting person.
I've flirted with blogs many times, setting up more than one account to write film reviews, political comment or just personal anecdotes, and have always had good feedback on my writing. However, I tend to lose interest after a few weeks and the blog goes unused for a few months before I remember it exists and finally delete all evidence. Friends constantly tell me to keep up with the writing as a means to cultivate a rolling online portfolio, and this is seemingly now an accepted route to a job in the media industry. My problem is that I can't seem to conjure up the enthusiasm to maintain a regular blog. I can Twitter 'til the cows come home, and constantly update Facebook, but as ridiculous as it sounds I feel like there is too much pressure with a full-form blog. It's silly really, I don't have many issues with wittering on for ages on a given subject, and I always excelled at uni (and now in evening college) on writing extended articles and essays, but with a public audience I have a tendency to clam up and over-think what I am writing (I'm doing it now, analysing every word).
Saying all that, I'm going to give it another try. This time I'll try not to let it fall by the wayside, and will endeavour to regularly update this thing with reviews, rants, or whatever springs to mind at the time. I have a shiny new MacBook Pro, which should provide a little extra encouragement to sit down and type things out. And yes, I'm fully prepare to eat my words in a couple of months time...
I've flirted with blogs many times, setting up more than one account to write film reviews, political comment or just personal anecdotes, and have always had good feedback on my writing. However, I tend to lose interest after a few weeks and the blog goes unused for a few months before I remember it exists and finally delete all evidence. Friends constantly tell me to keep up with the writing as a means to cultivate a rolling online portfolio, and this is seemingly now an accepted route to a job in the media industry. My problem is that I can't seem to conjure up the enthusiasm to maintain a regular blog. I can Twitter 'til the cows come home, and constantly update Facebook, but as ridiculous as it sounds I feel like there is too much pressure with a full-form blog. It's silly really, I don't have many issues with wittering on for ages on a given subject, and I always excelled at uni (and now in evening college) on writing extended articles and essays, but with a public audience I have a tendency to clam up and over-think what I am writing (I'm doing it now, analysing every word).
Saying all that, I'm going to give it another try. This time I'll try not to let it fall by the wayside, and will endeavour to regularly update this thing with reviews, rants, or whatever springs to mind at the time. I have a shiny new MacBook Pro, which should provide a little extra encouragement to sit down and type things out. And yes, I'm fully prepare to eat my words in a couple of months time...
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