Sci-Fi movie review for work experience

GRAVITY – WOULD THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN?

From launch, the outstanding cinematography in ‘Gravity’ was breathtaking, evoking that overwhelming feeling of realizing how insignificantly small we are.  The constant build-up of tension; silent space contrasted with panicked breathing, had a startling effect; translating the emotion of the two characters to the whole audience.

What put a ‘downer’ on the movie was that it was too ‘Hollywood’, therefore predictable. Although the threat of ‘running low on oxygen’ is a massive spacewalk danger, it rushed the tensest moments; the main character couldn’t suffocate in the first half hour! It's ratings plummeted after Ryan met the ISS (International Space Station for you uneducated lot). The unnecessary involvement of three space stations, which all met similar endings, was laughable; why does Hollywood insist on over-using these tediously similar scenes?! Stone must have pretty bad karma to be within the demolition of three space landmarks in one day!

So … is space actually like that? Real images from the ISS capture it much closer to Earth than ‘Gravity’ suggests. This is only a little quibble, but what really fired up those space-geeks was that, according to Newton’s Law of Motion, ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’. Basically, with a little push and shove, the two protagonists could’ve both reached the ISS effortlessly.

In fairness, hats off to those techies who did a remarkable job of representing zero-gravity whilst on Earth. It was thoroughly convincing and a massive reminder of our technological advancement, and the extreme talent of individuals in this industry; their skill certainly paid off.

The hype about ‘Gravity’ is understandable, but the film is too clichéd. Will we remember it in 5 years? Probably not – it definitely didn’t meet ‘2001 Space Odyssey’ standard. The final scene of Bullock strutting about on land was disappointing – prior to this she uttered a fantastic line, ‘there are only two possible outcomes; either I make it down there in one piece and have one hell of a story to tell, or I burn up in the next 10 minutes’ – at this point, the movie should’ve met an overwhelming finish, plunging fans and critics into intense debate – would she have survived? 

Thoughts on 'Divergent'

Divergent is the love child of ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Mean Girls’ – you’ve got your strict governmental body who somewhat restrains the residents of the country in an effort to create a peaceful empire post-war, and then you’ve got the bitchiness of the clique-y factions, all of whom have 5 very different personalities. This doesn’t, however, mean that ‘Divergent’ didn’t bring something new to the movie world.

The intricate storyline was not only thought-provoking and exciting, but it was easily understandable and immediately provoked the audience to develop their individual theories and hopes for the plot’s continuance. The characters were well-developed and were far from the cliché protagonists that I would imagine. I loved the idea of having their fears tapped into, and it was very interestingly portrayed, making me think of what I would find in my hallucination (jellyfish, eyeballs and someone in the window as I pull back the curtain, I think!)

The downside of the movie, for me, was that some aspects of the story weren’t explained as much as I would have hoped. Now, perhaps this is because I haven’t read the books, but I would have liked to know more about Tris’s brother, Caleb, and why he decided to join the Erudite faction. It was a twist near the beginning of the movie which was never really quite explained. Also, I loved the catch that Tris’s mum was originally in Dauntless, but this could also have been elaborated more, but perhaps they’re saving it for a prequel!

Parts of the movie were pretty predictable, and the ending was disappointing because it was extremely cheesy! But despite this, I think I will give the books a go – I can see where sequels could lead to, and am pretty sure this will be a popular one of 2014!

Will you be following up the inevitable sequels to the Divergent movie? Tell me your thoughts in the comments!

Thoughts about 'Shrooms'

Tonight, I went round to my friend’s and was the first to arrive at his house. I naively asked him what movie we were going to watch, expecting (or rather, hoping) for a response such as ‘mamma mia’ or ‘you can choose, Louisa – as long as it’s a cheesy musical’. But no. With a smug grin, he thrusted a dreary looking trashy-horror film at me, and with disgust I read the blurb. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that, but it was called ‘Shrooms’ and was basically about a group of teenagers who experience a horrible trip after eating some mushrooms they find in the forest. Yeah, it’s as good as it sounds - find out for yourself here.

As soon as the others arrived, the host showed them the film and, typically, us girls all rolled our eyes and asked for the wifi code whilst the boys couldn’t wait to put it on.

As the film started, we immediately realised that the movie would bring more laughs than screams. At one point, it actually got a little bit good, when we were told about a ‘true story’ from the past which basically addressed the generic ‘something-bad-happened-now-people-die-here-and-are-found-mutated’ catch. It was actually quite scary, though (although I think this was provoked a little bit more by the fact that there was a really scary tree outside which kept swaying in the wind and making us jump).

As the climax built up, we gradually lost understanding of the storyline, although it wasn’t any good to begin with. Being a horror movie however, it had all of the right effects yet I don’t think these were executed to the best quality – the gore was very cliché and looked fake, and the ‘dark figure’ started off scary, but we saw too much of its face so it lost the mysterious and creepy element and the suspense therefore dropped. I think this was one of the main mistakes of the movie – showing the audience too much. Rookie error.

All in all, as far as trashy horror movies go, this was no different to the rest of them. One might describe the plot as ‘unique’ but to be honest, it was just stupid. Other elements of the storyline were actually quite gripping – such as the ‘horror story’ of the psychiatric men in the forest – yet the actual reflection of these in the film let down its potential. The film made us laugh a lot, particularly one of the characters who (we assumed) was supposed to scare the living daylight out of us. He was meant to be a psycho but my friend immediately saw a resemblance of Lennie from ‘Of Mice and Men’ in him, and from then on, none of us could take him seriously. Ironically, somebody spotted a dead rabbit hanging from the doorway of this character. I guess Lennie never got to tend to the rabbits in the end. The best part was the extremely unexpected catch right at the end. I won’t give it away but it did give ‘Shrooms’ the edge off other similar movies because it wasn’t as predictable as we had thought.

In summary, if you want a lazy night in with a couple of friends to have a laugh, rent this movie (don’t buy it – you probably won’t watch it again), but if you actually want a big scare and something to talk about for weeks after, I’d veer towards better quality horror films.   

What did you think about the film? Leave your comments below!

Thoughts on The X Factor 2013

It's that time of the year again when families all over Britain snuggle down on a Saturday evening and prepare themselves for an evening of 'X Factor entertainment'. I love this show, and have done since Leona Lewis's victory, even though this meant staying loyal through the rougher days of Jedward, Wagner and (although I'll admit I had a crush on him) Frankie Cocozza. Although the auditions are my favourite part every year - giving us a proper laugh and something to talk about on a Monday morning during double maths, what keeps me hooked is the way we fall for an act and support it until it's (inevitable) last show - whether it be an ending in week 8 (I was a strong Chico supporter) or the grand final (I was one of thousands who were gutted when 1D came third!) we all love to follow their progress through the shows and backstage activities.

I cannot review this part of the programme yet as we have only just started the series and the acts are not long out of bootcamp, however from what I have seen, I am slightly disappointed with the re-vamped format this year. I love the room auditions as these provide us with the truly hilarious and outrageous auditions that everybody remembers, however why can the auditions not stop at these? I find the Sunday night 'stage' auditions very tedious and do not understand why acts need to be auditioned twice; as far as I know there have been no major problems with single auditions before? Furthermore the show is simply not the same without our own Simon Cowell. In his absence, the judges try too hard to fill his place instead of making their own mark on the show.

I look forward to seeing how this new format pans out, but at the moment I am not impressed with the X Factor 2013; it is turning into one of those programmes that stays on the Sky Planner for weeks until it builds up and we eventually delete a few odd episodes, and this is coming from a previously avid viewer!

A (very long) The Trueman Show (for a piece of school work)

We all felt a bit paranoid after watching The Truman Show. What is real life? As Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey- Bruce Almighty) suddenly realises all is not what it seems in Sea Haven, we play along with the game; desperate for Truman to see what his life really is- a TV show. Ed Harris plays the determined and controlling Christof, owner of the controversial ‘fish-tank-like’ programme following the life of Truman, a television idol since birth. As we see the audience glued to their screens watching Truman’s every move, we realise how much power the media has in our modern world; this was the principal moral of the movie. Peter Weir is the real director of the film and he makes us feel that we are the audience watching the show, with occasional imperfect camera angles, discreet clues about the real world and special effects to add feeling to each scene but still keep the star of the show ignorant to his fame. Without much information on the storyline, only knowing that it was a sci-fi drama based around a TV show, my expectations were quite modest and it completely exceeded my predicaments, due to the clever methods of filming the show and the originality of the storyline.

Truman’s apparent normal life is suddenly thrown into confusion when he pieces together the small aspects that don’t seem to add up in his world. We watch him trying to overcome the discreet manipulation that the TV producers use to turn his ignorance into a high-rated show. I found the film very interesting and gripping, despite being borderline predictable and having a slow start. The climax was exciting and kept me on the edge of my seat, pleading for Truman to be granted justice and the ability to get out of Seahaven.

Jim Carrey does a fantastic job convincing the real audience that Truman is clueless about the show. He plays the character well, using good actions and facial expressions to portray the idea that Truman is suspicious and paranoid about his life. We sympathise with him because we see how innocent and genuine he really is, and how he has been controlled throughout his life. Laura Linney plays Truman’s wife, Meryl- she does a brilliant job in portraying her character as a bad actress, making a few slip-ups in keeping the secret quiet from Truman. Her facial expressions are unconvincing, forever reminding us that she is acting as Truman’s wife, tactfully edging away from him and remaining professional around him, never looking very comfortable. She didn’t gain any sympathy as it was her decision to trick Truman for her own benefit; she manipulated him and never took him seriously. Ed Harris (Christof)’s character is ambiguous to Truman; at the beginning, he plays a God-like figure to him, creator of his world. However at the end, we see that he has watched Truman’s whole life and feels protective and paternal over him. In the end scene, when Christof reveals everything, we realise he is upset to see him leave, his voice becomes softer and his words to Truman are fatherly. We can understand how Christof felt, wanting to keep Truman in Seahaven for longer, but I don’t sympathise with him. He might feel a love for Truman now, but originally he did it for entertainment purposes. In an interview, the interviewer says ‘Thanks for giving up so much of your precious time to talk to us’, Christof acts like this is a generous thing for him to do, but Truman has given his whole life up and Christof doesn’t realise how differently Truman could have lived without being on the show.

The scenes are shot in a very natural and interesting way. The settings are beautifully lit, always very bright and colourful with plenty of detail. The cameras are cleverly positioned; many are from specifically low or high angles, giving the feeling that Truman is being watched. It singles him out and makes him look alone, the only one who doesn’t know the truth behind his life. Sometimes the angles make him look smaller and more vulnerable. Many cameras are hidden in the costumes and sets. To show this, some edges are blacked out, giving the effect of a button or desk camera. Sometimes, with these angles, the cameras are very jolty and have more noticeable zooms. This portrays people purposely watching him. During Truman’s life, the technology improves. We see him as a baby staring at a mobile above his cot with a camera hanging off; as Truman grows, the cameras get more discreetly hidden and the shots less ‘perfectly’ placed and captured. In the last scene, as Truman steps out into the real world, we only see darkness, symbolising that he has been watched his whole life and now he should be free.

The soundtrack to the film is very subtle and natural. It means that Truman is always in the spotlight. Watching the film, I didn’t really notice much backing music, but when I did notice some, it added emotion and atmosphere to the feeling of the scene. It draws people in and the simplicity and sincerity of the melody added to the innocence of Truman.

This film is topical in our age of reality TV shows and celebrity personalities- it is often compared to George Orwell’s ‘1984’, which is similarly about being watched and lack of freedom. As somebody who enjoys watching reality TV and often reads Hello magazine, I completely understand how Truman was manipulated into a celebrity-shaped TV star for the public’s enjoyment. The last scene really links to real life, where the audience (previously gripped to their screens throughout Truman’s last shows) switch to another channel and have nothing else to say about the show’s dramatic finish. It portrays that fame isn’t forever and media is always forgotten. It shows that the audience only wanted entertainment, and didn’t care for the effect it had on Truman. I would recommend this film to anybody older than 12, who enjoy reading about celebrities and reality-life, because it gave me a great insight into how a celebrity must feel, being watched everyday; however I don’t think anybody younger would understand the concept, or notice the film’s subtle details.

The Truman Show was extremely cleverly written, and the storyline was enjoyable to watch. I would rate it an 8/10, because I haven’t ever seen a film like it and I thought the extra effort taken to see the film from interesting camera angles improved it lots; it lost out on 2 points because sometimes, it was quite slow moving and confusing.

Sony Vegas Editing Software

Bit of a strange one to review, right? I just thought that there are so many softwares similar to this on the market that it is the smaller details that make or break a product like this. I was given this programme last Christmas, with a new laptop because I became very interested in media and video editing and had been struggling on an old windows programme to edit holiday videos for ages.

To begin with, you need to know exactly what you are doing to use this programme. I would not recommend it to any beginners because the features have specific names and settings that can be hard to find and control. Luckily I had been doing some video editing at school with a teacher so knew vaguely what I was doing when I started. This, however, did not stop me from searching numerous tutorial videos on youtube to look for basic functions such as how to 'cut' a piece of video clip and how to add transparency to an overlay.

Once you learnt the basic layout and functions, this programme is fantastic! To an extent you can move the windows and buttons around so that you can have everything where you want it and all features are easy to find. Simple controls make video editing a quick and thought-free process but to make a slightly more technical video the buttons are there.

I still haven't discovered everything you can do on Sony Vegas as it's capabilities are so vast and endless however the features that I have discovered are clever and extremely adaptable to whatever one may want.

A critiscism is that some of the functions tend to be hard to find, and take a lot of clicks into different folders in order to see. Additionally some of the icons are confusing and misleading, to this day it still takes numerous wrong clicks in order to do the simple task of importing new media.

All in all, I think this is an extremely clever and useful program which creates beautiful and creative films of many different styles, my repertoire ventures from our home video to my mini-series of 'Louisa in Reverse' clips! (see here). However, this is not a program for beginners, I would recommend a program such as 'Windows Movie Maker' for these people to start with!

A very fond impression of 'The Big Bang Theory'

So I watched my first episode of this before I went to America, because we would be going to the Warner Bros studio and seeing the set where it was filmed. I had also heard my friends talking about it a lot, comparing it to the same league as 'Friends'.... Now for any programme, that is an honourable rate, as 'Friends' is pretty much a world-wide programme that most people have seen and love.

It's quite hard to sum up what is currently 5 series of a sitcom, but the general story is set around Sheldon Cooper, a 20-something-year-old physicist with a huge IQ but a minuscule amount of social skills, which provides the mishaps that make us laugh so much in many hilarious sketches. He lives with his roommate, Leonard and has two other close friends, Howard and Raj, with Penny, the 'normal' girl across the hallway. Together, this gang of 5 muddle their way through life in California and the ups and downs of romance, friendship, work and 'nerdom'!

I was skeptical about whether 'The Big Bang Theory' would live up to my expectations after all the hype I had heard, however I now find myself deleting 'Friends' episodes on our sky planner to make room for new 'The Big Bang Theory' episodes, and if you know me, you will understand that this is a big deal!!! My whole family loves it, and although we are now at the stage where we have watched every episode (*cough* perhaps more than once), I was given the whole box set for Christmas, and countless numbers of our evenings are spent sprawled in front of the TV, watching back-to-back episodes. The thing that makes this programme so fantastic is the fact that each character has been written so cleverly and intricately, making their characteristics and mannerisms extreme versions of what we see in some of our friends - the 'nerdy' one, the 'women crazy' one, the 'shy, unlucky one', and this makes the characters extremely relateable. The humour is fantastic, although it is sometimes based around 'scieney' or 'nerdy' topics, the jokes have been well-enough written to ensure that they are received well. Each episode is funny, well-written and clever making it appeal to all sorts of people. Even my parents love to watch it and find some scenes unbearably funny!

Whoever you are reading this, I urge you to watch just one episode of 'The Big Bang Theory' or even just click here, here or here.... and also here

Cinema trip to see 'The Wedding Video'

Last night I saw 'The Wedding Video' at the cinema with my friends. I didn't know much about it, I had only briefly glanced at the trailer (see the trailer here) however in all honesty, I was surprised at how good the film was!
Think 'The Hangover' and 'Bridemaids' and you will get a feel for what the film is like. The old 'wedding-goes-badly-wrong' film but with it's own unique feel.
The aspect I liked most was the fact that it was filmed by a non-professional, and this made some of the scenes very funny because it gave a very realistic impression of how differently people act on camera. Being interested in video-making myself, I found this particularly funny and interesting!
Despite the theme being done hundreds of times before, the story line was not as predictable or tedious as I would have expected and many of the sketches gave the audience genuine belly-laughs! (Although it has to be said, my biggest laugh came from the fact that my friend spilled popcorn all over the couple sitting in front of us, rather than a part in the film..!)
Perhaps the ending was a little cheesy for my liking, and some of the scenes dragged out a bit, but all in all it is definitely a film to recommend to anybody over the age of 13 (although it is rated 15!!!).

Short review of Inception

Okay...so I watched this rather unwillingly at a friend's house one evening. I wasn't overly keen at first because I knew it was a confusing movie and there were a lot of us watching it- I can be easily distracted at times - I knew this would confuse the plot even more for me. Having said this, I watched the film with 2 or 3 'experts' or 'fanatics' of the film. They explained everything to me as it was happening so I do have a basic idea* of the storyline.

*note a very, very basic idea

My initial thoughts were that it was an extremely clever movie, the plot was gripping and unique, and how they portrayed this abstract idea was interesting. Having said this, a lot of the main issues in the story were not highlighted (until a friend pointed them out to me). They were said in passing conversation by the characters so it didn't really occur to me what was happening. As the film progressed, however, I found that the plot was unravelling and made the occasional "oooohhhh, I get it now" comment when a previous situation was explained!

Overall, I would rate this film 7/10 for somebody my age. I would not recommend it to anyone younger but I think someone of higher intellect would possibly enjoy it more! I might try to watch it again soon and see whether I enjoy more the second time, as I know what is going on!

Six Flags disappointment

We went to this theme park on our Summer holiday this year, expecting it to be one of the highlights. Having dropped it into a conversation with a few of my friends, I got a few exclamations from them telling me that it was the 'best theme park in the world' and was the basis of the game 'Rollercoaster typhoon'. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited and my expectations were high.

I'll hand it to the park, the rollercoasters were INCREDIBLE...the best in the world. The ride 'X2' was amazing, and I would have loved to go on it again - it was not only well designed but thrilling as well, and as you can imagine from a massive American theme park, it pulled out all of the stops in terms of 'Fear Factor'!

Now for the downside... prepare yourself- full on rant coming up!

At almost $50 a ticket, you expect to go on a lot of rides in a day. We were at the theme park from about 10.00 until about 4.00 and went on four rides. Four.

Why? Because the park is greedy. They let too many people in and didn't bother to warn us about the vast queues we would have to wait through. On our first ride, we waited 2 hours to get on. This was in the burning Californian heat in cramped conditions  with no shade and no water. After the first ride, we were already exhausted but pleased because the ride, X2 was brilliant, so we persevered and queued for a second ride. This was another rollercoaster that we waited about and hour and a half for and was disappointing. We then queued 30 minutes for another ride which literally took about a minute from buckling up to getting off. By this time, we were struggling to find reasons to stay at the park.

We went to find somewhere to sit and have a drink however unfortunately, everybody else had the same idea and we ended up paying $15 and queuing for 45 minutes to get a refillable cup, and then queuing for another 45 minutes to fill it up. Within 45 seconds it was devoured. Why didn't you save your money and use a water fountain you wonder? The few water fountains that actually worked had 20 minute queues in the exposed sun, the same with every toilet facility. We found that it wasn't just us struggling with this busy, over populated park, everybody was.

With little tolerance left, we got into a short looking queue for a water ride. It had no indication of how long it would take but we reluctantly guessed we would be waiting for about half an hour. An hour later we were still in the queue. Completely cramped and unable to move, not only because of the heat and our severe exhaustion, but because hundreds of people were surrounding us. As we waited, people around us started to get agitated - by this time, my parents had gone to the information desk and there were 4 of our group (all teenagers) left in the queue. Okay, understatement...people were shouting and swearing at the attendants, almost causing a riot! Every time a carriage for the next lot of people came, the fast track queue would be moved onto it and the rest of the queue would remain stationary. ...theoretically stationary -a lot of people behind us were giving a lot of abuse to these 'fast track arseholes who thought they were better than us'. After another hour, we finally got on the ride. The ride was terrible. We were so tired and in such a bad mood by this time that we could not be bothered to enjoy the 3 minute up-the-rail-and-underwhelming-drop ride.

After the ride, we were all extremely fed up and the 4 of us went to find our parents. They were making a complaint at the information desk, of which we never received any feedback or compensation. We had waited so long in the final queue that we missed our plans for the evening and were late home. I know I sound like a bratty teenager saying all of this, but it is the truth. In fact, as my parents were queuing at the information desk, they spoke to another unhappy customer who was disabled. Apparently they had been sold the ticket for the park, told they would be allowed on the ride and queued up (having an hour long wait) for a ride, only to be told that their disability meant they could not go on the ride. What's more, the attendants then failed to tell them that this would be the case for every other ride.

The park is greedy and overpriced, only caring about visitors and profit, not the welfare of their guests. If you ever plan to go to Six Flags, I thoroughly recommend saving your money.