Credit Crunch: The Movie

Not to be confused with The National, an excellent indie band with a touch of The Arcade Fire and Nick Cave about them, The International is representative of something sadly much less interesting.

You see, not at all continuing the trend for derivative, soulless cinema, the folks at Hollywood have managed to create a movie that may perhaps reach out to our international consciousness in these times of financial crisis crunching.

How have they done this? By creating a film about....wait for it....an evil bank. An evil bank. Now call me a cynic, call me an arsehole, whatever you like, but an evil bank for fuck's sake. I bet they were high-fiving in the boardroom when they came up with that. Oh and they've chucked in a bit of good old fashioned post-911 terrorism paranoia by having this evil bank funding terrorism.

The funniest thing about this pathetic marketing ploy of a concept is that noone will be able to afford to see it. The evil banks have lost all their money. Whoops.

Spontaneous Outpouring

Hello again.

I realise I did post but 5 minutes ago, but that was a *proper* post that I didn't want to wreck by adding other unrelated things that are not worthy of their own proper posts. So think of this as a mopping up session.

Item #1: Pineapple Express

It's really shit, don't bother going to see it. I was quite disappointed really, rather than more Superbad-style hilarity, the film opts for an unengaging 'stoners on the run from a baddie' format. The dialogue is long-winded and largely uninteresting (albeit with a few decent one-liners) with the comedy restricted to shitty stoner dialogue that's probably supposed to be funny because it's mundane, but in fact is just mundane, and slapstick. I nearly fell asleep in the cinema, but that's mainly because I was tired.


Item #2: Nihal (Radio 1)

Is this the worst Photoshop job ever?! The eyes are terrifying...







Item #3: New Look!

Hope you like the new header, badly positioned as it is (I haven't yet mastered HTML, but I'm trying...). This is the first of a few updates, so watch out for them avid readers!

Mamma Mia!

So I went to see Mamma Mia the other day. Not a great film, but quite fun in it's cheesy happy-go-lucky fashion. What struck me about it was how cleverly it is aimed at it's target audience.

Based on the songs of ABBA, the main target audience are the ABBA generation: people that were young in ABBA's heyday, though of course they don't want to rule out any young people that may want to jump on the disco bandwagon. Therefore the main characters are three middle-aged women (around the current age of the original ABBA fans), three middle-aged men, and a young couple. The story centres around the preparations for the young couple's wedding on a Greek island. Unbeknownst to her mother Donna, the young bride has invited three potential 'fathers', men from Donna's past who she slept with in quick succession back in the glory days.

The effect of this is as the audience get all nostaligic with the ABBA tunes they know and love (which have been largely left as they are), Donna is confronted by her past. There are almost two eras taking place simultaneously as the daughter prepares for her wedding, having her own youthful adventure, Donna is reliving hers periodically regressing into an almost teenage state (particularly in her rendition of Mamma Mia).

All angles are covered! Men and women of the ABBA generation get characters they can identify with as do the new generation. Rather than restricting the proceedings to pure nostalgia, flashbacks or simply being set in the past, the film simply draws parallels between the events of the film and the events from the past they are celebrating.

The Winner Takes it All is the highlight.