Self-obsession isn’t an attractive quality. Self-delusion less so. Well, Young Adult gives us a lead character who has an overabundance of both. Charlize Theron stars as Mavis, once the popular girl in high-school, who has moved from a small town in Minnesota to the more bustling municipality of Minneapolis – even though how small does your hometown have do be to regard Minneapolis as the “big city”?
Now a divorcee, Mavis is a writer of fiction novels that can be found in the “young adult ” section of bookshops (as you can see, the film’s title has a double-meaning). However, she is unsatisfied with her lot in life, and rather than write, she spends most of her time drinking heavily and watching trashy reality TV shows that specifically focus on women – which I’m sure is deliberate. She may look at the likes of “tweens” in beauty-pageants and feel superior in their vacuity, but at her core, Mavis is no better. The only difference between her and Kim Kardashian is that she has a diploma. Read More »
Posted by Richard Smith - January 30, 2012 – 9:01 pm
I really didn’t see this one coming, but there’s no denying that it actually happened. Suddenly every box under my TV streams video. I feel a little bit behind the times with this one because there have been streaming video products available for a long time, it’s just that now it seems everything is a streaming video player, and more importantly, that there are lots of places to get the video. Read More »
Posted by Richard Smith - January 30, 2012 – 2:49 pm
A few years ago the original series of a little scifi show called Star Trek was released on BluRay. It was the result of a years long project to enhance something that was fiilmed around half a century ago. It was generally accepted that the work they did was excellent. They didn’t only enhance what was there, but they started adding new things. The special effects were completely recreated, the music was rerecorded, and they gave the Gorn blinking eyes. Everybody was happy.
Then we get to Star Trek: The Next Generation. My personal favourite of all the series, it was the one I started with. I do have the complete set on DVD but they have a little problem, they are close to unwatchable. It’s fair to say that TNG didn’t survive the move to a digital format. Read More »
I love a good news story in the world of sport. So I doff my proverbial cap to the Leeds Rhinos, who announced that their cheerleaders will be supplemented by two male dancers for the new Super League season in rugby league.
I confess I’ve never been the biggest fan of this kind of thing. I think it’s one of the increasingly prevalent sideshows that take away from the athletic prowess on the field of play. But there’s no denying that they are very talented.
However, this raises a wider issue. The use of cheerleaders is an exemplar of a larger societal problem. Even in the ostensibly meritocratic world of sport, men are there to be looked at for their sporting skill. Women are just there to be looked at. So anything that helps bridge the gender divide – proving that there is no domain that is just, “for women” – has to be applauded. Read More »
Posted by Richard Smith - January 27, 2012 – 4:53 pm
Yeah the people who make Pot Noodle.
This is becoming a bit of a pet issue of mine, as this is something I have personally run afoul of in the past. Two incidents come to mind. The first was when one of our listener meet ups ended up at FAB Cafe in Leeds, only to be thrown out because it’s “illegal” to take photos in a nightclub, it isn’t. And the conflict continued as I took photos of the bouncers from the street, also not illegal. Read More »
One could argue a brief look at the publicity for Like Crazy is something of a marketing disaster; the trailer, the mawkish poster, even the title. You’d be right in surmising that Like Crazy is a love story, but it’s not the love story that the first wave of advertising would have you believe. Jakob Rehlinger – from the Nerd Hurdles podcast – argued that this same problem beset the movie, Hanna.
The couple is question is Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin). Anna is an English college student in Los Angeles and takes a shine to classmate, Jacob. Sure enough a whirlwind love-affair swiftly develops between the two of them. While I’d imagine that they have been in relationships before, they approach this one with the wide-eyed wonder of a child who’s opened their Christmas presents to find that Santa has brought them exactly what they wanted. Read More »
Since we don’t talk much about Underworld: Awakening in our upcoming Nerd Hurdles episode on Underworld: Awakening, here is a more in depth look at this weekend’s biggest film.
The fourth installment in the franchise—and the proper sequel to the second film Underworld: Evolution—finds our heroine, Selene, awakening from twelve years in stasis to a world where humans have purged Vampires and Werewolves to the point of extinction. This is really the only place the franchise could be taken. This place being the Resident Evil films.
Co-directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein borrow more than a few pages from the Paul W.S. Anderson schlock-fests:
Page 1—We see a back-story of where a True Blood-style “Great Revelation” results in lycanthropy and vampirism being treated as like T-virus infections with paramilitary units going on search and destroy missions.
Page 2—Selene breaks out of a glass stasis tube, naked, in an Umbrella Corporation lab (here trading under the name AntiGen) and has to kill her way past endlessly respawning guards who luckily have a bad case of the Stormtroopers as far as their marksmanship goes.
The following post is from Jonathon Dez-La-Lour (a.k.a jonathond2607 on our forums and jd2607 on Twitter). This can also be read at - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/258996755
What I loved about this book was its honesty. It doesn’t read like it’s making out ambulance service to be glamourous or easy, and it doesn’t just present one aspect of the work. The highs, the lows, the bloody bureaucracy; it covers just about everything and it does so in a way that’s a pleasure to read.
Reynolds’ dark sense of humour suits me perfectly, so I got more than a few good giggles out of this book (“I have a baby deer to kneecap. These things don’t run out in front of cars on their own you know.”), but it’s also surprisingly heartfelt and has left me close to tears while sat on the bus, especially when he writes about his experiences during the London bombings of July 2005, or about some of the abuse that he’s witnessed in care homes. Read More »
Before I get to my thoughts on the past year in movies, it’s only fair to begin with three caveats: 1) I will only be dealing with films released in the UK in 2011, so films like The Artist, Shame and Martha Marcy May Marlene will not be considered. 2) I can only talk about movies that I’ve seen, so if you feel that I’ve omitted a movie that you liked, it’s likely that I never got round to watching it. 3) I will be mentioning numerous films in this post, and they will contain a certain amount of spoilers. Read More »
Name the title of the movie that was adapted from a novel. Also provide at least 3 authors of the original works.
Bonus (for fun):
1. Provide at least 2 of the actual titles of the novels that aren’t the same as the title of the movie.
2. There is one author that has more than one title here. Who is that author?
3. The font I chose for the numbers is a special font for one of these movie’s poster. Which movie is that?
Send your submissions to ro.rosaka@gmail.com. Deadline is next Thursday, 01/19/2012, at 12AM PST. One winner will be randomly selected and given a shout-out on our next recording.
I love a good news story in the world of sport. So I doff my proverbial cap to the Leeds Rhinos, who announced that their cheerleaders will be supplemented by two male dancers for the new Super League season in rugby league.
3 1/2 out of 5 *****
The following post is from Jonathon Dez-La-Lour (a.k.a jonathond2607 on our forums and jd2607 on Twitter). This can also be read at - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/258996755
Before I get to my thoughts on the past year in movies, it’s only fair to begin with three caveats: 1) I will only be dealing with films released in the UK in 2011, so films like The Artist, Shame and Martha Marcy May Marlene will not be considered. 2) I can only talk about movies that I’ve seen, so if you feel that I’ve omitted a movie that you liked, it’s likely that I never got round to watching it. 3) I will be mentioning numerous films in this post, and they will contain a certain amount of spoilers. 
