Sunny Day - Hooray!

So, as usual, I’ve been barely coping with schoolwork, struggling best I can.  Lately I’ve been spending WAY too much time online - I’m becoming addicted.  And the rest of the family are not happy, so that’s got to change now.  Still, I can still blog!

I’ve had another tiring day.  Last double lesson (periods 5 and 6) was media, and a grand total of four people attended.  That’s got to be a record, or something.  I’m pretty sure everyone was in, but only the four of us showed.  Luckily Adam was in a good mood - must be the weather.  We did a few practice questions, then watched some TV.  And if any of you skivers are reading this, you missed out on sweets and prawn crackers.  And Adam paid for them!

It’s really sunny, and the sky is blue and clear.  Walking home, I just couldn’t help noticing how much like summer it felt.  The birds were singing.  Cars glowed like magnesium flares as sunlight reflected off them.  And everybody just seemed so happy to be alive.  Even (someone who appeared to be) an emo kid and his girlfriend were smiling.  Once I’ve posted this, I’m going to get off this computer, go outside and enjoy the sunshine.  How can anyone feel miserable on such a glorious day as this?

Current listening: Radiohead, “Gagging Order”.

Bobby G. Faction: The Resistance!

Reservoir Dogs

The last f—ing movie we f—ing studied in f—ing media class was f—ing Reservoir Dogs, which we f—ing watched to-f—ing-day.  Reservoir f—ing Dogs was written and directed by f—ing Quentin Tarantino.  It’s also the most f—ing recently released of the movies we have watched as a f—ing class.

OK, I’m going to stop swearing, it’s getting f—ing ridiculous.

Anyway, the movie begins with eight sharply-dressed men sitting in a restaurant, joking around and discussing Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”, and whether or not it’s necessary to tip the waitress.  Their names are Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr Blue (Edward Bunker), Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino - yes, he really is a jack of all trades, that one), Joe (Lawrence Tierney) and “Nice Guy” Eddie (Chris Penn), and they are about to attempt a heist.  Then we are treated to a now-iconic (so iconic I recognised it despite never having seen it before) scene of the team walking down the street to the sound of the George Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag”.  Then the titles play.

When the titles stop, the heist is over, and the survivors are trying to work out what went wrong.  One of them must have set them up.  So who’s the rat?

I expect most people have a rough idea of what to expect from a Tarantino movie.  This one ticks all the boxes for non-linear storytelling, bloody violence, a memorable script, plenty of awareness of older films and popular culture, and liberal swearing; depending on your tastes this combination likely makes it either one of the greatest films of all time or an utter f—ing mess.

Reservoir Dogs is only superficially similar to GoodFellas.  They certainly exist in similar worlds, dark and violent, with guns, gangsters, heists and drug dealing.  However, the narratives unfold very differently.  Whereas GoodFellas is mainly told in chronological order (apart from a brief scene at the start), Reservoir Dogs makes frequent use of flashbacks to tell its narrative.  Also, while GoodFellas takes place over several decades, the main plot of Reservoir Dogs all unfolds within the space of about an hour.  Like GoodFellas, Reservoir Dogs has a very good soundtrack (although it’s going to be a while before I’m going to be able to hear “Stuck in the Middle With You” again without shuddering).

One aspect of the film that makes it so impressive was that it was independantly made with an unusually low budget.  Despite this, it manages to look highly polished and professional, give or take the odd shaky tracking shot or fluffed line.

I found Reservoir Dogs to be both highly intelligent and immersive.  However, I did find the sadism and racism displayed by the characters to be unpleasant viewing, so I can’t honestly say that I particularly enjoyed the movie.  It was OK, though.

Current listening: Eagles, “Journey of the Sorceror”.

GoodFellas

GoodFellas is a gangster movie, based on the true story of real-life mobsters Henry Hill, James Burke and Thomas DeSimone.

It follows the rise and decline of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), an Irish-Italian American who wants to be a gangster and goes to work for local mob boss Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino).  Along with two friends, the more experienced Irish-American mobster Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and psychopathic killer Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), Henry commits various crimes and becomes very successful.

The movie is one of the best paced films I’ve seen, with pretty much no superfluous scenes (I suspect it may have been ruthlessly edited for this very purpose), although it nevertheless runs to well over two hours in length.  It grabs your attention and doesn’t let go; once you start watching, you’re on board for the whole duration.

The soundtrack is particularly good, with memorable songs by a variety of artists including the Crystals, Muddy Waters, Aretha Franklin, Cream, and the Rolling Stones.

One downside of the film, to my mind, was the absence of any particularly likeable characters.  Just about all the main characters are violent criminals; Conway is a cold blooded murderer, and DeVito is absolutely vicious, and arguably one of the scariest characters I’ve seen in film - all the more so because his personality and actions were closely based on those of a real person.

In terms of this film’s status as a gangster movie… well, there can be no question, really.  It’s full of gangsters, it’s all about the gangster lifestyle, and terms like “made man” and “heist” are present and correct.  And of course, the mise-en-scène includes suits, guns, knives, gloomy streets, fancy bars… it’s very much a gangster film.

So, is it my favourite film?  Certainly not.  But would I recommend watching it?  Most definitely.  This is a movie everybody ought to see.  Well, providing you don’t mind the violence, which is often brutal.  Oh, and the swearing - the characters swear all the time.  Those naughty boys.

Next up: Reservoir Dogs.  *Gulp*

Current listening: The Cat Empire, “Protons, Neutrons, Electrons”.

Lazy Bobby!

I haven’t posted in a while, but I do have the excuse that we kept getting disconnected from the Internet.  Also, it’s been a very boring week, with very little going on.  I’ve been in the kind of apathetic state where I know I should be doing something, but I don’t feel up to it.  Or, to use the vernacular phrase, I couldn’t be arsed.  Yes, I do realise this amounts to nothing more than laziness, but hey, I never said I was perfect.

Just to prove how lazy I am, I’m not going to do a media studies post today.  Instead, I’d like to recommend a post written by a fellow blogger, dissfunktional, who has written a post about the people who put the information online that the powers that be don’t want you to know about.  I heartily recommend that you check it out.

So what have I been up to?  The usual… reading, writing, catching up with webcomics, watching Doctor Who (next episode in ten minutes!), general nerding, etc.  The other day I went to the theatre (not something I do often) to see an adaptation of Michael Frayn’s Spies, which was excellent, even though I didn’t much like the book.

So, anyway, I have to go peel some potatos.

Current listening: Moby, “Machete”.

MEPs reject anti-piracy proposal

As reported by the BBC, European politicians have rejected the plans to throw suspected file-sharers and illegal downloaders off the Internet, because they were deemed to infringe on “civil liberties and human rights”.  This narrow vote is not legally binding, which means that individual governments (e.g. France and the UK) can still implement anti-piracy laws if they see fit.

The battle wages on.

Current listening: King Crimson, “Fallen Angel”.

Obtained legally, on CD, naturally.

“Spring Break” sucks!

No, not the holiday, the phrase, silly!  I mean, Easter was only a bank holiday weekend.  We’re having our Easter Holidays now, but how can they be Easter Holidays if they don’t involve Easter?

Some of my more secular, less traditional friends pointed out that there’s no reason we can’t celebrate Easter now, eggs and all, but it wouldn’t be the same, and I’ve already had Easter.

So, what to call this holiday?  One girl at school (a somewhat, er, unusual year 12 girl) has taken to referring to it as Spring Break.  Several teachers were using the phrase as well, but it just feels kind of weird, like some strange American, PC thing.  “Spring Break”.  “Spring Break”.  I don’t know, it’s just not something that rolls off the tongue easily, probably because this holiday has always been the Easter Holidays, as long as I can remember.  Some people at school were actually calling it Half Term, even though that’s something completely different!

So, anyway, it’s “Spring Break”, and I’m in a bit of a random mood, as you probably guessed.

It was rather a shock logging onto WordPress the other day and discovering that they’ve changed the dashboard screen (that’s the behind the scenes stuff that readers don’t see).  The new design is probably easier to use, but it’s less easy on the eye, dominated by pastel oranges and blues.  I also miss having a link to the forums on the dashboard.  I expect I’ll get used to it.

Anyway, I haven’t seen GoodFellas yet.  We were going to be watching it in class, but a certain teacher couldn’t be bothered to show up to teach us.  Perhaps I’ll be able to borrow a copy from a friend, but otherwise I’ll have to wait until the holidays are over.

Oh and, almost forgot: DoctorWhoseriesfourstartsinlessthananhour!!!

*Sighs*  I’m such a hopeless Doctor Who fanboy.

Current listening: Feeder, “Comfort In Sound”.

Gangstas

In addition to Westerns, we will also be looking at gangster movies in class.  The concept of a gangster is one I understand rather more than that of a cowboy, perhaps because they still exist, and consequently have a habit of sneaking into movies set in the 20th and 21st centuries that aren’t actually gangster films.  That said, I can’t say I’m familiar with gangster movies, so this is still going to be an educational experience for me.

Apologies for not having posted of late; I’ve been rather bogged-down with schoolwork.  I’ll let you know what I make of GoodFellas ASAP.

Welcome back to my evil lair!

You may not know it, but today is a very special occasion.  That’s right - it is exactly one year since my first ever blog post.  Well OK, it’s probably about 2 hours out, but dash it, it’s close.

Today is also Easter Sunday (I hadn’t forgotten!), and, I believe, the earliest Easter we’ve had since the 19th Century.  This doesn’t actually explain the fact that it’s been snowing in the UK, as depicted in these photographs on the BBC website.  Here where I live there hasn’t been any snow today, although there was a little yesterday.  It has been cold though.

The latest media controversy reported by the BBC news is over an anti-Islamic film, Fitna, which is being made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and which has caused a number of protests.  Network Solutions have suspended the film’s website due to concerns that it may violate their acceptable use policy , which prohibits, among other things, ”hate propaganda”.

Personally I think it’s a dumb idea anyway, since regardless of your views on whether or not hate speech should be permitted, surely it’s common sense that you abide by the regulations put in place by your web host.

In any case, that’s all I’ve got time to write, since I’ve got two essays to be getting on with.

Happy Easter all.

Current listening: Black Sabbath, “Rat Salad”.

I wrote this this morning

The water is warm against my skin.  On the surface, I see a milk bottle cap, floating upside-down, filled with bubbles: hundreds of soap bubbles, every one unique.  The rectangular window is reflected in them, in green and purple.  I move my hands a little, disturbing the water slightly.  The cap flips over and sinks to the bottom of the bowl.  I look out the window, and see that it is starting to snow - slowly at first, but rapidly gaining momentum until there are snowflakes everywhere, like a blizzard.  The music changes.  If you listen to the song whilst watching them, you can almost convince yourself that the snowflakes are falling in time with the track.  I pull my hands out of the bowl and dry them on a towel.  Then I grab a pen and some paper and begin to write.

I smile to myself.  The world is so beautiful.

Manhunt 2 gets a UK release

As reported by the BBC, Manhunt 2 will finally be released in the UK, albeit in an edited form, with an 18 certificate and a caution that it contains “very strong sadistic bloody violence”.

The game had been rejected by the BBFC twice, but the Video Appeals Committee has overruled them this time around.

 I’m just glad this whole fuss is over - it’s been raging since June last year - although I have no intention of buying the game, since I am not a fan of gory movies, and the Manhunt games are essentially gory movies in playable form.