Gone Girl - Do you get the feeling you've been cheated?

I flipped a coin today, caught between Dracula Untold and Gone Girl, and I have been left frustrated and confused. Dracula Untold has been getting bad reviews, Gone Girl has had critics raving (shock-horror); so when my coin told me to see GG I happily obliged. I wish I'd chosen differently.
Now allow me to explain my emotions with the smallest amount of spoilers possible:

Frustration: What do Fight Club, Benjamin Button, Gone Girl have in common? "David Fincher's direction" is one possible answer, but the panel will also accept "fundametally disappointing plotlines you need to over-analyse in order to enjoy". Why did I not notice this earlier? God knows.
But what frustrates me most? The 2.5 hour runtime. If I wanted to spend all day neck deep in melodramatic bulls*** masquerading as a crime thriller I'd tune into a Days of Our Lives marathon.

Confusion: What's so great about this movie? I really don't know. The characters perhaps? I did like the characters; even though the chemistry between the Nick and Amy was about zero. All the characters were interesting in their own way, Nick and Amy for the illusions they created, the detective for her intelligence, the lawyer for his sense of humour. Ultimately however nothing happened. Nothing of any consequence anyway. Suspense was built, plots twisted and characters developed: then nothing. Not even an "everybody died. The end." or a "then I woke up." just the slowly fading screams of my mind's disappointment.


My advice: I tried to like Gone Girl at first. I promise I did. I even enjoyed some parts while watching it. I liked Amy for some strange reason. All I can tell you though is don't bother. Read the plot on Wikipedia, you'll get the picture (that link is for the book's plot but they're basically the same and this one is more detailed).
I have a theory that some people set out to create a mindf*** of a story, and they succeed for a time; but when they reach the end they find there is nothing that will actually work for an ending so they give up altogether and call it "ambiguous" (like that gives it meaning and purpose).

I'm not even going to bother rating this. This wasn't even a film review, it was just an angry rant. It's not like anybody is reading this blog at the moment anyway...

Poster by Michael Lee-Graham

Check it: Heathers

I love this movie. It's a badass 80s teen-romance with a wickedly dark humour. The one liners are lovable (What's your damage Heather?) and Christian Slater pulls off handsome, witty, romantic, psycho with surprising ease.

So here's the lowdown: Winona Ryder is Veronica; a bit like Cady Heron from Mean Girls. She's been running around with the 80s version of the Plastics: the Heathers (yes all three are called Heather). But of course she hates them. Then there's the new kid in school, J.D. (otherwise known as the young and beautiful version of Christian Slater) who makes quite the entrance when he fires a gun at a pair of jocks who were hassling him. When Veronica and J.D. (that's short for Jason Dean by the way) meet, things go a little, haywire...

That's all I can say without giving the game away. I think it's a fun movie for both guys and gals. It's not immediately intellectual but there are some interesting comments made about high-school culture and the way we deal with teenage suicide (that's just if you really want to think about it though).

I'm going to rate Heathers using my "Bowls of Popcorn Scale" (which may be subject to change):

Romance - 4 Bowls of Popcorn

Comedy - 4.5 Bowls of Popcorn

Drama - 3.5 Bowls of Popcorn

Action - 2.5 Bowls of Popcorn (out of 5)

Creepiness - 2 Bowls of Popcorn

Mind F*** - 0 Bowls of Popcorn

Sci-Fi - 0 Bowls of Popcorn

The poster was designed by Adam Juresko, who has an awesome Etsy shop here

Ta,

Izz

Have You Ever Seen Donnie Darko?

I'm not going to lie to you: Donnie Darko is a cult movie. So there are elements that probably won't make a lot of sense the first time around. It's also got swearing and a little bit of religious debate (if that puts you off) in it. But it's still a good movie (one of my favourites).
Basically the movie's about a teenage boy named Donald "Donnie" Darko who narrowly avoids a freak accident due to a curious dream about a 6 foot tall bunny rabbit who tells him that the world is going to end in roughly 28 days.

Here's my advice:

If you like to have your head stuffed with then this is a great movie to watch (for instance, if you liked Inception). Make sure you get the directors cut and be prepared to watch it twice and/or Google an explanation.

It can get really deep but also adds some nice one-liners. I like to think that makes it a bit more watchable than Inception.


I'm going to rate Donnie Darko in terms of what's in it using my "Bowls of Popcorn Scale":
Action - 1 Bowl of Popcorn (out of 5)
Creepiness - 3 Bowls of Popcorn (give or take 1 depending on your tolerance)
Comedy - 3.5 Bowls of Popcorn
Drama - 4 Bowls of Popcorn
Mind F*** - 4.5 Bowls of Popcorn
Sci-Fi - 4 Bowls of Popcorn
Romance - 2.5 Bowls of Popcorn

That's all I can think to say at the moment. If my system of reviewing changes at any point in the future I'll edit this post accordingly. By the way credit for the picture goes straight to Peter Strain, who I believe has a website if you Google him.
Ta.
Izz

Test Post

This is a test post. It does not contain any information of worth besides this announcement:

Winter is coming.