The Day My Car Tried To Kill Me (Part 2)

So (as reported in my previous post) my car is in a ditch / hedgerow at the side of the road and I'm required to crawl out of the passenger door to call for assistance. I phone the police first: they're not that interested as I haven't hurt anybody else or damaged any property beyond my own. Next I call the roadside recovery people. "Someone will be with you within the hour." So all I have to do now is wait. Wait, and thank / reassure the people who stop to ask after my well-being.

I'm heartened by the amount of people who do stop. "Are you all right, lad?" "Do you need to borrow a phone to call for help?" "What happened?" Their mix of concern and curiosity gives me hope for the human race. At first. There's an edgy moment when the farmer whose field I'm encroaching stops by to check on the well-being of his fence, but he seems satisfied I've not done more damage and thankfully doesn't begin demanding reparations.

Then, after a while, my inner Larry David starts to take hold. It's a sad fact that even good will gets annoying after a while. By the time the 10th person has pulled over to check me out and hear the story ("I don't know what happened - the steering just went"), I start making a conscious effort to look unapproachable. Blasé or uncommunicative or stern or scary... whatever will keep them driving so I don't have to answer any more questions. Where is that bloody tow truck? How the hell can people get on my nerves even when they're just being kind? OK: I'm shaken, I'm fed up, I'm seriously worried about how this accident will affect my finances... but that's still no reason to be so grumpy, is it?

"You all right, lad?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

Sigh. I really must try to be a better person.

The Day My Car Tried To Kill Me (Part 1)

Driving to Barnsley yesterday morning to do my teacher training, my car decided it'd had enough of boring, conventional, "square" roads and would much rather drive off into the hedgerow. For reasons yet to be ascertained, taking a sharp bend on a narrow country lane the steering wheel refused to respond and rather than continuing in the direction I was supposed to be travelling, I ended up crossing the road and driving down into a ditch, at a 45 degree angle, stopped only by a thick, spiky hedge and a farmer's barb wire fence. It wasn't that I skidded taking the bend, I've done that on icy or wet roads before and what generally happens when you try to correct the skid is that the back end of the car spins round and you end up facing back in the opposite direction. But there was no skid here: the road conditions were good and my tyres had plenty of tread. What happened instead was that the steering simply ceased to work and the car carried on forwards rather than completing its turn.

Thankfully I wasn't going particularly fast so the brakes and the hedge were sufficient to stop me from rolling the car over onto its roof. I'm just glad there was nobody else on the road or that I wasn't travelling in a built up area or on a motorway. I can't help thinking I've had a lucky escape: for all that my car is scratched and crumpled and broken, this could have been a far worse accident.

However, this is the final straw. I've had enough of this car now. It's one problem after another. I can hardly afford another one, but I can't afford to keep paying to have it fixed either... and I don't trust it any more. When the trust is gone, the relationship is over. If I can't even rely on it to stay on the road, it's time to say goodbye. When your car starts trying to kill you, put it out of its misery before it has another go.

Apologies to the poor roadside recovery man who had to crawl through a spiky hedge to attach the tow rope to pull the bloody thing out of the hedgerow - his arms were lacerated. And to the farmer whose fence I damaged, who was decent enough to show more concern for my welfare than the state of his field. I promise you both: that bloody car will see justice.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 (2011)

MyRating: YY

Director: Bill Condon

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Sarah Clarke, Nikki Reed, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Jackson Rathbone, Julia Jones, Booboo Stewart, Anna Kendrick

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, sexuality/partial nudity and some thematic elements

Would you give your mortal life to live for eternity on earth? Living for centuries after all the people that you've ever known have died, and they remain as 'thousand-years' memories in your mind? Or running into the road of immortality that you may regret you ever took, since it will become a long and never-ending journey? Well, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is pretty sure that this is the right path she wants to go, since she can live together with her handsome vampire boyfriend that she loves, even though she will have to be turned into a vampire herself as the consequence.

 

This fourth installment of The Twilight Saga enormous franchise (books written by Stephenie Meyer) tells the story of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) who finally decide to get married, as it is the best way to bind their true love for eternity. The movie surely didn't waste its time by telling you this from the very beginning, and soon you will see Bella and Edward walking through the aisle. And it was a beautiful wedding ceremony, with a happy crowd of families and relatives and friends, who are cheering for them, except for the heartbroken Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Did half of this crowd even know that she will have to be turned into a living vampire? I don't know. The interesting thing is, when Edward and Bella said their marriage vow, there was no "Till death do us part" line at the end.

After the wedding, like other normal people, Edward and Bella go for a honeymoon to Isle Esme, a private tropical island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they celebrate their love and have their first sexual experience. But their honeymoon suddenly turns edgy when Bella discovers that she is pregnant after two weeks. It becomes a shock as, theoritically, it is not possible for a vampire to impregnate a human. Besides that, as the baby inside her is a half-vampire and a half-human child, it grows with an unnaturally accelerated speed that may endanger Bella's life. As her condition is getting worse as the fetus grows bigger, while she insists to keep her baby, Bella is struggling with a life-and-death situation for her coming childbirth. While Jacob, who always loves and feels the need to protect Bella, has to step inside, as the unborn child has somehow become a threat to his Quileute wolf pack, whom have planned to kill the child and the mother, Bella. 

I will not bash this movie, as I think you should know what you expect when watching a Twilight movie, and there are already enough haters for this franchise, including from the people who have never even watched the movies. And I will start by saying the good things about this latest installment. This movie has a beautiful cinematography, especially when showing the breathtaking sceneries of the island of Isle Esme. The waterfall, the ocean, the river and the forest have brought up the perfect romantic atmosphere into the honeymoon 'adventure' of Bella and Edward. I also think that the soundtrack and music score were cool. The ballad songs were really catchy to the ears, which increased the romanticism that this movie was trying to build, including the song 'A Thousand Years' by Christina Perri.

Is it romantic? I never really bought into the relationship of Edward and Bella, which was always felt a bit awkward to me. However, with the lustful sceneries and the romantic songs, I kind of enjoyed their joyful time together in this movie, which gave a youthful vibrant of love. I believe these scenes will blow the teenage girls away with their dreams of a beautiful and perfect true love out there. This movie also has plenty of intimate kissing scenes between Bella and Edward, which surely will satisfy and make the fans scream. And enough love-making scenes, which I think some may be a bit too 'strong' for a PG-13, including swimming naked in the ocean and breaking a bed. And the leading sexual desires, such as when Edward found out that he actually hurted Bella when they made love by seeing the bruises in Bella's body, and since Bella is not yet turned into a vampire, Edward decided to give some distance in their sexual relationship in order not to further hurt her, which left Bella with a bit of frustration at the other end, and we can see in one scene that Bella was craving for Edward to make love to her, as she badly needs it. Yes, as the series is near the end, this movie has a more mature theme, including the pregnancy and childbirth issues. And the director seemed tried to utilize this mature theme to make this movie looked and felt as romantic as possible.

The plot itself was slow moving, as of other Twilight movies. Some boring moments for me, as usual. There was not much of a story actually. The human and the vampire lover get married, they find out that she is pregnant, and then they have to deal with the complications of her childbirth afterwards. As simple as other teen romances, only with the cloth of vampires and werewolves, but never managed to scare us (indeed Stephenie Meyer never intended to). No characters that are compelling enough. And not much actions too, except at the end when the wolf pack headed for Bella. It has its interesting moments though, and for the eye-catching reasons, I like the first half of the movie better than the second half.

From the acting side, there was not much development as all the actors gave mediocre performances, but it may be enough for the script. And I still think that Robert Pattinson gave the worst performance with his wooden acting and expressions. Taylor Lautner was okay, always thought that his character was slightly more interesting than Pattinson's boring vampire character. Kristen Stewart was less annoying here, and one thing I must say about her is, she looked beautiful in this movie, especially in the beginning of the film when she became a bride and walking through the aisle, even though we also will see how the make-up team turned her to look old and messy when she got pregnant. I think, aside from her acting capability that was frequently being criticized in the Twilight series, she has grown to become a beautiful actress.

"I have died everyday waiting for you.
Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years.
And I will love you for a thousand more."

Like it or not, Twilight has become a global phenomenon, whether it is the books or the movie franchise. People may hate it, or curse it, or say it's trash, but this franchise will always stay at the very special parts of the hearts of its fans. As for me, I enjoyed this movie more than the previous two, and even though I am not a fan of this series, I surely will finish it by watching  Breaking Dawn - Part 2 next year. (MJ)

Soundtrack: (right click to not exit this page)

- A Thousand Years by Christina Perri 

Related Twilight movie reviews by MyMovie Critic:

- The Twilight Saga: NEW MOON (2009)

- The Twilight Saga: ECLIPSE (2010)

MYMOVIE CRITIC - REVIEWING MOVIES FROM THE AUDIENCE'S STANDPOINT

I Quite Fancy Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse, Actually...

The Walking Dead is back on TV, though the latest season might be better called 'The Treading Water'. Still, it got me thinking about why I like post-apocalyptic fiction so much. And the truth is, no matter how grim they try and make it appear, I still quite fancy being a survivor of some kind of global catastrophe.

Now, obviously, it all depends on the kind of apocalypse. Nuclear Armageddon is out, because even if you did survive... chances are you'd be living on borrowed time while hideous cancers grew inside you like sea monkeys. Plus you'd constantly be worrying about drinking irradiated water or eating a mutated turnip. Or you might end up in The Road, the most depressing of all post-apocalyptic futures, fending off cannibals and wishing you were dead because everything is so relentlessly grey.

Societal breakdown is a no-no too. Frankly, society's broken down enough for me as it is. Living in Mad Max world with marauding biker gangs raping and pillaging everything in sight would be too much like this summer's yoof riots. I parked in Manchester a couple of weekends ago and returned to find some mindless savage had snapped the windscreen wiper off my car for no reason at all. If the yobs ever do take over, I'm going to live on a mountain.

And you can forget your killer viruses too because even if I was immune, I'm such a hypochondriac I wouldn't be able to leave the house for fear of a wayward sneeze. I currently have a terrible case of Man Flu I'm certain I caught when I went to see Contagion. It was inevitable really.

The best kind of apocalypse would be one like in the movie Night Of The Comet where pretty much the entire human race just conveniently disappears (and there's no stinking corpses to clean up) and you could spend all your time dancing to Cyndi Lauper songs at the mall. But as the chances of that happening appear slim, I'll settle instead for a nice zombie apocalypse. As long as it's one where the zombies can only shuffle about slowly and are rubbish at running. Not the speed-freak 28 Days Later zombies. Those guys are no fun at all.

Top Ten Reasons I Wouldn't Mind Surviving A Zombie Apocalypse...

1. Even though society's fallen apart, there's still loads to eat. Zombies aren't interested in human food (only brains) so you'd never go hungry again. Well, until all the cans in the supermarket were past their sell-by dates. You'd have to start growing stuff then.

2. You get to shoot people you don't like (i.e. zombies) in the head.

3. Once you find yourself a nice generator you can sit back, watch some DVDs, play some computer games... read books to your heart's content. Just don't break your reading glasses like Burgess Meredith did in that famous Twilight Zone episode.

4. You get to shoot people in the head. Don't look at me like that, you know you want to.

5. You don't have to go to work any more.

6. You get to shoot your boss in the head. Because, let's face it, he or she is already part zombie. It's for their own good.

7. No more wasting your time on the internet. The internet has closed down. Maybe you can go out for a nice walk instead. You know, like we used to, before the 90s.

8. Did I mention shooting people in the head?

9. You can go wherever you want. Into all those behind-the-scenes parts of buildings you never see unless you work there. Or into other people's houses. Have a nice snoop about. Rummage to your heart's content. As long as you don't bump into any remaining zombie residents, you'll be fine. Go on, admit it, you fancy having a good nose.

10. Shooting. People. In. The. Head.

Now, give me one good reason we shouldn't have a zombie apocalypse tomorrow...?

Movie Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Ever since I heard of the plans to film Lionel Shriver's novel about the tumultuous relationship between a mother and her high school massacring son, I've been eager to see the movie. It's an excellent book and the combination of director Lynne Ramsay and actress Tilda Swinton seemed the ideal choice to deliver a unsensationalised, dramatically non-Hollywood conversion. The distributors didn't make it easy though. For such a high profile, well-reviewed adaptation of a bestselling, prize winning novel, the film's UK release has been shoddily handled. Most of the multiplexes dropped it after one week while even the arthouses seem reluctant to give it much time. Curious then that the showing I finally managed to attend on Sunday night at the Hebden Bridge Picture House was sold out. Audiences do apparently want to see this movie... but I guess it's just not glamorous, star-studded or CGI-encrusted enough to devote mainstream cinema space to. In decades gone by, this would have been a major release. Can we say dumbing down?

It's even more galling then that Ramsay's movie proved to be one of the best pieces of moviemaking I've seen in a long, long time. Perhaps not the most enjoyable and certainly not the easiest to watch, but as an example of cinematic storytelling: damned hard to beat. Shriver's novel is a long and detailed account of the relationship between Eva Khatchadourian and her troubled son Kevin, and this could so easily have been a wordy, staged adaptation. Instead, the screenplay by Ramsay and Rory Kinnear is a textbook example of how to show rather than tell, using the medium of film to its full extent and respecting the intelligence of the audience, allowing them to fill in the gaps. It's a haunting, nightmarish translation that eschews meaty exposition in favour of dramatic visuals, shocking symbolism, taut-yet-restrained performances, a smart soundtrack and some of the meanest stares ever committed to screen. Clint Eastwood would lose a staring contest against any of the three young actors playing Kevin, and the permanently fraught Swinton gives as good as she gets.

If you've read the book, you'll know what to expect from the movie... but that won't stop you being devastated. If you haven't: prepare yourself for a genuinely shocking, provocative and challenging film that will remain with you long after the drive home. If you can find a cinema that's actually showing it in the first place...

Spandex Goes Crossover Crazy

The fifth issue of Martin Eden's excellent "gay superheroes" comic SPANDEX dropped on my doormat last week and it's yet another multicoloured masterpiece. This time, Martin set his sights on the dirge of MEGA-CROSSOVERS that are miring the comics industry, almost as bad as they were back in the late 90s. He sets his sights, he takes aim, and he blows those crappy crossovers to kingdom come. Suffering "event fatigue"? This is the comic for you.

But, as always, Spandex is much more than just a masterly spoof of current comic book trends with twinkly gay bits on top. There's also real depth of characterisation as we learn the secret origins of Spandex leader, Liberty. Great jokes, inventive character ideas, guest stars aplenty (including the return of The O Men - slightly different than we remember them, but longtime fans will be glad to learn Miss Scarlet is still one helluva pistol packing mama!), action, shock plot twists... if every MEGA-CROSSOVER was as much fun as this, the mainstream comics industry would be in a much healthier state.

Buy the latest SPANDEX and you'll also get a free mini-manga featuring Japanese superheroes The J-Team (I can't believe I only just spotted the pun in their name) plus a cool Spandex trading card. And anyone who thinks that tight pair of swimming trunks shown on the penultimate page of Too Much Sex & Violence #1 was TOO MUCH... wait till you see the final page of this comic. It ain't for your granny. (Unless your granny's into... no, let's not go there.)

Go here: Buy Spandex now. That's all.

Evil Advertising McMonsters Hollywoodise My Hometown

I realise that by embedding the above video into my blog, I could be seen to be promoting the company in question... but they're such a ubiquitous Big Evil Corporation that I doubt one extra blogpost will affect their fortunes and if you're daft enough to read this post and go out and buy one of their "cooked meat" in "bread" products as a result... well, more fool you.

Anyway, the new McDimbulbs advert was filmed in Huddersfield. I'm not sure I'd have recognised this had someone not pointed it out to me. If you haven't seen it on your telly-box (I had to youtube it), it involves a young man (they all look young to me these days) singing the old Lerner & Loewe classic 'On The Street Where You Live' while he walks through town to get his McBreakfast. Except this guy has the worst sense of direction - he is in serious need of a SatNav. He begins his journey just outside Big Evil Corporation II, Tesco (ours is The Tesco Time Forgot - the only thing that's changed since it opened in the 80s is the prices). Conveniently though, The TTF has been edited out of the opening shot; we wouldn't want to promote a competitor, would we, McLads?

Anyway, our hero then walks under the grim Northern viaducts, heading in the correct direction (his goal is now about 30 seconds away) before he turns and starts walking back where he just came from. Next he finds himself a few blocks downtown by the Adult Cinema (also conveniently airbrushed out of existence) before walking past a launderette... in Fartown*. Which is a five minute bus ride away. Suddenly, he's on Cross Church Street, and heading in the right direction once again. Someone's even conveniently built an Abbey Road style zebra crossing to help him find his way. I'm surprised they didn't paint arrows on the shop windows too. Once again, he almost reaches his destination... when he detours along a side street packed with market stalls (which must have been blown a couple of blocks north by the strong Pennine winds). He takes time to flirt with a random woman (she's humouring him; she's already seen him walk past three times that morning)... and finally, he's there! Just in time to sink his choppers into one of those infamous "cooked meat" in "bread" combos before the men in the white van arrive to speed him back to the happy place.

It's all filmed in glorious HD technicolour supervision so golden and sunshiny it makes my home town look like Narnia. Now don't get me wrong, Huddersfield is a very nice place (I won't hear a word said against it... unless it's by me). But these aren't the streets where I live. It's Hollywood Huddersfield. I'm surprised he doesn't bump into Tom Hanks on his journey. (Maybe Tom finally heard about my sniper rifle.) Like the majority of advertising, it's one big, fat lie after another. Still... it's better than another repeat of Last of the Summer Wine. Just.

Has Television, Cinema or Evil Advertising ever distorted your hometown beyond all recognition?




(*I should point out to non-locals, this is pronounced "Far-town". Just as the nearby Penistone is pronounced "Penn-is-ton". Sorry.)