FANBOYS - Review

Fanboys is set in 1998 and tells the story of a group of friends who take a road trip to the Skywalker Ranch to steal the rough cut of Episode 1 so their friend who has cancer can watch it before he dies.

There was a lot of talk of whether the studio wanted to keep the cancer storyline in the film and just have the movie about stealing the movie. But to be honest, the cancer plot line gave the film a reason and gave the characters the reason to keep going when things just went wrong. It gave the film a lot of heart and warmth that you don't see much in comedies these days.

This is a film for the Star Wars fans out there, and it really shows. There are a number of cameos that will just make you smile (none of which I'm gonna spoil), a hilliarious number of quotes taken from the movies are constantly used, this film was made by a true fanboy and relentlessly so. It's a good film with some great comedy and a touching story.

The cast all around were great, especially the characters Hutch and Windows who are just hillarious together, esepcially around Trekkies. The film also feature Seth Rogan in two roles; for people who don't tend to like him should really give him a chance in the film, he plays a trekkie and also a pimp, so two opposites collide to hillarious results.

If you're a fan of Star Wars, or just good, clean comedy, give this a shot, you won't be dissappointed.

Pros:

• Often hillarious
• A lot of heart in the story
• Great cast and cameos
• Makes Star Wars cool.

Cons:

• Some jokes/cameos might not seem like much to the non-Star Wars fans.

TOKYO SONATA - Review

So, I've decided to do a review a day, so next up is Tokyo Sonata, directed by fan favourite Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is famed for directed horror/thriller films most of the time.

What makes Tokyo Sonata different from his other films is that it's very...European? It doesn't play like a typical Japanese film by touches of very Japanese issues, which is what makes this film rather special.

The film is about a film that seems ordinary, but like every family, they have their secrets, and follows the lives of the family members and the lives that they live. The father who is fired from work tries to hide that from his family while doing other small jobs, the eldest son join the U.S Army to help 'save the world', the youngest son uses the lunch money he recieves from his mother to secretly learn piano against his fathers wishes, and the mother seems to get bored of her life and tries new things. And the film will follow these stories lines to a final act that you will either love or hate. I fall in the former.

The cinematography here is top notch, it's nothing over the top, but it's not something that you can ignore either, the film just feels right. The pacing is great as you never feel bored or saying to youself "ok...now what?". The film did have an American executive producer, and a western writer, so that might explain why this film does seem slightly westernised in some aspects, but Kurosawa does wonders with the camera that makes the film seem right.

The acting across the board is fantastic, however, the stand out for me would have to be Koizumi, who plays the mother, fans will remeber her from the J-Drama Tokyo Friends, and also having a small role in Sakuran, the review I ran yesterday. Though this isn't just a one man show, the strong acting from everyone helps the film move right along, the father himself is a very likeable, and dislikeable guy; which is something that is pretty hard to pull off for an actor.

The film touches on many aspects of Japanese life, such as unemployment and the embarassement that comes with it; looking for a job and the risks you would take to actually get that job (which has some humourous results in the film), family life is probably the most important role in the film. It tries to show, or hints on what it takes to get a family to work, and the final scene is something that will stay with you for a while after watching if you pay close attention to subtle hints in the film. It also touches on love and loss, and marriage, and the vows that a couple take, there was a point half way through the film where you just feel robbed of something, but in a good way; you try to say to yourself "what could he have done?", but this I won't spoil as you'll need to see it for yourself.

This is a pretty great film, and something that you should all seek out and watch. Oh, and the soundtrack it self is great, right from the very beginning it just captivates you and when the music starts, you won't it to stop.

Pros:

• Great acting and cast
• Super camera work and cinematography
• Thought provoking and quite homourous at times
• Wonderful soundtrack.

Cons:

• Might be too 'westernised' for some.

SAKURAN - Review

So, I've decided that seeing as I am a film student, and love films...I should start writing film reviews! Besides, I have't updated this blog in quite a while, so sod it, I'm gonna be writing movie reviews! This is the first of (possibly not so) many of them.

First review is a Japanese film I've just finished watching called Sakuran, directed by (first time director and a photographer) Mika Ninagawa and starring Anna Tsuchiya in the lead role. It's the story of a girl growing up who goes through many names in a whore house and her rise as an Oiran.

The film is based off the manga series of the same name, created by Moyoco Anno.

Straight from the very first scene, it's clear the director is indeed a photographer, the film never ceases to amaze with it's wonderful colours and cinematographer and beautifully framed shots. There are times when you watch the film and forget what you're watching and just enjoy the colours. This is a great thing about the film, and also what stops it from being anything but average.

When you get passed how wonderful the film looks, the story itself doesn't offer anything but cheap frills and a lot of breasts and naked women. You don't really feel the need to sympathise with the actors or actress' when the dramatic tension rises because you're too busy looking at the smaller details of the cinematography. I never thought I'd say it, but the colours do get distracting. It's just like watching Curse of the Golden Flower all over again.

But that's not to say that the actual acting is bad, on the contrary, the acting is pretty great, Especially Tsuchiya. She plays the role wonderfully and carries the film on her own. The clients she meets and the men she starts to fall for just pass through the frames, but most of the time it doesn't really matter as Tsuchiya does well enough to keep the narrative going. She is also the selling point as well as the cinematography.

The pacing of the film is somewhat uneven at times, and the final act of the film does fall flat, considering how it does end (which I won't spoil, should you wish to seek out the film). It starts off well, and then leads onto a flashback of how Tsuchiya's character is sold into the house, but after that 10 minute flashback, it leaves it there, and we don't know how she started her training or the bumps along the way. Which is fine, as the film runs just under 2 hours, which is a decent enough pace. I haven't read the manga itself, so I'm assuming it's all in there.

A lot of people may want to compare this film to Memoirs of a Geisha, which is a fine comparison, but I have to admit, I do prefer Sakuran over it. One of the reasons being that Memoirs was directed by an American team with a Chinese actress in the lead role of a Japanese character (although, Ziyi Zhang is one of my favourite actress'), so it just felt like a quick cash-in with some big name drops. Sakuran has a great sound track (it's not 'traditional' in the sense that fits in with the period it's set in - see Marie Antoinette if you want an idea), the cinematography is better than Memoirs and the setting is great as it's set mainly in one location, but you never get bored.

All in all, it's a good film to watch if you're a fan of those sort of films, if you're a budding cinematographer, seek it out as you'll learn quite a bit from it. It's also a film for those Japanese cinema fans, or world cinema in general. But for the general audience, you could find something better.

Pros:

• Cinematography is great
• Acting from Tsuchiya is top notch
• Lovely soundtrack

Cons:

• Feels like there's more story than there is
• The final act falls flat
• Bright colours can be a little distracting.

Meet the Pack.

That's Chocolate Jetpack. A blog run by a friend of mine over at Chocolate Jetpack, where you'll find great photography, and time things to pass your time with. We procrastinate so you don't have to. Do tell us about those awesome jobs you get while we sit alone and play with cameras, and write blogs about it.

So be sure to check out the blog! CLICK HERE!

True Friends (Short Story)

Look, I'm also a (bad) writer! Here's the opening of one my short stories entitled 'True Friends', about 4 orphans that grow up together and what life throws at them. I'm currently working on a sort of book which I'll publish my stories, along with pictures taken by myself, and others, as well as art work. So look out for that. But for now, here's the opening of one of stories.

--

(True Friends.)

"One loyal friend is better than ten thousand family members." – Unknown

“You just reminded me of what's really important in life, friends…best friends.” She said to me.
It hasn’t even been a week and already I’m holding Megumi in my arms telling here we’re going to be alright. We’re only 26, so it’s not like we’re married or anything, it’s just that, the group we were in, the guys we hung around with, we were different from all the other groups and cliques around us. The difference between us and them was simple: we had a connection to each other. We didn’t team up because we thought the other person was cool or was rich or was hot or anything like that. To be honest, none of that actually mattered to us, well, not to me, but I knew everyone felt the same. It’s like was C.S Lewis once wrote: “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one”. And that was true for us, there was that connection that no one really had before, we smiled and laughed and cried and walked together in the same way as families. Which was essential for us, because, well, we didn’t really have families, I mean, we had families, we just didn’t have the type of family you’d see in the fake pictures when you buy a picture frame; perfect smiles all around, being happy. Happy. And that’s what made everything so much harder.

There were four of us; Megumi, Adam, Eliza and me. We were all more or less the same age, just a few months apart, so I guess that accounts to why we were so close.

We were orphans, we were, each of us, left at the doorstep of an orphanage in London mere hours after we were actually born, and we grew up together, we formed our own little family. The people that owned the orphanage knew no one would adopt us because we couldn’t bare the sight of losing each other. But they didn’t really care to be honest, what mattered was that we were happy, and that’s all that mattered, right? It doesn’t take a family to make a person happy, it takes people. And therein lies the dilemma of most human beings, they might have families to go to in times of happiness or sadness, but are those families really people? Or do they just think they need to be there for that said person because they have a certain blood flowing through their veins? With us, none of that mattered, we were different, Eliza was an Italian girl, Megumi was Japanese, Adam was English and I was just me, we were all different, and yet we felt the same connection and love that takes years to build for a normal family. We were our own family, and we didn’t need anything else in our lives. Or at least that’s what we thought when we were younger.

But by the time we go to the age of around 10, we had been adopted out to families, but luckily we lived near each other, it was good, actually, it helped us through it all, know other people are around us, we could go out and meet up and catch up on things and learn new things too. It was different this time around, we have families, we were allowed to go out and see the world we were locked up from, and we had freedom. But we didn’t really notice this at first, most of the time we just stayed at someone else’s home and hung out there for a while.

I guess I sound like a guy whose going to tell a story with morals and touching on social issues like those stupid NSPCC adverts on the TV and make disgustingly optimistic people think that actually giving £2 a month will change the fact that there’s still another child out there being beaten to a pulp until he or she is knocked just so the parents can say she fell down the stairs.

But that’s not the kind of story I’m about to tell, to be honest, I don’t really care about those kids in the adverts, I never have, I just care about my life and the people around me. What’s the point of trying so hard to help people you don’t even know, and not notice what the people closest to you are going through? I mean, it’s not that daunting if you actually look around and see what other people have to deal with. I sound like a guy whose story has no basis or anything, no solid foundation to actually grow up on, I mean, in less than one and a half pages I’ve pretty much gone through my entire life; living in an orphanage, my friends and things like that. But that’s not the point of my story, it’s not about where I began, it’s not going to end with where I end up, it’s the small bit in between, the journey. Because at the end of it all, the journey is more important than the end of the start. But before we get into anything about what this story is about, let me tell you what this is not about; this has no logical narrative, I am telling this as it runs through my head, some of it might not make sense, some of it might just seem unreal, but that is the purpose of this. This story is written from my memory, and there is a distinct difference between memory and fact. Fact is telling someone the colour of a car is red, memory is assuming the car was red, or it might have been blue, possibly green, I don’t know, and some of it, if not most of it, may or may not be extremely exaggerated. If you can understand that sentence, then you know what will follow in this story.

I miss the way things used to be, I miss the way I could hang out with friends, talk to them on the phone, send random text messages to each other, do whatever the fuck we would do. Eliza eventually got a boyfriend, but nothing had changed, we still sent texts and called each other, nothing changing. Nothing. I hate it when things ‘change’ because of a relationship, I mean, I know you have to spend time with that person, but that doesn’t mean you need to give less time to your other friends, and using excuses like “I’ve been busy”, “I’ve had so much work, I just get tired” are a bunch of fucking excuses because none of that fucking mattered before you were in the relationship.

You spend so long trying to change who you are, trying be something you never were, being different so you can get on with life, and you just wind up back to where you were in the first place, full circle, I dunno, maybe I’m not cut out for this. I’ve seen too many old westerns where the cowboys make a run for the border. I need my Mexico. I just don’t want to forget my friends when I get there. But after everything that’s just happened, I don’t know anymore. I must tell you one thing though, this story, my story, isn’t an easy one to read, where there seems to be happiness, there will be pain. Welcome to my life, enjoy your stay. The weather today is partly angry, leading to resignation and madness.

The Birth is GO.

Hello. This blog is the result of a bored university student who has nothing else better to do than to sit on his ass and do nothing but stare in the air than to do notes.

So, here is my blog, 'A Birth of a Notion', see what I did there? (The film buffs among you should know, despite the fact it's named after a racist movie, but who cares. It works. Slightly). Well, I guess I'll be posting other crap to keep you guys occupied, such as my awesome (read: crappy) photography, photoshopped stuff (despite the fact that I have a flickr page - But I don't really discuss what I shoot there, I think I'll be posting a lot more of my pictures + views on this blog), movie reviews, game reviews, and other random stuff.

For now, I've posted an awesome picture from one my favourite movies '5 Centimeters Per Second', directed by Makoto Shinkai. I recommend that you check out this amazing film. You can buy the DVD here, and yes, I did spend that much on it, but you can buy other versions if you're feeling a little cheap.

Well, the next time I start to procrastinate, I'll post something new.