Happy July

Can't believe it's July already. In a couple of weeks time I'll have had summer break for 2 months. Jeez, time flies.

For a whole week now I've basically done nothing, i.e reading, watching TV and randomly break out to Les Mis. However wonderful (but occasionally boring) that may have been, I feel like I must get off my lazy butt and actually do something. I have a list, I'm not gonna lie.

Here's an excerpt:
Study PR (got a stinkin C last term, so I just wanted to recap things before the other PR module in the fall)
Study Chinese (you know, when I get bored and feel ambitious)
Drive and study driving theory (still not decided if I'm going to try to take my license in September but either way I'm preparing for it now)
Get together a decent review portfolio and contact Malmö Opera (got this crazy idea of getting a press pass, I know completely crazy!)
Travel and take photos (need to work on this. So if you're going anywhere, please let me tag along)
Read books (currently finishing Sherlock Holmes: the Hound of Baskerville. Have a PJ Wodehouse waiting and planning to reread the Harry Potter series, however the latter seems a bit farfetched)
Get a decent tan (is that such a crime?)

Bonne chance to me.

Toodles,
Tiffany

Haunting words

- Jenny Mellor (An Education, 2009, Sony Pictures) Photo: Mine

Review: Actually very super

Picture: Paramount Pictures

I promised myself a while ago that I'd think twice before watching a sci-fi movie (after Knowing) or a movie with a bunch of kids in the lead (after Narnia 3). So what made me throw myself headfirst to go and watch Super 8? 3 reasons: 1. Elle Fanning. 2. J.J Abrams 3. Elle Fanning. (Not even joking)

Super 8 is set out in a small town in Ohio during the late 70's. When 13-year old Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) loses his mother in an accident, he's left battling with the loss and the distant relationship with his police father. Thoughts of his mom were put on hold when his best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths), an amateur movie maker, asks beautiful Alice (Elle Fanning) to star in his latest project. While filming a scene for Charles' entry for a film festival, they witness a catastrophic train crash which releases an unknown creature. Not before long strange things starts to happen in the city.

What I love most about Super 8, is it's story telling. I love the deliberate mystique around the creature, and that as the characters learn more about the creature the more we get to see more of it. The cast is just as brilliant, you know I'm a sucker for brilliant child actors (man, I'm in that age this kind of sentences can be taken wrong), even AJ Michalka was watchable.

I truly enjoyed the movie, I laughed, I cried and I screamed. You know, just as much as I love to be the only person in the cinema screaming out loud I was genuinely, as my friend would say, shitting bricks.

Tiffany strongly recommends.

Toodles.

A long lost friend

Long time no see, my 6 stringed friend! And yes, I haven't gotten any better I'm afraid. Here's my attempt to cover Jonas Brothers' Make It Right.

Toodles,

Tiffany

101 Pet peeves

A while ago I started #101petpeeves on my Twitter where I list things I find really annoying and/or hard to stand. RELAX I'm not actually going to come up with 101 things, but here goes a few (including those on my Twitter). The order doesn't classify their degree of annoyance.

• People who write 'lol': Firstly, there ought to be at least one capital letter in there since it's an abbreviation of laughing out loud. Secondly, you're not really laughing out loud so don't write it (in abbreviated or any form). Thirdly, simply writing lol makes whatever you say before or after 10 times less intelligent. What's wrong with writing haha? (Then again I write XD a lot, which is almost just as bad)
• People who 'likes' things on Facebook: Especially people who like statuses. Even though it's a great ego boost when people 'like' your status, you know they don't really like what you're saying/doing. It's more like they want to acknowledge your status, whether it's "I just had a steak" or "Ryan Gigg is an [insert degrading noun of your choice]". What's the point? People who 'like' everything on their newsfeed should be banned.
• Incorrect use of it's an its: Actually any grammatical error make my eyes hurt. This may be my production editor days talking but they really do annoy the heck out of me. (I know, I know, I make them too)
• Tourists: Sorry, but 2 years of living in London genuinly justifies this. I just can't stand their 10x10 metres foldout maps, their "comfortable" shoes, their slow motion walking pace in the underground and the lists goes on. Most of all I can't stand their general noob-ness. Let me just put it out there that I strongly dislike tourists on the tube, but above all; Spanish tourists in the tube.
• The ending sequence at news programmes: I always feel so awkward for the broadcaster when he awkwardly fixes his notes or pretending to fix something on the laptop at the very end of the programme. It's even worse when there are two of them, and they have to pretend to talk to each other or awkwardly stare at each other. Once it was actually so bad I had to make myself not watch the TV screen. (OCD much?)
• Interviewers asking stupid and/or obvious questions: (Oh dear, the Oscars are full of them.) I hate standardised questions (questions that have been asked 1000s times already) and I hate questions that have obvious answers -"When you started doing this film, did you ever think it would become this massive?" Well obviously! Even if he/she actually thought so he's not going to tell you is he?! Or just really awkward questions - "Why don't you like hugs?"
• Pictures of oneself/girlfriend/children as cellphone background picture: I get that you obviously love whoever person on the picture but you seriously don't need to see that person's face everytime you do something on your phone. It's awful and it's tacky.

Love,
Tiffany

Review: Kill the pig! Spill its' blood!

Photo: Open Air Theatre

A bunch of screaming 14 year-old boys running around in their underwear, isn't something you would typically pay 30 quid to see. But when it's for a new adaption of Lord of the Flies, it's certainly worth it.

Directed by Timothy Sheader's, this stage adaption of Lord of the Flies is not only impeccably choreographed but also visually stunning.

Based on William Golding's novel from 1954, Lord of the Flies tells the tale of a group of young boys stranded on a deserted island after their plane was shot down. They soon conspire to survive and how to get rescued. With conflicting views on what's the best way to act, the boys soon find themselves in two competing teams. The story gives a frightful insight into human nature at its most primary.

Cleverly staged at Regents Park Open Air theatre, the nature together with the life size broken down plane gives the play an authentic set and ambiance (even the socks hanging from the trees are brilliant). It's in fact so engaging that 40 minutes into the show, one was tempted to jump up and down and join the boys in shouting: "Kill the pig! Spill its' blood!"
The appreciation of the natural surroundings however gradually fades away as the cold of London evenings grows more and more vivid. The audience neither felt any warmer from seeing the cast run around practically naked during the entire second (bless those boys).

Besides the marvelous stage set, the storytelling and choreography is equally as impressive. The use of well choreographed slow motion and standstill (the latter to tell the two team's stories simultaneously), gives the storytelling a twist and, not to mention, a joy to watch. All of which balances out the mediocre acting from the teenage actors.

However the question of time and historical correctness still remains. While the dialogue is neatly modernised, the laptop on the beach and talk of "the war" leaves us wondering whether the show's a modern take on World War II, referencing to Afghanistan/Iran, or if the laptop was simply misplaced.

Lord of the Flies (2010) Nigel Williams, Open Air Theatre, London
(Performance: 07/06/11)

Tiffany