Dear World… Help Me?

I remember the days when I used to go out all the time and now…

My life now revolves around college, work, and coursework.
I rarely have time to go out and see my friends, and even when I do have the time, I rarely have the transport or the money. However, my driving test is now booked, and although it is a few months away I’m sure it will come around quickly. So that may be ONE aspect of my life sorted out. HOWEVER that still leaves two things…

I love college, don’t get me wrong. My class mates are the most awesome people I’ve ever met, and the lecturers are actually brilliant. However the last few weeks, I’ve begun to notice more and more how the course is not what I want to be doing with my life.
I study media – specifically TV & Film. I honestly care for neither of these sectors in the media industry. My GCSE and AS media years were spent studying print media with A LOT of theory… which I loved and have grown accustomed too. Now I study TV & Film with very little theory which I find… well, not tedious as such, but you get the drift.
I honestly don’t know whether to just stick it out for the two years then go off to uni and achieve my goal of studying “Media & Cultural Studies”, OR leave the course after attaining the one a-level and look for work experience in advertising or print.

I really want to go to university. No one in my entire family (I have a VERY large family) has managed it, and I genuinely want to do myself AND my family proud by being the first. Also, I love media studies. My AS years in particular studying the subject opened my mind to so much about the world.

My second issue is…
I hate my job. I’ve only worked there a month and I hate it. It’s nothing to do with media which is more than likely why I hate it. I’d love to leave my job, but my human instinct of greed makes me crave the money.

Someone help me?
I’d see a careers adviser, but my past experience has taught me that they’re about as useful as a brick in the face.

Adaptation Inflation Probation Memorisation

So… adaptations. So many to choose from!
Worst adaptation I’ve ever seen would have to be “Dracula” – with Gary Oldman and Winnona Ryder.

Yes, I’ve read the novel. It’s the only novel I’ve ever read all the way through by choice.
I’m a big fan of the novel too. I knew there was a film based on the book, but promised myself I’d read the book first before watching the film. I’m glad I did so as it allows me to make comments like this…
WHAT A PILE OF ****!

I’m sorry, but this film infuriated me. There was HARDLY any portrayal of the novel in the film!
The director also felt compelled to add scenes in to the film that not only didn’t exist in the film, but ALSO changed the narrative!

The film was titled “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” when in fact it should have been titled “My own creation kind of based around Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but realistically, no where near.”

My favourite adaptation however, has got to be Christoph Gans’ “Silent Hill”.
Never have I fallen in love with a film so much. I just loved the costumes, the narrative, the actors… everything.
And it was as true to the game as I feel you can possible get!

Peace out.

“I want my £7.50 back.”

We’ve probably all found ourselves in the situation where you’ve seen a trailer for a film and think that it looks like a good film, but when you actually see the film, your opinion is quickly changed.
I have. For those who know me well, you know exactly what film I am about to, fundamentally, ‘rant’ about…
‘Twilight’.
Never in my 17 years has a film made me SO angry.
When I saw the television trailer for ‘Twilight’ in early January 09, I kept saying how much I wanted to see it, because to me the advert appeared to be your average action thriller with vampires; the type of genre I very much enjoy.
So my other half and I trekked down to the Odeon (which IS a trek where I live) and paid our £7.50.
So, we sat down in our seats and straight away, I was hooked… and then it wore off. Around half way through the film – well, what we thought was half way through – I said to my boyfriend “Is anything interesting going to happen in this film, or is it just going to be another terrible romance film?” as a joke… and then the film ended. THAT’S when we knew we had essentially been conned.
The trailer misled us.
ANGRY!
Again, for those people who know me well, you will know I have a strong hatred for romance films.
I hate ’soppy-ness’ and cliché narratives such as “boy meets girl, loses girl through misunderstanding, gets girl back.”
Forget that rubbish. It’s not for me.
THAT was pretty much ‘Twilight’’s narrative, and I was fuming about my betrayal.

Don’t even get me started on the fan-base of ‘Twilight’. I could rant for hours. OH, AND… Vampires DO NOT sparkle in the sun Stephanie Myer. No legends and myths passed down from centuries have ever mentioned any such nonsense and it is these myths and legends that are the basis of your novels. Berk. But that’s off topic…

Another film I have a slight problem with because of its trailer, is the recent ‘Bruno’. I feel that quite literally, all the funny aspects of this film were shown in the trailer. None of the humour was new to me as I’d seen it in the advert.

Epic fail.

Apocalyptic Films… For the win? Or for the lose?

I must be honest, i’ve not really seen that many apocalyptic films in my life time.
However, I am a sucker for zombie films - which are apocalyptic films.
So what do I like about zombie films? Well I think it’s a lot to do with the fact that although zombie films don’t scare me to the extent where i’ll be hiding behind the sofa throughout the film; it’s enough to stop me from walking into/near dark places for a good few hours after.

The first real zombie film I ever watched was ‘Dawn of the dead’ , the 2004 remake. What I loved about this film was the fact that my mind had built this stereotype of zombies that was “Oh, they walk so slow, come on, it’s not really that hard to sneak up on them and whack them round the head…”, and then to watch this film and see that the zombie’s actually ran A LOT faster than I ever could was just scary.

However, one thing annoys me BIG TIME about zombie films, this being the fact that it doesn’t actually make any sense in my mind. For example, a lot of the films such as ‘28 days later’ or ‘Dawn of the dead’ and even ‘I am legend’ suggests that the zombiefication (yes, I can make up my own words) occurs through a virus in their blood.
Right, now let’s think about it in terms of AIDs. So AIDs is a virus that lives in the blood, much like the virus in zombie films. If your body is exposed to AIDs infected blood, you’re very likely to become infected yourself. HOWEVER in zombie movies, you can stab a zombie through the head and let it bleed all over you, even into your mouth, and you won’t become infected unless it bites you!? What’s in a bite!? NOTHING! Just a bit of bone (teeth) and saliva… and it takes around 10 litres of AIDs infected saliva to infect the uninfected (I know this because I did an intense sex education class in year 11 with the family planning clinic. So don’t argue with me).
Flawed I say… Flawed.
When I said this to my boyfriend, he came up with some idea that maybe there was a venom in their teeth or something. I told him he was a fool and left the conversation there. He could be right… but why would I ever admit to him being right?! I’m the media student, not him.

So, enough about zombie apocalyptic films….
“The day after tomorrow”. Never seen it. Don’t plan on seeing it.
My view on apocalyptic films goes like this – “If it’s technically impossible that it will actually happen, I’ll watch it. However if it could happen, I’ll save myself the panic of worrying WHEN it will happen by NEVER watching it.”
Global warming is eventually going to demolish our planet. I don’t want to watch a film that could quite possibly show me HOW it’s going to happen and how agonising my death in it might be.

Peer Reviewed by: Tom Foster

Hello world!

Hello there!

This is my blog.
Admittedly not my first blog. I had a blog with my MSN account, but I soon got bored of it.
I wonder how long it will take me to do the same with this.

Peace out.