Movie Review: Black Swan

What people are saying about Black Swan is true – the film IS brilliant, and Natalie Portman is very convincing as the highly driven, perfectionist ballerina Nina Sayers. In a nutshell of adjectives, the film is confronting, graphic, sexual, tumultuous and a visceral experience which finishes on a thrilling climax.

There was a constant motif of mirrors - but what is real and what is just a reflection of reality?! Ooooh!

At first, we get the sense that Nina is nothing special notwithstanding her almost painful dedication to the world of ballet. Her mother is one of those pushy, helicopter-Mum types. A former ballerina herself, she is simultaneously supportive, yet she also feeds Nina’s warped view of reality by smothering her. Their relationship is unsettling at first – her mother tucks her into bed every night as if she is five years old, and opens a musical jewellery box which plays the tune to Swan Lake and has a rotating ballerina figurine as Nina sleeps – and gets progressively more disturbing as Nina embodies the persona of the evil Black Swan. A particularly chilling scene comes when there is a close-up of the broken ballerina figurine, rotating slowly to the haunting music of Swan Lake.

Seedy man Leroy 'seducing' Nina

Nina’s quest for perfection is the cause of her ultimate demise. “I just want to be perfect,” she says to the seedy ballet director Thomas Leroy. He chooses her to play the Swan Queen in the production of Swan Lake. Nina is the perfect White Swan – beautiful, controlled, uptight. However, she is a dismal Black Swan, not nearly captivating or sensual enough. Leroy, in an effort to loosen her up, questions Nina about her sex life and even tries to seduce her. It’s really awkward and just reinforces what a massive creep he is.

A major part of the film focuses on Nina’s psychosis. In the beginning, it’s almost suffocating to watch Nina’s daily life. It really does seem like she has no social life, no contact with anyone besides the people at the ballet company and her mother. But her encounters with Lily, another ballerina who is seemingly the perfect Black Swan-type dancer, trigger something dangerous. Nina’s OCD turns into hallucinations, fits of rage and self-harm. Here is where the film gets reeaaallly trippy – there is no telling what is real and what is imagined. This is also where the film gets graphic – blood, broken toe-nails, a rash that won’t go away. Oh, and a yummy scene where Beth (Winona Ryder), a has-been ballerina, stabs herself multiple times in the face with a nail file, though rest assured I think that was all in Nina’s head.

Nina is extremely threatened by Lily despite Lily being ostensibly supportive. Lily becomes her doppelganger, an alter-ego. In fact, in a lot of scenes, there are flashes where Lily turns into Nina in what is ultimately the culmination of one big mind game. Leroy’s words to Nina are true – “the only person standing in your way is you”. The final scenes are quite thrilling: the film goes in and out of Nina’s mind and you have no idea what is real and what is imagined.

Creepy

The other things that I found interesting was the way in which the ballet scenes at the beginning and at the end were shot. The camera moved with the dancers so that the audience had a front view of Nina’s face most of the time which looked cooler than it sounds. It gave a sense of really being there, as if you were on stage with her and experiencing the same things as well.

This film was chillingly good. And Natalie Portman got a Golden Globe for her performance, which is affirmation of the hype surrounding this film. I’m going to shut-up now.

9 out of 10.

~ Hurley Who?

pensioners' music

I think you need to be in a particular mood to enjoy this song.

Movie Review: Love and Other Drugs

Admittedly, the prospect of seeing Jake Gyllenhaal’s naked and artfully covered physique is probably one of the major reasons why women, girls and ladies watched this movie. While not a Gyllanhaal-lover myself, I concede that he does have a cute smile. Oh, and a hawt body. But enough about that. Love and Other Drugs was a conventional drama-rom-com dressed up in a few accessories – early onset Parkinson’s disease, the booming pharmaceutical industry and unconventional characters.

Anne Hathaway plays Maggie, who is in her 20s but has Stage 1 Parkinson’s disease. As a result, her attitude towards life is ‘what the hell – why not?!’ Which is why she decides to get with chronic womaniser and Viagra salesman Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) despite a somewhat turbulent first impression (lets just say Maggie’s handbag makes contact with Jamie’s eye… many times).

At first it’s just casual – they know what they signed up for. But then Jamie realises he loves Maggie in a memorable scene. As a person who has apparently never said those three words to someone before, it’s interesting/funny to see him hyperventilate at the realisation. Then there’s the hurdle of dealing with Maggie’s Parkinson’s. How do you deal with loving someone who you know will need you more than you need them? They break up and make up a number of times before their collective ‘epiphany’ (see below for details).

What surprised me was how effectively the emotional and sentimental scenes tugged on my heartstrings. There are a few very touching (literally, and figuratively… geddit?!) scenes notwithstanding the main ingredient to any rom-com: the ‘epiphany’ – a teary confrontation in rainy or dreary weather, preferably the result of a high-speed pursuit by boy in a car trying to catch up to girl who is ahead of him in a bus/cab/another car, where both boy and girl realise they cannot live without each other. Cue tears/hugging/kissing.

Another quintessential rom-com ingredient included a funny fat guy (we have Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill to thank for this). This time it was in the form of Josh Gad who plays Jamie’s nasty, sexually frustrated, unloved, unshaven younger brother Josh who is unceremoniously dumped by his wife. Some of the funniest lines in the movie came from him.

Cannot believe those two are related. Natural selection sucks.

Also, before seeing this movie I had read a few reviews that warned me that this movie is “sex, sex, sex”. While there are a few scenes of that nature, it was by no means a porno. In fact, I think the sex scenes added another emotional layer to the movie – you get the feeling that Maggie and Jamie truly have an exceptional physical and emotional chemistry.

First date - success?

All in all, it’s a good escapist rom-com. The attractiveness of the lead characters certainly help with marketing this movie. It’s funny, a bit dramatic, set against an interesting backdrop (the invention and boom of Viagra – the miracle little blue pill) and, of course, romantic.

7 out of 10.

~ Hurley Who?

Easy eh?

AT FIRST GLANCE Easy A is one of those All-American high school films which make me go "I will watch this at some sleepover.  Two years from now.  On a pirated DVD from Hong Kong."  The trailer made me yawn and irritable for more reasons than one - I was fixated upon the line where Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) says "Tom Cruise?" with a scrunched-up face to Amanda Byne's pious remark about some higher power judging indecencies.  I didn't get it, and I still don't.  When I watched the film I winced when it came to that line. Somebody please explain?


However the premise of the film, bar that single irritating line, is adequately original.  A modern take on Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Woman", Easy A scores high in its frank humour and refreshing focus on something greater than the usual fare of tension between girl loser, popular hotties and desirable male figure named Corey X.  Sadly, the fact that such an archaic concept of "hating on the whore" still makes perfect reasonable sense today is a disappointing reflection on feminist standings and gains.  What's more interesting is the entrepreneurial aspect of Olive's decisions to get in the red.  It's more or less a tale of "girl sells illusion of sex for money".   Whilst there is no actual hanky-panky going on, there's some kind of socio-tabloidesque prostitution happening here which I don't have a certifiable opinion on, but it's certainly interesting.  "Let's not, but say that we did" - marketing for teenage abstinence?  Or perhaps pathological lying?

This is how pretend-sex blossoms between a heterosexual girl and a homosexual boy.  

The best scene I must say, comes early on in the film when Olive turns down a camping trip with 'Big Tits' best friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) to spend the weekend at home, belting out the lyrics to "Pocket Full Of Sunshine", courtesy of Granny's birthday sing-along card.  Happily the incessantly groovy song makes a recurring appearance as Olive's ringtone throughout the film, a massive perk to be sure.





Another highlight is the genius casting of Olive's parents in the form of Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci. Like the refrigerated-yet-still-fresh leftovers of the summer of '69, two such amazingly liberal and self-liberated parental figures could not be more welcome to teenaged viewers.  Amazing people.  And despite the  clichéd appearance of the token black adopted kid (Bryce Clyde Jenkins), it's feasible in a family as chill as this one.  Moreover it was probably inevitable that he got ticked off the list of 'what white people like'.

Relaxing is good for many reasons.  White people like to relax in the presence of a black person, as indicated.

The portrayal of religious zealots in this film was another commendable take. Amanda Byne's overly-wholesome Marianne functions as little more than the conservative plot device to stir up opposition, whilst her boyfriend/family/devotees/cult members are largely exposed as hypocritical sex-deprived perverts.  Go team!

Your teeth are too white.

Some faux-Christian noob. Twilight can only get you so far bro. The last shot of him in the film is of him scratching his balls.

The only thing that niggled was the amazing persistence of Hollywood films in perpetuating the MSSE (Miserable Secondary Schooling Experience).  Perhaps this may ring true in most American high schools.  But really, enough is enough.  I want to watch a film where a teenage noob-geek studies real hard for their SATs and triumphs by getting into Harvard.  Like Pandora from Skins, but with noticeably more effort.  


At the end of the day all is good as every Hollywood teen film should be.  Olive bows out gracefully with a song and dance, gets the guys she's meant to end up with and they ride off into the sunset on a lawnmower.

Moral of the story is - always trust Woodchuck Todd.

Thus painful as it is for me to end a review in this way, the cast and originality of the film made it difficult to resist cracking this pun - a big fat A for Easy A.

In the Falkland Islands a thumbs up can get you arrested, deported and fined 500 Falkland dollars.  Sticking out one's thumb heaven-ward is deeply offensive to the local culture.  

[disco.read]

How to make a... Rainbow Cake!

We all love rainbows, everyone loves rainbows! Rainbows are fun and colourful and happy happy happy! So when I stumbled across Whisk Kid’s Super Epic Rainbow Cake I knew this was something I needed to make. So this is actually the second time I’ve made the cake… I sort of forgot about the possibility of blogging last time.

Rainbow-y Goodness

With this cake, everyone's first impression is wow! Then eww! Wow because it looks amazing, eww because they immediately think about how much food colouring has gone into it. I am a fan of food colouring. There is very little that can turn me off cake. But in saying that, I would just like to point out that this cake uses gel colours which means you actually don't put much in it because the colouring is strong. It's not actually that much colouring... and what's so bad about food colouring anyway? It looks good! It's called food colouring for a reason - to be eaten! Eat the cake, people! Okay, okay. I'll stop my rant now.

Basically the cake is made of 6 layers, each one coloured a different colour and then all iced together with white (buttercream) icing. It really doesn’t take too long, it’s just a bit of effort, but then what isn’t? So because I am rather lazy, I actually use cake mix… hehe! For each packet, I make 2 layers and bake them at the same time. This means, 3 lots of cake.



Cake mix..



Wilton Gel Colours - a must!



I figure cooking/baking is an imprecise art, to me measurements aren’t that important… maybe it’s because I’m just too lazy, but instead of measuring out the cake when I divvy it, I just guess. It works alright and uneven layers can easily be turned around to look straight.

(Sorry about the sideways pictures, I can't figure out why it came out all sideways and couldn't rotate it! Help?)



Mixing in (blue) colour

Ka-Pow! Blue cake!

Dyeing the cake is the tricky part. Well it’s not really, but you must must must make sure you use gel colours! There is no other way you will be able to achieve such vivid colours. You would have to use a tonne of liquid colour and still not get the same effect, whereas with gel colours, you only need like 1/2 teaspoon of colouring or even less! I use the Wilton gel colours, which are pretty pricey and I only have red, blue and yellow so had to do a bit of mixing... After this second go, I have realised mixing colours, especially purple is extremely annoying, it’s probably time to invest in a wider range of colours! (just editting this - I was given so much food colouring for chrissy I now have no idea what to do with it, please everyone make this cake and borrow my colours!) The red also needs a lot of gel to get a bright colour, so if you’re planning on trying, be prepared to use a substantial amount.

 

Here’s an artsy shot of all the cake layers pre-icing. Now we get excited!!



The cake starts to come together... excitement!

Buttercream icing is super easy to make. 2 cups of icing super for every 125g of softened butter plus a tablespoon of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla essence. (I think I used 4 cups of icing for this cake... or maybe it was 6. I'm not sure, but it does use a lot of icing and better to have too much than not enough!) Start with the softened butter and sugar, then when combined add in the milk then vanilla. Beat everything together until it’s smooth - be patient with this. I used to be incredibly impatient which meant my buttercream was never smooth. Now I've realised beating is very therapeutic (haha!) and it looks better too!



Buttercream icing... mmmm

Make sure you beat it until it's smooth, be patient!

Then we get to put everything together. I start with the purple layer of cake. Put it on a cakeboard, top it with some buttercream, then blue, then some butter cream, etc, etc until I reach red. Make sure you spread the buttercream right to the edges, but don't freak too much, you can fill it in later.



Yay!

Now because I’m icing the cake white, we really don’t want to get any crumbs in the icing and ruin it. So the trick to this is crumb-coating the cake. This is when you ice the cake with a really thin layer of icing first and let the icing set so it effectively catches all the crumbs. That way, when we get to the real icing, we can just ice/spread it easily and there aren’t (well shouldn’t) be any crumbs in it. That way you get that really neat finish. (Unfortunately for me, on this particular day it was really hot, which meant the icing wouldn't set so I couldn't get it all nice and smooth...)

If you are able to get the icing to set and want to make it smooth, what I would do is I get a knife that's not too serrated (or a spatula) and dip it in hot/warm water and then go over the icing. This sort of smooths out the icing and makes it pretty. On an interesting side note, I was watching Cake Boss and they use a clothes steamer which sort of melts the fondant (which they use instead of icing) and makes it all smooth and shiny! Same idea really.

The cake is white!

Then decorate the cake as you like (I liked it better when I left it blank white last time, I didn't really like what I did with it this time..) And voila! We have our rainbow cake. A little effort but not too much skillz involved. Just make sure there are lots of people to eat the cake because it's kind of massive. Enjoy!

Yay! As you can see, I gave up on smoothing the sides
and spiked it instead, not my best effort, but I tried!

c.c.

Review: The Tourist

When news of this movie first came out, I think everyone was salivating. Angelina Jolie + Johnny Depp + Florian Von Donnersmarck = kickass movie. Then everyone saw the movie and changed their minds... I think they were justified.

In theory, this movie had everything it needed to be freakin' awesome. I think the problem was that it was missing an underlying charm/excitement/je ne sais quoi. I felt as if Johnny and Angelina just turned up on set every day, read their lines and left because that's what they were being paid to do.

The plot is simple enough: Elise (Angelina) is the lover of a fugitive who has had plastic surgery and is therefore unrecognisable, she picks up Frank (Johnny) to confuse the authorities into thinking Frank is actually the fugitive, they inadvertently fall into mutual love with each other, they spend the rest of the time dodging bullets in Venice from a gangsta.

The chemistry between Johnny and Angelina was absolutely dismal. I was expecting something more from these people who are supposedly the hottest people on this planet. The development of their relationship went from some limp conversation, a bit of staring, longing at each other through closed doors, a (somewhat) tame kiss and then an 'I love you'..... WHUT?! There was no logical progression underpinning this at all. Why would he love a woman who very obviously dragged him into a situation where he is getting shot at? Unless we're to believe he is so very superficial as to fall for her looks (but I don't blame him, she's smokin' hot, and the close-ups of her swaying derriere attest to that).

As to the storyline... the twist ending (which I shall not reveal) only made me more confused due to the improbability of the situation. Another gripe is that I felt there could have been something more intellectually stimulating embedded into the plot. There was also the concept and imagery of doubles which I thought could have been taken further given the ending. However it remained, at best, a superficial idea.

I guess the other reason this movie was so MEH was the hype surrounding the director Florian Von D who made The Lives of Others which was (most definitely) a superior film. This movie proved that it's hard to live up to your former glories.

I'll end on a good note by saying Angelina's wardrobe was yummy. But she was wearing a tad too much make-up. That's all.

It gets a 6.5/10

~ Hurley Who?