A Horrible Realisation

There are times when you take a long hard look at your life and realise you've become someone you don't want to be...

(...LOL jk...) (as the youth would say)

This is not one of those times.

However, I do now have to make a slightly embarrassing confession. I now have two, yes two, Justin Bieber songs on my iPod. I know, it's terrible. Truly awful. I worry about me too.

But seriously, this has all happened since seeing Never Say Never. It's definitely one of the most effective pieces of film propaganda in  recent years. I still wouldn't claim to actually like Justin Bieber, but I no longer hate him with the kind of visceral hatred I tend to reserve for reality TV stars and annoying facebook groups. And it's not that I have bad taste in music; whilst writing this blog post I've listened to Arcade Fire, Regina Spektor and Elastica. So I can only surmise that seeing Never Say Never has begun some kind of indoctrination process that could end in me sending poorly punctuated marriage proposals to The Biebersaurus (thanks James Gill for that nickname), though it probably won't.

There. I've made my confession. Please don't hate me for it Internet. I'm not going to go all Belieber on you, but maybe give Biebs a chance. He's not a lyrical genius, but Baby is damn catchy (though maybe not as catchy as this):

NB: Our flat has become a little bit obsessed with Ark Music Factory (the "production company" responsible for releasing Rebecca Black on the world) and their competitors this weekend. Consequently I can recommend  'Butterflies', for being much less annoying (and therefore better) than 'Friday'. Also it features the same in-house rapper. However, 'My Jeans' is infinitely worse, and is in many ways a damning example of the way that capitalism is crippling the morals and ideals of Western youth. Also it's an awful song.

Mission Burrito

Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to go to the recently opened Mission Burrito on Park Street to review it for Itchy Bristol. I've been wanting to go there since I read on Bristol Culture about the free burritos they gave out on the first day, which I was sad to miss, still being at home in Yorkshire at the time.

My official review for Itchy is here. As you'll read, I certainly wasn't disappointed. The food was delicious, if a little bit unevenly temperatured, but I think that's only to be expected when there was such a varied mix of hot and cold food. For instance, my burrito was filled with pork, rice and black beans (all hot) and sour cream, guacamole, salsa and cheese (all cold). As tasty and filling as that combination was, it did mean you were never sure if the next mouthful would be warm or cool. But really, as far as criticisms go, it was hardly a major problem (although my lovely dining companion Emily did suggest that they might consider popping the finished burritos in an oven (a la Subway) for a little bit, to get a more even temperature and so the cheese would melt a little bit). 

Otherwise, I really did love Mission Burrito. It's a little on the expensive side for someone on a student budget, so a trip to MB would be definitely be a treat, but the food is such good quality and the staff were so friendly that I think it's worth it.

Bieber Fever (aka Cinematic Stockholm Syndrome)

A few weeks ago, I had the bizarre experience of paying to see Never Say Never 3D (aka The Justin Bieber Film). My entire family mocked me as a consequence, but I was doing it for Epigram, which justified it somewhat (I still felt kind of, well, dirty asking for a ticket for it. I was worried I'd see someone I knew in there, but then I remembered no-one I know in Bristol is under the age of 12). It was not as bad as I assumed it would be. There was at least some form of narrative, and the 3D was well-used (apart from some really creepy shots of the Bieb's arm reaching out of the screen, like some well coiffured Mr Tickle). Having a younger sister, I am fairly well-versed in 3D "concert experience" films, with The Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus being the masters of this particular genre (Miley evens makes a cameo appearance in Never Say Never, talking with a worrying amount of world weariness for someone who's only 18). Never Say Never definitely reaches those upper eschelons of tween moveidom. Clearly I didn't love it, but I feel more culturally aware for having seen it. Also, if you ever need to force yourself to like Justin Bieber, this is definitely the way to do it, the first thing I did when I got back from the film was listen to 'Baby' on Spotify. And that is something I never thought I'd do: 

Justin Bieber’s a nice Christian boy with good hair and some musical talent, who makes his single mum and grandparents proud. Admittedly, Bieber’s film Never Say Never is no cinematic masterpiece, but it’s one of the better examples of the concert experience/pseudo-documentary films that have become the money-spinning vogue amongst American tween superstars. The film makes good use of 3D and zips along quickly enough to hold the attention of even the most sugar-crazed Belieber (though it’s doubtful many of those read The Epigram).

However, Never Say Never is also one of the most unsettling children’s films to ever appear in cinemas. Treated somewhere between a prince and a god, Bieber just doesn’t seem real. He rides around on a segway, reducing tweenage girls (and worryingly, their mums) to hysterical tears of joy with a single glance, whilst constantly shaking his trademark fringe out of his eyes.  His fans are so obsessed with his sainted follicles that there’s a montage in the film dedicated entirely to talking about Bieber’s hair, and locks of it are currently being auctioned for charity for thousands of dollars.

Despite Bieber’s eerie precociousness, it’s his fans who are the most terrifying part of the film. They’re generally split between the aforementioned criers and assertive obsessives, who stare into the camera to tell the world that they will marry Justin Bieber and no-one else will ever have him. And thanks to Bieber’s humble YouTube origins, and his constant use of Twitter, his fans all think they discovered him and therefore own him. In many ways, Never Say Never felt like the follow-up companion piece to The Social Network, as the power and danger of social networking is one of the subtler themes you could read into the film.

Though Never Say Never ostensibly follows Bieber’s “journey” to perform at Madison Square Gardens, bar a minor throat infection, there’s never a sense that he won’t make it. The film’s real sense of danger comes from the future. At various points, Bieber is compared to Macaulay Culkin and Michael Jackson – both of whom were admittedly very successful, very young, but couldn’t be said to have had the happiest or most well-adjusted lives. When, at the end of the film, his team speculate on what the next few years could hold for Bieber, with comparisons to the likes of Culkin and Jackson, let’s just hope he makes it through puberty in one piece

- Holly Close (Originally printed in The Epigram, No. 236, Mar 7th 2011)

Pancake Day!

Happy Pancake Day/International Women's Day!

As much as I like pancakes (one of my childhood obsessions was the now sadly closed Dutch Pancake House in Manchester), I am not very good at making them. It's not the mixing or the frying of the pancakes that I can't deal with, it's the flipping. I've just not got the confidence to do an assured flip (I'd be a letdown Blue Peter presenter on the Shrove Tuesday episode). This poses no problem when I'm at home, as my mum is a champion pancake maker, but as with last year I'm stuck here is Bristol. My fear of dropping the pancake is compounded this year by the fact that the hob in our flat is a gas one, and a combination of pancake and flames is not one I really want to experience. And I refuse point blank to buy pre-made ones.

However, I am a dab hand at making American pancakes, which, as well as appealing to my Americophile tendencies, are flipped with a spatula, meaning I much less likely to set myself on fire. Therefore, sacrilege as it probably is, my pancake of choice today will most likely be American. Oddly though, the best American pancake recipe I've found is from one of the most decidedly English cookbooks that I own: The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. It's an old-fashioned, but adorable, book that was first published in the 1960s and features recipes for dishes such as Party Gammon and Jugged Kippers, but also really reliable recipes for more classic dishes. My family's copy is so well used that it's falling apart at the seams, so my mum and I hunted down an elusive extra copy for me to take to Bristol (we eventually found one in a garden centre). 

So here, based on that recipe, are the pancakes I'll be making today:

225g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

350ml milk

25g melted butter (plus extra for frying) 

• Whisk eggs, melted butter and milk together in a jug.
• Add flour, baking powder, sugar and salt to the milk mixture (you could sift them in, but I've found it makes very little difference). Whisk vigorously til well combined - the batter should be a similar consistency to natural yoghurt. Add more milk if too thick or flour if too thin, though it's better to err on the side of it being too thick.
• Heat a little butter on a medium heat in a non-stick frying pan and when hot, pour out rounds of about 12cm/5ins. If the batter is thick enough, it should spread naturally into a smooth-edged circle.
• Cook until the surface of the pancakes looks bubbly, then flip with a spatula and cook until golden.
• Repeat making 10-14 pancakes.
  

I like to eat mine with a little bit of extra butter spread on the top, or sometimes with bacon, though they're probably nice with maple syrup and cream (these pancakes do not lend themselves to eating healthily).  Enjoy pancake day - whatever nationality of pancake you choose to have!

Late Oscars Response II

I've been reliably informed by Empire (my film magazine of choice since I was 15) that there are 27 sequels out this year, so it seemed only fitting that I do a sequel to my Oscars post from a few days ago. I originally wrote this article for Epigram, but because Film & TV only has a tiny section there wasn't enough room to print it. I'm still quite proud of it though, and I did practice what I'm preaching and sat through the whole Oscars ceremony when it was broadcast live. So here are my thoughts on televised award show (written pre-Oscars): 

The red carpets are being rolled up; the couture frocks have been sent back to the designers and the unused acceptance speeches are lying forlornly in the recycling. Awards season is over for another year. Millions of dollars and months of planning go into producing the various award shows that sprawl across January and February, but is there really any point in watching them? Putting aside the inherent arguments about the ridiculous amount of money spent on rewarding people in the film industry who generally earn millions anyway, why spend 3 hours being drip fed information by a live telecast, when you can read an article the next morning telling you all of the winners in less than 60 seconds?

At their worst, live telecasts can be a dreary trudge through the year’s films, especially if the same films (which you didn’t like) win all the awards and every winner gives the same identikit acceptance speech, thanking The Academy, their parents and a variety of people you’ve never heard of, in a never-ending list that makes you wish they hadn’t won in the first place.

Admittedly, award show producers do try to help alleviate possible tedium by adding in diversionary segments of fun and glamour. The Hugh Jackman song-and-dance number at the 2009 Oscars was certainly spectacular, but it set a precedent that other award shows have since tried and failed to copy. The most cringeworthy moment of this year’s BAFTAs came before any awards had even been handed out, as the show opened with a group of streetdancers, apparently acting out the top films of the year: a misguided choice by someone who clearly thought that anything urban was an automatic passport to Coolsville (in this case it certainly wasn’t).

Britain can’t really compete with America for razzle-dazzle, but we don’t need to. The BAFTAs are at their best when they’re witty, refined and slightly bumbling, like a mid-nineties Hugh Grant, which is why BAFTA live telecasts are so good. If they weren’t aired live, we’d probably never have gotten to see Helena Bonham Carter tell the great and good of Western filmmaking that her underskirt had gotten hitched up; or watch Jonathan Ross rush, terrified, onto the stage to stop practically perfect Rosamund Pike from announcing the winner of Best Original Screenplay before the nominees had been announced.

Even when all goes to plan, there’s still something exciting about watching the results being announced live. You get all the build-up and drama of the competition, the tension, the triumph, and the chance to see who’s practised their dignified loser face. They’re also an opportunity to put the spotlight on great film-making, rather than commercial success, so you may hear about an amazing film that passed you by when it was released, because it didn’t have the advertising budget of the big blockbusters. Plus, the Oscars are broadcast live in 200 countries worldwide, making them one of the few non-sporting events that can claim to be a global event. And, if you watch with friends, award ceremonies are a great chance to have a proper debate about films, bizarre outfit choices and how creepy it is that The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper looks almost exactly like a young James Cameron. In the end - whether it’s a box-office busting crowd-pleaser or an arty indie flick - films are made to be watched by audience, so it makes sense for anything celebrating the achievements of cinema to be readily available to that same audience. If such events can be both informative and entertaining, all the better.

Next year I am definitely going to force more friends to stay up for it, as I think I only managed to make it through the whole telecast because of a mixture of Twitter and talking to one of my flatmates and his friend from home about what was going on via Facebook. Who knows I may even throw a party... (I probably won't).

Richard II & Pod

I'm really enjoying being a contributor for Itchy. I get to do lovely things, then tell people about what I thought of them. So my two contributions this week are a review of the frankly fantastic Richard II at The Tobacco Factory, and the reassuringly expensive Pod in Clifton Village.

In other good news, I found out yesterday that they've managed to save the Bristol & Bath listings magazine Venue from closure, which is excellent news that I'm really pleased about.

Late Oscars Response

For the first time ever, I sat up and watched the Oscars being broadcast live. It was quite the experience. I know there's been a lot of criticism of Anne Hathaway and James Franco as hosts, but I thought they were quite sweet. Clearly they were no Billy Crystal, but at least they weren't Ricky Gervais.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with who won, although I really thought Hailee Steinfield should have won Best Supporting Actress. I still don't understand why she wasn't nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (though she wouldn't have beaten Natalie Portman, who was just genius in Black Swan, and fully deserved to win), but her performance in True Grit was so good, and she really held her own onscreen with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, both of whom are incredibly charismatic actors. Plus, I've not seen The Fighter, so I'm not really in a position to comment on whether Melissa Leo deserved it or not.

I was pleased Aaron Sorkin won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network, because even though I didn't really like the film, his script was so well-written and he's such a good writer that he deserves Academy recognition (I love Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip so much, it makes me sad that it was cancelled after one season).

It was not particularly surprising that The King's Speech won so many of the big awards, and I'm really glad it did, not just because it was a fantastic film, but because it was funded by the UK Film Council. I wrote this article on the closure of the UKFC for The Epigram a couple of weeks ago:

If one film has dominated the start of 2011, it’s The King’s Speech. The film tells the true story of how an unorthodox speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) helped King George VI (Colin Firth) to overcome his debilitating stammer. This unassuming historical drama has been loved by audiences and critics alike, and is nominated for almost every major accolade this awards season. Firth has already received a Golden Globe for his stellar performance as the stammering monarch and he is hotly tipped to win the Best Actor Oscar, one of the twelve Academy Award nominations the film received in January – the most Oscar nominations of any film this year.

Amongst those singing the film’s praises is Tanya Seghatchian, Head of the UK Film Council’s Film Fund: "This is fantastic result for The King's Speech and points to a very successful awards season for this brilliant British film.  We are proud to have played a part in helping it to get made and congratulate everyone connected with the film.” However, behind these words of admiration lies a much sadder story.  The UK Film Council (UKFC) was abolished last year as part of the current government’s sweep of Arts cuts. Set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK, the Film Council funded for hundreds of successful British films, including In The Loop, Fish Tank, The Last King of Scotland and This Is England. Even more recently, the UKFC provided almost a quarter of the budget for Mike Leigh’s Another Year, whose script is nominated alongside The King’s Speech for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. In the belt-tightening years of the mid to late 2000s, it is likely that many of these films would not have been made without UKFC funding. 

Unsurprisingly, the decision to shut down the Film Council was widely criticised, as its closure has the potential to affect all strata of the film industry. The UKFC funded regional film schemes, such as Screen Yorkshire, which itself funded Paddy Considine’s directorial debut Tyrannosaur. Tyrannosaur went on to win two major prizes at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Nationally, the British Film Institute was funded by the UKFC, as well as programmes to make cinemas across the country more accessible for those with sight and hearing impairments. On a general level, the UKFC had a strong tradition of funding films that showcased the best that Britain has to offer, be that beautifully shot character pieces or groundbreaking works by new writers and directors. It seems foolhardy and short-sighted to make cuts to one of the major industries in which Britain seems to truly operate on a global stage, particularly as the industry employs over 36,000 people.

It is not just the success of The King’s Speech that has drawn attention to the importance of the Film Council: two films funded by the UKFC, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Son of Babylon, have been chosen to screen at the prestigious Berlin film festival. As UKFC-funded films continue to do so well, both critically and financially, it helps to further underline the ludicrousness of the government’s decision. However, it’s not all doom and gloom for the British film industry. Fox Searchlight, which funded films such as Black Swan and Never Let Me Go, has formed a partnership with UK-based media investor Ingenious to finance new British films. Whilst this arrangement is far from perfect, as the deal only amounts to the distribution of three films a year, it does at least go some way to filling the void left by the UK Film Council.

 - Holly Close (Originally printed in The Epigram, No. 235, Feb 21st 2011)


As a consequence of how well The King's Speech did, more funding is being put back into the UK film industry (at least this article from The Guardian), though I don't understand why they had to abolish the UKFC in the first place


NB: I know The Oscars are kind of old news now, and everyone's moved onto Charlie Sheen going nuts and John Galliano being an anti-Semite, but I've been writing an essay on Edgar Allan Poe for the last week, so time has only just restarted for me.