Monthly Archives: November 2010

Love and Other Drugs {Film Preview}

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While Leicester Square was mobbed by screaming Harry Potter fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars arriving for the film’s premiere, two Hollywood A-listers slipped un-noticed past the crowds of autograph seekers into the cinema next door. Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway were there to screen their new film ‘Love and Other Drugs’ and I was lucky enough to be invited along to watch it.

The film, directed by Edward Zwick is based on the non-fiction book ‘Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman’ by Jamie Reidy. Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randall, a womanizing Viagra salesman. Exuding confidence and charm he’s the object of desire of the women he encounters and the envy of every man including his richer, more successful, less aesthetically blessed younger brother. Despite the bravado, Jamie is deeply insecure, his need to prove himself to his parents deriving from unfulfilled potential due to having ADD. Gyllenhaal found the part difficult to research as the world of pharmaceutical sales is incredibly secretive. He says “I played a CIA agent in a movie and it was easier to research that than researching the world of pharmaceutical sales.”

“When people are going through difficult times some people run towards others while there are some who push people in the other direction isolating themselves.”

Hathaway plays Maggie Murdock. At first Maggie, an artist, appears to be an alluring free spirit with an insatiable libido who won’t let anyone tie her down but her behaviour stems from a deep rooted fear of being rejected due to having an incurable degenerative disease. Hathaway’s clearly invested alot of energy into the part admitting that she found it difficult to leave behind. Insight-fully she remarks “When people are going through difficult times some people run towards others while there are some who push people in the other direction isolating themselves.”

Parkinson’s features heavily in this film and Ed Zwick commented: “We wanted to create a juxtaposition of the character of Jamie and his pill for everything and Maggie with an incurable disease”

Now this makes me feel old…the film’s classed as a period piece. Set in the 90’s, it opens in a second hand electronics store and there are plenty of gadgets to spot for those keen on nostalgia.

a delicate study into the nature of the psychology of love and the constant battle between wants and needs…based on a book about Viagra

There are funny moments, but it’s not a rom-com in the typical sense of the word. They director worked with the cast improvising scenes to steer the film away from the rom-com stereotype. For the cheese like-rs, there’s still a few cheesy moments but if you hated all cheesy moments all the time then possibly you have a heart of stone. Rather than a rom-com, the film’s a delicate study into the nature of the psychology of love and the constant battle between wants and needs…based on a book about Viagra.

Opens in the USA 24th November 2010 and the UK 29th December 2010


Love And Other Drugs Trailer

Call of Duty – Black Ops {Gaming Review}

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Call of Duty – Black Ops exploded into computer games stores all over the country last night with as much with build up and lengthy queues as would be expected at a premiere release of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Considering the build up to this much eagerly awaited title who could blame people joining in line from as early as 5pm? This was of course for a game being released at midnight. Stapelines such as ‘are you ready’, trailers featuring soundtracks such as “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones got games players all over the world excited.

Do you think it was just a little bit more than by chance that the game was released just days before Remembrance Sunday the day that many war heroes are remembered? What about the infamous release date 9/11/ a date that brings to mind one of the world’s biggest tragedies and the start on ‘the war on terror’? Indeed this is Call of Duty, probably the most eagerly anticipated game of the year. The latest in a multi million pound franchise and they are intent on handling every aspect from publicity to the product with military precision.

From the get go everything about Call of duty – Black Ops just screams attention. This is a call to arms. For the first time in the new call of duty franchise for the majority of the game you play Alex Mason, a man who knows much more than he originally lets on to and the game opens with him strapped to a chair in an interrogation room endlessly grilled about a mysterious series of numbers that only he can apparently decode.

Through Flashback sequences we get to uncover more about the numbers and more about Alex Mason and the roles he played in several missions all over the world during the cold war era. This is all I can say because to reveal too much more about the game is like revealing a storyline to a movie; and a movie is just what you are playing; because at times this game is very reminiscent of those all too well remembered movies such as platoon Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter; topless soldiers with bandanas laying out body bags in the sun to the Good Morning Vietnam type deep south soundtrack

Developer Treyarch has done a terrific job in incorporating a movie experience into a game, which in many ways supersedes Modern Warfare 2.  The game play at times is too tight for it’s own good. For example when you are knee deep in the jungle (and trust me the graphics are gorgeous) often you want to go off and explore within the wider range than the game permits, in a way this highlights the faults as some of the levels are almost too compacted for their own good and way too short lived. They are however well-signposted and highly-scripted. But like a one night stand – wham bam and it is over. I completed a game that I waited almost a year for in just over 6 hours – shame

Black Ops though was never meant to be put in any type of league that offers exploration – It is a high intensity First person shooter and it delivers exactly what it says on the tin. Its slick, polished highly cinematic, and it throws every type of war experience from that era as fast as it can. Online game play is where this game was meant to shine – The multiplayer component is beautifully constructed and breathtaking. 14 maps greeted me, designed to explore and on my first play I was already looking at places I could sniper opponents from. “Jungle”, with its winding paths, tree houses and hanging vines, to the brilliant, “Nuketown”, designed to resemble one of those simulated neighbourhoods constructed by the US to test the effects of nuclear hardware. These are aspects that show a lot of thought has gone into the design.

The frame rate remains fast – 60 frames-per-second and the basic shooting mechanics remain as good and refined as they did in modern warfare 2. which was never going to be a bad thing.

My only gripe with these types of games is that often when you have played one you have played them all, I mean c’mon you know you are just going to be shooting; from cover, from a helicopter, from within a team. The principality of it rarely changes. But this said Black Ops does bring something new to the market in the terms of enough varying challenges and online multiplayer action to keep most games players busy.

Well worth a shot.

As far as possible, boycott the nasty 35 {Carl Packman}

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Imagine this: every day a big kid at your school takes the money your parent/carer gives you for a measly meal of chicken burger and chips and a can of cherry pop. You’re left asking your mate for a bite on their corned beef sandwich and a couple of crisps.

When you go home you’re asked how school was, to which you reply, in your nonchalant way, fine! The next question, intrusively, is: “…and how was your lunch?” Your only option, in order to save face, and those long dreaded conversations which end in the questioner calling the school, embarrassing, is to lie and say it was fine – even though you had none, and even if you had it would’ve been crap as your school employs a woman with 6 cats to make what might colloquially be called the food.

Imagine the next day that person who steals your food money says they have food for you, but you have to do errands for them. You ask what kind of errands. Their response is to get you to clean their shoes, and the shoes of all their friends, while someone who used to do your job watches you to make sure you do it right. After you’ve done that, they give you a small amount of food – an amount so small that it would take that person only 0.25 of a person’s food money, out of the 20 or 30 they steal from, to afford the food.

Imagine then the wage packet of your parent/carer halved because some people, in the city, started to fuck around, making money by giving someone else’s money to people who were earning 10 times less a year. Your parent/carer decided to continue giving you the same lunch money (on the naïve thought it went towards a decent cause – which was taken by the bully anyway – but the quality of your clothing diminished, your dinner became smaller and of worse quality, you had to move out of your flat near the trees to a flat near no trees, and your lasagne dish turned into Welsh rarebit with peperoni and pasta).

All the time, the bully at school supports your “austerity”, after all, they still get their labour (ie your lunch money) but you get less, and are, thus, less inclined to seek alternatives to the existence of opening your arse to the shaft of a bastard!

Well, believe me, this is what is happening with the 35 bosses of the “big companies” who think it would be a mistake for the chancellor to “water down” his budget, reducing half a million jobs in the public sector and possibly doing the same amount, perhaps more, to the private sector, in order to level national debt – something which has been a reality for-flipping-ever, and is nowhere near as rocky as was Canada, who in the nineties were 101% in debt of their gross domestic product (so, Ozzy Osborne can stop using them as an example).

Yup, we’re being shafted by the cuts, all of us, no matter what sector you are in; the chancellor is screwing you over. Oh, unless you are a loan shark – you’re making a killing!! And the bosses of 35 companies don’t mind, because they still buy your labour under value, still make tremendous amounts of cash, and you continue to live in your prison.

Hey, I don’t know about you, but I might take the only power I have this Christmas – how I love Christmas – and take my money elsewhere. Yup. I will not buy anything from those 35 companies mentioned here. Because if the government wants to screw us over, I want nice people to at least lend me their hearts. If they can’t do that, then fuck them.

Roz Savage and Zac Goldsmith launch anti-plastic campaign.

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When: 4th of November, 2010. 7pm

Where: American University, Richmond.

I was already anti-plastic before I went to hear this talk by Roz Savage and Zac Goldsmith. The event is by Greener Upon Thame’s, and Michael Glazebrook was on brilliant form. The videos I saw and the talks that I heard my anti plastic stance  tenfold. It is not a small issue. As well as bringing news of the launch of an anti-plastic campaign by Greener Upon Thames, with the help of  Zac Goldsmith and Roz Savage, Frost will be doing a series of articles of how you can be more environmentally conscious.

MP and  Pacific rower launch campaign to make Olympics plastic bag-free
Zac Goldsmith, MP, and ocean rower/ environmental campaigner Roz Savage have launched a campaign to make the Olympics 2012 plastic bag-free.
 
The duo are backing Greener Upon Thames and will unveil banners and bags, soon to be seen across London, declaring “London – shouldn’t we be plastic bag free?” The group fear that the Olympics could prompt the production of hundreds of thousands of promotional bags, which would be carried around the world, creating a global problem, and shaming the British capital.

The campaign, backed by politicians,  schools, more than 500 shops and thousands of London  residents, will call on the Government to rid the Olympic Park and the capital of  the polluting bags for the duration of the games to break the habits of millions of Londoners, and as a symbol  to the world.  
 
The move follows Roz’s latest – 8,000 mile – Pacific row, where she skirted the North Pacific Garbage Patch. This is an area of marine plastic pollution roughly twice the size of Texas, containing around 3.5 million tons of rubbish, including millions of plastic bags that kill animals and contaminate our food supply. 

Roz Savage has now rowed solo across much of the planet: she is the first woman to have rowed across  the  Pacific, adding to her 2005 solo crossing of the Atlantic. In 2011 she will be setting off to row the Indian Ocean before rowing the North Atlantic to return to the UK.

Roz   combines her epic adventures (she is one of the Top 20 Great British Adventurers) with raising  awareness of  the top environmental challenges facing the world today:  marine plastic  pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction. She is a United Nations  Climate Hero, a trained presenter for the Climate  Project, and an Athlete  Ambassador for 350.org.

Her Pacific row was a project of the Blue Frontier Campaign and she is an Ambassador for the BLUE Project. Her inspirational book, Rowing the Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean, came out in   2009.

Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith is a former editor  of  The Ecologist  magazine and author of The Constant  Economy  (2009), which looks at some key environmental problems and  provides a  programme for action.
 
In 2005 he was invited  to oversee the Conservative Party’s Quality of Life Policy Group,  which helped develop the  party’s policies on issues ranging from  transport, housing and energy to food,  farming and the countryside. 
 
Zac supports Greener Upon Thames, the Richmond and Kingston anti-plastic-bag campaign which is organising these  two  events, with help from the American International University and Kingston University’s Sustainability Hub.

Zac and Roz will also address an audience at Kingston University at 7.00pm on Thursday 11th November.

Misfits – They're back! Thu 11 Nov, 10pm, E4

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One of my favourite shows is back. And I only had to wait for a year! The BAFTA winning Misfits are back. Nathan (Robert Sheehan), Kelly (Lauren Socha), Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), Alisha (Antonia Thomas) and Simon (Iwan Rheon) have returned to wreak havoc and entertain. Channel 4 held an exclusive preview at the BFI and let me tell you, you are in for a treat. Catch the trailer below.

Misfits. Thursday 11 November, 10pm, E4. For exclusive content visit www.e4.com/misfits

The characters are on twitter as well @simonmisfits @kellymisfits @nathanmisfits – and www.facebook.com/e4Misfits

Misfits S2 Trailer

The X Factor: The aftermath.

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The X Factor proved as tense as ever on Sunday, The two acts who received the fewest votes and had to sing for survival were Katie Waissel and Treyc Cohen.

All ten acts opened the show with a performance of So What by Pink.

Shayne Ward (winner of The X Factor 2005) took to the stage to perform his new single, Gotta Be Somebody and Kylie Minogue performed Better Than Today.

The two acts with the lowest public vote and singing for survival this week were Treyc Cohen and Katie Waissel. When asked how she felt, Katie said: “I’m nervous and it’s Treyc…we’re all in this together I’m going to sing from my heart.” Treyc added: “I’ve been here before but I’m here to sing and I’m just going to do the best that I can.”

Katie sang Please Don’t Give Up On Me whilst Treyc sang Unbreak My Heart (Toni Braxton).

Simon: ‘Here’s the dilemma – Treyc you are the better singer, Katie you are the more interesting performer. I’m going to base this on as a viewer who I’d like to see next week. The person Im going to send home is Treyc.’

Cheryl: ‘I just want to say to both of you, you’re both very talented women. Thank you for being so gracious and strong up there. But Im refusing point blank to send anyone home.’

Dannii: ‘Firstly if I could just say these girls are brilliant singers and I know Ive given a lot of comments but I hope they’ve been constructive and there’s no cause to boo anyone on this stage. You both sing better under pressure, The person Im sending home tonight is Katie.’

Louis: ‘I’ve got to know both girls really well and I love both of them..its so, so difficult. I don’t know whether to go with my head or my heart. My head says save Treyc my heart says, save Katie. It’s really, really difficult, Simon. I’m going to go with my heart, I’m sending home Treyc.’

Treyc said: ‘I’ve had the best time I’ve met some great people. I’ve made some good lifelong friends. I’m so, so grateful. I want to thank everyone from the researchers to the people in the canteen. Thank you.’

This meant Treyc Cohen became the seventh act to leave The X Factor.

On The Xtra Factor, ITV2, Katie commented: “Treyc should be here. I just really want to be here, in this competition. I really thought I was going home. Its not my time. I want to continue I want to show everyone that I am me.”

Dannii Minogue was wearing Dolce & Gabanna dress, Cheryl Cole wore a BodyAmr.

Performing next week on The X Factor – Westlife, JLS and Take That.

And Then They Came For Me {Theatre}

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The week before Armistice Day seems a fitting time to be reminded of the suffering caused during times of conflict.

‘And Then They Came For Me’ is one of the most widely produced new plays, yet the performance on the 7th November 2010 at the Garrick Theatre had something special about it. It’s not often such an extraordinary true life story is told when its inspiration is sitting in the audience. The play is a unique multimedia experience which combined video taped interviews of Holocaust Survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss with live actors recreating scenes from their lives and experiences during World War II. Ed (Michael Gamarano) and Eva’s (Alexandra Vevers) story are tied together by the infamous Anne Frank. Ed was Anne Frank’s first boyfriend and Eva, who was the same age as Anne when she went into hiding and like Anne, she and her family were betrayed. In this story however, the young diary writer Anne plays a cameo role.

The harrowing tales of the promise of youth cut short by the horrors of the Holocaust see the story take us from the beginnings of the Hitler Youth, through oppression and escalating to the horrific recounting of their experiences in concentration camps. One thing is clear. Even though the war is over, the trauma of what happened is still with the survivors. Numbers are easy to deal with as they are separate to our emotions, but when you hear the harrowing story of just one person, trying to relate that experience to every single one of the millions who suffered becomes a difficult concept.

The charity chosen for the performance’s wasn’t a war related one, but the Pakistan Floods Appeal. Sadly, it’s easy to forget why, every year, we wear a poppy on our lapels and even sadder that it’s often referred to as ‘Poppy Day’ as though the nation has forgotten to remember Remembrance Day.

This particular performance included a special performance by Frost’s other Editor Catherine Balavage as Ed Silverberg’s Mother. If you get the chance to catch ‘And Then They Came For Me’, you should.

Climbing the walls {Fitness}

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In my eternal search for a sport that I’ll enjoy and can keep me interested, this week I tried my hand at climbing. I don’t know at which point I thought it would be a good idea, but I definitely know the exact point I realised it was a bad idea. That point was half way up a wall in London’s Westway Centre attached only by a rope and gripping hand holds with my slowly slipping hands and weakening muscles.

 The instructor tied all the knots so that there was absolutely no chance of us falling to our deaths.

I have only good things to say about the centre itself, the facilities were spotless, comprehensive and vast. The instructor was very understanding and managed to stifle his laughing…mostly. We had one instructor between two of us and climbed and belayed (held the rope) in turn. The instructor tied all the knots so that there was absolutely no chance of us falling to our deaths. If you’re planning to have a go yourself…you’re very safe.

 If you’re thinking thoughts like “ooh, this must be how mountain goats feel” it means you’re not thinking about where your hands should be.

This didn’t stop three of our party from chickening out. I don’t judge them…climbing’s not for everyone. There are a few groups of people who probably wouldn’t become great climbers…the first is those who suffer from vertigo (I fall into this category). There’s one mantra that every vertigo suffer repeats when they’re at a significant height…“Don’t look down”. When you’re climbing, this isn’t an option as putting your feet in the right place is half the challenge. The second is the easily distracted (I fall into this category also). When you’re five meters off the ground, concentration is key. If you’re thinking thoughts like “ooh, this must be how mountain goats feel” it means you’re not thinking about where your hands should be.

Although I personally won’t be giving climbing another go, I heartily recommend it, especially if you don’t suffer from vertigo and a short concentration span. Where better to go that London’s Westway Climbing Centre.