Winning Body Language By Mark Bowden { Book Review }

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Winning Body Language: Control the Conversation, Command Attention, and Convey the Right Message without Saying a Word by Mark Bowden

I have also been a fan of body language, reading a number of books on the subject. I feel that, because of this, I am a good judge of when a book is good or not. This one is. Mark Bowden does not just know about body language. He has developed an entire system.

It is breathtakingly original. A real page turner full of wisdom and common sense. Mark Bowden is an elite trainer of Fortune 50 CEOs and G8 world leaders, and it shows.

You will learn how to master the visual Truthplane to win trust, gesture in the right way and appeal to other people. This book is great for both actors and businesspeople.

Although most body language books I read are mostly common sense, I feel I really learned something from this book. The different sections build into each other beautifully. It is a fresh approach and a very good read.

Buy it. This book is an investment. http://www.truthplane.com/

Catherine Balavage

Toy Story 3 Review by Catherine Balavage {Film}

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Amazingly, Toy Story has been going since 1995. This means I was just a pup when the first one came out. Fifteen years later, Pixar’s brillance is still very much in evidence. The plot is good, the graphics are amazing and Toy story now comes in 3D.

When the film first came out Twitter and Facebook seemed full of grown men admitting they cried during the film. I didn’t cry but if you don’t feel something then you are not human. The story is one that will touch everyone. About growing up and moving on. Andy is all grown up and going to college. What will he do with his toys?

All the characters are as amazing as every. Tom Hanks is wonderful as Woody, who rescues the other toys. Toy Story 3 is clever, heart warming and heart rendering. An enthralling perfect animated film that I cannot praise enough. It may even be Pixar’s best movie.

Go. Take tissues.

Five stars.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World by Owun Birkett {Film review}

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Scott Pilgrim has a mix bag of genres. It’s a comic book movie, it’s an action movie, it’s a martial arts movie, it’s a comedy, it’s a romance, it’s a teen flick etc. But it surprisingly all blends well together! Being Edgar Wright’s first American film, he delivers all the goods and exceeds them.

The movie is based on a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, about a Canadian slacker (Scott Pilgrim) who’s unemployed and plays in a band called Sex Bo-omb (Super Mario Bros. reference) but then falls in love with an American mystery girl (Ramona Flowers) who works for Amazon.ca. He later on finds out, unexpectedly, that Ramona has 7 evil ex’s and he must defeat them in order to go out with her. The idea sounds incredibly silly, but it works for the comic book material. As part of Wright’s trademark, this movie contains cultural references (in this case, 8-bit video games and video games in general). Though you don’t have to be a fan of video games to appreciate this film, it has enough to please anyone. It has a fluid pacing, giving us time to breathe after each fight with some intimate drama between Scott and Ramona. The fact that Wright compact 6 volumes into a 2 hour movie is incredible, never once where you got lost with the plot or the characters. That’s what I call an achievement, and therefore consider this as one of the best graphic novel adaptations ever made.

The casting is top-notch, not one thing do I have a complaint. Michael Cera kind of goes against his type-cast roles, he’s sentimental but he’s also an asshole at times. Though it’s a story of evolving and taking responsibility. Slowly bringing a resolution to the climax and thus brings a revelation to not only for Scott but everyone else. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is sweet and sympathetic, and makes the character interesting and have some back history (especially with her previous relationships). The seven evil ex’s, including Chris Evans and Brandon Routh, pretty much steal the show. You want to know more about them, but we’re given enough to what is already shown. They deliver comic timing perfectly, all credit to the acting/writing/direction. The rest of the cast all do really good jobs, newcomer Ellen Wong as Knives Chau really shines and did remarkably well.

The visual effects and action sequences are astounding, and extremely well done. This has so much vibe and energy, the fight choreography is very exciting to watch. Without becoming a repetition, every fight is different to each ex Scott goes against. As examples; Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) does in a style of a Bollywood dance-off at one point, and Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh) duels Scott in the style of Guitar Hero (through my eyes, at least). It’s a mix with real-life drama and fantasy action you’d expect in a video game.

I cannot help but compare to this film to Juno. It’s a teen movie, but it has more depth and intelligence than your average teen flick nowadays. Edgar Wright delivers drama that is touching, sweet but also funny. This is his most ambitious movie he’s made yet, and looking forward to what he’ll do next. Easily one of the best movies of 2010.

Side-note: The fact this is a box-office dud in the USA is shocking. What more do they want?

Cake Britain – Let Me Eat Cake {Events}

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This weekend the World’s first entirely edible art exhibition opens in London.

From edible fishermen, flying meringues to cake burgers and chips, everything in the exhibition will be devoured in the 72hours.

Cake Britain, sponsored by Tate & Lyle Sugars, is based on Mad Artists Tea Party’s interpretation of the meaning of “FAIR”. Cake Britain will host stunts and children’s workshops and feature food art from David A Smith, Jellymongers – Bompas & Parrm Crumbs & Dollies and Lily Vanilli.

All of the exhibits will be for sale with proceeds going to Richard House, We Make Peace and the Fairtrade Foundation. Entry will be free in exchange for a fair donation to the charities.

To visit the exhibition, go to The Future Gallery, 5 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7JB from 27th-29th August.

Preview: This Is England '86 {TV}

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Set three years on from Shane Meadows’ Bafta winning film This Is England, Chris de Burgh is top of the charts and over 3.4 million britons are unemployed. This Is England in the year 1986. A four-part serial for Channel 4 revisiting the original gang from the acclaimed film.

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Hapless Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) has just finished his final school exam and is a magnet for trouble and bullys. A chance encounter reunites him with Woody (Joe Gilgun), Lol (Vicky McClure), Smell (Rosamund Hanson) and the others and soon the past is forgotten. The gang are back together and they’re all looking for love, a laugh, a job and something that resembles a future.

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This is filmmaker Shane Meadows’ television debut and speaking at a Q&A after the preview screening he made it clear that he didn’t see Television as a stepping stone into film and that he’d grown up watching great made for TV films. He did however say

“UK telly has gone to s***. It really has it’s appalling, but American TV, the new type of shows they’re making like the Sopranos and the Wire are great. That’s how people want to watch TV today, several episodes back to back. They want to sit with the missus and watch a 12 hour film. It’s an event.”

Meadow’s brought in help to bring the much anticipated follow up to TV. That help came in the form of co-writer Jack Thorne (The Scouting Book For Boys, Skins) and sharing the directing of the series with Tom Harper (Misfits). It’s no suprise then that the series is packed full of both hilarious and touching moments.

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Judging by the preview clips of the rest of the series, it looks to become edgier and darker as it progresses. Meadows hints at a dramatic turn of events midway through the series and looks at it as “sort of like two separate films”. The soundtrack was evolved from music the actors were listening to on their mp3 players to get into character and from a stack of discs that the two directors shared between each other leading to a soundtrack that’s not cliche or packed full of well known 80’s chart toppers.

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This Is England ’86 looks to be a hit for Channel 4, another beautiful and gritty flagship show with a lot of potential. Who knows, maybe we’ll be seeing This Is England in the 1990’s in the future…

This Is England ’86 starts on the 7th September on Channel 4


Ceri: Portrait of an Inadvertent Killer {Ceri's Column}

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I killed the most beautiful butterfly today. Wow, that sentence makes my look like a soon-to-be serial killer. I didn’t mean to. It was fluttering along, maybe trying to find a new home, maybe trying to find a mate. Probably just fluttering aimlessly. The problem was, it was fluttering 1.5 meters above the M4 motorway.

I wasn’t fluttering. I was moving at a positively super-sonic pace (late for some bollocks, again). I was also encased in my 2 tonnes of steel and fibreglass and whatever the hell they make the cup-holder from.

The colourful mass left on my windscreen really was horrific. I mean, it was like the aftermath of a clown’s suicide jump…I assume. Fragments of red and yellow wing were still visible through the dark gunk, (butterfly lung, ass and uvula).

My next action, on reflection, was quite sick when you think about it…and you have nothing else to do. I pulled a tiny lever and the corpse was washed away in an instance. The remnants of such a beautiful little creature treated as equal to fluff, stains and those bits of crap that get in the way of our otherwise squeaky clean world. I’m a killer. I’m a bastard.

I mean, I couldn’t avoid killing it. The insurance folk wouldn’t accept “I swerved into the tanker to avoid a butterfly” as a valid reason to write off my car and maybe write off a limb or two. But my reaction, or lack of, makes me a killer. And a bastard.

But that spider I Hoovered deserved it. I hope the fucker rots in spider hell…great, now I’ll dream of being in spider hell tonight.

Shitter.

by Ceri Phillips

What not to call a posho {Carl Packman}

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When Samantha Cameron gave birth to her baby yesterday I was in an office in Central London. The news spread in that office of course like the news that Julie from HR has brought in some Rice Krispie treats made with cocaine.

While everyone was wincing and speculating on its weight, I was wondering whether the name would have a double barrel – mainly because my politics is stuck in the 80s (80s Cuba that is).

David Cameron has made it clear that benefits, such as that for a child, should not be received by middle class parents such as him (*cough splutter cough* middle class sir? Don’t let Grandad Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet hear you say that).

But if DavCam is going to be middle class, will he be one of those postmodern middle class people whose names are Plum or Eggnog or something like that, will he stick with his roots and call his child something like Martha Cunningham-Gash or will he go all hug-a-hoodie and call his kid Beyonce or Vodkaandorange (a Dutch name I believe)?

Certainly David Cameron’s identity, back as a shadow leader, was stained by the synonyms of a name. Last year he was said to advise Annunziata Rees-Mogg to insist people refer to her as Nancy Mogg, so as to appeal to the voters of North West Somerset – though some wonder whether it was less about the “poshness” of the name, or whether it was too “foreigny” (that’s right, foreigny!).

Having found out about 30 minutes before writing this small entry I found out, and I think they made a good choice – perfect for postmodernism it has a bit of foreign in there (Cornwall is obviously a bit foreign with their foreigny flag) has a typical English name in there, and has the name of a nurse who saved the world (unlike the Cameron-led budget, which has overburdened the poorest – what a turn up for the books).

That’s right folks, the Camerons have called their latest child Florence Rose Endellion Cameron Rees-Mogg. That about sums it up really.

Dress your iPad – Best iPad Cases {Gadgets}

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So you bought an iPad…then the shop assistant tried to upsell to you a boring ‘executive’ case that’s so uninspiring the only thing you could think of to say was “errrm”.

Well we’ve scoured the internet to find the best-est (-sic) cases around at the moment so that you can dress your new friend.

LaCie Vegetal Sleeve, £34.99

For the eco-friendly iPad owner, LaCie’s Vegetal Sleeve is made from plant materials sourced from Europe. They feature a soya–based memory foam cushion to protect your gadget from everyday bumps, a linen exterior, and bamboo jersey lining. Comes in different sizes for laptops.

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Byrd & Belle iPad Sleeve, $48

Chic 100% Felted Wool sleeve with a simple leather fastening. This high quality felt is a sustainable and renewable material and offers strength while remaining soft to the touch.

Simple, low fuss and ooh it also comes in ‘graphite’.

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M-Edge Trip Jacket, $49.99

Pretend your iPad is a Moleskine sketchbook if you like. The Trip opens like a book and fastens with elastic. Made from canvas with a leather trim and comes in a variety of colours.

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Pro-Tec Bamboo iPad Case, £24.95

Covers the back and edges of the case so you’re still going to need to find a way to protect the screen if you’re going out and about. If you’re using it only in the comfort of your own home then this slick eco case is ideal.

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Cool Bananas Envelope Case, £24.95

It’s in the shape of an envelope! OK, it’s not fooling anyone but at least it looks good. White leather with a soft velour lining and magnetic clasp.

Prefer it in a different colour? they’ve got it in black leather as well.

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If these don’t tickle your fancy then there are bucket loads of amazing cases on Etsy.com. Here’s just a few that will sell out really quickly…

Great Wave off Kanawaga Sleeve, £46.28

Print onto leather, lined with wool blend felt from Tinderbloom

FARRAGO Leather iPad Case with Strap, £55.54

Don’t be put off by the berry pink, it also comes in manly and neutral colours. No magnetic fastenings so you don’t need to worry about your screen going funny.

Thin Leather Case, £29.99

Really testing the definition of handmade, this one is so unique it comes in ‘Blown’.