Cloud Atlas

Everything about Cloud Atlas gives the impression of being epic. The trailer evokes a sense of greatness in not only the length itself but the cast list, the music, the montage of various flashing scenes. in my opinion the trailer actually worked against the film, in that the viewer begins to form the opinion that the film is perhaps pretentious, boring or confusing.

Despite my negative reaction to the trailer I still decided to watch the film and was really suprised to find a thoughtful and emotive piece of work. The Washowski's are nothing if not visionary and while I did not read the bestselling novel on which the film is based i can only imagine that they've interpreted it in both a true and unique way.

Cloud Atlas, while seeming from the trailer to be something akin to Inception 2 is in fact a simple concept. It darts back and forth through time, from the 1800s to the 1930s to modern day then to a highly commercial world and then eventually to a post-apocalyptic earth after a fall of some kind. In each world are the same souls who meet again and again. What the film shows is how small acts can ripple across time to create gigantic movements.

The film is visually breathtaking and is one of the most expensive independant films ever made. The score is haunting, particularly the cloud atlas sextet which features as part of the storyline. the acting is very good if you can try to slightly disregard Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. Jim Broadbent brings a really warm and humorous presence to the film and Korean actress Doona Bae speaks volumes with her intense gaze, Jim Sturgess is also very good and the inclusion of Hugh Grant playing a variety of villainous characters is brilliant. All the actors play multiple roles in multiple time sequences, there are no boundaries with regards to race and even gender. This gives the film a unique and entertaining twist. As you watch, you will spot certain characters but when the credits role and a plethora of suprising castings come to light, as a viewer you will be shocked. Before watching the film try to picture Hugh Grant as a pacific island cannibal, Ben Wishaw as middle aged woman and Susan Sarandon as an old male scientist. The inversions are done to shock but are also done so well and so naturally that you will be shocked.

I wouldnt say that I loved Cloud Atals and I do believe that it was slightly too ambitious and didnt follow through as well as it could have. The length of the film could also be off-putting but I would say that it's worth a watch. There were some emotional and thought-provoking scenes for me and I cannot discount the evident visual talent that these two filmmakers have.

Cleaning out the proverbial wardrobe.

Tomorrow I'm having a jumble sale, both as a neccessary means of living in a small two bedroom flat with no storage space and as a inauguration of the new me. The old me was clinging to 11-12 year old dresses and trying to squeeze them over a twenty- five year old body in the hope of wearing something resembling a baby-doll top. This being because I cannot let go of things.

Included in my jumble sale are such items as the grey jacket that never once, not even in the actual store, fitted me properly, the ankle boots that made my feet bleed and the necklace which caused me to break out in a rash. why do I have things that hurt me so much still living in my wardrobe, because quite simply I'm the kind of girl that tries to make a bad thing work. I fear the unknown so I'd rather stick to the theoretically comfortable dress that makes me look like a circus bear. I'm not masochistic though, I think I'm just hopeful.

As with so many things in life the cleaning out of my wardrobe for this sale made me think about the other aspects of my life that need cleaning out. Mainly what I've been thinking about is cleaning my proverbial wardrobe out of people that no longer mean much to me, have hurt me and continue to do so or just serve no purpose in my life anymore. Lots of my friends have a facebook springclean where they edit their 'friends'  down to people they've had some form of verbal communication with. But what about all those people in your life hanging around you, sometimes 'close' friends who continually disappoint you, who have that special way of making you cry or take so much from you without giving anything back?

It's just like those clothes in your wardrobe that you know you need to get rid off. The shirt with a button missing that is so gorgeous and you wish you could wear it but if only it just had that one button then it would be perfect! The dress that grabs a bit of your skin in its zipper everytime you zip it up. It doesnt fit anymore, once it looked beautiful on you. But times have changed and it no longer fits you as well as it once did.

These are those friends in your life that maybe need to be expelled or cut off in some way. What masochistic pleasure can one possibly get from trying on the same jeans over and over and finding that its always just too damn tight? It makes you look horrible, it makes you feel horrible so why keep it around when you could have jeans that make you look and feel like a movie star?

When it comes to friends, for me there are only two things that depending on which way its going will either gain my admiration of a friend or make me upset and disappointed with them.
One is that they give to me as much as I give to them. This seems like a cliche but it is one of the most important things in any relationship. As human beings we experience things only in relation to ourselves. To not receive the same amount of affection, praise, time etc as you are giving someone else will disappoint anyone but it is a particular bone of contention for me. I left home when I was 17 and often i was travelling alone, staying with friends, away from my family. Therefore, in many ways, friends have become part of my family. This is why giving and receiving is so important to me. I would expect it from my parents, sibling and cousins, why should friends be exempt?

The second thing that disappoints me in my friend relationships is the lack of showing up. I always show up, if a friend needs my help or support I'll always find a way to be there. I have so many friends who will do the same and I admire that immensely. For my twenty-fourth brithday my sister planned a suprise party for me. It worked so well and I never suspected a thing because my sister's elaborate plan was to be nonchalant about my birthday and allow me to plan my own little dinner except that none of my friends could make it. They all had excuses and other plans. The day before my birthday I cried for hours with my sister about how all they needed to do was show up and they couldnt even do that!
 I can't even explain the emotion I felt when on the day of my birthday I walked into a room filled with all my friends that had told me they couldnt come, they all showed up!
I just dont understand the type of friend who doesnt show up just for the sake of it when just showing up would mean so much and cost so little.

I think that if this jumble sale has taught me one thing its the importance of cleaning out one's proverbial wardrobe. Just like the zip that won't go up, it doesnt mean that just because it doesnt fit you it won't fit someone else. Maybe someone else will love it, it's just not right for you anymore and sadly maybe it was never right for you at all.

The New Normal

Everyone that knows me well knows that I love my cat to the point of obsession. My latest pre-occupation is that he has a little cat girlfriend who comes to visit him at our house. Her name is Muffin, she has long smoky grey fur and blue eyes, she's the perfect little lady. Very fastidious, very dainty, she never meows loudly, mostly just purs. When she comes over my cat, Jesse allows her to eat his food, they run around together, lie next to eachother, stroking eachother's faces, they nuzzle and nose kiss. Recently I witnessed the disturbing sight of Jesse actually mounting Muffin but I wasn't too worried because Jesse's neutered so no risk of unwanted pregnancy.

This morning while cleaning up I found Muffin's collar under our veggie rack. The owner's details were written on the collar so I decided to return it to them. On seeing the collar they were really grateful and Muffin's owner exclaimed "Ohmigosh! thanks! i was looking everywhere for it. I didnt know where he'd lost it!"
I'm sorry, come again? "HE"!!!!
This whole time Muffin was actually a boy and that means my kitten is a homosexual! This is not some kind of deal breaker for me but it is a shock! I didnt even know animals could be gay!
But I've been researching homosexual animals and it turns out that over 1500 animal species practice homosexual or bisexual relationships. Amazon River dolphins sometimes penetrate other males' blowholes! Male bonobo apes practice mastrubation orgies amongst the males and also amongst females. I've always been fascinated by spotted hyenas which comprise a matriarchal society in which the leader is a female with an enlarged clitoris which serves the purpose of being a fake penis. This fake penis then makes her the 'top dog' essentially hyenas are a lesbian society. Some research has found that homosexuality in animals could be caused by lower levels of testosterone in males and higher levels in females. This could explain Jesse and Muffin, Jesse was neutered when he was very young and probably hasn't been producing optimum levels of testosterone but his physique disagrees, he's an extremely big and muscular cat and a killing machine!

But  I don't really believe it is a question of hormones. I think its a question of choice. If so many animals practice homosexual behaviour by choice, that we know of, why are we so determined to explain homosexual behaviour in humans surely its nature. Most birds form mating pairs for life and of these atleast 5% are homosexual. Single females often lay their eggs in homosexual couple's nests and the homosexual couple raises the chicks! It reminds me of Ryan Murphy's new sitcom 'The New Normal'.

Either way I guess what I'm trying to say is that eventhough it was a shock to find out that my baby's gay. I'm happy for him and I think it's totally natural.

Anti-Christ : "I should have rented Minotaur"

My local video store had a special for halloween, rent a new release and get a horror for free. There were grannies poring over the synopses of 'The Devil's Rejects' and 'Zombie Cannibal Holocaust'. I had already chosen 'the last exorcism' and was now deciding between 'Minotaur' and lars von Trier's 'Anti-Christ'.
 I had always wanted to watch 'Anti-Christ' but after watching the trailer found myself too scared to even try. The plus of 'Minotaur' was that Tom Hardy is in it.

I decided on Anti-Christ.
First we watched 'The Last Exorcism' which was really good until the end which unravelled and seemed like an anti-climax. Then we decided to try Anti-christ. The prologue is enough to unsettle you, a baby falling from an open window while his unattractive parents in the form of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg bang the hell of eachother (I saw a real penis go into a real vagina!). The grieving couple then go to an isolated cabin in the scariest woods I've ever seen, they put shelter mountain inn to shame! Dafoe puts his wife through a series of gruelling and frankly abusive therapy sessions untiln she eventually embraces the savagery of nature to such an extent that she snaps, crushes his testicles with a block of wood, jerks him off until he ejacultes blood then bolts him to the ground so that he won't leave her. After that you'd have thought he was dead but no. He drags himself into a foxhole symbolising a vagina, is betrayed by a blackbird then eventually has to lie next to his maddened wife as she performs genital mutilation on herself with a pair of scissors. Eventually he runs away only to look back and see an army of face-less women chasing him up the mountain.

If this seems like the ravings of a madman , it is! Lars von Trier is a crazy person, I say this endearingly because i'm actually a fan but this film goes too far. I feel like its saying too little for the film that it is. The savagery seems unfounded. I read that von Trier was coming out of a period of depression when he wrote the film and it is a clear to see. The mood of the film goes from sombre, to morbid to gloomy to sheer terror.

My opinion, watch the film and make up your own mind- just be prepared beforehand, I couldn't have imagined watching the film without having looked up the plot on wikipedia first.

Too Much Information!

Yesterday I went to the recycling dump to, obviously, recycle my paper, plastic and glass trash. When I noteiced an old-ish woman, the wrinkles forming fisssures in her thin skin, furiously ruffling though the various bins of plastic bottles. I decided that she couldn't be a hobo because she was driving a new mercedes benz but she certainly looked like a bag lady. I quietly slipped past her and proceeded to tip my things into the corresponding bins. I like to keep recycling a private matter and become agitated if even the people that work there interrupt me, my friend goes so far as to recycle at night because she "doesn't like anyone to see her recycle".

She came up behind me, giving me a shock! "I know you think I'm a crazy bag lady," she said (how did she know?) "but I'm collecting bottle caps for my son's class project." I guiltily looked at my own caps which now along with the bottles they were attached to were at the bottom of the large, plastics bin. "Don't worry!" she called as she dove in after them. After retrieving the caps she went on to outline the natural science syllabus at her son's school, defame the teachers who gave such short notice for projects, and the rubbish dump man who had forgotten to collect the caps for her, so that she now had to do it herself. All I could think about was, why was she telling me all this? As if to convince me, to make her story valid. But why? who cares? Would it really have mattered if I had thought she was collecting tiny little tumblers for her doll collection or making splash pools for her ant farm.

My point is we all do it, I more than anyone. I care what impression people will have of me even when I know for a fact i will never see them again. I did a secret consumer evaluation of a 5 star hotel recently. When I made the booking I clicked 'mr' instead of  'miss' on the form. When I got to the hotel to check in I had already anticipated confusion or perhaps ridicule from the staff. Before I even handed over my ID I started a long monologue which began well, with the actual story of mistakenly clicking the wrong title but ended with my affirmation that i did not have a sex change in fact I was once an over developed 9 year old who still suffered the trauma of childhood teasing. I looked up to see their shocked faces and also realised that 'too much information' was an understatement.

So I propose just do what you're doing. You don't need to justify yourself to anyone especially not strangers.

The Bloody Chamber

I happened to walk through a book fair a few weeks ago on my way to something else and felt compelled to purchase something considering I had interrupted an enthralled group of people listening to an angry man with dreadlocks talk about how capitalism has ruined culture in this society. One of the books that caught my eye was the The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter.

It is an anthology of short stories which mostly originate from traditional fables and western fairytales. Carter has used well-known stories and created new stories from them in which I believe she explores more modern concepts. I also find that her writing has a feminist angle to it. I saw this mostly with her re-telling of the 'bluebeard' story entitltled 'the bloody chamber'. This story has more of the same qualities of Clarissa Pinkola Estes' analysis in 'Women Who Run with Wolves' than the classic story.

I also enjoyed her three wolf stories which go from a morbid re-telling of Red-riding Hood to highly sexualised version that explores the budding sexuality of the Red Riding Hood character and then one where the reader is not completely sure who exactly the wolf is.

For me, the most interesting two stories are the two different retellings of the 'Beauty and the Beast' story. The first gives a more classical view of the story while showing the more human side of 'Beauty'. Yet 'The Tiger's Bride' provides a different format to this classic story by inverting the roles of transformation.


All in all it was an interesting anthology of stories. Carter is very talented with description and prose and the stories in this collection were very compelling.

True Reality

I am a reality TV fanatic! I am saying this without sarcasm, irony or anything else the higher brow members of society use to slap some form of commentary on this evolution in television. I seriously love them all, The Kardashians, The Braxtons, The Real Housewives!

The reason why I am now unashamed to mention this is because I had an epiphany last night which made me realise that reality TV is actually the cleverest, most realistic commentary on the society in which we live.

Critics of reality TV go on and on about how fake it is. Ofcourse its fake! It's meant to be because quite honestly as a human race we can't handle the truth! Think about those home videos your parents took while you were growing up. All those birthdays, school sports days, concerts, talent shows. Theres not even any point recording these things because no one watches them afterwards! It's not entertainment, the sound quality is bad, the picture is grainy and too dark or too bright, much of what people are saying is inaudible, there are many, many awkward silences.

Reality TV is the alternative to that. You want to see people's spotless mansions, not their filthy carpets which were last cleaned in 1982. You want good lighting, makeup, fashionable clothing. You want to be able to hear everything people are saying, so that you can follow the storyline. Instead of those amateur family videos you want to be able to view someone else's family, friend, relationship dramas that echoe your own, except theres are in HD format.

We're living in a society that is constantly plugged in to many if not all forms of media and craves constant entertainment. The amount of films, documentaries, series made every year is not even enough to satisfy that. Reality TV is a hybrid form of media, it combines the need for people to see their world reflected on screen, to connect with people they feel are real while also providing pure entertainment, interesting storylines, dramatic climaxes etc.

People often view the watching of reality TV to be a voyeuristic past-time, a fulfillment of perverse desire to look into people's lives. However I argue that reality TV is exactly the opposite of this. In fact I believe that reality TV is deliberately removed from true reality. Think how much cheaper and easier it would be if people just chased normal people with hand-held cameras but the high production values of reality TV suggest that there is a deliberate distance inposed so as not to appear voyeuristic. Think how the Kardashians drift off to sleep with a full face of make-up and perfectly coifed hair. We do not want to see them drool, or notice their eye crispies!

 Honestly I think the producers of relaity TV are geniuses! To be able to create storylines around mundane issues, to direct untrained actors and cleverly balance their material between home video and all-stops-out, flash sitcom or drama series is very daring and very admirable.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

I hadn't heard all that much about this film before I watched it, the other day. I hadn't even seen the trailer, however I did read one synopsis of the film that described it as a more intelligent Waterworld. When Waterworld was released in 1995 it was given the title of being the most expensive production ever made. It's returns at the box office didnt match the amount spent to make it and the reviews told a decidedly more tragic tale. 'Beasts of the Southern Wild', on the otherhand, used a budget of 1.2 million dollars to produce a far more profound, far more aware film. Without a bevy of special effects the film is able to create a far more ominous warning about the state of our planet.

I see this film as succeeding in doing what many other films have sought to do yet failed. In Avatar we get the allegory of a race of people who live in harmony with nature while the humans plunder and purge their planet of natural resources. Apart from the obvious laughable point of their main natural resource being named 'unobtainium', the allegory was too far from home. The film was too sentimental and sickeningly preachy, despite the fact that this extremely big budget production could not seriously have been all that green.

'Beasts of the Southern Wild' differs in that it focuses on one community, one family, one child and one story. Hush Puppy is a young girl living in a fictional community in Louisiana, USA called The Bathtub. The time is not clear but this world is so closely related to ours that it could be ten years from now, maybe two, maybe even now. This community lives cut off from the 'civilised' world of factories, supermarkets, highways. They live in excess when there is plenty, they live frugally when nature is not giving much. They all live with the awareness that the polar ice caps are melting, meaning the tide will rise and eventually swallow up their community and everything they know and love. The film centres not only around this realisation but also around the relationship between Hush Puppy and her father, Wink, who is dying of an unnamed illness. Wink tries to get Hush Puppy ready for when he's not around and she will have to fend for herself. In this we see the most primal of relationships between parent and child. The fight for survival, that occurs in nature.

The film, itself is beautiful. I haven't been so moved by a film in a long time. The cast of non-actors fill the screen with raw emotion and the music aids the mood and tone of the film at every turn. By far the best thing about the film is the sweet, defiant and strong narration by Hush Puppie. Seeing this world through a child's eyes gives incredible insight into an issue that too often goes over people's heads. What I enjoy about this film is that while it does give us a view of where our planet is headed, it's not self-righteous nor preachy about it. But tells us that we have lost touch with our purpose as a planet, we've lost touch with our role in the functioing of the world in which we live.

My top 5 most disturbing movies of all time.

I recently saw a list, online, of someone's top ten most disturbing films. Albeit I hadn't seen most of them but it made me want to check them out. So I decided to think up a list of movies that were the most disturbing to me. Sometimes a movie doesnt neccessarily have to be a horror in order to disturb you. I think it has more to do with how it upsets your mind or rather how it upsets how you view the natural balance of things to be...

1. The Unseeable(2006):
I watched this 2006 Thai horror at the Durban Film Festival and eventhough I was in a cinema full to capacity, I felt like running out. It's one of those films that builds up fear gradually but when you reach the climax you're too scared to contain yourself! At this point to Asian horror craze was just starting of. I think the reason why people were so transfixed by this film as well as other films that came out of the japanese, thai and korean film insustry is because of a cultural difference between the East and West that allows for spirits and unknown entities to be ever present, they need not be explained away nor do they exclusively haunt old, dilapidated mansions. Rather they attach themselves to people, they can exist in the newest of apartments, they utilise the newest of technologies. In the case of The Unseeable, a ghost could really be anyone and often the most unlikely character.

2. The Asian horror craze brings me to my next movie on the list...The Ring(2002)
I don't mean the Japanese version but rather the 2002, English Gore Verbinski version.
I actually have watched the Japanese Hideo Nakata version and read the origin novels by Koji Suzuki. While the novels did freak me out a little, the movie that really scared me was the english version. I think its down to the talent of the director that he created such a moody and surreal landscape in which to set this film.  A lot of remakes of asian horrors came after this, like The Grudge and Shutter, in my opinion they failed by trying to make the english version a doppelganger of the asian one. In the japanese version of the film the protaganist already transforms from a crusty male journalist, to a young single mother. the English version retains that as well as changing the setting from Japan to Seattle, USA. As well as these changes there are also changes in terms of the mythology around the haunting of the videotape. I like the aspect of investigation in the english version and quite honestly the ghost is just scarier.

3. The Human Centipede (2010):
There was a lot of hype around this movie and when I finally watched it many things disappointed me. The quality of the acting was substandard, the dialogue was so badly written I think you could hear better dialogue in a soft porn movie. And the actual story is very two dimensional and extremely implausible. However when you finally get to the scene where the three tourists are finally attached and they wake up as almost, but not quite one entity, you are so repulsed and so...disturbed that its difficult to continue watching. This movie is not going to win any awards for being a movie but the very idea it poses is enough to make your skin crawl.

4. The Elephant Man(1980):
Ok, this is not a horror movie and its actually very tragic, and thought-provoking. But let me give a little bit of context as to the first time I watched this movie. I was only 10 years old and my dad thought it would be a good idea for me to watch this classic film. He warned me not to play the rented VHS before he got home but I didnt listen. Therefore my first contact with the screen verson f John Merrick was as a monstrous, and alien being that filled my 10 year old self with dread and revulsion. However maybe that was the type of insight I needed, imagine how children during the 19th century would have reacted to the real-life figure on which the film is based, Joseph Merrick.
I also think that as a child you're so conditioned to disney happy-endings and toned down emotions that when you see something truly sad and unfair, completely unlike what you thought the reality of life was then you will be disturbed.

5. The Hills Have Eyes (2006):
I watched this for the first time at a very isolated chalet in the Limpopo province, conincidentally there was a hill, there was also very bad TV reception, so we ended up watching this on a laptop. The whole mutant community thing freaked me out but more than that the rape, the breast-feeding scene, the canibalism! this was just an all round terrifying and disturbing film. I think Alexander Aja is a really talented director, because eventhough this is a remake its proabably become more famous than the original Wes Craven film. I also watched Piranha 3D recently and was really impressed by Aja's ability to eccentuate B-grade to a level of being so bad that it becomes good.

Concept vs Quality

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the restaurant business, mainly because it's my dream to one day open up my own restaurant.
I've realised that in South Africa specifically our restaurant culture is extremely so, more so than anywhere else I've been.

Firstly I think it's a huge problem that in SA people are willing to buy into concepts rather than quality. Two nights ago I went to Dukes in Greenside. Luckily we had a reservation because usually you'd have to queue for hours sometimes to discover that the kitchen has closed before you get a table. Its uber popular, its super trendy. The concept is gourmet burgers, with the best ingredients, the most outrageous yet delicious combinations. I've been there once before, when Dukes first opened and I was thoroughly disappointed then. Granted I wasnt eating red meat at the time so could only choose from the chicken and vegetarian options so i decided to give them another try. I don;t understand how people rave about the taste and quality of Dukes burgers when my burger was extremely over-cooked and dry, the bun was stale and falling apart, the wedges were undercooked! The only thing I can think of is that people are paying for the concept rather than the quality. I've seen it with lots of other places too! You should not be serving up a concept day after day on monogrammed crockery if you can't deliver on actual taste. I actually prefer my neighbourhood Chinese restaurant with a tiny sushi conveyor belt and a card machine that never works because even if it doesnt look like much the quality of the food is awesome and the service is good.

Which brings me to my next point about service. In south Africa instead of rewarding good service we tip out of guilt. Sure, being a waiter is not the best job in the world, but it is a job and we should be trying our best at any job that we do. We live in a society that's meant to reward hard work yet we look down on waiters and patronise them by tipping even when their work isn't up to scratch. A Greek/Finnish friend of mine was shocked that in SA waiters demand tips even when they forget orders and the kitchen is late with your food. Yet we all feel a sense of extreme guilt if we don't. We say " Ag shame I wonder how he's even getting home so late after his shift" or " Awww man she probably has three kids to feed just give her a good tip". don't get me wrong we should be empathetic and sympathetic but if we're rewarding bad service can we really then complain that service isn't good? And staff should not take it personally either. If you've got a bad tip its not some rich brat with a vendetta against you but rather someone telling you that they werent happy with your service and you need to do better next time.

Two things you've just got to do alone.

I'm the kind of person who shares my personal life with the world, which is the main reason why I even have a blog. Apart from that I'm known as the 'overshare' person, with all my friends. So whenever I have the slightist difficulty in life or have even a single crazy thought in my mind it spews forth from my mouth to anyone, family, friends, neighbours, co-workers, cashiers at Pick and Pay...
But I was thinking that there really are two major events in your life that, while you may want support, you cannot have it and really need to go through it alone.
The first one being your learners or drivers test. When I was in university I still hadn't totally ironed out my theory but I had a premonition that it wouldnt be good to go in a big, noisy group to the testing centre to write our learners. I opted to do it in secret, over the holidays so that none of my friends would know either way, much like a secret nose job. However all my other friends decided to make a day of it. Well the inevitable happened, everyone passed except for one and it was super awkward, super weird and no one could celebrate because they all felt so bad for the one that didnt make it. I chose right because as it turned out I failed my learners twice! My embarrassment was no less than my friends because literally five minutes before I got the  failed result of my first learners test my mom, while trying to console me over the phone said 'Don't worry Varu, any idiot can get their learners'

The other thing that one should never ever, under any circumstances do with a group of friends, no matter how scary it can be, is go for an STD or AIDs test. I can think of multiple ways in which this could go so horribly wrong. For that matter you should probably not even tell your friends that you're going for an STD test because then everyone's on the edge of their seat till the end of the week, when you get your results back. And i personally would much rather avoid awkward phonecalls that start with "So....?". On a side note, a friend of mine recently went to get tested for HPV, which she told us all about. So in this case I was the one making the awkward phonecall to find out if everything was alright. She said that the doctor said that if she had HPV he would call her on Thursday, if he didnt call then she didnt have anything. Surely this should not be standard practice! I mean wouldnt you want a stamped and signed certificate of you not having an STD. I dont believe anything until its on paper. I mean for all the anxiety and not to mention physical discomfort that you have to go through to get tested, I think I would want an STD graduation and get a diploma for having a clean bill of health. A phonecall is just not sufficient.

Coming Soon...but not soon in enough

 There's a number of movies that I'm really excited to see this year. For me the highlight of my year seemed to mainly be fulfilled by Prometheus but I've just realised that there are some really awesome movies coming out later this year.

1. Most importantly is 'Life of Pi'. This novel is my absolute most favourite novel of all time. It was original and beautifully written. So when I heard that they were making a film version I was very sceptical. However after watching the trailer and also knowing that its in the very capable hands of Ang Lee I'm very excited. My one gripe with the trailer is that the trailer does look very fantasy based and it seems like a family movie and while i do think that it still could be considered a family movie  know that if the film stays true to the story the end is going to be devestating. The themes of survival in desperate situation could be too advanced for youger viewers contrary to the look and feel of the trailer and the fact that it was filmed in 3D.

2. The Bourne Legacy is one of the most highly anticipated action movies of the year. Mainly because people want to size up Jeremy Renner in comparison to Matt Damon. I think he's going top be really good bearing in mind that this is a Bourne movie but not part of the Damon Bourne franchise. It also has Edward Norton as the villain, a role he was born to play in my opinion.

3. On the subject of action Im also really keen to see Total Recall. This remake sees Colin Farrell replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger. Im mostly just interested to see why Total Recall needed a remake especially one with Kate Beckinsale in it (can you say redundant?)

4. The Great and Powerful Oz looks visually impressive and I hope it does well at the box office just so that Sam Raimi can give the studios a figurative 'up yours' after the Amazing Spiderman. James Franco will be uber cool, as always, as the wizard and I think its a really cool idea, after all these years to film the actual first Oz novel as opposed to the more famous second installment with Dorothy and the yellow brick road. I also like that Raimi has stuck to the black and white in Kansas style transforming to vibrant colour in Oz that was seen in the first film.

Girl Crazy

I admit it I absolutely love Girls! I understand how that might appear to be salacious but I mean the tv show.
I started watching the show by chance a few weeks ago and now I'm absolutely hooked. It's one of those things I love watching but at the same time am just indecently jealous that I didnt write myself.
Lena Dunham is an awesome role model not only is she an award-nominated director and actress but also creator, writer and executive producer of the show.
The series is set in New York and follows a group of four friends as they deal with life, relationships and becoming adults. If the premise sounds fluffy, you have to bear in mind that this show is unashemedly the anti-Sex and the City. I always wondered in Sex and the City how they seemed to have a thousand million dollars to buy Manolos and dozens of cosmos and salads every day, Girls actually deals with the cold hard reality of being broke and needing to pay rent. Didnt you ever wonder how the girls of Sex and the City could have hundreds of encounters of casual sex yet hardly ever worry about the dangers of STDs and pregnancy scares or on the flip side having to deal with emotionally distant men, the second episode of Girls deals with both HPV and abortion as well as the ongoing trials of Hannah with the undoubtedly worst douche-bag of all time, Adam.

Anyway I'm just absolutely loving the sharp writing and edgy subject matter in Girls and I really think its the best series out there right now.

Shame

Last week my sister and I decided that we literally could not go on living if we didnt watch 'Shame'.
We are huge Michael Fassbender fans for obvious reasons and also the fact that he's an amazing actor.
There'.s been a huge hype around the film, for Fassbender's performance, the subject matter of sex addiction and ofcourse Fassbender's supposedly ingratuitious and ironically shameless full frontal nudity.

My feeling is simply that South african audiences are not ready for something like this. In a country where most mental illnesses are not even recognised its very difficult to pass off sex addiction as a proper problem. In some parts of the film i was totally convinced that I was watching porn if not for the blaring classical music and Fassbender's forlorn glances while having a threesome i would have been thoroughly confused as to what I was watching.
My sister thought up a very apt description for the film: it is a haunting tale of Michael Fassbender's penis.
The opening scenes of the film are so focused on Fassbender's member that at one point the camera was literally on cock level while Fassbenders head was cut out of the top of the frame.

I didnt hate the film. In fact i thought Fassbender's performance was brilliant. he was like a complex and pensive Patrick Bateman without any of the malice but maybe even double the charm.
The relationship between Fassbender's character and his sister is explored with a subtilty that makes it more interesting. And the idea of sex addiction as a debilitating illness is explored well for the first half of the film but becomes slightly lost towards the end. The fact that there is one scene in which gay sex is implied in the midst of scene upon scene of explicit hetero sexual sex is indicative of the society we live in. Be only controversial enough as to not offend the delicate sensibilities of a pseudo-liberal cinema audience.
In my opinion, this film was sitting on the fence and thats what spoilt it and turned it into nothing more than porn in the guise of an oscar nominated film. hey all they needed was a 'penis-cam' and the film would have been complete.

The Tarot Card Reading and other stories on the path to find the perfect spliff.

This morning my two of my friends, my sister and I began a road trip with the main intention being to seek out the Rasta shop at the dam. Last weekend my friend was offered chronic without even trying to look like a stoner so this week we decided to make use of the Rasta man's obvious profiling.

We pulled in ,starving, at the flea-market alongside the dam. After walking around looking for a place to eat, deciding against the first cafe we saw because my sister was offended by the sight of two middle aged men eating plain Eisbein without any sides at 10 in the morning, deemed it deliverance country! Which is how we ended up eating chicken curry and roti with lime milkshakes for breakfast. We were already feeling a bit muggy from the random food and full and happy when we crossed the road to the Rasta man's store.

The Rasta shop is a little cement closet full of stoner paraphenelia like Bob Marley rizlers and peace sign weed crushers. Next to the shop is a dusty, off-white sign that reads 'Spinash- 0823789123'- We laughingly decided that 'Spinash' is probably some kind of code for a bankie. If someone calls asking for 'Spinach' the voice on the other end will probably say "Eish sorry! you got the wrong number! Bye!" but if you call asking for the "Spin-Ash" there going to say " Ah I got what you need"
The Rasta man is a pretty cool guy, he seems to have really good energy and so does his cat Tyga!
Rasta man found Tyga! on the street and now the kitten happily tumbles over Rasta beanies and bracelets and basks in the sun outside the shop. The actual buying process was pretty slow since Rasta man wasnt exactly adept at doling out change but the the weed that he stashes in his red tartan design Thermos flask is  amazing.

We'd pretty  much accomplished what we came for so were headed out. We just decided on a drink before we hit the road but just then I happened to chance upon a Tarot card reading advertisement and sought out the store. I've always wanted to do a Tarot card reading and admittedly while I was sceptical I was also kind of scared of what she was going to tell me.
She wasnt really scary though, she was a slightly masculine looking, old Yugoslavian woman with purple hair. Something about her was very healing though, I felt really calm in her presence and I honestly believe some people just have a calming element about them.
I was suprised she immedietly guessed what was bothering me just from looking at me but I know that's often a cheap trick.
She asked me to shuffle the cards and as I was shuffling to concentrate on what my worries were but to just think about them and not say them out loud.
When I cut the cards in half and she laid them out and immedietly started addressing those concerns which I found weird.  Some of the things she said were comforting, some a bit worrying, some things she said made complete sense to me.My theory is that some people are hyper perceptive and that she can pick up on things that are in your sub-concious that are the main things that you need to be advised or consoled about. The correlation between the pictures on the cards and the things she says are spooky. Maybe its all just superstition, maybe its crazy, maybe I'm gullible but I walked out feeling peaceful. I dont know what it is maybe someone telling you things you already knew is comforting. You should be able to motivate yourself, and tell yourself that everything's going to be ok but when someone else tells says it to you, its somehow so much better and so much more profound and maybe thats the point of all these clairvoyancy promises but the things she said, said  more to me than anyone who was trying to get through to me ever could.

The Avengers

I've been waiting for The Avengers movie to come out since I watched the first Iron Man. Obviously I can't claim to be as hyped up as those who were waiting since their first comic book or since birth but that's a pretty long time to wait.
Maybe I ruined things for myself by watching the trailer 10 times or dreaming up my perfect scenario. As the video store guy told me "With films like these its best not to have expectations" But then again he was tearing up watching the credits of Thor while I was speaking to him.

It wasnt totally bad, there were really good moments, funny cracks, lots of action. However the explosions came to a point of being gratuitous, the special effects tended to bombard me and in some parts looked like they were from a video game. There were definitely some good private jokes and intertextuality thrown in there but I fear much of the movie was referencing The Big Bang Theory rather than any Marvel concoction. For sure, Loki's personality was modelled on a particularly irate and British Sheldon Cooper and as a bad guy he just really sucked.

Joss Whedon is the leader of the nerd herd at the moment and many will forever and always sing his praises but putting a film like The Avengers, with so much potential, in his hands is surely a travesty.

Young Adult

First of all let me establish that I really liked this movie. It was well-written, well acted and was somehow just really profound for me. But I know that many will be disappointed by it and some will probably even hate it.
Most of all it's because Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody are the team that brought us Juno. Reitman was nominated for an Oscar for that film and Cody won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. cody went on to dabble in horror comedy writing Jennifer's Body and also the acclaimed series The United States of Tara.  Juno dealt with having to grow up, finding your first love and all the trials and tribulations of life and highschool. Young Adult deals with the same sort of issues but in a decontructed, less sweet way. In this film there is no Kimya Dawson, the cute as a button presence that is Ellen Paige is replaced by a very tired looking, bitchy Charlize Theron and while it was endearing to see a youthful Juno having to grow up all of a sudden its  a bit different seeing a 37 year old woman still stuck in a highschool mindset.

In Young Adult, Charlize plays Mavis Gray, a ghost-writer for a series of teen novels called Waverly High that is soon going to be cancelled. After her divorce she has an epiphany and decides to go back to her hometown to reclaim the 'love of her life' Buddy Slade (played by Patrick Wilson) who is both happily married and a new dad. I was never a huge Charlize Theron fan but in this film she is incredible. I think it must be one of the most difficult things to play a completely unlikeable character but she does it so well. Mavis Gray is a shallow, drunk, purposeless woman living in the shadow of her highschool days. The film is so subtle in its exploration of this character. We see her nervousness and anxiety when she keeps picking at her hair, yet ironically she won 'best hair' in highschool. There are hilarious moments in the film which is evidence of Charlize's excellent comic timing.
The film is written really well because its both funny and tragic. Like The Descendants it makes use of that border between comedy and drama. As Mavis goes on her own personal journey she is also writing the final book in the series of Waverly High so we see how her reality is translated into fiction but also how she blurs the lines of what is real-life and what only happens in the movies. At one point Mavis shouts out to an old classmate who's trying to convince her not to go through with her plan to break up Buddy Slade's marriage, "Don't you know love conquers all?!!!" Her naivety is indicitive of her limbo-like state of maturity.

You're either going to love Young Adult or hate it. Personally I thought it was awesome.

Kavady 2012

It's difficult to explain what the Kavady is to those who aren't familiar with it or have never experienced it before. The Tongaat Kavady is reputed to be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. I grew up going to Kavady every single year and it became commonplace to me. However I haven't been able to for a few years, in the interim I have become more analytical and more cynical. I don't think I ever accepted religion completely but I didnt question things when I was a child. That's changed now and I think I look at things as more of an observor.

Kavady is basically a sacrifice both mentally and physically that people choose to do as penance or  in hope of being doled out goodness by the God Muruga. The Kavady refers to the wooden structures, metal milk urns and fairly enormous chariots that people carry or pull. To carry Kavady means that you have to abstain from meat for a number of days and put absolute faith in what you believe in. On the day of the Kavady the communal field at the centre of Tongaat is filled with people. The absolute middle of the field is taken up by a ring of devotees who all have their groupies. Each Kavady carrier has their own band of musicians who play drums and symbols around them with hypnotic beats which get them into a trance. They are then pierced with hooks that carry limes, marigolds, sometimes heavy gold urns yet somehow they don't bleed or even scar, their skin doesnt even tear despite the heaviness of these objects. At the epicentre of all this is the big chariot which is pulled by many devotees through the town, here people take milk and fruit and pray for any past miseries or future wants.

The chariot leaves the field approximately 20 minutes after the announced time, as is Indian time. The main road is blocked off by the police as firstly the main chariot is pulled down the road where it then makes a sharp right turn to the temple. Thereafter the devotees carrying Kavady who arent in a trance go through, then the devotees who are in a trance dance or run down the road, this is usually a pretty scary sight for children because they are heavily pierced and totally involved in the music around them however I realise now that while they might be in a transcendental state they are most certainly in their senses because somehow they all manage to turn right and go to the temple instead of running straight down the road to Westbrook beach. After this is the last lot of people but by far the scariest. The last lot are people who pull chariots with hooks attached to their back. For me this is incredible, they run and the chariot even goes over pot holes and bumps and yet their skin doesnt tear, its really incredible!

The Kavady is definitely a specatacle and there's nothing wrong with that. I often question the blind faith that people have and wonder how they are able to believe so fully in something. Hinduism like most other religions is a religion of guilt,the Kavady seems to cleanse people of that guilt through their sacrifice and in some ways I think theres nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I wish I could accept all these things without question so that life could be simpler. But one instance sticks in my mind. The day before Kavady I went shopping at the pooja shop (prayer shop) with my granny. On the wall was a checklist of what to buy for the seven fairies prayer that is also done around this time. First of all the idea of having a checklist of totally random things worries me, who decides what you need? and what significance do those things have? the other thing that worries me is that when I questioned my granny about why she does this prayer she said "Because otherwise aunty yogie will get sick" But why? "Because when she was 15 she fainted in the middle of three crossroads so it was definitely the seven fairies that did it" My granny doesnt know who or what the seven fairies are but she appeases them anyway for fear that my aunt will get sick and my aunt has totally convinced herself that this is true, in fact she's had a fever for five days that miracuously went away today after they did the prayer.

I just can't bring myself to believe these things about the religion I grew up with. And thats why I've come to seperate religion and culture. My culture includes things like Kavady, which is a coming together of the entire community. For just one day it's like going back in time. No matter how much things change the basis of these rituals stay the same, I always saw this as a bad thing but I know it makes me feel happy to be part of a community, it makes me feel astounded to see the level of devotion many people have. Indians who grew up in Tongaat come from all over the world on Kavady day and for one day its like you're a child again, if you never felt like you belonged to your home town on this one day you feel like your home town and the people in it belong to you. To be part of the writhing crowd and hear the vibrations of thablas and symbols in the air is an experience that words cannot even describe and photos can't do justice to.

31 Million Reasons

When my parents forced me to watch 31 million reasons I was sure I was in for a long, bad quality, wannabe movie. I'm actually pleasantly suprised because the production values are international standard and the acting is pretty good. Jack Devnarain is definitely far too posh and will forever only ever be seen as Rajesh from Isidingo no matter how much muscle mass he gains but he is a good actor and very compelling.
The story is really intense and very entertaining. I love the fact that the Indian accents and idiosyncratic behaviour wasn't toned down for a wider audience. This is possibly one of the few movies I've seen apart from Bollywood and Harold and Kumar that contains token white people.

31 million Reasons is based on a novel that's based on the true story of two cop brothers who rob a securty company for 31 million rand. What follows is the story of how they are eventually apprehended.
I laughed a lot in this movie mostly because of the Indian private jokes but it was also really suspenseful and in some ways sad. I didnt expect to like this movie but now I really recommend it. John Barker is a brilliant director. He's most commonly known for his comedic work, and I thought he would forever only be known for Pure Monate as much of the Pure Monate cast are however he's done a really good job with this film. When he spoke to my film class years agohe mentioned that he was passionate about Durban as a location and now I realise that he's shown off Durban really well in this film.

At this point I'm just really proud of South African film in general. There was a time where it was almost a bit embarrassing to admit that you liked SA film and people couldnt really look over the bad sound and filming quality. But I think now that the quality has vastly improved and people arent scared to tell uniquely South African stories.

Snake and Seal Massacre in 3D!

Yesterday I watched Piranha in 3D and today I went on a roadtrip to Hartebeespoort Dam. Those two elements combined have led me to create my idea for the most successful SA horror movie of all time!

Let me first explain Hartebeespoort Dam...
Hartebeespoort is a playground for the upper-middle class sector of Gauteng society who frequent this random paradise with their yachts, jet-skis and Harley Davidsons. This makes it the perfect place for an abomination of nature massacre to occur.
 There is actually a snake and seal show in Hartebeespoort, as unlikely as that sounds as well as a petting zoo where one of the animals that you can pet is 'reptiles'.
The premise of this film will be that somehow (I haven't worked that out yet) both enraged snakes and zombie seals will escape from their tanks and wreak havoc on the town of Hartebeespoort.Its not safe on the dam and its even more dangerous on land. There is no escape! And God forbid you try to drive away from the town because the signs are so confusing and the petrol attendants so bad at giving directions that you will just end up back where you started, between a seal and a hard place!

These are the absolutely essential elements that need to be in the movie.
1. The movie needs to be shot in 3D
2. The opening scene will include a blonde couple called Jaco and Katrien stopping at a petrol station where they will be given free popcorn as this seems to be the general marketing ploy of garages in Hartebeespoort.
3. Samuel L. Jackson will play a US Marshall with a dark past that was sent specifically to Hartebeespoort to apprehend a Ugandan warlord who has been hiding in the town ever since his face was broadcast on YouTube. He just happens to be in the area when the massacre goes down.
4. There needs to be lots of gore and blood and also very many gratuitous sex scenes.
5. Kim Kardashian will play a beautiful yet somehow 'brilliant' marine biologist and  seal expert who uncovers that toxic waste has turned these majestic creatures into killing machines.
6 There has to be a slow motion scene of an enormous seal clapping its hands and going "Arp! Arp!" before it slays an entire boat load of screaming teenagers.
7. Right at the end of the movie Morgan Freeman will renew his role as Nelson Mandela for a brief cameo.

Private Benjamin

I really don't want to play to the stereoptype of girls liking girl-power movies but I really, really love Private Benjamin so much!
I watched it again recently with my dad, who seems like an ulikely suspect to watch this kind of movie with but he's the best feminist I know.
I really don't like Goldie Hawn, she seems to play the same character in every single movie, which is always dictated by her never-changing hair colour.
In this movie she is perfect. She has perfect comic timing, and her acting is spot-on.
In a way she is type cast. Hawn plays Judy Benjamin, a spoilt debutante who is constantly seeking her father's approval. Her greatest ambition in life is to have a huge mansion and a professional husband but when things don't go quite as planned she decides to do something drastic and joins the US army.
Along the way she proves to everyone that she's not just pretty face, she rises in the ranks of the army and becomes ambitious and powerful. Eventually she is again faced with the decision of marriage and security versus her need to succeed as a woman.

I think that it's a completely relevant movie, it was made during the eightees but it makes you think...
have things really changed all that much?
Women are still struggling with decisions like this everyday. As much as we're now brought up to want careers theres still a niggling feeling, in the back of your mind that maybe you do need to be a domestic goddess after all. It's like you have two choices either you work towards your career and everything else takes a backseat or you get married young and have three kids and a dog by the time you're 25. There is no middle ground!

At the end of the movie, when Goldie Hawn walks down a wet, muddy path in full wedding regalia to the sound a military drum roll its powerful and emotional. It's ranked as one of the funniest movies of all time but it also hits you hard in a dramatic way. The best comedies are the ones that also reach you on a dramatic level.

Midrand-Home of the access code

Today I went to visit my midly estranged uncle in Midrand.
I say mildy estranged because Indian people don't really believe in being fully estranged, its like having 'half a cup' of tea. Even if you truly dislike someone in your family you don't really ever say it to their face. You use excuses like German measles, horrific car accident and stolen phone until finally you're caught unawares one day and have to actually go visit them.

Driving into Midrand is like driving into another world that shouldnt even classified as being part of Johannesburg. It is a community dumped into the middle of nowhere. There is literally a savannah surrounding their most popular shopping centre. And everyone lives in gated communities! There are no stand alone houses! You drive on roads that are almost swallowed up by the dust and sand of the numerous construction sites of more and more and more apartments and complexes.

And the thing that Midrand is most famous for is its use of the access code. One needs an access code, given to you by the residents, to enter and one to exit otherwise you will surely be sent packing. For once I was prepared with the code, so we skipped the line of visitors who were getting their car boots checked by the security guards, God forbid we snuck in some contraband cupcakes. I pulled right up to the residents entrance hit the code and drove my dusty Hyundai Getz through the gates while I disgruntled guard tried to stop me. It was so crystal-clear that my car and I didnt belong in this pseudo-African palace/Bali-resort style housing community. I mean, as I told my cousin, that very morning my dad ripped off the plastic skiriting that was falling off the underside of my car, and used it to clean the cobwebs of the ceiling.

Either way I'm glad I live in the real world and not in Midrand.

Accidental Interventional

This week I had the absolute worst allergy of my entire life. Out of nowhere my skin got tomatoe-red and insanely itchy. I couldnt stop scratching and the itching got so bad I started to cry and whimper "Why is this happening to me?!".

To make matters worse no one believed that I had a proper medical condition because this situation happened to coincide with me having my first whole joint in about three months. So my friends and sister all thought I was on some kind of stoned trip and freaking out.

They decided to stage some kind of an intervention. It started off ok, with my sister sitting on the edge of my bed saying comforting things like, "It's going to be ok, you didnt have that much" and "It's ok to say no" But as the itching got worse I really did start freaking out because no one was helping me!
My dizziness because of my allergy was misinterpreted as me almost passing out. From there things escalated as my friend started shouting," She's going to peel her skin off like a naartjie!!!" as she threw me into a cold shower.I'm sure she was entirely convinced that she was doing God's work.

In the end the shower actually really helped with my burning skin. It was difficult to sleep with three concerned heads talking over me about whether they needed to drive to the hospital or rehab but eventually I dropped off and all was forgotten. Atleast now I know that should I ever have a substance abuse problem, my friends have been drilled and are ready for the worst.

Impromptu Tacos and a pint of Guiness.

Recently I've been the brunt of my friend's jokes about being a premature senior citizen because i never go out anymore. So this weekend I decided to be spontaneous and do everything I used to when I was still far from the brink of 25. As you can see I am indeed having a quarter life crisis!

So instead of our planned itenerary of going for a quiet movie and coffee. I decided to drag my best friend to a tiny Mexican place that I've never been to before but have driven past many times. The fact that there were no other customers didnt dissuade us or that I got the feeling that the waiter didnt really care about anything we were saying. He just nodded at everything. My initial impression of this place wasnt great because their lime margarita tasted like frozen sea water but I was really suprised that the food was that good. We started with chilli poppers which are battered and fried jalepeno chillies, stuffed with chicken and cheese. For mains I had a crunch chicken taco which was awesome but the Mexican rice on the side was literally out of this world. My friend had the chicken fajitas which were also really good, just spicy enough and incredibly cheesy, melty and delicious.

So after this feast and also as part of my spontaneous streak we ended up going to a pub in Parkhurst, not realising it was St Patrick's day. The pub was packed, smoky and loud, everything I've been avoiding since I started feeling old. It took me awhile to acclimatise myself  but eventually I got back into the swing of things. I drank Guiness and Kilkenny which on any other day but St Paddy's day I hate but went down really smooth that night. As bustling and noisy as the pub was it was awesome! I love being South African, everyone is so friendly and chatty and anyone can claim to be one eighth Irish for St Paddy's day and you'd never even know.

I got home exhausted because this is the most I've done in a long time but seriously very fulfilled.
Impromptu nights are the best nights. You're never dressed right but eventually you don't care, you can't be disappointed because there was no expectation of anything to begin with. But those are the nights where everything just seems to go so right.

The Descendants

I've gone through a period of watching really dark, morbid albeit critically acclaimed films recently.
I always think that these are the type of films that are going to make me think and are going to change my life. But the one film that has really done that for me is The Descendants. It's not epically emotional or particularly stylish. Its not really even what we're used to as a post-modern audience, the protagonist Matt King basically narrates the entire story. It's not a grand expose, there aren't really any twists and turns. This film is so simple in its execution but deals with such complex issues of family, grief, responsibility.

George Clooney is absolutely at his best in the role of Matt King, a Hawaian lawyer who is dealing both with the loss of his wife, who is in a coma afer a boating accident, and the dilemma of selling off his family's acres of untouched land which is their family legacy. The dynamic between him and his daughters is explored and there are so many touching yet not overly sentimental moments. In the midst of the most intensely sad moments there are also moments of laughter and that's what makes this film so real. Alexander Payne as a director is just so good at those awkwardly funny moments that are often so whacky that they cant help but be real. Yet the thing that I like the most about The Descendants is that more than anything it is a real movie, it explores real life issues and touches your heart but its also really entertaining.

Sex and the City weekend marathon

It is such a cliche that all women are in love with Sex and the City. Yet every girl I know whether they are super girly or tomboyish or just trying really hard to break the sexist stereoptype seems to somehow be touched by some element of SATC.

Kudos to the creators who surely hit a goldmine but what is it that makes women love this show so much?
When I think about it so little of it actually does echoe my own life. I dont identify totally with any of the characters because their personalities are written to be so 2D and specific. They each represent an example of an aspect of every woman, it's like trying to fax a photocopy.
When you watch the old seasons the fashion is just so ridiculously bad, you see horrible things like Alanis Morrisette with dodgy braids kissing Sarah Jessica Parker, all the male characters look either like porn stars or extras that they got of the street. You literally have to look for the girls' reactions to understand whether they are meant to be hot or not.

But still theres something that just entertains me and draws me into this show. Maybe its that the writing is just really that good, maybe the characters do tell women something about themselves but I think more likely is the comforting feeling that you get watching women in their 30's and 40s who are still trying so desperately to figure things out, usually unsuccessfully, which makes you feel just a little bit better about your own life.

Neighbourgoods market reviewed.

I've decided to review my original post of the Neighbourgoods market because I think last week I was possibly irritable because of the blazing sun and didnt really get the full impact of Neighbourgoods.
I still think its pretentious and over-priced but it really is so ultra cool. I love the fact that you'll end up randomly seeing five people you know on the rooftop. I love the fact that people are so friendly and talkative in the middle of the city.

I totally understand what they're trying to do with Neighbourgoods and similar set-ups like Arts on Main. The target market are hipsters but if you ask these hipsters where they live they'll all probably say the Northern suburbs or Randburg (the same as the north but with slightly better street cred). Hardly any of us ever go into the city. It was really different when I lived in London because all people ever wanted to do was get to the centre of the city. That's where everything happened and the closer you were to the centre, the better your cred. In Joburg its different, most areas in the CBD are badly deteriorated and have a reputation for being inhabited by illegal immigrants whom South Africans are deathly afraid of. The urban regeneration project is on/off but with places like Neighbourgoods and the surrounds you can see that they are trying to get people back into the city.

There are so many worries when you decide to make a trip into town. 'Will I get lost with all the one-ways that arent picked up by the gps?', 'Will I find parking?', 'Will I get mugged by a crack addict?'. Luckily none of those things happened to us. It seemed really safe, I parallel parked like a boss!(although not everyone can be like me) so we were literally across the road from Neighbourgoods and we were also really suprised at how close it was! So the Joburg CBD isnt really like Mordor to us anymore.

Also I felt really bad about what I wrote last time about the paint tin pot plants. I actually spoke to the stall owner this time round and she told us that she lost her job and formed a sustainable development NGO. When she discovered that some company had been dumping hundreds of paint cans she decided to do something with them. So I feel kind of ashamed for judging her so harshly her invention isnt half as over-priced as some of the things inside Neighbourgoods and she really is doing a good thing.

Neighbourgoods Market

Last Saturday I went to the Neighbourgoods Market with a few freinds. Neighbourgoods is located in the middle of the Joburg CBD, I can't tell you exactly where it is just that we drove through one badly deteriorated area, then drove through another 'deteriorated for effect' area and parked next to the 'Pikitup' collection plant. From there we followed hoards of hipsters through the thoroughly upgraded inner city to a non-descript grey building which somehow everyone knew was the neighbourgoods market.

The market is cool, almost too cool to handle! It is literally a Saturday morning solace for hipsters. I was slightly discouraged by the first stall I saw which had a guy selling paint tin flower pots for R40! (seedling not included!) Talk about milking people's concern for the planet. But when you enter the foodhall all is forgotten when you're immedietly confronted by delicious smells and even more exciting is the amount of choice you have. There are so many different national cuisines, oysters and sparkling wine, gourmet cupcakes. You are literally spoilt for choice.

You can sit on the rooftop of the building which has amazing views of the city and drink fresh strawberry and pineapple cocktails. There is a small section for clothing in the market too but it seems to be more of an after thought. The main attraction was chilling in the sun with incredible food and refreshing drinks and hipster spotting ofcourse.

Midnight in Paris

Finally a movie for all those literary snobs out there!
If Woody Allen isn't appearing in his own film then he's directing Owen Wilson to fill his role.
Owen Wilson's character is a neurotic, bumbling screenwriter (sound familiar?) who is writing his novel while holidaying in Paris with his fiance and her family.
He's having trouble completing the novel because of his lack of confidence and his general unsurity about his ability. He constantly wishes for what he believes to be the golden age of American literature, the 1920s.
As he strolls through Paris each night he is magically transported into the world of the 1920s where he meets his literary idols, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway among other artists of the time.

The premise is interesting and there are incongruous moments as with any Woody Allen movie that make it worthwhile. However, in the end, the metaphors were just too blatent and climax was too light-hearted. For most of his career Woody Allen has been writing love letters to New York, which he's done brilliantly but now it seems like writing half-hearted postcards to mistresses. His films set in London and Paris just simply dont match up to his earlier work.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

On Tuesday I watched the film 'We Need to Talk about Kevin'.
I vaguely remember reading the novel yet by the end of the film I began to doubt whether I ever did read the novel.
I was slightly confused. The filming technique is raw and morbid as is the case with these really poignant films.
I adore Tilda Swinton and she did a good job in this film as did John C Reilly as usual.
The actual film didnt really fill me with as much sadness as I expected. It's a very specific story about a mother who isnt naturally able to have maternal love for her child but also about a child who is disturbed. The relationship between Kevin and his mother is explored in fragmented scenes which show his calculated hatred, his depression and his need to do harm and his mother's reaction to all of this.

The film itself was ok. The acting was fantastic but for me it just didnt have the impact I expected.
The physical climax of all Kevin's disturbia is violent and shocking. This, for me, ruins the film because the real thoughtfulness is in the quiet moments of disturbed behaviour that one encounters. Swinton's performance is truly amazing in those quiet moments that show her despair.

The Doom of Destiny! (overally melodramatic for effect)

I am not afraid of watching a movie alone. ‘Real Women go to the movies alone’ that’s my slogan. I love being able to wriggle in my seat without the person next to me caring, I love being able to cry my eyes out without restraint. However this particular movie-going experience has shaken me to my core!

I bought my ‘admit one’ ticket and proceeded to then buy a small popcorn and Coke Zero (just for me) and was conned into purchasing the additional peanut mNm’s by the popcorn vendor, for what I thought was just R5 more but turned out to be more like R15 more. At this point while trying desperately to shove my oversized wallet stuffed full of what one would hope was money but were actually just slightly soggy receipts into my undersized bag, I noticed the next customer. She was a middle-aged petite, Indian woman with a perfect bob and a fashion sense that could be described as ‘interesting’. Panic struck me as I realised that this could be me in 30 years!

She seemed bitter and caustic. I got this impression from the 10 minute fight she had with the popcorn vendor about the quality of their coffee. It was then that I realised that she was probably having this argument just to keep the popcorn vendor talking because this was the only person she’d spoken to in an entire week! By this stage I was having heart palpitations but consoled myself with the fact that I could go into the movie and not ever see this sad vestige of what I could become ever again.

I got into the cinema and settled myself into the comfy chair when who should open the door but my doppelganger of the future. I looked at her, she looked at me. I saw panic in her eyes and I’m sure she saw it in mine. Maybe she thought, “Oh God! This is how it starts!”. She sat down in the row behind me.

The lights dimmed but the screen was still black. In the darkness of the cinema with no one next to me in the entire row I started to cry and used up all the toilet paper I’d shoved into my purse in anticipation of the tear-jerker.

Oh and about the movie it wasn’t that good but then maybe I was preoccupied.