The Hunger Games

The school day was mediocre, single easy lesson and an outside speaker talking to us about university courses and living conditions. For about and hour and a half Mark booked the school hall so we could do some test filming for his new short film but in reality we accomplished nothing. This was ok though as we went down to Rio's, the burger joint where I ordered an 8oz burger because I was very hungry and it was incredible.

After the late lunch we went off to see The Hunger Game. None of us had read the books or had any real knowledge of the source material, although half of us had seen Battle Royale. The first 10 minutes were very uneasy on the eyes due to multiple close-ups with handheld camerawork, after that though we were treated to the wonderfully realised world of the rich people which was very impressive. The ending left a little to be desired as it came across as a bit to... American, and the camerawork during the fight scenes was really bad, you just couldn't tell what was happening. If the premise alone interests you then you should watch Battle Royale instead as it greatly benefits from being able to see onscreen violence, where The Hunger Games dumbed down for a wider audience.

What to pick...

Most of today was me in a mad rush to finish my film essay, even though my History teacher's were absent from both of my lessons so I had more time to work on it it still felt a bit awkward. I have been going through most of the week without coffee as my reserves of the instant stuff had depleted, but finally I have been on full throttle again after brewing up an amazing cup that was just perfect as I huddled up in bed with my 3DS. The rest of the day was spent debating with Mark and the others about which two of our films to show in our local school's competition, the definite one is Sunny Side Up as we want to see a genuine audience reaction to the film. We cannot decide on our plus one however, I personally want to show As Time Goes By which I consider to be our best film, but Mark want to show All Guns Blazing which although good, I don't think it will win us any awards...

Mark also came over today declaring that he would really like to see a spaghetti western, so I immediately put on A Fistful of Dollars. Despite his groans about the dubbing I think he enjoyed what he saw, we only had enough time for the first 35 minutes so he took it home with him so he could get into the greatness of the Dollars Trilogy.

Beauty school drop-out

It certainly was not a very Ferris Bueller day off for me because I had a shed-load of homework and coursework to do instead, managed to get most of it done however so that is pretty sweet, means I can kick back and relax all I want after Thursday's over. Louis' school put on a performance of Grease as their annual production thing and he was very funny, he easily had the best character and made the best of his role which made for a very nice viewing experience.

On a sad note, I found out that Edd Gould, a British animator well know for his Eddsworld series which Louis and I have been good fans of for a while has died of cancer at age 23. This news came to me as a bit of a shock, I would go as far to call him a minor influence behind Edmund and Darrel and it's a shame we probably won't see anymore of his excellent flash animations.

Here is a link to his youtube channel where you can see a couple of his videos:
 
http://www.youtube.com/user/eddsworld

If....

Found out our film teacher wasn't in today, first thing Mark and I did was contact her via email to find out if we would have to come in tomorrow as its our only lesson then. A few hours later we had big smiles on our faces as we could sleep in tomorrow if we wanted! I also spent most of this evening sorting out our road trip to Leeds as we have had our egg film shortlisted for one of our competitions! So far we have agreed to drive down and stay the night in a travel lodge and go back in the next day as Chris will be exhausted from the drive down there.

I also watched my second video tape: If.... which was Malcom Mcdowell's acting debut. It's pretty similar in tone to A Clockwork Orange, but it is almost more surreal because of the odd moments that you aren't really sure whether they are happening or not. That said, I did very much enjoy the film as most of the characters are some satirical take on someone else and  do like the setting of the boarding school. The film's tag line 'A hand-grenade of a film' is a bit of an exaggeration, but probably apt for its time.

Meh Monday

Monday today was alright, just did my school work, then I went home to do some more work. I did write a really awesome Film essay on Etre et Avoir,  really pleased with it. Tomorrow I already know I will be very busy so I just gotta mentally prepare myself and get on with it I suppose.

Dang internet

Sorry, again for the lack of a blog yesterday as my computer had inherited a mild virus that cause me to not be able to get Internet access. The problem has now been sorted however and we should certainly not encounter any other difficulties in the future.

I feel somewhat cheated by the daylight saving hours, this year especially as my body clock really hasn't adjusted to the change in time at all, I'm just not used to seeing the sun during the evenings, it's so weird. I did take a mild trip down technological memory lane as I picked up some video tapes yesterday and dug out the player to watch a film on it today, that nostalgic feeling of putting gin a VHS tape made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Papillon was the film and it was pretty good but it did look a tad dated although that may have the quality of the tape. It really must have been the Shawshank of its time though as its an epic about a prison break, it did start to drag a little bit towards the end, but watching Dustin Hoffman telling off a pig made up for it.

That'll do pig

Again, another easy school day when it comes to Friday. Mark and I came back home to edit my review and watch a film after a few others arrived. Thankfully Lucy bought her copy of Babe around, a film I haven't seen for many, many years as our VHS copy was lost; my love for the film hadn't depleted in the slightest. Best part was that Mark hadn't seen it before and convinced himself prior to watching it that he would hate it, by the conclusion he was cheering on that brave pig.

In the evening we all went down to another school talent competition thing which was hit and miss. The best act involved a live rendition of the popular Duck Song, and the absolute worst came right at the end as the staff members took it upon themselves to make a 10 minute long Sherlock Holmes parody that was boring as hell and full of really inappropriate sexual innuendos. After that we went down to the local burger joint Rio's and some had a late dinner while I had a Yazoo while we played rummy in Chris' car. In other words, I think I had a pretty sweet evening and another awesome Friday.