Iron Man 3 Review

Director: Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pierce, Ben Kingsley

Iron Man 3 is a lot darker than the previous films as Tony Stark struggles to cope in the aftermath of New York (The Avengers) and the need to protect Pepper, distracting himself by building Iron Man suits. However when an unlikely figure from Stark’s past returns and threatens his new life, all he is left with is his own ingenuity, hilarious one-liners and the help of a young boy from Tennessee.

The plot is fantastic and so are the characters, though I think Ben Kingsley should have had a bigger part. I won’t tell you why, spoilers.

I also want to touch on how far 3D films have come in the past few years. Before I never really liked live-action films in 3D as they didn’t look right and people were fuzzy round the edges. In animation it’s fantastic, especially in Toy Story 3 (2010) but now it works in live-action movies as well. The images are so sharp and there’s so much depth it’s like you really are in the film with the characters, experiencing what they do.

The Last Challenge!

The Last challenge is finally here - to wrap someone in clingfilm

Being wrapped in clingfilm isn’t quite as fun as I thought it would be. For one your legs and arms are pinned together so you can’t really move and the risk of falling flat on your face increases considerably; but also it’s incredibly hot under all those layers of plastic. They should think of using it in thermals because that stuff keeps you toasty.

I know that we haven't done all the challenges we set out to do - I was really looking forward to making a kite and dressing up as Freddie Mercury's female alter-ego, but we simply ran out of time. Thank you to all those who followed our journey through our Uni Bucket List!!

Unfortunately for us, normal life must now resume...

(500) Days of Summer

“There’s no such thing as love. It’s a fantasy.”

Day 1. Along came Summer.

The narrator is right – this is a story of boy meets girl but it is on no level a love story.

Something happened to Summer Finn, a long time ago that made her lose all faith in love and made it very difficult for her to bare her emotions and allow herself to be vulnerable with someone. Slowly Tom breaks down these barriers and exposes some of her feelings, her secrets, her fears. And then as soon as the box is opened, it’s closed again as she feels him falling for her.
Not wanting to put a label on their friendship-relationship, she ends it with him over pancakes – something we see right at the beginning of the film so they’re over before they’ve even begun and the latter half of the film shows him trying to pick up the pieces of his broken heart and failed life as an architect turned greetings card writer.

If this were in chronological order it would seem like the perfect boy meets girl but the back and forth timey-wimey stuff gives the audience a different view of their relationship as all the things that signal their demise were shown before they had really begun as a couple.

The audience develops a connection to Summer, her vulnerability and emotional fragility. Deschanel has a wonderful way with facial expressions and they speak so much louder than words. This film would be brilliant if only Gordon-Levitt created that same level of connection. He’s pretty one-dimensional for all the time-travel he seems to be doing lately and it’s not until Summer truly screws him over and he’s in the deepest pit of depression that one finally has some form of connection to him. But then he starts to pick himself back up again and that connection is lost.

Gordon-Levitt plays a good character though he is very one-dimensional and seems to have a permanent stoned/drunk/confused expression, while Deschanel is her usual quirky self and without her I don’t think this film would have worked so well. Chloe Grace-Moretz is worryingly mature much like she was in Kick-Ass though thankfully there were no machetes or murders-most-brutal this time. She is Tom’s younger sister and acts as his mentor getting him through the break-ups and make-ups with the help of school football and vodka.

This is a good rainy-day film with friends but it’s nothing special. It tries to break boundaries but ends up a bit confusing and lost – especially with the just-scored-with-my-girl dance in the park. Totally wrong that bit.

Day 500. Along came Autumn.

Walk on!

Challenge - Learn a new activity

Our university has a programme called Trysport, where you can, well, try a sport. It could be anything from rock-climbing to football and you simply pay £5 for five weeks – that’s only £1 a session. So the girls and I decided to try our hands at horse-riding. Normally a one-hour group session could set you back up to £20, so we thought ‘£1 for an hour’s session, it’s a bargain!’
However, it was six o'clock in the evening so it was dark and mighty cold but it was so much fun. I haven’t been on a horse in about twelve years so it was a surprise that I could remember everything so well. Jenny used to ride quite a bit so she was well on her way, but Nicola hasn't really ridden before.
It was great fun but the only downside was as there's three Trysport sessions in a row and they use the same ponies they've got a bit bored by the time it comes to our group, not wanting to walk let alone trot. Towards the end we had to go over a jump but it was so low the horse just trots over it, but mine didn't want to do that so he just kicked it out of the way haha!

We had some beautiful ponies – Jenny’s had a moustache! I couldn't wait for our next session – the instructor said we would be cantering and jumping by the time we were finished!

Making Own Booze

Challenge: Make your own alcohol

My mum has been making wine for about 10 years now, everything from apple wine to blackberry with varying degrees of success, and I’ve always wanted to make my own alcohol – plus every student has to have a go. I thought of making vodka but you need to distil it, mead looked quite nice and we even had snow to make it in the traditional Viking way. But instead we went with a recipe we found on studentbeans.com which involved mixing squash, sugar and yeast in a bottle with a balloon on the top and leaving it in a cupboard for a few days until the balloon deflated. Every couple of days we’d check it but the balloon didn’t seem to be doing anything, so we left it longer. And a bit longer. Eventually two weeks had gone by and we decided it should be done and we tried it. It was certainly alcoholic. And blackcurrant-y (that was the squash we used). I think I’ll stick to the supermarket stuff.

Film Certificates - 15A?

Guillermo del Toro's new film, Mama is being released with a 15A certificate - or so I heard on the radio. So that means that children can go and see the film at the discretion of their parents. To be honest they'd be pretty bad parents if they let a child go and see a film such as Mama.

The synopsis: Annabel and Lucas are faced with the challenge of raising his young nieces that were left alone in the forest for 5 years.... but how alone were they? Creepy, scary things start to happen that are linked to the girls' mother which simply aren't suitable for children to see.

The trailer is scary enough in my opinion and I'm 19:

I think the world is becoming desensitised to things such as language, violence and sex. Just today I watched Men in Black 3, which is a PG, yet they're saying Bulls**t on more than one occasion and I think it's wrong. Maybe it's just me but I think children are losing their innocence during their childhoods because they're exposed to those things that we were protected from when we were children.

12A certificates I can understand but only if the parents know what is going to happen in the film. Quite a few parents took their young children to see the Hunger Games in which children are killing children and were horrified at what was happening on the screen.

12A yes if you've seen it first

15A no, it's wrong and pointless - you may as well make it a 12 if you want kids to see it.

Bake Sale

Challenge - Do something for charity!

This was without a doubt our most successful challenge. And the most successful way of making money for charity – a good ol’ bake sale. We decided on Breast Cancer for our charity as we all knew someone who had had it so it was quite close to our hearts.
Off we went to ASDA and bought everything in packet mixes – had we the skill and the time we would have made everything from scratch, but we don’t so we didn’t. Ten hours of hard labour later and we were finally done baking everything from cupcakes and brownies to cookies and millionaire’s shortbread. We also made a big Victoria sponge for a ‘guess the weight of the cake’ game. The prize cake of 1.1kg went to Helen McLaughlin, Director of Business at the university. “Oh my gosh!” she said, “I can't believe I’ve won it”. Her guess was the closest, estimating 1kg.
Everything sold like, well, hot cakes and overall we raised £171.63 for Breast Cancer Care.

Nicola and Jenny selling away!

To the beach?

Challenge number three! - Go to a beach and swim

I have to admit from the start that we didn't exactly achieve this one, but we certainly tried.

We put on our costumes, tshirts, shorts and took jumpers towels and thick socks to change into. Being February in the UK it wasn't exactly going to be like the Mediterranean.
As we drove through the town we saw how rough the sea was and as we pulled up and got out we saw what prevented us from achieving our challenge: red flags!

We climbed the dunes, sand blowing everywhere in the rough winds and admitted to ourselves that it wasn't going to happen, not today at any rate.

So we went to the arcade instead! And had a much better afternoon, found a machine where you win tickets everytime and won over 1,000 tickets between us, spent about a tenner altogether and won quite a good haul if I do say so myself.

We will try again if we have the time, but I only have a few weeks left so it's not looking likely.

Pyjama time!

'Go to a random lecture'

'Go to a 9AM lecture in your pyjamas'

With these we decided to kill two birds with one stone. We had aimed to get to my 9AM Shorthand lecture a few minutes early so as not to look so weird, traipsing in wearing pyjamas. Alas, the traffic was murder and a drive that would normally take ten minutes took 45.
You know that feeling you get when you walk in a room and you think everyone is staring at you? Well this time it was real, 20 pairs of eyes following you as you find seats. Admittedly my class isn’t that big and it might have had more effect had we been in a proper lecture hall with 100 or so people, but evidently journalism just isn't as popular as say, American Studies.
The class seemed to go pretty well with Nicola actually becoming interested I thought would bore her to death. The others just doodled on their worksheets confusing shorthand with Egyptian Heiroglyphics.

Les Miserables review

Jean Valjean is a convict on parole who changes his name in an attempt to become an honest man, all the while evading capture by Inspector, Javert. Meanwhile Fantine, a working girl loses her job for having an illegitimate child, Cosette. The child is looked after by a family of innkeepers who treat her poorly. Fantine resorts to prostitution in order to pay for her daughter’s keep at the inn but later dies without ever seeing her daughter again. Valjean vows to look after Cosette and chooses to leave a simple life to protect her and keep away from Javert who has found out who Valjean really is. Cosette falls in love with Marius, a young man who is part of those fighting the state in the June Revolution.

I almost don’t want to call this a film; it is more a filming of an incredibly elaborate stage show. Performed almost entirely in song, this was an extremely powerful piece. It evoked such deep emotions of hope, fear and loss it drove many in the audience to tears on quite a few occasions, including myself.

For those who don’t know of his past as a stage actor, Hugh Jackman will surprise many with his talents which are pretty fantastic, especially in ‘Who Am I?’ His talents are seemingly unending.

In fact, the entire cast have incredible voices (with the possible exception of Amanda Seyfried, who was patchy in places like in Mamma Mia, but each to their own) especially Anne Hathaway’s ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ which was truly magical. The scene where Fantine sells her hair is particularly emotive as those are real tears as her hair was hacked off with a blade during filming.

I won't give details of the deaths but I would advise you to take a tissue or two. Everything you expect not to happen in this film happens, and will make you gasp at what just happened in front of your eyes.

Character-wise, the audience connects with every single one on such a level its heart-breaking when something happens, good or bad. Young Cosette is so innocent and fragile with a beautiful voice. Even Javert who is always on Valjean’s tail, you connect to him in a way that one never does with the villains of a film.

The entire film is pure musical incredible-ness and leaves you speechless when the credits roll. Or that may be just from crying so much.

Having not seen the stage performance, I don’t know how it compares but as its own film it’s just amazing and even if you’re not a fan of song I would recommend it

It has begun!

"Go to a university sports game and be avid, raving fans"

Rosie, one of my housemates, plays for the CCCU women’s basketball team. So one Sunday off we all went, a banner with “R O S I E” on it and we sat and screamed every time she had possession of the ball. You should have seen us when she scored. Only downside was we were the only spectators apart from the rest of the team. Rosie has banned us from appearing at a game ever again but the others liked it – I think it improved their morale when they lost sorely to the ‘Folkestone Flames’.

I'm not sure which one we plan on doing next but in the meantime, here's the snowman we made:

New List

I've decided to write this challenge as a feature for my uni course portfolio and after talking to my tutor I've had to cut it down to a Top Ten - a uni bucket list.
Our new list looks like this:

1. drive to a beach and swim
2. make your own booze
3. go to a uni sports game and be avid raving fans
4. sit in on a random lecture
5. do something silly for charity
6. play ranks on your unsuspecting friends
7. go to a 9AM lecture in your pyjamas
8. make an 80's cleaning montage
9. wrap someone in paper/toilet roll
10. learn a new sport/activity

As we've had to cut so much out it might not be as fun trying to fit it all in the time scale but it will make a good article, and I'll still keep you up to date with how the challenges go.

Heck, we might even do some of the others for the hell of it

Like I really want to make a kite and fly it, singing that song from Mary Poppins...

50 Things to do at Uni

As a university student there are many things you simply have to do – fall in love, skip classes and have wild parties.

So my housemates and I have compiled a list of “50 Things To Do Before You Finish Uni”. Normally you would have three years to complete the list.

We’re going to try and do them all in three months.

Our list includes things such as:

• Feed the campus wildlife
• Busk on campus – even if you’re terrible
• Drive to the nearest beach and swim
• Make your own booze
• Have an elaborate picnic on campus
• Sit in on a lecture unrelated to your subject
• Go to lecture in your pyjamas
• Swim in a fountain
• Have your own ‘Come Dine With Me’
• Do something silly for charity
• Win a pub quiz – whatever it takes
• Make a kite and fly it
• Wrap someone in wrapping paper
• Make your own movie
• Have an '80's themed cleaning session with appropriate dress and music

These are only some of the crazy things on our list – and some we've achieved already such as ‘join a society’ or ‘spend your whole student loan in the first term’ (oops) but we will try our hardest to get them all done on time. Wish us luck!

Resolutions anybody?

Every year we make the same new year resolutions: Lose weight, eat better, drink less but most of us never stick to them for more than two months, if that.
So this year I have decided to make realistic resolutions that are easy to stick to in an attempt to make myself a better person. For this year, 2012, I have three, realistically achievable resolutions:

1) Not interrupt people when they are talking. 
I never wait for someone to finish talking before I cut them off to give my opinion or start a new topic. I must wait for them to finish and then say my thing. If it never gets said then it can't have been that important

2) Do more regular exercise.
Now I know this is a cliché resolution, but I honestly do need to do some form of regular exercise. I don't really do much except the 20 minute walk to and from uni so I always feel tired and lethargic. When I have done some physical activity I feel much more vibrant and awake. So more exercise please! I've decided to join the gym, because as I'm paying for it I'm more likely to use it not wanting to waste my money.

3) Manage my money better.
I have a tendency to spend a lot more money than I actually have, especially in my first term at uni. I had a limit of £50 a week to buy food and anything else I need, including socialising. I was spending almost double that some weeks so I really need to get that under control otherwise I'll be in a bit of a pickle.

These are my resolutions so in a year I shall review them and see if I've stuck to them
I wish you luck if you've made any this year, even if it's a little thing