If you’ve never heard of The Room, chances are you’ve been living under a rock. In a cave. On Mars. For the benefit of the members of the Martian cave-dwelling community, The Room is a 2003 cult film known as ‘the Citizen Kane of bad movies’. It revolves around Johnny, portrayed by writer-director-producer-executive producer-star Tommy Wiseau. He is engaged to Lisa (Juliette Danielle), who decides she is bored with Johnny and sleeps with his best friend, Mark (Greg Sestero), who is Johnny’s best friend. That’s about it. Half of the movie is sub plots that go nowhere, badly made melodrama, and some of the most awkward sex scenes in film history.

And it’s glorious.

The film is known for being bad, and for good reason. It’s hilarious. The bad acting, writing, and story make this one of the best unintentional comedies ever. But what would happen if Hollywood decided to remake The Room as a serious picture? Hollywood has been known to do crazier things (see the Rollerball remake). So if they decided to remake The Room, this is my list of who I think would be the best picks for cast and crew.

Director – Sam Mendes

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“The director of Skyfall? What are you thinking?” I hear you cry. Well, before the excellent Skyfall, Mendes directed American Beauty, a film that reminded me of The Room for some reason. The way it dealt with family issues and the value of trust was everything The Room was trying to be, yet failed to pull off. Sam Mendes could make something good out of this, I’m sure.

Runner up: David Fincher. I haven’t seen him do romance yet. That’s really about it. Fincher would be interesting to see, but Mendes would probably do a better job.

Johnny – Javier Bardem

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Alright, last person involved with Skyfall, I promise! Not only does he have an accent, but the guy is a massively varied actor. He played a cocky playboy in Vicky Christina Barcelona, a vulnerable, hurt man in Skyfall, and a crap-your-pants-scary vigilante in No Country For Old Men. He could really pull off….whatever the hell Tommy Wiseau was playing in The Room.

Runner up: Jeanne Claude Van Damme. Yeah, I know, it’s mostly the accent, but he’s really not that terrible of an actor. He just picks bad scripts. Like, constantly.

Mark – Robert Downey Jr.

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Recently putting out another great performance in Iron Man 3, the more Robert Downey Jr. makes sense to me as Mark. The character he’s playing in Iron Man is a character he’s been playing for years; the womanizer. He’s suave, seductive, and could sweep Lisa off her feet. In fact, I can’t think of anyone better than RDJ to play him.

Runner up: Hugh Jackman. He’s a good actor, and women seem to really like him, but I think Mark is more suave and less ‘manly’ in a way that I think RDJ could pull off better than Jackman.

Lisa – Winona Ryder

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Now, I’m not normally the biggest Winona Ryder fan, but I think she could pull off Lisa. Something about the entitled, snobby, and occasionally whiny character is something I think she could do well, and I don’t mean that as any kind of insult. I can’t really explain this one all that well, but I think she would be good for the part of Lisa.

Runner up: Jennifer Lawrence. A fantastic actress and probably better than Ryder, but she just seems a bit too young and nice for the part.

Denny – Michael Cera

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Yeah, he’s quite a bit older than the actor in The Room, but I’m confident Cera, who is known for playing awkward teenager/early 20s roles, could do a good job. It would just be interesting to see him do a role where we’re supposed to find his awkwardness creepy rather than charming. Plus, he could really do the line, “you’re not my f**king mother!”

Runner up: Shia LaBeouf. Like Michael Cera, he’s known for awkward teenage roles, and while he could maybe do it okay, he’s just a bit too irritating.

Peter – Nicolas Cage

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I don’t care what anyone says, Nicolas Cage is a good actor. Great, even. In the past few years, he’s picked a lot of bad movies, but look at his career. Matchstick Men. Adaptation. Bad Lieutenant. Lord of War. Nicolas Cage has had some great roles, and I think he would be great as the therapist, Peter. If you replace ‘Steven’ (a character who comes in right at the end in place of Peter because the actor couldn’t do it) with more Nicolas Cage, I can imagine him being really awesome in this role.

Runner up: Elliot Gould. Simply because I couldn’t think of anyone else, and I really liked him as a therapist in Ruby Sparks.

Claudette – Meryl Streep

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Well, it’s Meryl Streep! What more reason do you need? She’s such an excellent actress, she could make anything work. Like, even with Wiseau’s original script. She could read it and make it compelling. So, yeah, Meryl Streep.

Runner up: Judi Dench. She’s much closer to the original actress’ age, but I don’t know how her American accent is, and I just think Streep is a better actress in general.

That’s about it, I think. There are other characters, but they’re all so minor and inconsequential that you could just cut them out completely and it wouldn’t make much difference. Chances are, they will never remake The Room, but come on, tell me you wouldn’t want to see all these actors together in one film.

If you disagree, what would your picks be? Let us know in the comments!

I recently saw a post where a man photo had been edited with a load of nice phrases he had said, and then an answer to a question- which was obviously supposed to contradict the pro-female statements around it. The question was:

‘To you personally, is abortion an option in the case of an unwanted pregnancy.’ To which he had answered ‘no.’ This was followed by a load of ‘best photoset ever’ type comments, whereas I was just thinking ‘you biased bigoted gits’.

What is so wrong in a man saying he is against abortion. For one the question was aimed to him ‘personally’. So he answered with his PERSONAL opinion. For another, how is saying your against abortion an anti-female comment?

The whole point of tumblr, so it seems to me, is to comment on how bigoted the world is for not believing what everyone on tumblr believes. See some hypocrisy? I do.

There are many posts such as ‘straight girl privilege’ and ‘white man privilege’ whose aim is to basically make the opinions of straight white people invalid. Unless you are black, gay, atheist and with a few mental health problems- your opinion is not taken seriously as you ‘have it easy’. What the people on tumblr fail to realise is that we live in the 21st century. In England we no longer have slavery, we don’t stone people to death for stealing a loaf of bread, we can love, and even marry, whoever we want. And in commenting on how stupid people who aren’t black, gay atheists are, they themselves are being just as, if not more prejudiced than the people they oppose.

This exclusion of anyones beliefs that are even vagually religious hides something much darker inside the heart of this website. The propoganda streaming through the screens of what seems to be every 15 year old girls laptop screen at 2am is very disturbing. Ideas that you must be unhappy to have an opinion. That a straight white man is the living embodiment of hell. That religion is evil and heinus. These ideals are no better than the idea of the aryan race in Nazi Germany in the 1930′s.

I find it very hard to believe that such a website is allowed to exist, but we’re all allowed ‘freedom of speech’ aren’t we….

Unless you’re a straight white married Christian male, female-rights activist with two children and a dog. You can go to hell.

NOTE: Even though this may be under my name, this article isn’t actually written by me. No, I’m not admitting plagiarism, I interviewed somebody today and this is what he had to say. So do enjoy this informative article about modern technology…

Our culture is circled around technology; our Facebook’s, our Twitter’s – for some reason some users even think that the rest of the world wants to know “Hey, I have just brought super soft toilet paper!”. It seems if you don’t have the latest spec laptop, or you’re not on some sort of social network, apparently you don’t have a life. (And boiling down to it, it’s often in fact the opposite!)

To put it into context: A while ago, I walked into a Carphone Warehouse store for an upgrade from my trusty Nokia – straight away I was frowned upon. Just from the facial expression of the guy helping: the trusty Nokia that had got me out so many late night issues was just not socially good enough any more. Straight away I was told that I needed this fantastic “quad core,” Galaxy S111, it had an 8 megapixel camera etc;… the list seemed to go on. (It must be noted by this point, I was VERY bored!) I just went in to that shop in look for a phone that would do the job I wanted it to do. I didn’t need a super-dooper camera, I had a far better one. After asking several times “What would quad core mean?” I just got a reply, after some hesitation, that it was “very powerful.“ It almost seemed as if the guy trying to sell me this overated smartphone didn’t actually know what he was talking about?!

I knew if I walked into school the next day, and waved this brand new Galaxy S111 around I would be supercool. That never happened. I didn’t need a phone that did everything, and to this day I still own my trusted nokia. Yes, I understand that some people need a smartphone, or a tablet, or whatever – and it’s fine if you need them, but half of us don’t need them. In my opinion, £1000 out of my bank account after 2 years, for something I will likely drop in the toilet, is not cool at tall.

Our lifes seems to be so dictatded by the technology – and there leads the obession. I can’t use photoshop on a computer made 2 years ago because the computer it too old, I can’t download this app on my smartphone (so okay, I have the nokia for emergencies now) because my phone is already out of date! I don’t want to have to upgrade my phone for one app. I use a HTC Desire HD (for all you normal ‘non-geek’ people, it’s 2 years old) – and you know what… it does what I want it to do. I don’t need it to be all powerful – we should live in a world where we make our technology last as long as it can, instead of looking at what’s new… before it’s even come out!

I guess the whole point of this article – call it a rant if you want – is to inform you that; if your phone is 3 months out of date, it’s okay. You don’t need a new phone (like the guy in Carphone Warehouse told me). Technology is very useful, and most of us are extremely fortunate to have it. It doesn’t take much to live without that amazing new app, but it’s a lot when you realize how lucky we as a nation are to live in a society where we do have so much technology and innovation – not to be bought all in one go!

The first question on my mind was how he developed his love of cooking, as it isn’t a common hobby. “Well,” he says after a short pause, “I tend to eat. I don’t really know how it started, it might’ve been when my dad started baking cakes and stuff- it really inspired me. I have cooking lessons at school, and we make really interesting things. And now I’ve got my  place at college, so I can carry on my cooking experience.”

But what is it about cooking that my interviewee loves so much? “Eating” is his first answer, before he goes on to say “Especially the different flavours and combinations. Anyone can do it really, and it’s a really important life skill to have. If you can’t cook you can’t eat. I don’t really use my own recipes  just yet, but I’m  hoping to start tweaking some of the ones I use. There’s nothing really that difficult about it, with a good recipe it should be easy. Personally, I’m quite good at pastries, even though they’re generally considered quite difficult.”

Cooking is something that everyone could get into, and, just like this young person said, it’s a really enjoyable and important skill to have. Everyone seems to presume that they can’t cook, although this is rarely the case. Everyone can cook if they want to.

But what is it about this far-from-elusive counter culture that evokes intrigue, and dare I say it, ridicule? Well, in this writer’s opinion, I would say the hypocrisy of the movement. The idealogies of Hipsterdom place emphasis on individuality and nonconformity, yet surely going against conventions is conforming to the Hipster culture, and so defeats the whole object?

And this non-conformity can get competitive, with the topic of music being possibly the bloodiest arena. Each hipster aims to find a band or musician that none of his/ her peers have heard of, so that s/he can deliver the hipster’s most commonly used phrase: “You probably wouldn’t have heard of them. ” Yet with each hipster trying to do this, the stakes keep rising, and rising, with each specimen trying to outdo the others in terms of obscurity of music, the level of music listened to invariably takes a plummet. You see, obscurity is the finest feather in the plumage of the Hipster, and is displayed to all as the array of these feathers unfold. As one ex-hipster says “I ended up listening to the 70s Swedish bands such as the Kjell Brooz orkester, and Inge Lindqvist – my personal favourite was Garvis.“ Just for the sake of obscurity? The phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” springs to mind for some reason…although there may well be hipsters who would do just that – IF they thought they’d be the first to do it.

Whilst the ethos behind the Hipster “counter-culture” seems to promote individuality and non-conformity, it creates somewhat of a paradox in doing so – as the hipsters conform to this idea of not conforming. The best way I’ve heard it described is “Hipsters try to be unique and different, by doing what other people did to try to be unique and different.” The hypocrisy in Hipsterdom is twofold, not only is there conformity to the ideal of non-conformity, but the ways that are used to try and not conform are widely practised; namely by scrolling through the depths of tumblr (clicking reblog as if your forefinger on the mouse had gone into spasm) and by excessive use of the word ”ironic.”

The most remarkable behaviour demonstrated by the species, as of now named Homo Hipsteres, is the denial of being a part of the species. I don’t think that any Hipster has ever once gathered around with their friends and family, and taken a deep breath and come out – “Mum, Dad, friends, I am a Hipster and I am PROUD!” Subsequently, they break down crying, whilst everyone consoles them with various cries of “we still love you.” In all sincerity, the clique of Hipsterdom officially has no members, if it is a clique to which one has to affiliate oneself. However, those of us, whilst out and about are clear to point and gape- “Oh my god – it’s a hipster!” at any passing person in a plaid shirt and glasses.

We are all quick to pass judgement on the hipsters, equating their style to that of homeless people, etc, etc, but we do overlook their views on the individual – parallel to those which a revered in the likes of Henry Thoreau – so perhaps we shouldn’t be so hasty in judging. There is one last thing I ask of you, attentive reader -you’ve managed to get this far- take a look in the mirror. If, like myself, you see someone in wide-rimmed, over-sized glasses; a plaid shirt, skinny courdroys, and Docs; you too might join the ranks in the ever growing army.

If there’s one best-selling author working at the moment that has proved to have no range whatsoever, it’s Nicholas Sparks. All his stories are the same. Two people with no character flaws meet, they fall in love (regardless of the chemistry they actually have), something happens to separate them in which they sit around moping for a while, then meet up again, make-up, and everything is great, love conquers all, blah blah blah. There are sometimes elements thrown in there to change it, but the framework is always the same. Safe Haven is mixing it up a bit by adding in some thriller elements, in that it remembers its supposed to have some thriller elements and cuts back to them occasionally. Safe Haven is as boring and dull as it is really quite hilarious.

The film opens with our main character, Erin (Julianne Hough) running away from a police officer and getting on a coach. Bear in mind we have no context for this scene and don’t get any until about half way through, so we are left completely in the dark until the film remembers we need some kind of explanation. Anyway, we see her getting off in the stereotypical small country town of Southport, North Carolina. She buys a run down cabin in the woods (no Book of the Dead, unfortunately) and makes friends with her neighbour Jo (Cobie Smulders) and eventually meets Alex (Josh Duhamel), our burly male love-interest. It doesn’t help that the man looks about 40, and she looks about 19. She learns that his wife died of cancer and he’s been taking care of his two kids all by himself, and by this point I’ve lost the will to live just by writing about it.

If you’re wondering what happened to that whole running-from-the-police thing, it only really comes into play in the last half of the second act. Like I said before, it will occasionally flick back to the police guy looking serious at a computer screen, but what carries the film is the romance between Alex and Erin (or Katie, as she calls herself). This is where the film fails the most. I mean, it fails everywhere, but this is where it fails in the most cringe-worthy way. The actors have zero chemistry, and the horribly stilted dialogue means the characters come off as simply friendly with each other. The kind of person you’d say hi to on the street, but that’s it. When they have their big kiss scene eventually, it comes across as kind of sporadic.

Then the ending happens. This is one of the most lazy and thoughtless Sixth Sense rip-offs I’ve ever seen. The film has almost now become known for its terrible twist ending, as every review I’ve read has mentioned it. It comes out of nowhere in the last five minutes and makes everything established and developed (the little there is) come tumbling down on the film’s head. In the preview screening I went to, people actually started laughing at the screen, including me. It’s so ludicrous it drags the film from predictable schmaltz-fest into hilarious train wreck.

Safe Haven is a perfect Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Granted, I was probably not the intended audience for this film, but I still believe that being for teenage girls does not excuse a lack of effort. Mean Girls, Clueless, Now Is Good. These are all films made for the teenage girl demographic and work, because they’re well directed, well written, and have engaging stories. Safe Haven fails in every way it could do, but I give it points for being unintentionally hilarious at times. Still, that isn’t worth the price of admission, so give this a miss.

Over the Christmas holidays and the half-term in February there are two things that I want to share with you. They are both Harry Potter based, if you are a Harry Potter fan I would recommend you go.

The first one is the Warner Brother Studio tour in Watford. You get to see all the costumes and classrooms, you can also go to Diagon Ally and take pictures of you and your friends standing next to Olivander’s Wand shop or the pet shop where Hagrid bought Hedwig the owl for Harry. You also get to see the masks and the costumes of Dobby the house elf and see all the props that are used. There is also a shop where you can buy wands like the ones that the characters such as Harry Potter and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named have. You can also buy chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott’s every flavour beans. However there is a long queue to get in so be prepared to wait! But it is worth it. Ticket prices are quite expensive though from £29 for adults which anyone who 16 and older and children from 5 to 15 years old are £21. But it’s worth it!!!!!!!

If you want to find out more about the studio tour please visit this link.

 http://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/

The next thing that is very good was the Harry Potter Walking Tour around London, Curtsy of Celebrity Planet. You get to see all the sites around and what JK Rowling based the books on in London. You get to see what the author based Diagon Alley on and the leaky cauldron pub. There is a boat ride included in the price of your ticket and there is a underground journey taking you to Kings Cross Station where you can see Platform 9 3/4.

If you would like to go more please visit this link.

 http://www.thecelebrityplanet.com/london/harry-potter-film-locations-london.html

Thanks

Auberon Smith

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“I dreamed a dream in time gone by, when hope was high and life worth living.”

Going into Les Misérables, I was cautiously skeptical on this movie’s overall quality and its quality as an adaptation of the show. I have never seen the stage version live, but I watched it on a concert DVD and really enjoyed it. When I found out Tom Hooper was directing I was even more skeptical. “This is obviously pandering for the Oscars,” I thought, “It won’t turn out any good, like The Iron Lady, or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” I didn’t think it could be done. It wasn’t the kind of thing that would work as a movie. It was too ambitious. It had no spoken dialogue. They couldn’t do it. Could they?

Focusing on Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a thief who has just broken his parole and is on the run from Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). Through a series of events I won’t spoil like the trailer does, Jean ends up caught in the French Revolution, and fights alongside the rebels, while still trying to stay on the run from Javert. That’s really all I can say without spoiling some of the best scenes. The film does a really great job of making a fairly complex story easy to follow, without sacrificing some of the story elements.

Translating a sung-through three hour musical to a mainstream film is never going to be an easy task. However, Hooper has pulled it off perfectly. Les Misérables is nothing short of a fantastic film. It’s the first 2013 film I’ve seen and the year is off to a great start. This will make my best of 2013, for sure. The acting is wonderful throughout, with the standouts being Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. Jackman gives an outstanding performance at Valjean, as his background in musical theatre is more obvious than ever here. Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the crook pub landlord and his wife is possibly one of the most masterful casting decisions ever. I cannot imagine anyone else in those roles, as they fit their respective actors perfectly.

But by far, the scene everyone is going to remember is Anne Hathaway’s performance of the big emotional ballad ‘I Dreamed A Dream’. The song has had a resurgence of popularity ever since it was sung by Susan Boyle in her now famous audition for Britain’s Got Talent, but Hathaway’s performance of the song absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt has made me feel more emotional than any scene in any other movie I’ve ever seen. Hathaway doesn’t just sing the song, she acts the song. She gets that in order to survive in a movie musical, you need to act as well as sing, and she executes this brilliantly. It covers a million different emotions in just a four minute scene, ranging from sorrow, to despair, to anger, to bitterness, to indifference. She acts the song the way it’s supposed to be done, and it’s the best scene in the entire film.

Les Misérables does have one problem, and it’s a pretty major one. Russell Crowe. I’ve heard people make fun of his singing, and yeah, it’s really bad. He puts no emotion or passion into the role at all. Playing it with a straight-faced coldness, he appears to be singing out of his throat, which produces a sound that jars with everyone else’s voices. He has done music before, but he has publicly said he wasn’t prepared for the film and had to brush up on his singing very quickly. Not quick enough, apparently.

The funny thing about this film is how skeptical I was about it. I had things ranging from mixed to farily positive, but I was never prepared for this. I wasn’t prepared for emotion of this magnitude, or the fact that it might make me fall in love with a musical the way the stage version didn’t. Les Misérables is a rare example of an adaptation that not only matches its source material in terms of quality, but excels it. And that’s what this does. It excels in every area it possibly could. Even though there are flaws (and yes, there are a quite a few flaws), I believe it is the mark of a truly great film when you can look past them completely and be soaked up in the story, the characters, and the music. This film makes you want to, for lack of a better word, sing.