Use and Abuse Your Fears

By sefika yildiz

7th June 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Everyone is stressed out these days. Busy life style in big cities, long working hours, high expectations of employers and clients, trying to look glamorous all the time as well as being  healthy and fit, making a huge effort to  fit a relationship in our hectic lives,…etc. It  seems like it is impossible to avoid the stress.

But what is stress? Where does it come from? When do we get stressed? What makes us  feel  stressed?

Most medical  sources describe stress as forces from outside world  affecting  the individual. Not really a satisfactory description in comparison with hurricane like feelings we have when we are stressed.

Dictionaries are more truthful.They describe stress as worry, burden,anxiety and pressure. Yes, we are worried, we are anxious and we are pressurised when we are stressed. Why? Because we fear to fail.

Imagine you are late for a very important meeting at work which is a unique  opportunity for you to show your potential  to get promoted. You dressed up , you are in your best shape as usual, your make up is perfect. But somehow you got stuck in traffic and you are going mad in the car, you are extremely stressed. Why? Because you don’t want to miss the opportunity, you want to remain successful and popular. You fear to lose what you have which stresses you. You call your mum or best friend to feel better and  you say “I am so stressed right now .”but you  don’t say that  “I fear that I might lose the best opportunity I have been offered.”

Stress comes from our fears but we are all too proud to say  that “I am fearful”   or even “I am worried.” while we can easily say that “I am stressed.”

What is fear? Where does it originate? Is it a good thing or bad thing? Does it motivate  or demotivate us?

The very common thought of 21^st century is  that we are all motivated by money. I don’t agree. Why do we let money motivate even manipulate us and make us work like a slave?  Because we  all fear to starve, living with no roof on our head, being left out in our society.

We are all motivated by our fears. Our fears make us successful , hard working, challenging, even good looking, give us good manners,make  us  loyal , a good citizen and a good person, a good friend, a good partner, a good parent,…etc.

It is the fear of imprisonment  and of being condemned  by others which makes us obey the law. It is fear of unemployment  which keeps us working long hours and pretend to like our boss even we hate him. It is the fear of starvation and of first and most important instinct  to survive which wakes us up every morning to run to work.

Why do we make friends, partners and all kind of social relationships? It is fear of loneliness, it is fear of not being loved and not having someone to love.

In fact all our fears originate from the will to love and to be loved. If we are hard working we are loved more,if we are successful  we are loved more,if we earn enough and not trouble others  financially we are loved more,if we are good looking we are loved more,if we are good friend or partner we are loved more.

We can use and abuse our fears for love.We should,but only we should.First and best motivation of human being is love and to be loved. We were all born after millions of kisses.

Streep Exploits Exs’ Benefits

By Leo Owen

12th May 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

Director/Writer: Nancy Meyers

DVD and Blu-ray release date: May 10 2010

Studio: Universal Pictures UK

No of discs: 1

Region: 2

Price: From £12.99

Running Time: 116/120 mins

Certificate: 15

Starring: Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski, Lake Bell

Nancy Meyers (The Holiday, Something’s Got To Give) once again explores romantic complexities but this time between a divorced couple who find one drunken night and the excitement of an affair, rekindles their flame.

After her last child has moved out, Jane (Meryl Streep) feels empty and needs something to fill the void. After contemplating plastic surgery, she finally decides to build the kitchen and extension she has always dreamed of, featuring a one sink bathroom to avoid the depressing concept of “his n’ hers” sinks and what they symbolise.

All her friends seem to be dating and warn her about the on-line story of a woman who hadn’t “done it” in so long her vagina closed up and grew back together.

In New York for her son’s graduation ceremony she bumps into her ex-husband, Jake (Alec Baldwin), in the hotel the night before and after a few drinks they end up sleeping together, proving to her friends that she has still got it: “Turns out, I’m a bit of a slut.”

Much to Jane’s guilt and horror what began as a drunken accident turns into an affair and she becomes “an ex- with benefits”. After seeing her psychiatrist to ask for exoneration, she embraces the affair but when Jake stands her up she feels unsure of her role as mistress and agrees to date the designer of her new extension, Adam (Steve Martin) who has also gone through a painful divorce.

Much of the rest of the film is spent with Jake spying on Jane and desperately trying to win her exclusive attentions, claiming the things that once annoyed him, he now loves, like the fact that she has “gone native”.

The reality is he is rather a sad individual who has finally realised that he made a stupid mistake. Seen clutching fertility pamphlets in a lift and in a clinic surrounded by ageing men with much younger wives like Agnes (Lake Bell), Jake is clearly not ready to be a father again and craves for the much quieter existence Jane has.

It’s Complicated is farcical but sometimes tries too hard – the hugely exaggerated pot smoking party scene instantly comes to mind. Sure there are moments of genuine hilarity, like when Jane and Jake meet in a hotel for a quick half hour and are spotted by their soon to be son-in-law, Harley (John Krasinski), who is lunching with their daughter, discussing wedding arrangements. Krasinski is the star of the film as he tries desperately to cover up his knowledge of their affair and constantly finds Jane in compromising situations, such as smoking a joint in his guest bathroom.

When it comes down to it Jane and Jake agreeing “It’s complicated” doesn’t cut it, the plot and their situation isn’t but feelings are and unfortunately they are not very convincingly portrayed by either Streep or Baldwin whose chemistry lacks.

DVD BONUS FEATURES:

The Making of: It’s Complicated.
Feature Commentary with Producer/Writer/Director Nancy Meyers, Executive Producer Suzanne Farwell, Director of Photography John Toll, ASC and Editor Joe Hutshing, ACE.
BLU-RAY BONUS FEATURES:

The Making of: It’s Complicated.
Feature Commentary with Producer/Writer/Director Nancy Meyers, Executive Producer Suzanne Farwell, Director of Photography John Toll, ASC and Editor Joe Hutshing, ACE.
My Scenes.
BD Live: Access the BD-Live Centre through your Internet-connected player and download even more bonus content, the latest trailers and more.
Pocket BLU™: Experience Blu-ray in an exciting new way with the app for iPhone or iPod Touch! * Virtual Remote and Keyboard: Control Blu-ray features and communicate with ease.
Social BLU™: Connect with friends on your favourite social networks to talk about It’s Complicated.
**

Love The Sinner

By sefika yildiz

11th May 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

What if the  religion you have been following for years  does not accept you as you are  as  you have changed ?Would you deny yourself and continue believing it or is it the religion which  has to change as you and many things in life have  changed with the  time ? Read more »

Dead Funny: It’s a Wonderful Afterlife

By Leo Owen

23rd April 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Gurinder Chadha

Writer: Paul Mayeda Berges, Gurinder Chadha

Release Date: April 21 2010

Running Time: 100 mins

Certificate: 12

Starring: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Zoe Wanamaker, Jimi Mistry, Sally Hawkins, Steve Morphew, Jamie Sives, Sendhil Ramamurthy,, Mark Addy, Shabana Azmi, Goldy Notay, Ray Panthaki

Honour killings, family feuds, arranged marriages and a “Curry killer” who seemingly has a taste for elderly ladies, “clearly has cooking skills and knows their spices”, are among the troubles the Asian community of Southall face in It’s a Wonderful Afterlife.

The BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated husband and wife writing team behind Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, Bride and Prejudice and Bend It Like Beckham are back for another successful chuckle-inducing union, cooking up darker humour than previous projects.

Roopi Sethi (Goldy Notay) is a young independent single woman whose father recently died, leaving her mother alone to worry about her daughter’s marital status and dosser DJ brother, Jazz. After bearing witness to an onslaught of insulting statements about her daughter’s appearance (“There’s no excuse for a moustache like that”, “Who will marry that? Think of the grocery bills”…), Mrs Sethi (Shabana Azmi) snaps and decides to kill off all those who have spurned Roopi.

When Roopi’s critical suitors start returning as blue Smurf-like ghosts and are visible to only her, Mrs Sethi recognises her crime and unable to rid herself of her entourage decides suicide is the only answer but only after Roopi is happily married and provided for. Angry and bitter at first, the stuck spirits realise that confession will result in a group prison sentence and suicide may be their only hope of being laid to rest. After days of following Mrs Sethi and witnessing Roopi’s kindly nature, they agree to help her find an eligible willing husband.

Meanwhile the police are desperately hunting the “Curry Killer”, the media are having a field day and Roopi’s childhood playmate, Raj (Mohinder Suresh in Heroes), has moved to the area and is on the case. Even Roopi’s best friend, Linda (Sally Hawkins), aka Gitali (“Melodious One”), has managed to find herself an Indian husband so in desperation Roopi concedes to her mother’s wishes by attending an Asian speed-dating night.

It’s a Wonderful Afterlife’s lame and blatant message that dough-shaped curry lovers can find romance too is forgiven by the tongue firmly stapled to the cheek and barrage of witty lines from the groan inducing “He’s just currying favour” to a vegetarian victim complaining of death by meat and the more spiteful “Whoever marries her will never need a mattress”.

Opening with an unforgettable exploding curry surgery splatter scene, the tone is set for a film packed full of inventively ludicrous murders like suffocation by chapatti, a kebab skewering through the neck and curry poisoning. An amazingly melodramatic party scene paying homage to Carrie with guests high on weed pakora, involves a vat of chillis, flying popadoms, inverted heart décor, speeding chicken-wing bullets and self-popping champagne bottles – all grotesquely exaggerated for maximum comical effect.

For a film steeped in death, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife manages to find and create humour all around. The A-Team’s music accompanies Raj as he carries out his investigations among the local Asian community. Mrs Sethi is unable to escape death accidentally and purposefully destroying anyone who crosses her path. Even her attempt to commit suicide ends badly as her friend and next door neighbour, Mrs Goldstein (Zoe Wanamaker), innocently eats one of the poisoned sweets and dies, later reflecting: “I always said your cooking is so good, it’s going to kill me one day.”

It’s a Wonderful Afterlife is a delightfully playful lighthearted affair, cleverly twisting and utilising a very real concern to masterful comic effect.

****

44 Inch Chest, potty-mouthed and seeking revenge

By Leo Owen

16th April 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Malcolm Venville

Writers: Louis Mellis, David Scinto

DVD release Date: April 20 2010

Studio: Momentum Pictures

Number of discs: 1

Region: 2

Price: From £10.99

Running Time: 91 mins

Certificate: 15

Starring: Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Ian McShane, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Dillane, Joanne Whalley, Dave Legeno

A beautifully shot striking opening scene sees Ray Winstone as Colin, lying in the middle of a completely trashed house repeatedly listening to “Without you” – smashed glass litters the floor, the cushions are ripped open, objects are strewn, the patio door is wide open and the dog is hiding under the table.

Colin’s wife, Liz (Joanne Whalley), has left him causing him to fall apart. Unable to stop muttering “Can’t fucking believe it. Maybe I loved her too much – maybe that’s it,” Colin is the shell of his former self. His friends, an unlikely band of four potty mouthed gangsters who are remarkably civil on the surface, decide to take action, forcibly removing “Lover Boy” from a local pub and throwing him into the back of a van. Read more »

Beyond The Horizon

By sefika yildiz

9th April 2010 | 2 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Great Dramatist  Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Award winning  play “Behind the Horizon” is now at National Theatre, Cottesloe  and will be on until 20th June. NT expects the play to be shown longer than its seasonal  time.

The play takes place  on a farm in Connecticut, northeast  USA, in the early 20th century and is about  two brothers who love  the same woman  and  how they sacrifice their dreams  for this  love during the eight years .

At  the beginning of the play we see  Robert, 23, (Michael  Malarkey) reading a poetry book  on the fence while the sun sets behind him. He stops reading  for a while and watches the  horizon, gazing  at hills, fields and moves his lips as if he is talking to himself. He does not even realise presence of his brother Andrew(Michael Thomson) ,27, who says: “Gosh, you do take the prize for day dreaming”, and tries to get his poetry book and laughs and jokes. Andrew  is  intelligent but not intellectual, strong, large featured, manly  who  works  in their family farm with his father whereas Robert is  a college educated, intellectual, slender, sensitive, deep but not very  strong like his brother.

Ruth (Liz White)  and Andrew  are about to marry while Robert  tries to forget his feelings  for Ruth  and  go to sea to discover  beyond the horizon. He tells Ruth about his feelings and finds out that Ruth loves him, too. Andrew decides to leave  the  farm  and  see other places  even though he does not really want to while Robert and Ruth marry.

Soon after their marriage Ruth realises that she  actually loved Andrew  and tells  Robert  how he  makes her  feel  stupid and spends lots of time reading books rather that  working in the farm and managing it well. Those words are beginning of  Robert’s end. However Andrew does not want Ruth back,either.

Eugene O’Neill  questions  what the happiness is and shows  how big the impact  of love in our lives in a very dramatic way in Beyond the Horizon. The playwright ,whose life is a drama itself ,wrote the play in 1918 and it was produced in 1920 and brought O’Neill first of four Pulitzer Prizes in the same year.

We All Need Drugs Unless We Love

By sefika yildiz

7th April 2010 | 2 comments | 1 person likes this

“Ah one more!” said Julia and pushed the empty bottle of wine in the middle of the night. It was too late to go out and get another one and have more. She screamed : “No more love, no more wine ,no more anything ,what is the point in living?”

Julia  started to drink more and more every night which  troubled her at work. She  started  to take drug  ,too, following   her  resignation. Julia was an accountant before she lost love of her life in a car accident  and became drug addict.  Now she is under treatment  to get back to her normal life . Read more »

I Love You Phillip Morris: Review

By Stephen Bain

29th March 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

A highly unusual, yet inspired pairing to say the least. Ewan McGregor starring alongside zany funny man Jim Carrey, a man people seem to either love or hate (I personally have been a big fan since his early days). This is perhaps not the comically mismatched “double-act” movie one may have expected but instead a pleasantly strange contemporary tale of love between two men. 

Carrey stars as Steven Russell, a seemingly happy family man whose life is suddenly altered by a car crash. Soon afterwards he ends up in prison where he meets the Phillip Morris of the title (McGregor) and the two form a romance. What follows are a series of events involving scamming and deception which (incredibly) are based on a true story.

The pairing of Carrey and McGregor certainly pays off. Carrey’s character is sure to provoke mixed feelings of genuine hilarity and disgust. His admittedly devious activities (which will make sense as the film develops) combined with his usual comic madness make this one of Carrey’s more interesting characters.

Indeed the main fault with this film is that it does not always seem to know itself which direction it is heading. One minute it pans out like a (certainly funny) screwball comedy with Carrey doing his usual Ace-Ventura style routine, the next it is almost stepping into the “Philadelphia” territory of serious drama. This is all sprinkled with more than a few, admittedly crude, jokes about homosexuality. The overall tone of the film however is certainly that of darker one compared to most of Carrey’s previous work. The opening scene demonstrates this clearly with Steven lying in a hospital bed apparently near to death as he begins narrating the story. As do the brilliantly executed final twenty minutes.

Ewan McGregor’s performance is possibly the superior out of the two however, with his character remaining a confused, yet constantly likeable figure. Carrey, on the other hand, shows that, while he can indeed do drama, it is perhaps the old-school rubber-faced routine that he is best at as this style regularly pops up during the films duration.

That said there are plenty of laughs to be had and the film remains a satisfying, if slightly uneven experience.

The best Christmas films

By Stephen Bain

22nd December 2009 | 5 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

What exactly makes a good Christmas flick? That is a question which has caused never ending debates at this time of year. On a day fraught with emotions (both good and bad) there is nothing like spending two hours in front of the television watching a story which, to use an all-too-familiar phrase, tugs at the heart strings. Every December the same films resurface in our local retailer. The faces of Bruce Willis, Will Ferrell, Bing Crosby and Macaulay Culkin stare out from the dvd shelves. Of course everyone has their own opinion but I thought I would give my all-time favourite Christmas film. Read more »