The Interview

To sum up the (eventual online) release of The Interview this Christmas:  either something seriously disturbing just happened along the lines of George Clooney's angry Deadline interview

OR

Sony just pulled off the actual most brilliantly orchestrated publicity stunt in history. Slight risk of starting WWIII but hey, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

To be honest I probably wouldn't have even attempted to watch The Interview it if it hadn't been for the hot fuss the North Korean's made. And then the hilarity that ensued from the Sony hacking scandals. (Which I do totally morally disagree with for any future reference). If judging this movie from the dismal This Is The End which read more like a film student's final year project (inexplicable in-jokes which did not translate to anyone who was not James Franco, Seth Rogen or close circle of croonies) than a Hollywood movie.

Although the film is not yet out in Europe yet, and I will watch it when it comes out, or at least as much of it as I can stomach. I think the following Twitter post is a pretty accurate representation of my expectations:

In conclusion either 1 small point for freedom, democracy and not letting freedom of speech be dictated by one small group's opinions and a pivotal point in history where we all just sat at home watching the new form of international intimidation and warfare become a real affecting-every-day-lives-reality and did not do a blind thing about it. Or 1,000,000,000 points for the best marketing campaign that ever happened. I have a horrible feeling that we may have gained just 1 point in this exchange.

The year that Taylor Momsen saved Christmas

This year I stayed in Austria for Christmas. I had fondue for Christmas dinner. I celebrated Christmas on the 24th December. I had to import Christmas crackers. So for sure I was not missing my Christmas movie viewing. First choice being Home Alone - naturally. But the video store (yep, they still exist in Austria - and it was busy. Blockbusters eat your heart out) didn't carry Home Alone (?) and so we settled on the Grinch. Which I suppose still sums up this movie in the Christmas movie arena. It's never going to be number 1 on your list but it would be equally strange to find a Christmas movie list with the Grinch missed out.

The Grinch is a horrible, intolerant, rude, disgusting, selfish, bordering on insane creature who lives on a pile of garbage on the hill above Whoville. An idyllic village full of 'Who's' whose distinguishing characteristics are their crazy hairstyles, complete airheadedness and overbearing love of Christmas. The Grinch has a busy schedule: 4:00, wallow in self pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30, jazzercize; 6:30, dinner with me - I can't cancel that again; 7:00, wrestle with my self-loathing... I'm booked. Of course, if I bump the loathing to 9, I could still be done in time to lay in bed, stare at the ceiling and slip slowly into madness. Eventually a little girl takes pity on him, we learn the whole sorry and poorly injected back story while she invites him back to town to come back into Who-ivilisation. The Grinch decides to steal Christmas after the Who's once again reject him and eventually, after discovering the spirit of Christmas, returns everything he stole and lives happily ever after with the hottest broad in town.

As is pretty clear the storyline has a bit to be desired. But for an adaptation of a book designed for children at an age where they need things to be read out loud to them it's not half bad. The star of the film is as clear as day even 14 years on from the release. Costume (won the academy award) and Make-up (nominated) is fantastic (apart from the Grinch's hairy stomach which freaks me out every time). The Who's make-up and hair is utterly brilliant. It's a little bit planet of the Apes a little bit Star Wars and 100% Rick Baker.

And then there is Jim Carrey. Honestly, noone else could have played this role. No matter whether you love him or hate him. He literally is the Grinch. I imagine Jim Carrey must be a Director's nightmare. But in this case he is just perfect. I have this feeling that all Ron Howard needed to say during filming to Mr. Carrey was 'just go for it' no further direction needed.

It was actually only the second time I have ever seen How The Grinch Stole Christmas. I'd remembered it pretty accurately. Generally, much more amusing (and slightly terrifying) a decade ago. The most bizarre thing has to be that the little girl is none other than Gossip Girl's Taylor Momsen.

Who saw that one coming?

This honesty will change your life...

I have discovered honest trailers. As soon as I mentioned it to anyone everyone
has already heard of this. Seriously people in general need to talk more about
awesome things.

Just in case you are one of the formally ignorant ones please let me introduce you
to this genius with five of my favourites.


1. Love Actually

From the man responsible for every movie your girlfriend tried to drag you to.

But don't worry, sit through it and you still might get laid.


2. Twilight

Based on the terrible books from one of the shittiest authors of all time...

This whole concept works better the worse the movie is, so you can imagine
Twilight is like striking gold e.g. the Forest Gump honest trailer is just meh..
Actually by this reasoning the further into the Twilight franchise we go the
better the honest trailer but for some reason this honest trailer works best. It's
as if Breaking Dawn, Eclipse etc. are just too easy targets.


3.  Home Alone

You'll never watch Home Alone the same way again.

 
4. The Little Mermaid

There are so many issues with this I don't even know where to start. It blew
my mind more than when I unwisely YouTubed the women behind the Disney
Princess' voices singing Disney songs. Never do this.




5. Les Miserables

Just because Russell Crowe.


Goodbye any spare time you may have salvaged. Over & out.

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Cookie Monster Cupcakes

I don't think anyone forgets the first time they walk in to the Hummingbird Bakery in London. I know most of the world thinks that the Brit's food is Fish & Chips, baked beans or Haggis. But I like to think of it as cupcakes.

I always use the Hummingbird Bakery's recipe for Red Velvet cupcakes. But they never taste quite as good. I'm sure they lie in their recipe book - which is still great, even if just for the pictures. This Cookie Monster creation was made with a Blue Velvet cake mix. (The secret is to change the red food colouring to blue...guard it with your life.)


Decorative must haves for a dozen cupcakes:

450g icing sugar
75g unsalted butter
180g cream cheese (of the Philadelphia variety ideally)
A ridiculous amount of blue food colouring - a couple of 40ml bottles
6 mini chocolate chip cookies
24 white M&Ms (or white Milka drops)
3 tbsp cocoa powder
The circular icing nozzle & the flower/hairy icing nozzle


1. Be totally prepared to be covered from head to foot in blue icing.
2. Mix together the butter and icing sugar, slowly beat in the cream cheese using an electric paddle mixer. Don't beat the mixture for too long, only a few minutes otherwise it will get runny and impossible to shape into Cookie Monster fur.

3. Pick out the white M&Ms and let your brother/boyfriend/friend/housemates eat all the other colours.
4. Separate a small amount of the icing from the batch and add the cocoa powder to get a dark dark chocolate icing.
5. Colour the rest of the icing blue - adding the colouring slowly until you get totally the right Cookie Monster colour.Cover your cupcakes in Cookie Monster fur using the furry/star icing nozzle.
6. Using the round icing nozzle squeeze a little drop of the dark brown icing onto the side of the white M&Ms to make eyes and stick these on too.
7. Break your mini chocolate chip cookies in half and stick these in to make little cute mouths.

 Me want cookie..... om nom nom nom nom nom

You will be the best dressed rebel in history.

With the Hunger Games you either love it or you haven't seen it. (Apart from Jennifer Lawrence's hair in Mockingjay Part 1, who thought the 'Samara from the Ring' look was one to aim for?!) The thing that is an undeniable fact is that the first movie in a series will be the best. As Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian aptly wrote:

"The Hunger Games is declining in power, but not as steeply as I thought, and this weird, operatic nightmare still inhabits the screen with confidence."

One of the most interesting things I have read about the movie is the question 'how could the audience really buy into the idea that a few earnest-bordering-on-cheesy propaganda clips, featuring Katniss Everdeen now re-branded the Mockingjay, be the key to overthrowing the Capitol?'

In answer to this think just for a minute about the crazy workings of the internal marketing mechanisms that are whirring around us shaping our thoughts, feelings and behaviour everyday absolutely and unequivocally unbeknownst to us. Take, just as one example, the cult that is Jennifer Lawrence.

Now, don't act like you are above being caught up in the hundreds of brilliant 'top J Law moments of (insert year here)' articles. I mean let's remember those Oscar falls that broke the internet more than Kim Kardashian's oiled-up butt ever could. The facepalm after meeting Jack Nicholson. The unbelievably heroic response to the topless photos hacking saga earlier this year. Generally content bytes that just are, wait for it, earnest-bordering-on-cheesy?

It made me wonder how many times her publicity team have had the exact same conversation as Katniss Everdeen's did throughout the Hunger Games.
'Just push her out into the Oscars unsupervised and watch the havoc she will reign.'
Or an even worse thought:

Overimaginatory scene no. 1
J Law: '... But I fell over last year. What should I do this year?'
Publicist: 'What if we put a big orange cone in front of you on the red carpet and then you trip over that?'
J Law: 'Perfect....'
*Strokes cat sitting on her lap and looks at the camera in evil glee*

Overimaginatory scene no. 2
Publicist: 'Mr. Nicholson this is your two minute call for you to go over and say something to Miss. Lawrence. Please remember to go back twice so she can get her reaction on camera.'

To be honest the whole thought is just too upsetting for me. I'd prefer to be sitting at home with popcorn laughing at J Law's klutziness or feeling naively inspired by K Everdeen's manufactured moments. Ignorance in this case really is bliss. Let's enjoy the wonderful clumsiness of Jennifer Lawrence safe in the belief that she really is just that uncoordinated - it's probably just who she is and cameras always are in the right place at the right time in the glitzy world of Hollywood.

Unless it's one big oiled butt, some publicity stunts are still just too much for me. 

Interstellar you lost me at Matt Damon.

Really don't read this if you haven't seen Interstellar yet. Consider that a spoiler alert fair warning.

Facebook was going wild last week with enthusiasm about Interstellar and despite my initial reservations I was pretty excited about seeing it too. The cinematography was totally awesome. And honestly, I really liked the beginning it felt like something inexplicable and complicated was happening in the future world we were watching. Matthew McConaughey was actually great. I bought the explanations of relativity and that 1 hour on the planet they were exploring was 23 years on Earth - when Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey predictably got stuck on the planet - and then came back to the space ship to see their friends and family already grown old it was emotional. 

McConaughey has totally perfected crying. Which is good, because he does it a lot.

I'm not sure if I would agree with all the reviews applauding the 'intelligence' of the film. Yes, there are brainy subjects confronted like wormholes, relativity, dimensions of space and time. But when you scrape back the self-congratulatory intelligence there's not a huge amount of substance left. For example the explanation of a wormhole was one guy holding a piece of paper folding it in half and then sticking a pencil through it. ha. ha. I feel like as an audience we could have handled more. 

Either way it was good, I was totally on board. Right up to Matt Damon. It wasn't just the casting decision. Don't get me wrong I love Matt Damon and he wasn't bad in it. I think it was the collective groan from the audience as Matt Damon sat up from his hibernation in space that summed it up for me. The fact that I was in a tiny, little, half-full cinema in Salzburg and you could literally hear the pain from the audience at this point says everything that needs to be said.

It pretty much went downhill from there. Culminating in the particular low point of Matthew McConaughey being sucked into a black hole and finding himself in another dimension looking through his never-ending bookshelves at his daughter and communicating with her through gravity. I'm not really sure how he suddenly figured out all the equations that he communicated which eventually saved the world. And then he woke up in a hospital bed with his daughter an old granny. We need to just kill off characters with less reservations basically.

It's definitely worth watching - I did enjoy it - but expect to take a few moments rolling your eyes throughout.