Jane Eyre (2011)

I had doubts about yet another Jane Eyre, especially as I love love LOVE the 2006 BBC version. But the trailer, though it looked practically the same as the BBC one, or maybe because it looked the same, made me want to watch it.

I wondered would it be exactly the same, would they deliver all the lines and shoot it the same. They didn't. It is so worth seeing! It's great!

The only bit that I found very similar was the school bit with Jane's pal dying, but I suppose you can't do that much different.

I loved how they mixed it up a bit, put all the boring St John bits at the beginning, that's the bastard about the series, episode three is SO boring because it's just St John talking. Ugh! So that was great, breaking those chapters up with Jane's childhood and then ploughing into the sexy story!

The sexual tension was so well done! Bloody loved it! Got me all riled up. Jane seemed hardly to say anything through the whole film which really worked and she looked like a munter (I thought much more than Ruth Wilson's duckface) and Rochester was an angry shouty bastard but he was serious and it made me realise how camp Toby Stephens is! They cut a load of it though (not much of Mrs Rochester freaking Jane out and Grace Pool wasn't even in it), there was far too much Judi Dench and I can't stand her, it was a serious story but they some how managed to give Judi Dench loads of jokes- It's like they wrote more lines for her.

The ice queen was far too cute played by lovely Imogen Poots and the little French girl was too sweet as well, she is AWESOME in the 2006 version, she grates on you as much as she does on Rochester, love it! Anyway, thumbs up, well done to everyone doing Yorkshire accents too.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

I wish I'd had a comfier seat because this film was long! It was good though, it looked good and it was a good one for keeping your brain going. It took a couple of hours before anything exciting happened though and it was a bit of a sausage-fest. No women apart from Tom Hardy's squeeze but then Tom Hardy was the Bond character in this spy film, Mark Strong was a bit at the beginning as well and I like him.

Anyway, was the book as gay as the film? The bit I enjoyed the most (apart from Tom Hardy being beautiful) was Mark Strong's heartbroken face and those big brown eyes crying at the end, AW! Sausage-fest.

The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)

I was really looking forward to it, so was Anna, the trailer looked great, classic Inbetweeners. Anna saw it first and said she'd never been so disappointed in all her life.
I then was prepared to see great disappointment and because I was prepared you know, I still managed to enjoy it.

But Anna was right, it could have been about anybody, it wasn't about the Inbetweeners. Somehow we're supposed to think Jay and Simon have a bond when they haven't for all three series, their falling out was the basis of the film, but were they ever really that close?! They all get girlfriends?! What? The only one who would get a girlfriend is Neil, because he would shag anybody. They are all loathsome and all of those girls must have had serious mental issues, especially the tortured soul who likes Simon and ESPECIALLY the little blonde who is supposed to be intelligent but decides to go out with Will. Maybe Jay could have got a girl, when he's sweet he is sweet, but you have to have pretty low standards and that chick who went for him was gorgeous!

Anna thinks overall it would have been greatly improved by all the parents also being on holiday with them (but staying somewhere nice). The parents are great and the bit that they were in was fantastic. Not enough! I think I would have liked that too.

BUT, saying that, I did really really like lots of bits of it. The dancing was hilarious.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

At first I was like 'Why's the CGI so terrible in this film?!' but then I didn't mind because it was all so ridiculous I ended up enjoying it immensely! Truly trash but so enjoyable, all the cheesy references, TERRIBLE cgi, it looked like a cartoon!! So many letter-box actors, and the worst plot and script! I must write it down...

Ok, so James Franco is trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease and testing his medicine on monkeys, it works but he gets the sack and ends up keeping a super intelligent baby monkey in his attic, already we're like, what? How can he afford to do that and why does no one find out for like five years? He cures his declining father with the same formula but after a few years John Lithgow's immune system gets rid of the stuff and Franco sets to work making a better version of the magic potion.

Franco's super-monkey hurts the unlucky guy who lives next door through protecting Lithgow (as monkeys do) and he gets put into an EVIL monkey sanctuary that literally would not exist in reality. The guys who work there are dicks and you wonder if they hate monkeys so much why do they work at a monkey sanctuary? "I like violence and I hate animals." "We have the perfect job for you, at the monkey sanctuary!"

Back at the pharmaceutical company Franco used to work at before getting fired at the start the greedy British black man who owns it gives him the go-ahead and they all decide to try the new medicine on the most EVIL looking monkey they can find... British black man then watches new improved evil clever monkey drawing evil bananas and writing his name on a list under the heading of 'To Kill' but is not worried at all.

Main monkey becomes king and somehow the other monkeys understand what he asks them to do despite the fact they are just monkeys (???) he makes them intelligent however with new improved gas- which coincidentally is deadly to humans. Unlucky guy next door catches a face full of deadly germs and it is revealed over the end credits (after all the intelligent monkeys have run into the woods and turned over a load of cars etc.) that he is a pilot and he spreads the plague all over the work thus eradicating the human race leaving apes as the ruling species. The End.

I really enjoyed Tom 'Draco Malfoy' Felton, playing the biggest douchebag of all time, how awesome to deliver the line, "Get your stinking paw off me, you damn dirty ape!" He was really good and his American accent was far better than Dominic Cooper's in Captain America.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011 Part Three

And the last two. I saw Lip Theatre Company's amusing play In For a Pound and my god it was funny and mad. A good tight show it reminded me of the plays my friend Evil Dave wrote while we were in Lip six years ago... I was so glad I got to hang out with the cast at the end of Fringe party my friends hosted, they are a lovely talented bunch with great faces for comedy.
The Sweet Release was a cabaret at the Sweet venue, I think I got about ten acts crammed into that hour! Stand ups, belly dancers, music, magic and Dr Beard.

I loved the belly dancing, the first girl was good but watching my friend Lynne was hypnotic and very sexual, watching Lynne dance was like being on drugs! The stand-ups were great and the piano player who sang an improvised song that the audience chose the lyrics to was fun. Such a shame we only got three minutes of Laura Hayden, I like cock jokes told by women. I must say the comparing was vastly improved once transferred into the hands of that capable man of science, Dr Beard. Half way through he did his mad set, which went down extremely well with everyone despite it being quite an eclectic manic drug-fueled style of comedy, very physical, he uses mime, sings songs but it's mainly bellowing. He then compared the rest of the show which was great because everyone was glad to see him again.

I will soon post a picture of Dr Beard, or maybe of Dr Dad, his father (played this year by me).

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011 Part Two

Simon Munnery's Show, well, I was really drunk,and that just made it all the more magical. Especially the bubble hat. My favourite part- apart from the video of the Gillette eight bladed razor advert set in the 1940s- was the Sherlock Holmes monologue. Ace.
The Carroll Myth at Sweet on the Grassmarket was recommended to me by pals DBS. Great script, it was really well acted and staged -and the costumes were lovely. I liked all the instantly recognisable bits of Alice but also liked the not so recognisable bits. The Cheshire cat was cleverly done, played by three actresses in identicle cat suits just appearing in different parts of the room- including on the audience's lap!
Richard Herring, I see him every year, I saw him three times this year, and who knows maybe I'll see him again on Sunday or Monday! I went to recordings of his Edinburgh Podcast which are really great, two different comics on every day, one for chatting with and the other to do a five minute bit to promote their show. I saw Al Murray and he was great because he wasn't the one doing the five minute bit, he wasn't the pub landlord who Murray descibed jovially as "just a fucking idiot!" he was an Oxford boy talking to another Oxford boy and giggling. So much fun.
And of course I also saw Rich's excellent show, What Is Love, Anyway? Calum and I went and though Rich spends the entire hour just shouting it is very very good and he even managed to shout some quite sensitive stuff that sort of proves that Love is definitely something.
Faust/Us the one-man show of Doctor Faustus is so fucking terrifying and clever and exhausting and innovative I don't know how to review it! The show relies completely on Calum breathing in exactly the same places each night, the one hour projection of film, animation, puppetry and sound rolls while the actor acts around it playing all the characters convincingly with as little as a simple change of stance!
I think it's really brilliant that Calum has managed to use that animation degree even if it's just knowledge of how things work on screen. The film alone would be an amazing show but it's great that it's been useful for what he is actually going to do for the rest of his life, perform.
Fordie! I went to see Matt Forde's show Dishonourable Member and I fucking loved it. Though Matt must have sweat an entire ocean I still found myself a bit in love with him. That's what politics will do to a girl. Oh, is it just me? Just me who found Fordie's sports style commentary to an imaginary Labour Party win extremely emotional? Just me and Fordie who feel as strongly about Oasis as they do about the Labour Party? Yes. Fordie's show was for me, that's why I went on my own, the boy himself says that his opinions usually split the room, my opinions do too, that's why I came on my own, and it was brill. Bonus for the Alan Partridge sex jokes, we've all been there, mate.
Jon Richardson's written a book called It's Not Me, it's You. He's in Edinburgh doing some readings, no show this year, a book instead! I look forward to reading it all and agreeing with it all. Vis Fordie and the Labour Party, Jon Richardson and me are OCD buddies. Fuck, when it comes to cleaning and organising, I am up there with the mentalists. I get angry when I'm eating dinner because the plate I'm eating off is dirty- this sounds normal, of course you would be, that's disgusting! No. I mean that I have to clean everything I've used to cook with before I can eat the meal I've made and it bothers me that because the dinner is on the plate that plate now needs to be cleaned but I can't do it until after I've eaten it despite the fact I just DID all the washing up.
Yeah... Not even Jon would be that crazy.
Anyway, I hope he's ok, in the future I mean. I know I will be, because though I'm crazy, I enjoy washing up and cleaning up, and whoever I end up with will have to deal with the fact that I want to do those things- not to make their lives easier, but so I know it's done properly.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011 part one

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