Louisa Parry » media

Films we’ve enjoyed recently

louisa — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:38:14 +0000

Everything’s Gone Green
I used to love Douglas Coupland’s books, lu-huh-va-hah. I’ve passed the house’s “#1 Coupland fan” badge to John now but I still like some of his stuff, particularly his earlier books. He wrote the screenplay for Everything’s Gone Green and there are quite a number of Coup’ moments in the film – ones that just evoke the feeling of the books and things that seem to be directly borrowed from them.

Like in most of his (particularly later) books, the story of Everything’s Gone Green isn’t the best feature (it’s rather cliche in fact – nice boy gets seduced by the dark side but gives up the evil power for a girl) but the telling is great. Humorous scripting, fun characters and random asides that work well.

The photographs and colour tone of the film, along with the indie soundtrack, also help to create a wonderful texture – and we really, really want to go to Vancouver now.

The Big Bad Swim
A random choice but one that paid off. An offbeat – I’m hesitant to call it a comedy but for want of a better word – comedy about a group of people learning to swim and their depressed swimming instructor. No one shoots anyone, nothing explodes and no one uses semen for hair gel – just a well observed piece with interesting characters and a tiny little dog called Danger (Carla’s new nickname).

The scenes between Paget Brewster and Jess Weixler were superb – the scene where they’re drinking wine in a living room felt so natural and the chemistry between them was amazing. I also liked Paget’s character Amy’s relationship with the “astronaut” – I liked how he was good looking but in a normal, non-Hollywood way.

The film wasn’t perfect – I felt the background swimmers weren’t drawn out enough for us to become involved with them but the bits of their stories that we did see interfered with the telling of the rest – but all in all, it was enjoyable.

Stranger than Fiction
Awful title. AWFUL. And starring Will Ferrell. But I’d heard things about it – although I couldn’t remember what they were – and the story sounded fun so we gave it a try.

…And it was surprisingly good. Beautiful graphics at the start and I thought the character played by Maggie Gyllenhaal (who I increasingly admire the more I see and hear about her) was great – an intelligent, creative and driven woman, trying to change the world one cookie at a time. I also thought Emma Thompson did a great job – it’s ages since I’ve seen her in anything and I want to dig out her other (non-period) stuff now. Will Ferrell did a good job too but at the end of the day, it was still Will Ferrell – and Dustin Hoffman seemed rather I Heart Huckabees.

Elements of the film – such as the obsession with numbers and the observations of minutae – reminded us of a book called Mr Phillips by John Lanchester, which I found a few years ago and got John to read recently. We enjoyed the book so didn’t have a problem with the similarities but I guess John Lanchester might feel otherwise… :)

Filters I’d like to see added into GIMP

louisa — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:23:16 +0000

I use GIMP every day. For those that don’t know, GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program – ie, the free software equivalent of Photoshop. I’m probably not supposed to call it that but meh.

I mostly use it for pretty basic things like cropping/resizing, sharpening and adjusting the colour levels on photos for use on the various websites I run. For doing that sort of thing, GIMP is pretty fantastic.

But work on pictures for Fametastic in particular has made me realise that as extensive as its filters are, it would be a lot more useful to me if the programmers added some additional features.

De-smugify: this would be particularly useful for editing pictures of Ben Affleck and Jude Law. I think it’s physically impossible for them to be photographed without looking utterly, utterly smug and up themselves. This maybe just because that’s how they are but I don’t want them to exude their pomposity all over our website if it can at all be helped.

Pout Removal: for use on, specifically but not exclusively, Victoria Beckham, who seems physically unable to smile. Perhaps she knows that thing about frowning using more muscles than smiling and assumes therefore that frowning will use more calories, thus helping maintain her stupidly stick thin physique. Or maybe she’s scared for the future: smiling = smile lines = perceived need for botox = botox injections = higher centre of gravity = falling over in public = alcohol/drug addiction rumours = rehab = 30 days out of the paparazzi’s sight = nooooooooooo!
You’re not really hard you know Script-Fu: this script would be an extension of the Pout Removal filter for use on rappers-turned-music-producers/execs (such as Sean Combs or Timbaland). Despite being multi-millionaires and living obsessively pampered lives, they still feel the need to try to look stupidly tough on every photo. Because genuinely tough people wear tuxedos and pose on red carpets.
Auto colour levels adjuster for Oompa-Loompa to Human skin tone: “No no, Ms Jessica Simpson/Ms Tyra Banks/Mr Peter Andre/Ms Christina Aguilera/Ms $Soccer_WAG, of course that amount of fake tan isn’t too much. Here have some more. More. More! MORE!”, say tanning shop owners everywhere when they’re not busy coming up with puns for their shop names (my favourite pun around Leeds: Tanzinere on Potternewton Lane – genius, utter genius).
Auto colour levels adjuster for Three-weeks-dead to Actually-still-alive skin tone: Pete Doherty, Marc Anthony, here’s looking at you, you creatures of the undead. Get thee to Tanzinere, immediately!
New haircut/nose/boobs-ise: a celebrity gets a radically new haircut or cosmetic surgery and all old photos of them are instantly out of date. The aforementioned Ms Beckham and various socialite starlets like Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie are particularly prone to needing this filter.
Clearasil: this one is admittedly for use on photos on me rather than them. It took me ages to de-pimple my arse with the clone tool last year.
Instawrinkles: Nicole Kidman & Steve Martin (amongst others): BOTOX IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. It does not make you look younger, it makes you look scarier. On Nicole particularly – and even more so when she has her hair pulled/blown back, it makes it looks like her facial features are having a race to the centre of her giant bobble head.
Wonky-eye-fixer/creator: the former for use when Paris Hilton’s eye does its drunken lazy thing. The latter for use on Paris Hilton for comedy effect.

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Six people arrested then released

louisa — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 13:08:24 +0000

“Police hunt three over PC killing”

“Five men, all Somali, and a woman were arrested in London over the weekend and brought to police stations in West Yorkshire but have all now been released.”

The men have been released so why does it matter that they’re Somali? Could it be that emphasising their nationality/race allows people to kick up the illegal immigrant debate again (even though they’re not necessarily illegal or immigrants)?

And also, why should their gender matter? In every report about the group I’ve read, they’ve consistently made a note of the fact that one of the group was a woman. Why does it matter? It just helps maintain the idea that only men kill people and that’s just dangerous. People kill people. Six people were arrested and now released. That’s all that’s required.

This report is just an example: the BBC are far from alone in their reporting in this way. I also don’t think it’s deliberate on behalf of the journalists (or the sub-editors and editors to let it through): it’s just used so often, without thinking, that people stop thinking. It’s inherent. People only state to someone’s race or religion when it is different from their own and because the vast majority of institutions in this country are white- and Christian-(or pseudo-Christian)-led, we hear about “black suspects” and “Islamic terrorists” but not so much about white ones (they’re just “suspects”) or refer to Christian fundamentalists for those fighting from Protestant/Catholic positions. The constant repetition means skin colour and non-JudeoChristian religions get tied to negative words or acts in our minds and that helps us form a bigger, negative, view of our world. Either everyone’s race and religion should be stated or, preferably in my opinion, no-ones – because most of the time it has no bearing on the case and doesn’t really matter.

But it’s ok, because Tony’s said that any suggestion that people in this country are oppressed because of their religion is “rubbish” and we’re “at least as good” as the rest of Europe on promoting equality. Yay for Europe!