Rome sweet Rome...

...How I miss thee! It's been over two years since I went to Italy and boy do I miss it. I miss the nice people ( in London everyone's so rude), I miss the beautifull weather, the amazing architecture, the Ice cream and the fact that everyone was as nutty about football but most of all I miss the history, everything seemed to have it's own little story.

Italians always seemed to be more relaxed and they took pride in their appearance, and it showed. My first trip to Italy was amazing, but it was also a learning experience! My clothes were all miss matched and not suitable for theJuly heat, I nearly got heat stroke, lets face it, living in the UK your whole life, you're not used to that type of heat! So on my following trips I learnt to always make sure I carried atleast two water bottles and not too wear my fancy jeans in the middle of July! But Igot to say, my dress sense has improved dramaticaly, those Italian do have style!!!

Italian football going downhill?

The World Cup 2006 seems like a distant memory, it is hard to believe that the same team that were defeated by Egypt and humiliated by Brazil (again!) actually won the biggest honour; The World Cup. When everyone doubted their honesty and ability, they did it! The feeling I felt when Grosso fired home the winning penalty was pure ecstasy, I was on cloud 9! But even that victory was tainted by “the head-butt” and what exactly Materrazzi said to provoke such a response. Again there were whispers that Italy had cheated by getting the legendary captain sent off, but no one forced Zidane to act the way he did in the final of a World Cup, he did it to himself.

Now it would have been a slap in the face to every critic, if Italy had won the European Cup, the same way France had done in 2000. But that was not the case, they were slow to start in every game and were out of the competition by the ¼ finals against a more awake and more energetic Spain, truth be told I was surprised they made it that far.

They could have still clung on to some pride if they had played in the Confederations Cup. I know they were physically there but I think in their hearts and feet they didn’t feel a need to attend, like the commentator said” they’re probably thinking they should be on their summer vacations”. I can kind of sympathise with the Italian team, to be working hard all year and then having their summer holidays cut short because they had to take part in this meaningless competition, which I think only tires the players even more just in time for the new season.

Having read that Lippi had no regards for the competition and believed that anyone who won The Confederations Cup would go on to lose the World Cup was very disturbing, now let’s be serious, is he seriously doubting that Brazil can win both?!
He is the coach, the person with the most influence, and if he wasn’t taking it seriously then I don’t expect the team to.

I have always believed that every team goes through what the call in the financial sector, booms and recessions, I just didn’t believe the recession to come this fast and hard.

Why I support Juventus

Why I support Juventus

Having grown up in a house that regards football as an interest that only boys were allowed, it was hard for me, a 25 year old girl to “break the convention”. I didn’t grow up playing with dolls, they were kind of forced on me, I grew up wanting remote control cars, action figures and playing army games, yet I was forced to wear pink and be more like the other girls, yet I never would fit in with them. Having one brother and one sister it would be tough to predict who I would latch onto. But as fate would have it I leaned towards my brother, he always encouraged me to do what I wanted to do and to go with my bliss instead of what others expected of me. So he is to thank for helping me break conventions and become what I wanted to be and that has resulted in me becoming a devoted Bianconeri supporter.

Being British one would wonder why I didn’t support a Premiership team. To begin with I had started to lean towards a British team, but what I had noticed was that many of the Premiership teams were full of foreign talent and that the actual English team hadn’t existed. And when they would come together at international level, they weren’t very good.

Now you may be thinking, out of all the other countries why did I choose Italy? There is no one answer to explain that but I’ll attempt to shed some light on the topic. First of all, the county is just beautiful, I mean, Rome is just like walking in a museum, all the historical artefacts and not to mention The Colosseum and The Trevi!. Second of all the fans, they may get a little too excited but they are so passionate about their team that it becomes infectious and you can’t help but get swept up in all the different emotions.

Now this should explain why I chose Italy but not why I chose Juventus. It all started at school, and a girl would come into class each morning with a football magazine (football Italia) and talk about her favourite players and the team she supported was Juventus. Now this intrigued me and I started to follow football with a more critical eye. Now it wasn’t until the final years of school when I began to support Juventus. Juventus had players like Zidane, Inzaghi, Del Piero and of course the most important player which in my opinion is not given enough credit, the goalkeeper, Perruzzi.

In my eyes Juventus was and still is a force of nature. They are hardworking, full of talented players and have this never say die attitude, which in my opinion, is what makes a team great. Now they may have let go of the great players of the past but they have replaced them with equally talented players like; Gigi Buffon, Sebastian Giovinco, Claudio Marchisio and Pavel Nedved. And even though the latter has now left after providing the supporters with eight years of brilliant football, he will be missed and deserves a place in the history of Juventus as one of the greats. Even when it all seemed to be going wrong, Juventus persevered and did their time in Serie B and now are ready to prove to the world again, why they deserve to rule Serie A.
For more information about the greatest team go to; http://www.juventus.com/

Gran Torino/ Watchmen

Gran Torino, this was a movie with a big heart and really very thought provoking at times. Clint Eastwood’s performance as the racist and grumpy old man made you laugh and feel for him. He was a man without a war to fight and obviously he was bored. He was still at war.. but this time with himself, about all the horrible things he had to do in war and drifting further and further away from his family.

At the beginning of the film you had the funeral of Walt’s wife, while his neighbours were celebrating the birth of a child, it was a beautiful beginning as it depicts life and when one person dies another life begins, and how life is circular and never ending.

Near the middle of the film you could see him forming a new family with people he considered as the enemy. It was nice to see him warming up to his neighbours and taking an interest in their work and who they hung around with, he was closer to these ‘strangers’ than his own family and that really shot to my centre in the end he cared so much, that he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for them. I got to be honest, the ending had me all chocked up, especially his reaction to what happened to Sue, she was like a kindred spirit . It was really moving. In my humble opinion this film had it all, it has humour, Drama, Action and most importantly a soul. The overall theme of the film was, redemption and forgiveness, him forgiving the boy and forgiving himself for what he had done. The only criticism I got for this film is, some of Clint’s dialogue was hard to understand at first because of his deep almost animal like voice.



Watchmen
I’m sure Alan Moore is impressed with this adaptation. He should be because it was like seeing the graphic novel unfold in front of your eyes. I personally have not read the novel but I have a brother who has told me everything about it trying to convert me! When he first told me about The Comedian I didn’t believe him so I read the bit where he shot the pregnant lady, and watching the scene in the film was like reading the bit in the novel, word for word!
Zack Snyder should be extremely proud of what he has created, he has also pushed the limits to how dark a “comic book” adaptation can go, and believe me the audience are ready and have been for a while since Batman Begins and Bale’s interpretation of Bruce Wayne/ Batman. It was not too gory as the style of the filmmaking made it seem slightly exaggerated so you didn’t feel too disturbed.
My utmost favourite character has to be Rorschach, he’s just so uncompromising and in his world everything is so black and white. He is Batman to the utmost extreme. But he also has whit and humour, especially the scene in prison with the psychiatrist when he says with a straight face that he hates him. Also another praiseworthy bit of filmmaking genius was the way in which the explained how he became Rorschach, with the flash backs and cut scenes which in my humble opinion was sublime, some people might get confused but a person with more than half a brain would be able to follow it.
Ozymandias was an interesting character, I especially enjoyed the bit at the end, and how he is so smart that he knew how to catch the bullet! Also his love of the Egyptian empire was an interesting choice, because the Egyptians did consider themselves to be enlightened and they were on the forefront on many major discoveries. His idea about causing this threat to ultimately bring peace was one that I had heard before… Do you think that’s where Heroes got their idea for the first season?
But ultimately Rorschach won, because his journal is out there and ultimately the truth will be known. But obviously he couldn’t live with himself, knowing what he did, and that is why he died. A completely uncompromising character and I shed a tear for him.
To end my review of Watchmen, Zach Snyder has pushed the envelope and has shouted out to the world that the “comic book” is not just for kids or geeks, but it can be serious and highly thought provoking. He has also made me appreciate my brother’s love for graphic novels and has even converted me! I hope that studios begin to realise that the audience can handle darkness and doesn’t need the ending to be tied off with a pretty bow! The only criticism that I had was about the extended sex scenes that just cheapens it, a film that is meant for adults doesn’t need that, a film like this is more about the story, the back stories and characters and I understand that that is a part of the character but you have to admit, it was a bit much.

Terminator Salvation

Review of Terminator Salvation.
When I first heard that they were making a fourth Terminator, alarm bells went off, after the huge disappointment of T3. I didn't have high hopes for it!
Hearing that Christian Bale was going to play John Conner peaked my interest, he is an actor who immerses himself in the roles he does, although I was initially concerned with what this may do to his career, the memories of T3 and the fact that the director’s name was McG wasn’t encouraging, but I was pleasantly surprised.

This movie is what fans have been teased with in the first two movies. It is the story about the war, the smart thing about it is that they didn’t go too much into the future, so we don’t see lot of lazar guns but we see normal guns that fire bullets and the fact that sky net is also not very advanced yet, gives the story more room to develop the plot and show the audience how they got so advanced.

John Conner who we had all seen in the first two movies as this great leader is just a soldier in this, which was a smart move, this also injects some realism into the film because in any organisation you would have to start at the bottom and work your way up.
Everyone who had seen the first two movies would think that it would be safe to assume that John Conner was the main character, but they would be wrong, as the lead is Marcus Wright played by Sam Worthington. Marcus Wright who was a death row inmate and now is a cyborg who is seeking redemption above all else shows the conflicting nature of his character and begs the question what is it really that makes us human?.

His character does not know he is part machine until he is brought into HQ with Blair Williams, played by Moon Bloodgood. This idea of “sleeper” agents is not entirely new, and many Sci- Fi fans would recognise it from the popular TV show Battlestar Galactica. In this show they have the same dilemma about; what is it that makes us human? And of course the whole man V machine thing.

Also the very interesting and scary bit of the film was, how Sky Net now knows how important Kyle Reese is. This shows how much the future has changed because of the other Terminators being sent through time. This also links this film to the first two, something T3 was seriously lacking.

I did however miss the original music by Brad Fiedel, which was a shame; it did have some snippets but not enough to give me the sense of fate that the original brought. Every fan of the original Terminators would also appreciate the subtle references to the original like;1) the infamous words of “ come with me if you want to live” and “ I’ll be back”
2) The Guns and Roses song, “ you will be mine”
4) The Arnie Terminator at the end
5) Marcus teaching Kyle how to prevent his gun from being taken off him by tying string around it and finally the scars that John has at the beginning of T2 are explained.

To round up, this film ticks all the boxes, it has romance, action, an intelligent storyline and a moral centre, the only thing it’s lacking is accessibility, to people who didn’t grow up with Terminator may get confused by the timeline or the importance of this kid called Kyle Reese. But overall it was an excellent film and brilliantly acted but it may be too cerebral for some.!



The Day the Earth Stood Still, again a remake, is Hollywood running out of ideas or something? What can I say.. this was the perfect role for Keanu Reeves! As the director put it ‘he’s a very peculiar actor’. The effects were great, and just the right amount to tell the story unlike the new star wars movies (e.g Attack of the Clones) The bit that did make me laugh was his miracle goop in a jar that apparently would heal any wound, that is very useful! But the underlying theme is so relevant to the world today. Which is to take care of the planet, the funny thing is they were saying this in the seventies and they’re saying it now, but will we ever learn from our mistakes?

Mirrors, not a fantastic film and they thought they could overcompensate by having ridicules and over the top death scenes and a rather bizarre storyline. I am aware that it is a re make so the storyline being odd is not entirely their fault but the acting and effects didn’t help their case! The only reason I watched it was out of curiosity. And like the saying goes; curiosity killed the cat! It certainly made me regret wasting £10 to watch it, truth be told the only reason I did watch it, is to see Jack Bauer!! And it wasn’t long before that side of him came out. Don’t get me wrong, it did have moments that would make you jump but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with more than half a brain!

The poop that is Twilight!

I got to say that watching this was probably the biggest mistake in my life to date.
The acting was just poor, and Bella was such a weak charactor, I would have offed her myself, she makes girls look so weak and pathetic, I mean she goes all ga ga over Edmund, who, lets be honest is not that good looking!! And she wants to become a vampire for him?! has she forgotten about Mum and Dad! I mean how selfish can you get.
The chemistry between them was not convincing, this film was being hailed as Romeo & Juliet but with vampires, now lets be honest this didn't even come close to the love story between Buffy& Angel!!!
This had a poor storyline followed by abismal acting and don't get me started on the action scenes, it felt more like a looney toons cartoon, I was half expecting Taz to appear!!