Top 5 Songs Which Will Remind Me of Uni

I decided to go with more reminiscing about university for this Top 5 so here's the music will always be attributed to Surrey for me...


5. The Used - Pretty Handsome Awkward
It was a few months into my first year when I went to a No Wave night and a girl I'd never met played this song. I was in a strange place and had been drifting through uni without making any real connections to anyone, but that changed as I met the girl playing this song. Eventually I got to know her and realised that she was almost as awesome as I'd hoped she would be in those first moments but the feeling that this song reminds me of is being dwarfed by the sheer ability of some people to make me feel so young.

As I first spoke to her I felt an oddly comforting version of inferiority. It was as if anything I'd done in the past could be written off as the history of a teenage boy and now an adulthood could start to occur with this new person. Of course, in time you always discover that an adulthood contains many of the same mistakes you made in your teenage years, but this song will always remind me of that vague sense of hope that comes with the first year of university and an opportunity to start everything all over again.


4. Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog - A Man's Gotta Do
One of the things I love about friendship groups is when everybody gets into something together. It can be music, films, TV or just things like in jokes and traditions. I know some people on the outside see these things as annoyances and ways to stop new people from joining in with established groups, but I don't see it like that. I think that if the people of a friendship group are letting you see their in jokes, its because they are OK with you being in on them, and you just have to take the time to get to know them all.

Anyway, there was a time in second year when it seemed like every single member of Game Soc got obsessed with Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It was a great time as people would randomly break out into the songs and random quotes could make people laugh. That's what I really like about those kind of in jokes, they reduce the requirement's to create happiness down to just a few words. I could have taken any song from the musical, but I choose this one because it was also my favourite song to come on shuffle at the gym as hearing Nathan Fillion singing like that is great motivation.

A final point on this one is that Gareth makes one hell of a bad-ass Dr. Horrible.

Gareth as Dr. Horrible, thanks to Karl Lindgren.

 

3. Throwdown - Baby Got Back
Most of my memories with this song involve me being incredibly drunk. From No Wave nights to Conspiracy to parties, this song has been sung everywhere in Guildford. However, my favourite memory of it comes from the second year lake party. I was pretty drunk by this point (as anyone who saw me that night can attest to) but I do remember holding Brian in total pride to my friends from home who had turned up while he sang every word of the song. It was an odd way for a feeling to form, but now this song makes me think of how well my friends from uni mix with my friends from home and how happy that makes me.



2. Mark Aaron James - Kleptomaniac Girlfriend
There aren't many of Mark Aaron James' songs that won't remind me of uni. He played at house parties in two separate years and both nights were brilliant. This song itself will remind me of the parties we threw in Milhouse as getting a room full of people to sing along with the chorus was an awesome moment. Mark is such a nice guy as well as being the most impressive writer of lyrics I've ever heard. Having him around Guildford really added something to the atmosphere.

Some of the crowd of people in Milhouse watching Mark Aaron James.

1. Say Anything - Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too
Once again, this could've been an obvious ending to the Top 5 for some people. At some point early on in final year I got pretty obsessed with the music of Say Anything. Something about the openness and honesty of their lyrics combined with Max Bemis' unique view of the world spoke to me and I couldn't help but over analyse every single song. There isn't much to analyse in this example, just pure hilarity. The song kept coming up throughout the year, from quoting it at random times, to playing it for the enjoyment of house mates as well as a "fuck you" to pretentious metal head douche bags at No Wave and singing it into a mike as an odd choice as a favourite song during a recorded interview type thing. This song will go down as a reminder of the amount of fun that was had in my final year of university thanks to the people who surrounded me.



My next post will be a second of My Favourite Post Secret of the Week providing there is one, or Some Random Thing I Think Of if there isn't


Oh yes, honourably mentions for the lines "It's just one of those days..." and "Say, EAT MY GOAL!"

Top 5 Comic Book Films

With Captain America being released today, I thought it was a good time to write up one of my favourite top fives. It was the first of the X-Men films that really brought me into the world of being a true geek and since then there have been countless great examples of films about costumed heroes, as well as some terrible ones like Catwoman, Elektra and Scott Pilgrim (kidding). I love a lot of comic book films, but the following are my five favourites.


Number 5 - X2
I don't believe there's ever been a film made of Marvel characters that achieved its potential. That said, X2 came the closest. Starting with a wonderful use of Nightcrawler and progressing through a wide cast of brilliant heroes and villains. Putting Magneto on the good side was a gutsy move for a film marketed to a mainstream audience. Also, watching Wolverine go feral to defend the school was a lot of fun.

While X-Men 3: The Last Stand brutally slammed the symbolism of mutants as any marginalised group in society into viewers faces with no attempt at subtlety, the preceding film managed to delicately hint at it. The clearest sight of this is Iceman's scene in which he tells his parents he is a mutant. Everything about the film is great but what puts it behind all of the others on this list is that it just doesn't come together as well. The end product just isn't as much fun or as interesting, but still, it's the best Marvel have got (for now).


Number 4 - Kick-Ass
Two things set this film apart from the rest of the list. The first is that nothing within it is impossible or particularly unrealistic. The second is that it came from humble beginnings. Every other film here had the benefit of using some of the best examples of comic books created, but Kick-Ass came from a comic that offered it little to stand on. Every single change that the film team made only improved the story and the characters and that's something you really have to respect.

The lack of any fantasy elements as well as the violence and an offensive little girl gained the film some harsh criticism (albeit from the same people who give harsh criticisms to gay marriages and immigrants) but these things are what give the film its edge. With a separation from the super powers and escapism found in most comic book films came a realism that led to my love of this story that shows just what people could be capable of given enough money or boredom. Beyond that what completed this film was a soundtrack that would be unbeatable, if it weren't for the next three films.


Number 3 - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
From the lowest of starting points to one of the highest. The Scott Pilgrim comics are one of the funniest creations known to man and the film almost managed to live up to them in every way. Sure, some characters lost depth in the cutting process, but there is only so much you can put in one film, and Kim still manages to be completely brilliant even without 75% of her dialogue. What makes this film great really is the characters, from the evil ex's to Scott's friends and real life enemies (well them and every single beautiful geek reference provided by director Edgar Wright).

Scott Pilgrim's view on the world gives the struggle to get what you want an entertaining twist as the action, the music and the comedy creates a world that's only just outside of our own. In the end, the film is still a love story, and its nice to believe that even someone as immature as Scott can find happiness by beating up enough douche bags.


Number 2 - Watchmen
Terry Gilliam is one of the greatest directors to ever create a film, but even he once deemed the Watchmen graphic novel (and this is one of few comics that deserves that term) "unfilmable". Thank God, then, Zack Snyder decided to disregard those words and film it with epic results. With the complete version coming in at over three and a half hours long, there is so much achieved within the film. Never have politics and personal issues of sanity and inferiority been displayed in such detail in a film about costumed heroes.

Even with the huge run time, some of the finer details are lost from the comic, but all the important things are there as every single character is shown in such depth. If you want to see heroes being heroic, watch Iron Man, but if you want to watch the idea of being a hero used as a backdrop to preview some of the most interesting mind states in literature, then watch this. However, what gives this film its place on the list, and almost won it the title, is that the action is still incredible. The direction and soundtrack lend itself so well to what is happening that the characters do seem heroic, despite all of their flaws. Oh, and one final point, the film ending is better than the comic book ending (no matter what the snobbiest of geeks would have you hear).


Number 1 - The Dark Knight
It isn't often that the world's best director pulls in a selection of the finest actors of multiple generations to play parts they seemed to be born for, set to a beautiful soundtrack with some of the most interesting source material ever provided, but it all happened here. Christopher Nolan toppled an entire genre when he used Batman's two greatest enemies to show more of the hero than had ever been seen. A tale of just how much people will sacrifice for what they believe in, we were shown what it takes to be a true hero, and just how hard it can be to do the right thing.

So much has been said about Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker that I won't hang on it, but its clear to see that few roles have ever been dedicated to in the same way. Beyond this is an entire cast giving performances that made me engage more with this film than any other comic book film in history. I'm a Marvel nerd at heart and I always have been, so when I watched this film I really didn't want it to beat X2, but in the end there can barely be a comparison. One is a glossy show of superpowers that's greatest triumph is the display of a metaphor, while the other is a journey into how much it would take to commit to something you believed in while still hanging on to your own ideology.


Of course, there's a chance that Captain America or, more likely, The Avengers could take a place on this list. That's the great thing about comic book films now, there's so many of them that some are bound to be great. And have a look at this...

So that's it, some more random crap that I decided. Thank you for reading. The next blog goes back to me missing Guildford and will be the Top 5 Songs That Will Remind Me of Uni.

In Defence of the Genre: Top 5 Romantic Comedy Films

A film came out the other day that will be all but forgotten about within a month. There will be few people over the coming years who say "ah yeah, Friends with Benefits was the best film since Fight Club" but that doesn't mean it won't be good. As with most romantic comedies the aim will be to make everything look pretty, to have some laughs and to leave you feeling happy about life and the possibility of finding someone. Friends with Benefits won't do anything new and I doubt it will even take a place on the following list, but I'm pretty excited about seeing Justin Timerblake and Mila Kunis star in what should be a very enjoyable film.


Number 5 - 10 Things I Hate About You
Strip away my geek credentials and label me a teenage girl if you will, but this is a damn good film. While technically being a modernisation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, the film had a large enough tongue in its cheek to get away with its flaws and lack of originality. It contained some of the finest young actors of a generation including Heath Ledger before the darkness and tragedy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt before the suits. 10 Things I Hate About You may not have been big or clever, it may signify the lack of ambition of the genre but it's just so much fun.



Number 4 - Definitely, Maybe
Before I say anything else, there's one thing that needs to be taken care of and that is that Ryan Reynolds is the new king of romantic comedy acting. He has an uncanny ability to play any role and make you wish you could be that person (although this feeling could be exclusive to me). In this example he plays a single father who is pretty disheartened with his job and yet still you can't hope to ever be as cool as he is. It helps that his daughter is played by Abigail Breslin and is as awesome as any parent could want their offspring to become.

What separates this from other rom-coms is that the conclusion isn't completely obvious until near the end of the film and there's even some light politics thrown in as a backing for all the romance. Overall, Definitely, Maybe manages to show half of what Reynolds does best (he is funny and compelling but doesn't take his shirt off and kill/insult anyone) and also shows off a great young actress while being unpredictable and loveable all the way along, which is far more than you could normally ask for in a film of its type.


Number 3 - Chasing Amy
Hand me back those geek credentials please because Kevin Smith is here. The film he created is one that is truly unique within this genre as it tells a genuinely heart-warming tale without collapsing in with clichés. Centred around a comic book artist, the lesbian he has fallen in love with, and his confused best friend, the story manages to find the feelings we all experience in our love lives despite its peculiar setting.

Smith has always been a director that gets the best out of his casts, and this is a shining of example of that fact as Ben Affleck gives the performance of his career. Even if the witty dialogue and wonderful on screen chemistries don't do it for you, Chasing Amy should be loved for building on a genre that so often settles for reusing old story lines and, mainly, for showing us that all problems, no matter how personal, can be solved with the use of a threesome.



Number 2 - (500) Days of Summer
This film has an awful lot going for it, the soundtrack is pretty much perfect, the direction is inspired and the story has a level of originality. However, what really makes it special is how realistic it all is, the depth of it's characters and the abilities of the actors who make them so excruciatingly believable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel portray characters that are so beautifully well developed and flawed that nothing that happens within the film seems unreal. Somewhere between the writing, the direction and the acting has been found the truest form of what relationships are like.

The heights this film reaches are so rarely found in any films, let alone those in such a restricting genre, that certain scenes have been burnt into my memory. The two that really show just how good the film is are Gordon-Levitt's celebration of sleeping with Deschanel for the first time, which gorgeously mimics the narcissism and gratuitous arrogance that exists in all men (but rarely gets admitted too), and the expectations against reality scene, which is harrowing in its realism.

If (500) Days of Summer does have two flaws they are clear. The first would be the final line (please, someone find whoever wrote that line and do whatever you can to make sure they have no place in great films any more) and just how familiar the whole thing is (I'm currently taking a break from watching it again in an attempt to maintain a level of mental stability).



Number 1 - High Fidelity
High Fidelity is one of those films that contains the greatest parts of each of the last four mentioned on the list, adds in my favourite book ever written as source material, and creates something completely wonderful. It takes a heart-warming ending, the original God of romantic comedies as a star, deep characterisation, an unbeatable soundtrack and the fiercest understanding of the male psyche that has ever been displayed. John Cusack's Rob Gordon may not be the nicest person in the world, but he displays so much of what every man sees in himself that we can't help but love him.

While High Fidelity may offer more in the way of a textbook into how men think than anything else for female viewers and could de accused of losing something in wrapping up the end in such a happy way, the journey that we are taking through with the narration is a work of art. Never have I seen such an honest portrayal of all the horrible, selfish, arrogant things men think of when we are in our own heads, but the fact that through all of his faults, you still want everything to work out for Gordon shows just how good Nick Hornby is at creating well rounded characters. Beyond that, the happy ending is a testament and a reminder to all of us that if we ever decide to grow up, a re-establishment of the perfect status quo is possible, and happiness can be found despite our flaws (or maybe I've just spent a bit too much time around pop culture).


The next blog will be in a similar fashion as Captain America is being released on Friday and I will be in fan boy heaven so will write my Top 5 Comic Book Films list.

My Favourite Post Secret of the Week

Most of the people reading this blog already know what Post Secret is but, just in case you don't, it is a website that shows postcards people have sent in with their secrets on. At worst it can be pretentious, self-involved and passive aggressive (kind of like blogging) but it can occasionally be thought provoking and inspiring.

This is my favourite Post Secret from this week's selection because it is something I expect to feel in fifteen to twenty years time.  

Stephen King wrote a great piece on all the dreams and ambitions you can have when you're young in the introduction to The Gunslinger. When considering how unrealistic these things are, he asked: "If you don't start out too big for your britches, how are you gonna fill 'em when you grow up?"


When you're young you set yourself goals and you give yourself ideals but as you get older the goals start to seem more unattainable and the ideals are lost to the struggles of the real world. It is my understanding that few lives go according to their original plans. More commonly people wake up one morning in their late thirties and realise "Wow, this is my life." When you do wake up that morning with the memories of the dreams you once had and the ideals that were bargained away, it is the person you wake up to and all the other people in your life who make the sacrifices worthwhile.

When you accept the fact you will never play for a professional sports team, never star in the film which defines your generation and occasionally vote for a political party who sit so far away from the left that the eighteen year old version of you would cry, it is the relationships you have with people that will get you through. Your friends, your partner, your children and your siblings will be the people to let you know, while you never set the world alight, you honestly improved their lives.

While part of me will always hang onto the dream of owning the last successful independent record store in London, I know it will probably never happen. What makes that knowledge bearable is an image I have. An image of sitting at a dinner table on a Saturday night after a stressful week with a drink in hand. I'll look around the table and see the wife I love, the friends I have had for decades and the children I am proud of. On that night I will think to myself "Fuck (because my vocabulary won't have improved). I made it, my life is awesome."

Stephen King is right, aim high when you're young, aim for the impossible. If you're mighty enough you might even make it happen but if not, the place you find yourself when you're lost will still be pretty incredible and the people who are there with you will be the people you love (as long as you're not a douche pirate).



My next blog will be called In Defence of the Genre: Top 5 Romantic Comedy Films to celebrate the release of Friends with Benefits, which looks pretty funny and just all round pretty.

Britain Wanted No Alternative To Whining

To start off, I'll admit this is an out dated blog. The issue closed months ago and it probably achieves nothing to write about it now, but the truth is I wasn't writing a blog when it happened and leaving it any later will only make it more out dated. Therefore, I suppose this is the best possible time for me to write it.


On the 5th of May 2011 the UK was given the opportunity to change their political system, and a resounding 70% of the voting populace (around 15% of the actual population) showed that they were happy a First Past The Post system rather than changing to Alternative Voting . Now, my views on this are easy to state, this was a mistake. The voting people of Britain were giving a once in a life time chance to change politics in their country, and they decided to stick with what they had, despite us being a country renowned for complaining about politics. I don't want this blog to sound overly preachy (although I know that it will) so I am going to give this some kind of structure. Luckily, I found that my structure has three parts that all start with the same letter. Stuff like that is cool, right? First up I will give a Reason for this blog, then a Reminder about something before ending with a Request.


Reason
There are a lot of reasons why I supported the campaign for AV, I could write about Arrow's Theorem of Voting or the terrible correlation between votes and power under FPTP, but the first is boring and the second is something that everybody already knows about. Instead I'll go with this, my main reason for supporting YES2AV was...

Over the past generations (I have no real idea when it started, I wasn't there) the people of Britain created a mind state for their political system. Somewhere along the line, most people gave up on the idea of voting for what they actually believed in or wanted for the country and started voting against whichever one of the two biggest parties they hated more.

There was a time when this made slightly more sense than it currently does. There was a time when Labour actually existed on the left side of politics and could've even been described as socialist (occasionally). However, things have changed. New Labour didn't just bring with it a massive budget deficit and deaths around the world but also a move to the right that landed themselves snugly next to views of the Conservatives. This means that Britain now has two centre-right parties that try to get votes by slagging off the other. Despite this, if people want to believe they aren't horrible, free-market, homophobes, they vote New Labour, and if people want to think they aren't communists, they vote Conservative.

This mind state will get us nowhere as both parties currently represent the same ideals and if you have a conversation with anyone, we all seem to hate those ideals. So my main reason for supporting AV was for the chance to change this. Under the Alternative Voting system people could happily vote for whatever crazy ideals they truly believed in, safe in the knowledge that if that party failed, they could vote for their least hated big boy second.

If the vote on the 5th of May had gone a different way, we could have finally seen what the people of this country actually want and what they actually believe in. But it didn't and we have cursed ourselves to generations of hanging on to outdated views of parties who used to have real values and voting to stop those dirty socialists (despite New Labour having next to no socialism in their politics) or nasty Tories (despite their most hated policies being forced by New Labour's greatest fuck ups) getting into power. Sure, there was a chance we would discover the majority of this country supports the BNP, but if that's what the country wants then give it to them. I would be out of here quicker than anyone else, but if the BNP are the party the British people want, then it is the one they deserve and I would happily leave them to turn even more sour in their own pathetic juices.


Reminder
Onto the second part of this blog, a reminder (which is a great song by The Perishers, if anyone cares). I'm not sure how many people know about this, but the NO2AV campaign was one run by propaganda and lies. The fact that the population of Britain fell for the stories they were throwing around is something that truly makes me question whether I can live in this country for the rest of my life.

First up, there is no evidence that an AV system would actually give the BNP more power, that was just something given out to get the nice people of middle Britain all outraged. However, the more important lies can be seen by the following picture.

The statistics the NO2AV side put out were incredibly full of holes, but the most true showing of this came on the 4th of May when David Blunkett came out and admitted the huge number you see at the top of that leaflet was entirely made up. The people who feared for their jobs under a new system got together and thought of a big number that would anger people into voting for their side and Britain fell for it because we still trust these people despite being shown time and time again that most current politicians will lie and deceive daily to get what they want.

So, this is the reminder. If you're ever in an argument with someone about anything to do with politics and they bring up something along the lines of New Labour or the Conservatives having too much power, people not standing up for what they believe in, or having no power in their votes, ask them which way they voted on the 5th of May, or if they even did vote. If their answer is they didn't vote, or they voted No, they have no right to be making those arguments and, more importantly than that, remind them that they sided with a group of people who used propaganda to hold Britain's progress back for their own interests.


Request
And here's my request, if there is anyone out there who voted No, or didn't vote at all, please tell me why. If you didn't vote, I understand it may have just been through bad planning or apathy, but if you voted No, please comment with your argument for why First Past The Post is a better system than Alternative Voting. I'm asking this because to date I haven't seen a single viable argument for FPTP and I think I'd be able to move on if someone could give me one. I feel like a dumped teenager who was never given a reason for why things had to end. I know AV isn't the perfect system, and I am a supporter of Proportional Representation, but if you are reading this and have a defence of FPTP, please state it. It could really help me get over this and, if nothing else, I'm sure my friends would thank you for that.


That's my preaching over for now, the next blog will be the My Favourite Post Secret of the Week.