Review of five perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 3

You know what this is about by now! I was missing the FeelUnique '5 samples for £3.95' deal (which in itself was a response to missing being able to test perfumes in department stores pre-Covid-19). So I bought a sample of 50 perfume samples for £23.50 off eBay. The only issue was that I didn't have any say in the perfumes, and alas, some of them weren't to my tastes (see previous reviews of the eBay pot luck, here and here).

Intrusion by Oscar de la Renta

Film review: A OR B [幕后玩家] (Pengyuan Ren, 2018)

A shady investment manager Zhong Xiaonian (Xu Zheng) wakes up one day to find that the safe where he kept records of his dodgy dealings, and a vital USB stick containing access to all his funds, has been ransacked. Even worse, there’s no way for him to exit his bedroom. He’s locked in, and every day at 9am, he must choose one undesired consequence (A), or another (B), or else both will happen.

This plot conceit, which has more than a passing resemblance to the Saw movies, is executed, for the most part, in a suitably compelling manner. In order to rise to his position at the top of the company, Zhong has screwed over many people and made some powerful enemies, and as he tries to plot his escape from the locked room, he’s also trying to ascertain the identity of the person who’s doing this to him.

Restaurant review: GILGAMESH (Camden)

Gilgamesh advertises itself as a pan-Asian restaurant, bar and nightclub. I visited it with my brother using a LivingSocial deal that I had bought for £34. The deal entitled us to afternoon tea and free-flowing Prosecco for two hours. I personally tend to find LivingSocial deals more honourable than Groupon ones, and the 'unlimited Prosecco for 2 hours' part of the deal appealed to me.

Restaurant review: CRYSTAL CHINA (Tower Bridge Road)

If you fancy Chinese dining a little different from the noodles/rice & meat dish combination, or dim sum options, Crystal China specialises in dry hotpots. This is when the customer chooses several individual items from the menu, and they are all fried together, so the flavours blend together into a delicious melange. 

Restaurant review: YAUATCHA (Liverpool Street)

Bar review: THE REDCHURCH BAR (Shoreditch)

The last time I had cocktails using a Groupon deal with my friend Rebecca was The Escapologist in Covent Garden, which, despite a customer who rudely pushed in in front of me, was a thoroughly enjoyably evening. Rebecca and I had had our boozy night back in September of 2016. Almost nine months later, here I was, taking advantage of another Groupon deal, again with the same babe.

However, the original plan had to been to visit The Redchurch Bar with a friend on May 20th. We arrived in Shoreditch at 4pm (where both the Groupon deal and Google say the bar is open from), but the doors weren’t open. We assumed the bar staff were just running a little late, so settled up shop in The Verge across the road, where, graciously, there was also a Happy Hour (review of The Verge coming soon).

We sat in The Verge until 7pm, occasionally popping over to see if it had opened yet. It never did, although at some points, a man (presumably the manager) was standing behind the locked door, furrowing his brows whilst on his phone. Eventually we gave up hope on our Redchurch cocktails, and went for dinner in Brick Lane. But that was really, really annoying. Of all the problems I’ve had with Groupon, up until then, I’d never experienced a place not actually being open.

So, of course, it was with trepidation that I approached the place with Rebecca some 10 days later. Amazingly, it was open! Admittedly, we got there a bit later, 8:30pm, but the lack of staff was telling immediately; it was a fairly spacious bar, yet I only spotted two couples in The Redchurch bar.

Something inconvenient that this place did with their deal which both The Escapologist and Adventure Bar eschewed (by allowing the deal-holder to open up a tab) was that we had to order all our cocktails at once. This wasn’t ideal because it meant some drinks lost some of their chill towards the end, and as we all know, if there’s anything I need more of, it’s chill.

Even more annoyingly, was the fact that they didn’t have ingredients for a bunch of the drinks. As I’ve stipulated in past reviews of Groupon cocktail deals, if I’ve shelled out £24 for six cocktails, I want to maximise my returns by ordering the most expensive drinks. There were several which were £11.50 here, and the one which caught my attention was the ‘Chinese Cosmopolitan’. I’m Chinese, and I love Sex and the City, so that drink sang to me straight away.

Even more worryingly, they didn’t have lychee to make that drink, and they also conspicuously lacked the ingredients for several of the other drinks which cost £11.50. To not have the ingredients for one cocktail is bad enough, but for the waitress to continually tell me I couldn't have what I desired because they didn't have the components? Poor af.

In the end, Rebecca and I were able to find three drinks apiece that we liked, and here they are:

Review of two concealers: MAC SELECT COVER UP SHADE 25 and BOBBI BROWN SHADE 6 BEIGE

I recently had to replenish my concealer supply, due to me using up the MAC tube pictured above, and me wishing to avoid looking like this chap below due to the bags under my eyes:

Restaurant review: MY OLD PLACE (Liverpool Street)

A few weeks ago, me and two of my friends had dinner at My Old Street, a Chinese restaurant that, judging from the online reviews offers great value food, with no frills when it comes to the service.

Film review: JOURNEY TO THE WEST 2: THE DEMONS STRIKE BACK [西遊伏妖篇] (Tsiu Hark, 2017)

When we first came to England, my family didn’t have that much money and so despite loving films, TV and all things multimedia from a young age, I didn’t actually own that many VHSes. One of the few videos I did possess were episodes of 西游记 [Journey to the West], taped off the TV.

An extremely popular Chinese children’s novel, it’s had many adaptations, from TV show to film to plays. Even though I recognise that, were I to watch said episodes now, I would pick up on its low production value, campy acting and all-too-convenient deus ex machinas at the end of almost every episode, I loved that show as a kid, and I still regard the concept of it with fondness.

For that reason, when I clocked that the Chinese cinema-friendly Odeon Panton Street were screening Journey to the West 2, I leapt at the chance to see it, despite not having known about Journey to the West 1’s existence. I knew the general construct pretty well (a Buddhist monk, accompanied by three disciples possessing magical powers, the most prominent being monkey Sun Wukong, carries out his life calling to capture demons), so figured I’d be able to follow the plot despite not having seen the first.

The Oscars and the Razzies for the BBFC, 2016

The Razzie shortlist was leaked and I see Cara Delevingne didn’t make the Worst Supporting actress shortlist, once again illustrating that the Razzies don’t deliver on their promise of honouring the worst of the year (which Blahra undoubtedly was), but instead, jumping on the bandwagon of critically panned films and knocking A-listers down a peg or two.

Anyway, I digress. I’m a massive BBFC nerd (you don’t say), and they release an Annual Report every June or so, and I love poring over it, because they discuss high-profile and contentious decisions at each age category. I’m just as fascinated as to why something’s a PG rather than a U as I am why something’s a 15 rather than an 18, and the equal exposure they give to all the ratings, as well as revealing which films got the most complaints each year, makes for fascinating reading.

That report is compiled by the BBFC, and I thought I’d do my own personal Razzies and Oscars of the BBFC for films that came out last year, just to add another dimension/point of view to BBFC reviews!

Before I discuss some decisions I strongly agreed (the Oscars) and disagreed (the Razzies), I will blather about some random thoughts which don’t fit into either category. My current eighth favourite film of 2016, High or High Water, was rated 15 for ‘strong language, violence, sex’. I have no qualms with the age rating, nor the first two classification issues. The ‘strong sex’ in question, however, gave me false hope; I was hoping it might feature dishy Chris Pine. Instead, it was his on-screen brother, played by Ben Foster, being ridden. Not the BBFC’s fault, I know, and says more about my dirty mind than their choice of lexicon. But I felt quite let down. 

At least the sex scene in Hell or High Water could be classified as strong, however brief it was. In 2016 I caught up with a couple of films that featured in awards season for the previous year, two of which were Wild Tales and 45 Years. Argentinian film Wild Tales was an anthology of six short films, wonderfully inventive and blackly comic. 45 Years, a film about a wife who discovers her husband’s secret in the week building up to their 45 year anniversary, was less gripping, but anchored by an amazing performance by Charlotte Rampling. Two completely disparate films, connected by one thing: their BBFC insight promised me strong sex. What strong sex?? I’ve seen raunchier 12s!

In terms of short insight which did deliver on what it said on the tin, the starkest case has to be, to this date, still the only 18-rated 2016 release that I’ve seen (although this will surely change with the release of foreign films Elle and The Handmaiden), The Neon Demon. Rated 18 for ‘strong bloody images, sexual assault, necrophilia’, no one could argue it didn’t have each and every one of those three articles. The last one, in particular, must have been the main reason the film obtained its adult certificate. Jena Malone’s acting in the scene in question was brilliant and I thoroughly commend her for her dedication for making that 18-rated scene so credible, however aberrant the act.

Now, onto the prizegivings!

The BBFC Oscars

Fantastic Oscar-beggers and Where to Find Them.

Glaring mistake is glaring. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, starring professional awards-chaser Eddie Redcarpet, is a 12A, not a PG. Frankly, a PG certificate wouldn't be enough to contain all of Eddie's Oscar thirst and all of JK Rowling's virtue-signalling hypocrisy.

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The BBFC replied to my email on Someone to Talk to, by the way. It's a lot more satisfactory a response than the one they sent me about So Young 2 Never Gone:

Dear Emma

Thank you for your email.

BBFC classification decisions are made in line with available research and our Classification Guidelines which are a product of an extensive public consultation process. This process is repeated every 4-5 years and over 10,000 people contributed to the creation of the Classification Guidelines 2014, which are available here. 

They state that: 'Portrayals of potentially dangerous behaviour (especially relating to hanging, suicide and self-harm) which children and young people may potentially copy, will be cut if a higher classification is not appropriate. '

The level of detail depicted in both films with regards to the suicide attempts is permissible at 12A. However the suicide attempt in Two Days, One Night is shown to have little in the way of consequences. The lead character is shown to gag but otherwise does not seem to suffer any ill effects. She looks serene and healthy in her hospital bed and the doctors seem unconcerned about any possible long term damage. The scene is therefore better placed at 15.

In contrast, the character in Someone To Talk To is shown weak but recovering in hospital. Suicide is not presented as an attractive option and so this content is permissible at 12A.

The references to suicide in Someone To Talk To start early in the film and occur throughout, becoming part of the theme of the work. They were not considered to be a 'spoiler' in that it's not an issue that suddenly and unexpectedly comes up later in the film. Also, given the prevalence of the references - which are not simply an isolated moment or element in the work - it was necessary to warn people about them, even more so because this is a 12A film on which parents may want clear advice.

We have an FAQ about spoilers on the black card on our website which explains our policy http://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-bbfc/faqs#insight-spoiler You may also be interested in Podcast Episode 20 which covers how the BBFC approaches classifying self-harm and suicide http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/podcasts/bbfc-podcast-episode-20-classifying-self-harm-and-suicide 

Yours sincerely

Joe

 BBFC Feedback Team

From this much better, detailed email, I've inferred that the BBFC spend more time on a query if you complain that the film should have been higher than it was, as opposed to lower. The speed at which they respond to you is almost halved, too - my So Young 2 Never Gone email took exactly 2 weeks to reply, the maximum time they stipulated, whereas this took just 8 days.

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Finally, look who blocked me on Twitter:

Not the first time Jamie Vardy's been abrupt to an east Asian person, now is it?

(admittedly, a lot of my festering anger at this whole affair isn't just the fact that Vardy racially abused a Japanese man. It's the fact that he racially abused a Japanese man and esteemed football writers who purport to care about racism, like Henry Winter and Daniel Taylor, wrote sod-all about it).

#ByeFelicia

Someone to Gripe to.

I watched the moving Chinese drama Someone to Talk to on Saturday, and whilst I enjoyed it very much, that didn't stop me from being a pedantic git about precedence the BBFC have set in the past with regards to one of the classification issues of the film. Hence, I sent the BBFC my second email of the year (they must love me).

Spoilers for Someone to Talk to and Two Days, One Night under the cut. Fair warning!

Gorgeous pavement art at Trafalgar Square.

Film review: SOMEONE TO TALK TO [一句顶一万句] (Liu Yulin, 2016)

A couple get married, full of love and hope for their future together. Several years down the line, they barely speak a word to each other. Around their anniversary, one discovers the other has been cheating on them and filled with murderous rage, revenge becomes their raison d'être as they do everything they can to ruin their spouse's life.

Actually, I'm not retelling the plot for Gone Girl, but Liu Yulin's debut movie Someone to Talk to. Adapted from the 2011 Mao Dun Literature Prize, 一句顶一万句is an economical yet intimate look at what happens after the love has gone out of a marriage and feelings of resentment at having one's heart broken fester.

Niu Aigo (Hai Mao) is the jilted husband, who tries his best as the patriarch of the family, but unfortunately his modest earnings as a cobbler and simple vision for their future aren't to the pleasure of his wife, who has outgrown him, and has an affair with the wealthier local wedding planning magnate. The film is considerably less kind to her, and rightly so, given she makes comments that make her seem like a  right gold-digging shrew. Woman knew her husband was poor when he married her; she doesn't get to screw everything up when that slowly sinks in.

In only his second film role, Hai Mao is just wonderful as a man who, after being wronged, is all affront and sharp edges, until self-realisation (and a few convenient plot machinations) give him the self-realisation to let go and become a stronger person for it.

His character essentially goes through all five stages of grief through the course of the film, and in doing so, exhibits some spiteful colours. But it's a testament to Mao's humane, heartfelt performance that even at his lowest points, you're rooting for this guy to pull through. His character was reminiscent of John C. Reilly in Chicago, another pitiable cuckold, and it's rare that cinema not only focuses on the person who's been left behind, but the person who was left behind happens to be male.

Someone to Talk to also features a subplot about Aigo's older sister's ill-fated online dating adventures and how she eventually settles, because, as she matter-of-factly states, 'I'm 39. I couldn't get anyone younger'. This kind of pragmatic, frank dialogue makes Someone to Talk to by far the most honest Chinese film I've seen this year (although there's not much in the way of competition).

Liu Yulin directs the story in such an unfussy, natural manner, with a working class Chinese town as the backdrop, I was invested in the plot in a way other films with more frills have failed to achieve. One scene, where Aigo angrily takes his frustration at his wife gallivanting out on his young daughter, carried genuine pathos and was far more powerful than anything I watched in yesterday's manufactured, sappy, The Shite Between Oceans.

I like a good revenge flick a hell of a lot more thanas much as the next person. Films like Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo contain scenes which imbue me with sadistic wish fulfilment at various men who have wronged me. I myself can nurse a grudge for quite a while, although my modus operandi is significantly less bloody and a tad pettier than anything Amy Dunne or Lisbeth Salander confect; that bellend Stefan who racially abused me over a year ago is immortalised in my Fantasy Football team name, 'Stefan is a Kuntz'.

But there's a lot to be said for Someone to Talk To's more forgiving approach. 

Someone to Talk to is a sincere and profound look at loneliness and the multifaceted nature of marriage, elevated by the magnanimous treatment it gives its protagonist. It illustrates how toxic holding onto past transgressions can be, not just to oneself, but to those that we love. Ultimately, it encourages the protagonist and the audience to look beyond, not behind.

Perhaps it's time I, like Aigo, made like Elsa from Frozen, and Let It Go. Good news for Wasteman, Watford fan and The Wolf of Fleet Street, then.

8/10

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If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other ones, which include a fair few Chinese movies.

Review of five instant noodles

For me, one of the most memorable parts of Amy Dunne’s mordant ‘Cool Girl’ diatribe in Gone Girl was when she declared ‘because Cool Girls are above all, hot." This comment is delivered in relation to how she kills herself in order to stay a lithe, desirable size 2 (UK 6/8), to little appreciation from her perfidious husband, Nick.

Given that Amy is generally perceived to be a murderous psychopath, I probably shouldn’t pay this line too much heed, but for some reason, it’s really resonated with me, and as such, I’m trying hard to watch my weight. 

The first step towards losing weight and eating healthier was to stop having so many lunches at McDonald’s. A substitute I explored was easy cook noodles, and thus, here are my thoughts on five different types I’ve sampled recently.

Morrisons BBQ Beef noodles 85g, 25p

There was nothing barbequey or beefy about the taste of this, I’m afraid. The noodles came out stale and tasteless, and even the liquid it was boiled in didn’t have any particular flavour. The very cheap price signals to me that this is predominantly marketed at students, although if students eat this before a night out, the lack of nutritional content means their stomachs will be insufficiently lined pre-heavy drinking, and it could well result in them chundering out their dinner. Considering how it purports to be one of the more filling of the four (total calories: 466, apparently), it doesn’t do what it says on the packaging. 2/10.

Morrisons Mild Curry flavour noodles, 85g, 25p

Gar. Another ghastly Morrisons creation. As with its predecessor, it has thin noodles that tasted of nothing and a sauce which didn’t taste remotely of curry (at least they spoke truth about the ‘mild’ part, mind). The mild curry flavour noodles purports to have 458 calories in the entire bag and it did make more of a dent on my hunger levels than the ‘meal’ from the day before, so I’ll give it +1 mark for that. 3/10.

Nissin Demae Ramen Spicy Noodles 100g, 45p

Unlike the two Morrisons travesties, the Nissin Demae Ramen noodles were deliciously thick and unrepentantly eggy. The sauce the pack yielded had flavour too! Whilst it wasn’t the burn-your-tongue-off levels of spiciness that the bright red packaging might lead you to think/dread, it was sufficiently hot to satiate my need for spiciness. What’s more, this bag came with a sachet of the sauce as well as sesame oil, which gave the meal a welcome kick. Plus, you’ve seen my cooking – you know how much I dig my oil. 8/10.

Newgate instant snack shot noodles sweet and spicy 67g

This Lidl product weighs less than the three easy cook noodles I’ve appraised so far, and as such, is lower on calorific content. On the bright side, the dried flavouring that came in a sachet for those other three, which could lead to a slight mess, was embedded in the noodle here, meaning you could avoid any pouring mishaps. The noodles here came in a strange angular shape, and were even thinner than Morrisons ones, but had more noodle length to atone for it. After you’ve finished with the noodles, I’d recommend re-filling the bowl/mug with boiling hot water, because the solid flavouring is concentrated enough to make a nice brew out of it. Not that filling, but tastes good whilst it lasts. 7/10.

Ko-Lee Taste Sensation Classic Chicken flavour 85g, 28p

For just 3p more than the two disappointing Morrisons own brand noodles, you can get this in the same store, and it’s much more filling and appetising. As with the other Chinese-style noodles, the Nissin Demae, this also comes with a small sachet of sesame oil, as well as a pack of dried flavouring that far exceeds the quantity in any of the other four noodles assessed. The resulting liquid brew is a nice concoction for you to savour, which redeems the (once again, common to Morrisons) thin, bland-tasting noodles. 7/10.

Common to all of these five products was a real ease to use, as the names suggested. You're supposed to boil them over the hob, but I found putting half the amount in my Chelsea mug and applying hot water to it, as pictured below, was just as effective, and saved considerably on the washing up!

Cooking Stuff that Looks Bad But Tastes Delicious #2: The Veggie Supreme.

Since this dish doesn't feature any meat or fish, I will call it 'The Veggie Supreme'.

As pictured, the ingredients were:
- cheddar cheese
- chips
- red onions
- peppers
- oil (drizzled a little too liberally over the chips and peppers)

I cut pieces of cheddar cheese and onions and bunged them into the yellow peppers, then topped it up with oil. I probably put too much oil in, because as you can see on the oven dish, there's a fair bit of spillage. I also poured salt in the peppers pre-putting it in the oven, but that's up to you.

And, as with The Nemo, I had tomato ketchup to enjoy the chips with! Nomnomnom.

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Here's a photo of my dad's incredible authentic Chinese cooking!

Film review: MISSION MILANO [WANG PAI DOU WANG PAI] (Wang Jing, Jing Wong, 2016)

Wang Jing and Jing Wong's painfully unfunny spy spoof sees Andy Lau's Interpol officer Agent Sampan Hung joining forces with Huang Xiaoming's playboy entrepreneur to retrieve a 'Seed of God' which has been stolen from them by a shady Japanese crime syndicate, Crescent. Their mission sees them bounce from Macau to Milan before ending up in eastern Europe. Along the way is all manner of comedy of errors as the directors and writers try to desecrate the memory of all decent spy films by pastiching them, woefully.

I was intrigued by Mission Milano, mainly because I noticed that the broadsheet papers, which review about ten film releases a week, didn't review this title. Having watched it, I can see why. This is one of the cheapest, tackiest films I've ever seen. It's an OTT satire, and thus, the audience are not supposed to take things too seriously. I'm not sure the cast and crew are supposed to heed that advice so rigorously, though. Characters have a nonplussed look on their face for the majority of the film, even when a knife is pressed up against their faces. The props alone would give any Hollywood set director nightmares; even the knives which get thrown around look plastic!

There's a big case of 'you don't know what you're doing' which indicates that the film could have done with a European script consultant. The film title pays homage to Milan, an Italian metropolis. Yet the Bond-inflected score which runs throughout, has a distinctly Spanish flavour. Furthermore, one of the scenes is supposed to take place in AC Milan's final. Due to budgetary restrictions (something which is all too prevalent throughout the film), the filmmakers were unable to properly superimpose footage of such a busy match, and instead show shots of the football-going crowd that is half empty. AC MILAN'S FINAL WOULDN'T BE HALF-EMPTY, YO!!!

I'm sympathetic to the fact that Chinese films don't get the eye-watering funding that their Hollywood counterparts do, so they can't compete with them on elements like CGI. But if that's the case, Chinese film companies shouldn't strive to be making films like this, which require extensive amounts of CGI, and thus nakedly reveal the gulf in quality of special effects in American and Chinese movies. When there's a disconnect between ambition and means, the result is Mission Milano.

The cast are all pretty awful, save 16-year-old Nana Ou-Yang, who has the fresh-faced naiveness of an oriental Hailee Steinfeld, and was winning in her scenes. I don't blame the flat acting so much on the cast, as I do the thinly sketched / inconsistent characters. For example, Andy Lau's Agent Sampan is supposed to be a hard man and a suave lady's man, all in one (massive Bond rip-off). Yet at inopportune moments, he's found longing over his ex-wife. This isn't even a Casino Royale case of cause-and-effect, where his character is crusty because he was burned in the past. The film wants him to be both sensitive and frosty at the same time.

I would be lying if I said I was stony faced for the entire 102 minute running time. There were several occasions when I let out a splutter - often of disbelief at how much they were insulting the audience's intelligence with such a gaping plot-holes, and when the writers ran out of spy movies to send up, they turned to Star Wars, which took me by surprise. There were some cheap visual gags which tickled me, including a weird seduction sequence featuring some toe-sucking which quite frankly, I was amazed the BBFC passed at 12A (not the first time the BBFC have dubiously classified a 2016 Chinese film, now is it?). But overall, this is mindless,  tonally uneven, low-rent film making.

Barely anyone will see this film (there was only one other person in the audience other than me). And that's how it should be.

4/10

My Favourite Performances in a U-rated Film.

The much more sanitised, family-friendly younger sister list to this one. 

My motivation for doing this list is because, naturally, due to the Universal rating, an actor is constrained in terms of the amount of cursing they can do, as well as being limited by other elements of their acting repertoire. In an 18-rated film, for example, you can cuss, Coke and have a candle up your bum. (And that's just Leo in WoWS). 

In a U-rated film you're barely allowed to say 'bloody' and a kiss on the lips is about as saucy as it gets. 

So, which actors managed to impress me with their acting without resorting to the naughty stuff?

10. Rosamund Pike as Jane Bennett in Pride & Prejudice

Ms. Pike, who I admire on many levels: for her intellect (she did English at Wadham College, Oxford and speaks extremely eloquently in interviews), beauty (a 5 foot 8.5 genteel English rose) and flawless acting skills (here's hoping she picks up a second Oscar nomination for this year's upcoming A United Kingdom!), plays Keira Knightley's nice, docile sister Jane in the role that won her the heart of the director, Joe Wright, who later turned out to be a bit of a knob and played her. Men called Joe are untrustworthy knobs like that.

Her appearance on this list makes Rosamund the only actor/actress to feature in both my 'top 18-rated performances' and 'top U-rated performances' list. Get you an actress who can do both.

One final piece of awesome, there's a copy of the Pride & Prejudice audiobook that Rosamund Pike reads! Boom.

09. Henry Fonda as Juror #8 in 12 Angry Men 

08. Ziyi Zhang as Zhao Di in The Road Home

Ziyi's more appearance on this list, in a much more wholesome role, makes her the only actress to feature on my 'top U rated performances' list and 'sexiest femmes in film' list. Brilliant to see a Chinese sister consistently slaying!

07. Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve 

All ABout Eve, one of my favourite films is one of the greatest films about divas and features one of the cattiest performances of all-time by Bette Davis. How shady can she be in a U-rated film?, you might be wondering. Well the answer is very, and the genius of Ms Davis' performance is it's not so much the waspish comments she makes to the other actresses. It's the way that she says them.

06. Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett in Pride & Prejudice 

Some critics didn't care for Keira's giggly portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet, causing director Joe Wright to rant at the BAFTAs when he was picking up an Award about how dare they not nominate her. Awkward. (Told you Joe Wright was a dislikeable cnut).

And to be honest, the first time I saw this film, I agreed. Initially, I found Keira Knightley too slight in the role. But like any layered acting performance, and quite the opposite from Jennifer Lawrence's initially flashy but ultimately one-dimensional turn as Tiffany in Silver Linings Playbook which even Jlaw stans admit was one of the most undeserved Oscar wins in Academy Award history, it grows on you after repeat viewings, particularly if you think about the character more.

Knightley imbues Elizabeth with a light-heated outward demeanour, but behind the pretty face, still waters run deep. Like an onion, it's a performance of depth and complexity, and I'm more than happy to admit that when I first watched her at 15, I didn't quite appreciate the nuances of good acting. She's actually rather brilliant; I daresay even Jane Austen would approve.

05. Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca

04. Joan Fontaine as Lisa Berndle in Letter from an Unknown Woman 

Don't know if you can tell, but I'm somewhat of a sucker for Old Hollywood weepies!

03. Wei Minzhi as Wei Minzhi in Not One Less 

My brother hates this film, finding it cringey, but Not One Less means a lot to me and is my third favourite film of all time. It encapsulates the hardships that people in rural China have to endure on a daily basis, and the hell they have to put themselves through and dignity they have to sacrifice just to make ends meet. Tom wouldn't know how this feels because he was born in London with a silver spoon in his mouth, and unlike his sage older sibling who was born in China but came to England at a young age, hasn't ever experienced the destitution shown in this movie.

Back to the film and not making everything about myself as per, director Zhang Yimou (who also directed entry #8 on this list) plucked an unknown, Wei Minzhi, and cast her as the lead in Not One Less. She plays a young girl who has to take over teaching a disruptive class. The teacher who's leaving for a spell promises her bonus pay if there's 'not one less' student in the class when they come back as when they left.

Unfortunately, getting students to remain in class is easier said than done, given a) Minzhi isn't a particularly experienced teacher and doesn't deal with kids well and b) most of the children in the class are as poor or more so than she is, and so for them, education is a luxury their parents can't afford. As such, one boy quits school pretty early on to find work instead, and the film follows Minzhi as she travels across China to try and drag him back to class.

I'm probably not selling the film very well, but it was an extremely emotional experience because it bought back memories of parts of rundown China which I see every time I visit and the levels of poverty which people really do live in. The motivations of Wei Minzhi's character in the film are too real, and as such, it was a stroke of genius to cast an unknown everyday person in the lead role. Because she has had the life experience of having to sing for her supper on a daily basis, her performance is more authentic and affecting than any amount of years at Drama school could instill into someone.

02. Audrey Hepburn as Princess Anya in Roman Holiday 

Oblig shout-out to the prettiest, classiest lady in Hollywood history!

01. Alec Guinness as eight members of the D'Ascoyne family in Kind Hearts and Coronets 

One of the best comedic performances of all-time. The pinnacle of an actor playing multiple roles in a movie; Guinness really sells every character as disparate from the last.  BOSS!

My first ever e-mail to the BBFC and Jonah Hill fangirling.

I saw this at London Bridge underground station today which I'm hella excited for. Miles Teller was in my no. 1 film of 2014, Whiplash, in which he possessed formidable screen presence, as well as engineering sweet chemistry with Shailene Woodley in 2013's underrated romance The Spectacular Now. And it also stars Jonah Hill, that rotund comedy sidekick who also excels at being a leading man who I never go on about!!! Hopefully he's in it for longer than 20 seconds as was the case in Hail, Caesar!

War Dogs is rated '15' by the BBFC, and given that it's from the director of The Hangover, I don't doubt it merits that rating. Do you know what doesn't deserve a 15? 

Onto today's main attraction...

As you know, I pretty much watch the BBFC's every move. I don't always agree with their decisions (2 Days, 1 Night and Doubt were both very soft 15s and Kick-Ass 2 was a very hard one), but most of the time when there's a contentious decision, I side with them (in the case of the Diary of a Teenage Girl controversy I was staunchly #TeamBBFC), as of yet, I haven't been motivated enough to get my ass into gear and email them over my minor disagreements.

Well, after watching that terribad So Young 2: Never Gone on Monday (which, unlike The Specatcular Now, most certainly did not boast strong chemistry between its leads), I was finally moved to email. That was just such an impossibly soft 15 that I couldn't let this one slide, regardless of the low quality of the film and the fact that barely anyone would be particularly bothered about the BBFC certificate of some corny Chinese romance. All I ask for is consistency. About Time, with 6 f-words and constant mentions of 'blowjobs' was a 12A. And this was a 15 because of some coy behaviour around kissing?!

Cue a rather pedantic and verbose email (not like me to be verbose, now is it? #ehehe).

As annoying AF as you might find my smug, bloated writing style, you can't argue that I make some valid points. The film in question should not have been a 15. There was no sex or sexual dialogue. I've seen worse PGs (Grease). The fact that I just shoehorned in references to two mediocre Leonardo DiCaprio films, among various titles, is just me showing off how many films I've seen.

The BBFC website say they'll take 10 working days to respond to emails. I sent this on Tuesday morning. It will genuinely make my day to receive an e-mail from them, given that, to me, the BBFC are basically Kings.

Watch this space!

Film review: SO YOUNG 2: NEVER GONE (Zhou Tuo Ru, 2016)

In her final, crucial years of secondary education, Su Yinjin (played by Liu Yifei)'s parents struggle to make ends meet in order to send her to a prestigious high school. On her first day, she is rubbed up the wrong way by the haughty Cheng Zheng (Kris Wu), a wealthy, handsome, high-achieving, sporty popular boy, but one with an ego to match. She finds his arrogance and cavalier manner with money insufferable, so of course the two are drawn to each other and have an on/off romance which dominates the ensuing years of their lives.

I haven't watched a Chinese film in the cinema for far too long considering I'm both Chinese and a movie buff, but unfortunately this was not a happy return to form. Never Gone was so heavy-handed and clunky that it makes Twilight look nuanced. The Pride and Prejudice-type story arc of hate gradually morphing into respect, before love, is one I never tire of (I loved Bridget Jones' Diary and romance is the warmest genre), but the execution here, via contrived plot machinations just stretched credibility too thin. For example, to expect us to believe that the two protagonists could go to separate Universities in different parts of China, and a good-looking boy who could have his pick of the girls, yet he continually and faithfully yearns for Su Yinjin throughout his time at Uni, is an implausible and downright irresponsible lie that cinema should not be peddling.

That is not the say the film was completely devoid of honesty. As time goes on, the couple find that that Lana Del Rey lyric, 'sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough, I don't know why', and life (and a dastard Mr. Wickham-type character) gets in the way of their being together, despite how hard they try to make it work. By conceding this and highlighting the role adversity plays in unsettling a loving relationship, the film retains some emotional truthfulness and poignancy, although this message was delivered much better in Blue is the Warmest Colour.

The disappointment of seeing the two leads in this film separate isn't a fraction as heartbreaking as that between Adele and Emma in BITWC, because you're just not invested in this relationship. Truth be told, as the cracks were beginning to show in this couple’s relationship (and the film made sure you GOT DA MESSAGE because the score modulated oh-so-subtly from jovial to depressed), it just made me reminisce about the earth-shattering confrontation scene in Blue is the Warmest Colour, and wish I was watching that instead of this dud.

The fault for this lies with the cheesy, soapy script which tries to manipulate the audience’s feelings far too frequently and unsuccessfully. It breaks the first rule of screenwriting, which is that you should show things, rather than tell, clumsily shoe-horning items into preposterous lines of dialogue. Then there’s the lazy direction which relies too heavily on stylisation; in an early scene set in the high school, the way characters were introduced with a cartoonish name was lifted right out of Mean Girls/Easy A. Whenever the characters got into a heated debate, the director misguidedly employed slow-motion to try and emphasis the sense of despair, but instead, it just felt cheap and telenovela-like.

And finally, the poor acting. I haven't seen anything else from Wu and Liu before so I won't rush to denounce them as bad actors just yet. But their performances in Never Gone were certainly not good: both overacted horribly, employing contorted facial expressions to emote, in such a hammy manner it felt like something out of the Jennifer Lawrence School of Over-Acting. 

In fact, the BBFC draconically slapped a 15 certificate on this film (for which I will be writing an email of complaint, I've seen saucier PGs), predominantly because 'a woman initially rejects a man's advances before giving in' and kissing him. The fact that the BBFC construed these acts not as the frisson in a relationship, or the woman acting coy, but rather as a coercive act of sexual violence, tells you all you need to know about the stale chemistry between the stars in this clunker. Not one of the romance genre, or Chinese cinema's, finest hours.

4/10