Guess the Footballer: Hard

Finally, here are eight from The Times, plus an extra (rather awfully drawn, far too on the nose) one that I did.

The answers to yesterday's medium level puzzlers are at the end of this blog.

Enjoy!

1. 

Restaurant review: BARRAFINA (Covent Garden)

On my birthday (18^th April), I ventured out of my cheap and cheerful and/or Groupon-bought dining comfort zone and celebrated in style with an altogether more upmarket dinner at Barrafina.

The restaurant specialises in Spanish tapas, and after the nightmare that was Salvador and Amanda with all their short-cut taking, I was naturally, a little hesitant.

I needn't have worried; Barrafina has restored my faith in Spanish tapas in London.

Here are some pictures:

Restaurant review: SALVADOR AND AMANDA (Bloomsbury)

I’m slowly starting to get the hang of buying tapas from Groupon. Whereas when you buy cocktail deals, the fact that it’s a deal doesn’t restrict you to having just a subsection of the drinks menu comprising of the cheapest, most basic drinks, but instead, let you order any drink you wish (as testified to by my pleasant experiences drinking at The Escapologist and Adventure Bar). 

However, when you buy tapas deals from Groupon, such as The Cuban in Camden (one of the worst run places I’ve had the misfortune of having visited), which purported to have a RRP of the price of nine full dishes, actually only provided the diner to the most minute, insufficient quantities. Salvador and Amanda is another agonising case where a restaurant has two separate menus for their regular customers, and the plebs who dared to show up with a deal.

Needless to say, the sh_tty sidebitch menu reeked of afterthought; almost as much of an afterthought as Emma Stone's BAFTA speech when she tried to play Katniss political and failed. The voucher holder was entitled to six options from a very limited tapas menu. This is what we went for:

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

Juliet-huh?

Here's a nerdy spot that I couldn't not flag. 

Julieta, Pedro Almodóvar's upcoming movie, is rated 15 by the BBFC for strong sex. This in itself is nothing special; several of Almodóvar's movies are a 15 for strong sex (amongst other classification issues), for example Broken Embraces and The Skin I Live In.

In fact, it's because I'm so familiar with BBFC classification issues (particularly at 15), and the rubric for them in a short insight, that when I walked past this at my local train station, I was a little surprised:

'Strong sexual content', as opposed to 'strong sex', is a distinctly American wording, one that the MPAA occasionally adopt (although they didn't for Julieta, which was an R for 'sexuality/nudity'.) So that was confusing - I thought perhaps, when constructing the film poster, the BBFC had given a 15 but no specific reason yet, so the poster designers pulled the wording from the MPAA. But apparently not.

I'm sure this phenomena - of the short insight on the poster and that given by the BBFC on their website being disparate - has occurred a few times before, but it has only come to my attention one other time, for last year's embarrassingly poorly written Tom Hardy vehicle, Legend.

Legend is an 18 for 'very strong language, strong violence'. The poster I saw for it, in Picturehouse Central, said 'strong language, violence and sex references'. I know the general gist is correct, but there's a big difference between strong ('f_ck', 'motherf_cker' and 'c_cksucker') and very strong language (cnut [with the n and the u rearranged]). So that was kind of bad they didn't get that precisely right. 

Plus, at 18, you're only supposed to list the stuff that contributed towards the 18 certificate. So the fact that there were strong sex references in Legend is correct. But the dialogue was no more crude than that in many a 15-rated film, including a recent watch of mine, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, or the Bad Neighbours series. 

The actual BBFC short insight only flags the language and the violence as the classification issues at 18. Whoever did a haphazard job constructing the Legend poster placed in Picturehouse Central may well have had a mate who saw the film, and then just wrote down the three things they thought would be an issue - the swearing, the violence and the sexual dialogue. But the latter wasn't why it was 18, the former two were. 

And the swearing was very strong, not just strong.

So if the dude was gonna make up his own BBFC short insight for Legend, he should have known the guidelines better.

Just being a pedant.

A stark reminder of why I don't gamble.

I took a cheeky punt on the Champions League final yesterday, putting down a £10 stake...

...and, thanks to Sergio Ramos, it's £10 I'll never see again! I'd last bet in 2012 and tbh I hope I leave it more than four more years before I do it again. I just have no gambling nous; it's akin to pouring money down the drain. I often tell my friends this yet failed to heed my own advice when the thrill of putting down a punt got the better of me, but, the house always wins.

Restaurant review: ARBINA (Warren Street)

During the summer, one may be more inclined to eat lunch outside. Arbina has the facilities for this,  with its outdoor seating in snug little tables.

The paella was a little phoned in. It really didn’t taste that different from the oven-bake ones you get from Tesco. It could definitely have done with having more seafood.

Below are the croquettes and potatoes:

If you compare these to the way the food was enticingly presented in Barrafina, there’s absolutely no comparison. The preparation and presentation of Arbina’s meals were utterly perfunctory.

Portion sizes are a bit on the meagre side, too. Given the croquettes cost £5 for a plate, one would hope for a bit more than what was given. Four paltry meatballs is also a bit of a cheap excuse for a dish, in my opinion.

Arbina is a prime example of one of those restaurants which coast by one its central London location. I daresay those who don’t have much dining experience may be reasonably satisfied dining here. But as someone who has experience the highs of Barrafina, which actually does authentic Spanish tapas dishes, as opposed to dumbed-down dishes that I daresay have been cynically designed to swindled as much money from British punters as possible, Arbina really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Overall, for good Spanish tapas, I’d recommend Iberica or Barrafina. They make authentic Spanish dishes. The food here was edible, certainly, but lacked invention and thus, wasn’t very inspiring. 

Grade: C-

Restaurant review: IBÉRICA (Marylebone)

Offering a killer collection of Spanish tapas as well as dinner dishes, Ibérica had been recommended to me by someone actually from Spain, who had been none-too-impressed with the La Tasca-type tapas places that I personally enjoy. So, my logic was, if I liked La Tasca and they wasn’t impressed with it, then Ibérica must be something special to merit applause from them.

The quality of the food is unanimously high, albeit not pandering to people’s common perception of what Spanish food is (olives are starkly omitted from the menu). 

For starters, I ordered a platter of meats, all rich (and deliciously salty - even the ham impressed me, which is saying something as that’s my least favourite of the red meats) as well as croquettes, which were to die for. I’m all for the easy (read: cheap) option of mozzarella dippers from McDonald’s, but sometimes you just have to treat yourself, and I wolfed down my five croquettes in a matter of seconds. They were that good. 

For the main, I had a bowl of black rice, which tasted much better than it caused me to look (my teeth were all tinted), and steak, which was possibly the weakest of the ensemble. I prefer steak in a big, juicy slab, but this was sliced into many pieces, and as such, looked like an anorexic steak. Not that edible.

The highlight of everything I had in my visit, however, was the dessert, la tarta de la abuela. Packaged in a kooky glass-with-a-lid, it was the most glorious concoction of nuts, chocolate, caramel and biscuit. Heavenly - make sure you get yourself some of that!

Whilst I would definitely recommend Ibérica from a gastronomical point of view, the prices were a little steep for what they were. Spacing wasn’t ideal either - they squash you in in the most constricted of spaces, so that if you move even an inch, you affect the table next to you. Lastly, the waiters weren’t the most alert. 

A shame, really, because the food was intelligently planned and joyfully cooked.

Grade: B+

For more of my restaurant reviews, click here. If you would like me to review your restaurant, drop me an email at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com

The night Peter Crouch-ed and Bern-ed.

In series 1, episode 17 of Glee, Mr Schue tells Quinn Fabray, of the trials and tribulations of high School: “A couple of bad decisions and you go from the top to the bottom”. He could just as easily have been talking about football. For Spurs in the Champions League, Peter Crouch was one of their star men; where he has disappointed in the league this season, he has more than made up for in the big European platform with goals against the likes of Inter and AC Milan, some of them pivotal ones (he scored the winning goal against AC Milan that was the difference between the two sides). In fact, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that, yesterday, going into the first leg of their quarter final clash with Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, he was just as integral to Tottenham’s plans as their wing wizard Gareth Bale, whom the Spurs manager Harry Redknapp had valued at £80million.

Unfortunately, the big occasion got to the big man. In eight minutes, Peter Crouch made two rash tackles. The first, on Sergio Ramos, was misplaced and mis-timed. The second on Marcelo, when he was already on a yellow, was downright stupid. Even as – what I consider to be – the biggest Crouchie fan in the world, there is no justifying his two idiotic tackles. He rightful sending was essentially the catalyst for Tottenham’s implosion at the Bernabéu. At that point they were 1-0 down, but with almost three hours ahead of them, had everything to play for. The match ended 4-0 with the return leg at White Hart Lane next Wednesday (of which my younger brother will be attending as his 13th birthday "present"), looking like nothing more than a formality. In the space of eight minutes, Peter Crouch went from hero to zero.

Even with the best will in the world, I cannot find any ways to justify Peter Crouch’s two awful tackles. All I can do is examine them and attempt to delve into the black hole that is a footballer’s mind – and try to explain them. The first element, I think, is the psychological. Before the game, Peter Crouch had been talked up, down and all around by various members of the English and Spanish media, not to mention Real Madrid players themselves. Former Arsenal player Emmanuel Adebayor said of his fellow lanky striker, “When I was playing in England I always loved a lot of Tottenham players, especially Peter Crouch”. The much-maligned Togo striker completed an acrimonious move north of London to Manchester to play for Man City, and was in the side that lost to Spurs on the 5th May 2010 in what was dubbed as the “Fourth Place Showdown”, in which Crouch gave his counterpart Adebayor a masterclass in how to maintain possession, pass to teammates, and above all, score. Yet, yesterday, Adebayor hit the net twice, and played majestically, whereas Crouch walked after 15 minutes, so there is no question who came out the winner this time round.

Elsewhere, where Adebayor talked Crouch up, former Chelsea defender and Mourinho faithful Ricardo Carvalho took particular glee in talking the 6’7” striker down. He claimed that Peter Crouch “was easy to play against.” Whether he genuinely thought that, or he was just trying to psyche the England man out, we’ll never know, but he certainly succeeded in unsettling Crouch, because those words clearly had their impact; Crouch is by nature a mild-mannered footballer who doesn’t make a habit of making rash tackles. Yet he dished out two tackles yesterday that would probably have made Nigel De Jong shudder. There’s a sort of grim humour in thinking that Mourinho still hasn’t ended his constant mind-games, but the chants of “Tonto!” directed at Crouch by the Real Madrid fans obviously aren’t totally inaccurate; Carvalho played Crouch like a five dollar banjo.

It’s a massive shame because as I have mentioned, it’s hardly as if Peter Crouch as been setting the premier league alight with his scoring this season. He has played very well with Rafael van der Vaart, no doubt about it, and he has provided the majority of the Dutchman’s assists in the league, but Crouch invariably would have wished to scored more himself; many Spurs fan often question why Crouch plays so much and Pavlyuchenko so little. The Champions League is (was?) the one platform where he truly shone this season, scaring the majority of defenders senseless with his unusual frame and playing style. That he has done so much for Spurs in the CL this season will instantly be forgotten. It is irrelevant that he was such a huge factor in putting them in the Quarter Finals, because it is also he who has almost single-handedly prevented them from progressing further. The Guardian gave his performance against AC Milan in the first leg at the San Siro a 9/10, a score they very rarely dish out unless in the face of true excellence. What did they give him for his performance last night? A two. And the sad thing is, that was being generous.

With Tottenham staring at the bleak pit of Champions League exit and facing an uphill battle with Chelsea and Manchester City for the two remaining Champions League places in the premier league, the only way Peter Crouch can go from here is up. That’s the thing about football, it goes hand in hand with failure, with wrath, with moments of madness. But it is also ten-a-penny with redemption. As Stuart Pearce demonstrated with his penalty for England in Euro 96, the road to personal atonement lies in football. I began with a quote from one of my favourite shows, Glee, so I’ll end with another quote from another one of my favourite shows, Sex and the City. Our protagonist, Carrie, has just embarrassed herself hugely in tripping up on a catwalk, in front of hundreds of people. She has a choice, run away and hide, or get up, and proudly get on with it. She does the latter. Why? Because, as she reasons, “When real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep walking.” In 1990, Stuart Pearce fell down. In 1996, he pulled himself back up. Now it is up to Peter Crouch, and Peter Crouch alone, to do the same.

Emmabung's Top 10 Cutest Footballers (Currently.)

This list changes as often as I change my hoodies, so I would take it with a pinch of salt. Looking over it, I realise it is very English, Spanish and Croatian heavy (in fact, the only other nations represented are the Czech Republic and Ivory Coast). As a matter of fact, nine of these ten dudes are Europeans, which probably betrays my predilection for European men. Anyway (from top left then clockwise), the men are:

Xavi and Iniesta (both Spain, both Barcelona). I often think of these two as the same player, such is their telepathic bond and brilliant link-up play at Barcelona and for their national team.

Frank Lampard (England, Chelsea). It makes me laugh when people, especially overweight middle-aged men, call Lampard "fat", because he has an amazing physique. The fact that he plays so well for my team, as well as sporting a sexy Romford accent, only makes him more irresistable.

Luka Modric (Croatia, Tottenham). Little Luka, along with Crouchie, will probably garner the most laughter for his appearance on my list here. After all, the Croatian magician does have long blonde hair, a big nose, and buck teeth. That's not ordinarily considered attractive. But, I dunno. He is a very skilled footballer (if I could bring one player to the Bridge it'd be Modric or the later mentioned Adam Johnson), yet seems to be uncharacteristically humble, something which could be attributed to his being from Croatia (incidentally, a country I absolutely BUM). After all, they have an Island that looks like this!

Stunning!

Salomon Kalou (Ivory Coast, Chelsea). Aww, sweet-faced, adorable, innocent Sala! What a cutie.

Niko Kranjcar (Croatia, Tottenham). Har, the second Croat Spuds player in my list. To be honest, I was very close to including a third, the defender Vedran Corluka, but alas, I left him out. Well, of the three, Kranjcar is easily the most "stereotypically" handsome, with his gorgeous brown eyes, sexy bod and tanned skin. He doesn't seem to be playing that many games this season for some reason, but he does play, it's not his football I'm paying attention to. ;)

Adam Johnson (England, Manchester City). Adam Johnson is, in short, one of England's most exciting prospects. I firmly believe that Capello was a fool for not selecting him (though, then again, this is the man who didn't start Crouchie enough in the World Cup, and who knows what could have happened if he'd played more). I watched Adam Johnson on James Corden's World Cup (he was just about the only good thing to take from that piece of shit show), and he was wearing a hoodie and speaking eloquently in his cute Tyneside accent. As with five of the other men in this list, I've actually seen Johnson in the flesh, when I went to Manchester City vs Spurs (I always forget this fact because I was too busy perving on Crouchie in that game), and he and Tevez were probably the only two City players in the game that showed true flair in their footballing. It's hard enough to establish yourself at big-spending City, even harder when you're the right side of twenty with considerably less experience and ego than your fellow teammates. But Adam Johnson's humility is to his credit, and it won't be long before he's made a name for himself - for club and country.

Iker Casillas (Spain, Real Madrid). Oh, nothing more needs to be said, really. He is a huge, huge dish, and one of the best goalkeepers in the world.

Petr Cech (Czech Republic, Chelsea). Speaking of talented goalkeepers, there is no-one I have greater pride for in football than Petr Cech. He came back from a horrific head injury in October, 2006 with Stephen Hunt, after which many questioned his form. In truth, it is possible that he may never quite reach the super-high levels he'd set himself before then, but I would rather have him as my team's goalkeeper than anyone else in the world. Intelligent, sensible, and so, very, very lovely.

Peter Crouch (England, Tottenham). CROUCHIE =) =) I don't think I need to say any more, really, considering I've been worshiping him since his Liverpool days, and, as a staunch Chelsea fan, I don't make a habit of rooting for ex-Liverpool and Spurs players. But I just can't not. His funny robot dance, his other goal celebrations, his knack for always giving 100%, even if it doesn't necessarily pay off, makes him my #1.

South Africa: a jungle where dreams are made of.

So, the World Cup arrives tomorrow, and I would be lying if I were to say the anticipation wasn't making me a little light-headed. For the past few weeks, since the premiership season ended, nay, before the premiership ended, I've been thinking about precious little else other than how the Drogbas of the world will fare, who will dazzle in South Africa and who will flop, and whether or not England will, once again, crash out on penalties. As a fan of football living in England, I'm lucky in that I can actually attend matches, not to mention watch them on Sky Sports, where the attention and time put on our country's biggest sport is nothing if not meticulous. But there is something even tastier about the World Cup. Partly due, perhaps, to the fact that it only comes once every four years, or maybe that the sweltering heat in the long hot Summer (for some, not Brits, lamentably) brings out a feistier side to us all. The High School Musical factor also plays a part, ie - we all feel "united" in the mutual supporting of our country, whether we're fans of Tottenham or Tranmere Rovers. It's a combination of all these things, and many more, that makes me feel very, very happy, that starting from tomorrow, I shall be treated to a month of non-stop football.

I was out shopping a couple of weeks ago, in New Look, when I spotted these bikinis with the England flag drapped across where the tit would be. The whole thing looked horribly cheap and tacky. Similarly, England flags have infiltrated our roads via car windows and windshields, our clothes via socks, pants and god knows what else, and just about anything you can name: it's been sold with an England flag draped across it. It's embarrassingly crass, but at the same time, I wouldn't have it any other way; the anticipation and influx of marketing is what makes the World Cup what is is. Whilst the hope us England fans have in our National Team can border on delusion, it's also a credit to our passion for the game that England fans love their NT so much despite coming face to face with disappointment so much in the past. This year, there's been a noticeably more subded edge to our predictions; the majority of England fans have ditched the crowing (our below par performances in the previous World Cup and not even being able to qualify for Euro 2008 has put us in our place at long last) and decided, instead, to hope, rather than expect.

The multi-national quality of the World Cup also means that, whether intentionally or inadvertantly, I always come out of it a little more educated about the World and current affairs. I've found out more about the state of the government in North Korea this week alone than I had previously in my sad 20 years of existence. It just completes the experience of the game, I feel, to learn a little more about the players' upbringings and backgrounds. In the same vein, I generally escape the World Cup with a whole new arsenal of foreign words. I did Spanish up to AS-level and got an A, and my decision to drop it for the more Sciencey subjects still jars, even three years on. Xavi, Iker Casillas and Cesc Fabregas will have to refresh my memory with their post-match interviews, which I'm sure will be fine (in more ways than one.)

If experience has taught Bung anything, it is that she is a shit football predictor. After all, my pessimism this season led me to thinking that my beloved Chelseabung would finish third (though I was never so happy to be proved wrong.) The only thing I've ever been remotely good at predicting were the Oscars, and that's because pre-cursors were there to guide me. Nonetheless, I shall try my hand at predicting how this year's tournament will go (of course, now that I've written it out, none of this will happen):

Golden Boot: David Villa

Best Player: Xavi

Most Bookings: Wayne Rooney or John Terry (heh)

From the musical montages set to Duran Duran songs that I know the BBC will put together, to the prospect of seeing players from the same teams come ~head to head~ when representing their countries, to the naff punditry (Gareth Southgate talks football as well as he takes penalties, yet I still find him so utterly hot and would be his Loleeeeeetah any day of the week) and puns galore (The Sun writers, now's your time)... I simply cannot wait for the World Cup.

My Obsession with Film Classifications.

A post in conjunction with Culture Snob’s Self-Involvement blogathon. I thought I’d talk in detail about my weird obsession with film ratings.

To start with, I’ll explain the British rating system. There are 5 ratings: U (suitable for all, the equivalent of G in the US), PG (parental guidance, ditto), 12A (which means that under-12s have to have an adult accompany them. 12A used to be a 12 and was changed to 12A immediately after I turned 12, so I was more than a bit pissed off about it), 15 (no-one under 15 can be admitted) and 18 (no-one under 18 can be admitted.)

The first time I visited the cinema in England was when I was 5. The film that I saw was Toy Story. It was wonderful, really. We had popcorn and sticky drinks and all the usual junk that is forced on you when you step into a cinema. Except, being the first time I’d ever had any of that food, I felt like I was in heaven. And the film itself was an experience of its own; I’d seen cartoons on TV before, but Pixar’s revolutionary brand of CGI amazed me. Back then I was probably too young to appreciate just how gorgeous and how much care had gone into creating every character, but all I know is that I thought it was pretty.

And I also remember being pretty damn scared by Toy Story at certain moments. I’d noticed that it was a PG, and perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but knowing that it wasn’t a U-rated film made me scared at several points in the movie; particularly whenever Sid was on. But this whole crazy-obsession-with-film-ratings that I started when I was 5 has definitely carried through, because when I was younger, I used to be immediately terrified/suspicious of a movie if it had the 18 logo on it.

Similarly, if a film were rated 12 or 15, I’d feel a sense of false security when I went into the cinema to watch it. Two cases in point with 12-rated movies: The Others and Red Eye. I was so sure of myself that they’d be harmless, that I’d watch the “scary” scenes and suppress a yawn, but with both movies, that wasn’t the case; I was completely ruffled by parts of the movie.

I didn’t feel so much of a complacency towards watching 15s. This was because, when we were learning Spanish for GCSE, our teacher had played us Talk to Her, which was a 15. Most of us were 14 and 15, and the class was just so immature about the entire movie. I must admit, seeing it for the first time, I was kind of disturbed by certain parts of it, but it wasn’t anywhere near the most disturbing thing I’d ever seen. However, that experience had just shown me that movie ratings are all very well in describing how much swearing, violence, etc is in a movie, but it doesn’t necessarily measure the impact they have on the viewer. (Case in point, Savage Grace, which I saw yesterday. It was just a 15, but the sight of Julianne Moore doing something to her screen-son will disturb me for ages. Another case in point, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. That “sex” scene between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei, shudder.)

Anyway, I’m just really obsessed with movie ratings, even on DVD cases. I used to have this paranoid fear when I was 17 that looking at the back of a DVD case that was rated 18 would get me automatically expelled from HMV. That’s why I’ve never tried buying an 18 when I wasn’t 18. I did buy a few 15s when I was younger than that and got away with it, but that all came to a halt when, on a Summer’s day, I’d tried to buy Ghost World & Dead Man Walking from Virgin Megastores and the store clerk had rudely told me that I “didn’t look anywhere near 15.” I was 14 and a half! Gimp.

To me, that marked my transition from child into adulthood (or child into less of a child).

PS. I dug out an article on the newsround website that I wrote when I was 13, about, surprise surprise, film ratings!

The Spirit of the Beehive & Ana’s Belief.

In participation with the Film & Faith blogathon going on over at Strange Culture, I thought I’d give my thoughts about Victor Erice's beautiful The Spirit of the Beehive, one of my personal favourites.



The Spirit of the Beehive is a haunting look at childhood in the setting is a small Castilian village in the early 1940s, as echoes of the Spanish Civil War can still be felt throughout the countryside. Following a town-hall showing of James Whale's Frankenstein, Ana starts seeing the world in a completely different light. She cannot get the movie out of her mind, and discusses it constantly with her older, more cynical sis Isabel. As the audience, we wonder if she’s using her imagination to escape the grim realities of life. Beehive is an intriguing look at innocence and what it takes to believe. It then gets rather weird as Isabel makes Ana believe that Frankenstein is a spirit who can come alive if the human belief in him is strong enough, using their religious beliefs to do so. According to her, only those who truly have faith can do this.

In a sense, Beehive could be construed as a film about blind faith. Ana shields here eyes when watching the movie of Frankenstein, and in the classroom she puts the eyes on the wooden body and Isabel tells Ana to close her eyes and if she believes in the monster he will come. Isabel shares none of the whimsical fancy of her sister; whereas Ana tries to escape life's harshnesses, Isabel is obsessed with it. Now, the monster; Frankenstein's monster is used in this film is quite enigmatic in both image and figure. And even if we don't believe the story being told, it's enough that we believe in Ana's belief.

As well as dextriously weaving lines about the mundane quality of life, the Franco era and a young girl's overpowering belief, The Spirit of the Beehive is a technically stunning movie with some individual, unforgettable shots - Ana and her sister walking down a hill. Ana standing transfixed by the railway line as a train comes near. The family sitting at dinner without a word being spoken, and a lingering silence and stillness. Isabel and Ana making faces over soup. And Ana Torrent’s performance, led by her large eyes, wouldn't be out of place in a stain-glassed window. Goddessly.

P.S. - if you liked this, see Pan's! There are definitely echoes of The Spirit of the Beehive in Pan's Labyrinth.

73. Hable con ella (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002).