13 Lookalikes Why

Season 2 of 13 Reasons Why was so dreadful that I lost interest in the contrived plot at several points, and instead focused on how some of the cast members looked like footballers. In the spirit of the 2018 World Cup, which begins this Thursday, here are thirteen dubious actor/footballer lookalikes!

My face without make-up deserves a 12A rating.

Although if Fairy Tale: Dragon Cry is anything to go by, other parts of my anatomy in that picture merit a 15 rating. #banter

Bar review: ADVENTURE BAR AND LOUNGE (Covent Garden)

Continuing with my reviews of bars and restaurants in the Covent Garden is Adventure Bar, which boasts a healthy menu of creative drinks and generous Happy Hours. I probably saved a bit more money than I would have spent in the presence of Happy Hour, with a Groupon voucher that entitled the buyer to six cocktails for £24. 

Unlike some other Groupon deals which restrict you in the choice of food and drink you can buy with your voucher, this deal was valid on all the cocktails. An Old Fashioned and 50 Shades of Earl Grey were the first drinks sampled:

Is this, the start of something wonderful and new?

Or one more dream that I cannot make true?

Interesting BBFC Short Insights.

In case you thought I was done talking crap about the BBFC and Jonah Hill with my blog post on Saturday, you were quite mistaken, thank you very much.

Having the BBFC app installed on my phone means I can eat up commutes by entering my favourite film stars’ names into the search box and pedantically spot things that are amiss, such as:

I've never seen a U-rated film with strong language, just saying. Or just being a pedantic cnut. (It's not an 18-rated use of the c-word if you call yourself it).

A few other screenshots from the app I have sitting around on my phone feature short insight that was, for one reason or another, quite eye-watering:

Not everyday you see that in a line of insight!

The insight for Blue Velvet, which turns 30 this year, is a curious artefact because it shows how crucial it is to include an 'and' between the 'sex' and 'violence', else you'll get the first classification issue, something else altogether: sexual violence.

What's interesting about Blue Velvet's 18 certificate is that practically all the 18-rated content is due to Dennis Hopper's nightmarishly scary Frank Booth. He pillages, mutilates, rapes, and also, is the only character in the film to utter the f-word. And he says it a lot, especially when someone asks for an alcoholic beverage he doesn't agree with. (Spoiler alert: he's not a fan of this drink).

Although I despise this pretentious film, (it's in my bottom 10 of all-time), I think Hopper was absolutely magnificent as Frank Booth, giving an iconic performance as one of the most memorable movie villains of all time. 

I mean, you can see why I identify with him: one's a foul-mouthed, perverted psychopath.

The other's a figment of David Lynch's imagination.

Continuing with BBFC short insights of films in my bottom 10 of all time; this Bible-bashing movie be my second most despised film ever, second only to American Hustle. 

It was bloated and boring A F, and the BBFC aren't wrong with their short insight. It certainly does contain potentially dangerous behaviour: you could potentially fall asleep from boredom and never wake up as a result of watching this snorefest.

On the topic of 'potentially dangerous behaviour' as a classification issue, The Secret World of Alex Mack, which is a kid's show, getting a 15 might seem odd, especially as it has a GP (the olden version of the PG) from the MPAA. I haven't seen this show but given it's about a kid for kids, I'd imagine PG is correct, generally.

But the BBFC have one issue of contention which gets them extremely anxious and trigger-happy to up-rate, that doesn't seem to be shared with other viewing boards across the world, and that's the perilous practice of a child hiding in a tumble dryer, particularly if such an act isn't demonstrated to have negative consequences.

That's precisely why this show's a 15 (I only know this from reading around). Because Alex does exactly that in one of the episodes and the action is not only presented to be dangerous, but fun and whimsical. An impressionable kid watching this might draw the wrong conclusions from watching Alex do so and try it out from themselves.

On several of the BBFC podcasts, they've discussed how every year, some children crawl into tumble driers, their parents don't know they're in there, and the kid dies. It's not a high proportion of children, but still, a life is still a life, and as such, I completely empathise with the BBFC's justification for rating a kid's show with PG content 15. They're just being responsible. If only they exercised such responsibility when rating Sausage Party, isn't it.

There's a line between being being responsible and being a nanny-state, however. 18 for dangerous car stunts? Seems a bit harsh.

This is the extended insight for a movie called, Oliver, Stoned, which is an 18 purely for marijuana use.

This isn't just draconian but also inconsistent, given movies with some pretty graphic depictions of harder drugs have been passed 15 (off the top of my head, I'm thinking  Candy, Wild, War Dogs, Get Him to the Greek, but there's really loads of 15-rated titles with depictions of heroin or cocaine use).

It's only MJ in this movie and it got an 18! Evidently, the BBFC really don't like glamorisation of drugs, even soft ones.

This 18-rated film, a very good adaptation of my favourite novel, thoroughly earns its 18 certificate. The BBFC insight is detailed, bordering on spoilerish, though, no?

Another insight line that is detailed to the point of giving away the plot...

And again! With Nobody Knows and Cracks, I don't see why they couldn't have just used 'mature themes' in both instances.

Another short insight that is almost too prescriptive.

I'm not sure if this is more of a line of insight, or a value judgement about the quality of the film?! What one man may judge to be 'irresponsible behaviour' might seem like just good fun to a more immature individual like me.

As with Mr Bean's Holiday, this feels closer to a line you'd expect in a review rather than a description of what to expect in terms of content.

'Historical cigarette advertising', lol.

The last issue I'll talk about is a turn of phrase which, thanks to the BBFC's employment in short insights, I absolutely adore: 'emotional intensity'. I'm a fairly emotional person (I cried from beginning to end at Kubo and the Two Strings), so my default setting is 'mild emotional' intensity'...

.... although when I'm on the blob, this line is more accurate.

Not to be confused with Martin Scorsese's upcoming film, this is one extremely detailed and specific PG classification issue, eh?

'Drawings of explicit sex'. 😳

I started with a bit of BBFC bantz about one of my favourite actors, so, only fair I end with some banter about one of my least favourite actresses (if you can call her that).

This is at the Covent Garden Odeon, and suggests that some opportunist under-15 year old kids are trying to sneak in, or try their luck with fake IDs in order to see Suicide Squad.

They'd do well to pay heed to the BBFC rating for Suicide Squad, tbh. Film was traumatising.

Cara Delevingne's twerking still gives me nightmares.

The Shade Between BBFC Insight.

Derek Cianfrance, the director of the sobering romantic drama Blue Valentine as well as the ambitious but ultimately disappointing The Place Beyond the Pines, both starring Ryan Gosling, has another film out this year, not starring Ryan Gosling. The film in question has a clunky title to rival its predecessor: The Light Between Oceans.

This film is already out in the States but is not released here until November, although it has been given a BBFC rating. It is rated 12A, unsurprisingly, given it got a PG-13 in the States (and as you should know by now, ~90% of PG-13s align to 12As here, and if they don’t, I usually write a blog discussing/questioning why).

The short insight made me cackle, as, if I didn’t know better, I would think the BBFC were throwing shade at the movie’s male and female leads:

The film revolves around a lighthouse keeper and his wife, who discover a baby washed up on the shore. Having grappled with conception and several heartbreaking miscarriages, they decide to raise the baby as their own. The protagonists are played by Michael Fassbender and stealer of Rooney Mara’s Oscar this year Alicia Vikander, who are a couple in real life.

However, the more cynical of moviegoers don’t buy this, and think that their relationship is a Weinstein Company-manufactured showmance, created for the PR of The Light Between Oceans; a belief given further fuel during the BAFTA ceremony this year, when the Kiss Cam centred on them and they refused to smooch. One person believes this showmance theory so much they even have a Tumblr account about it.

I’m undecided about the veracity of the claims on that Tumblr account, and frankly, celebrities’ love lives are none of my goddamn business anyway. But I was tickled by the BBFC insight, and immediately wondered if the BBFC were in their own way, giving a veiled message about how much they bought into the Fassbender/Vikander relationship. 

As if describing their sex life as ‘infrequent’ wasn’t bad enough… ‘moderate’, too. Dayum.

(Or, you know, they were just genuinely describing the content of the film and I could be reading too much into three words and need to stop assuming everyone is as Shady McGrady as I am.)

-- 

In other sort of BBFC-related news, when my brother turned 18 this year, I couldn’t resist using it as an excuse to a) give a shoutout to my favourite film certification board and b) plug three excellent films that I'm always hollering at him to watch in order to enrich our level of repartee and inside jokes at others' expense.

Channel 4 pulled a blinder on Sunday night, screening The Wolf of Wall Street, so I forced Tom to watch it, which is good because for the sake of completeness, we’ve watched practically all the Jonah Hill movies together now (minus True Story, but I have zero interest in that film; it looks like a prolonged, failed, Oscar beg on his and James Franco’s part and no one got any time for that. It was gruelling enough having to sit through Jonah’s WoWS co-star beg for his Oscar).

Tom, being the good man that he is, said he enjoyed it a lot, especially given that he’d caught an outdoor screening The Big Short in London last week and found it dry A F. I’m glad his mathematical prowess translates to being able to determine the wheat from the chaff in terms of films about finance, too.

As I’ve said before, several of the clown dude-bros who I’ve had the serious misfortune of going on dates with fancy themselves a kind of Leo in WoWS-type character, so it was funny to watch the film with Tom and delve into the psyche of these clowns (or so they wish).

Next up from that Facebook status, I’ll be bullying my brother into watching Gone Girl, so he can understand the psyche of the woman these clowns have chosen to go on a date with. 

(or so I wish).

OOTD: going to pick up A-level results with my brother

It was A-level results today, and my brother did OK. ("OK" is an understatement: he got into his first choice Uni and was singled out on two websites for his exceptional performance. But I've raved about him on several social media outlets already, so to avoid getting repetitive because I never repeat myself. Cara Delevingne was shit in Suicide Squad, by the way, I'll just display my grungy outfit!

Glasses: Red or Dead

Homer Simpson T-shirt: H&M

Cardigan: H&M

Here he is breaking the good news to mum. Why so serious mate?

Sorry, I know I just said I wasn't gonna repeat myself but... TOM ABSOLUTELY KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK, YOOOOOOOO. #LIKEABOSS Could not be more proud to call myself his sister. Boy is clever, compassionate, kind, and doesn't take himself too seriously. All things I'm not.

He's gonna go far. 💯

I'm a poet and I know it.

As you may have gleamed from my review of Suicide Squad, I didn't think too much of Cara Delevingne's performance which her father bought her. I even wrote a poem about it:

I may have spent quite a large chunk of last weekend Snapchatting friends videos and images of me whining about Delevingne's Razzie-worthy acting. Because it's not like me to go on about things, now is it? (On a completely unrelated note, do you remember in 2013 when The Guardian ranked Eden Hazard 100th in the world? A HUNDREDTH I TELL YA).

--

By the by, the BBFC responded to that insufferable e-mail I sent them. As you'll notice, I basically got fobbed off with a generic response. They even included links to the guidelines. As if I haven't studied those and memorised them off by heart! The BBFC is like, my specialist topic, yo!

But oh well. I'll just have to let bygones be bygones and accept Too Young 2: Never Gone as one of the titles the BBFC rated 15, that I think is a dubious 15.

Suicide Squad, for all its talk of 'sustained threat', proved to be a bit of a bubblegum 15 in the end (I found the threat in the 12A-rated 10 Cloverfield Lane more intense). But I am grateful to the BBFC for awarding it, because it meant there were no kids in the audience, and I got to see it in relative peace.

However, I believe there was an oversight at the BBFC when they compiled their short insight. It's 15 for 'sustained threat, moderate violence' but they forgot 'strong horror'.

The horror in question being Cara Delevingne trying to act. 

Film review: SUICIDE SQUAD (David Ayer, 2016)

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), a shrewd government official, opines that in the case of the recently deceased Superman, they'd gotten lucky, as he was a superhero who shared their ideals, thus, played on their side. The next time, she argues, the superhero might not be so compliant with them.

A master tactician, she plans several moves ahead: assemble a group of metahumans, 'the worst of the worst', to do the government's dirty work for them. If they fail, they die. If they succeed, these individuals can have some time off their prison sentences.

This motley crew, the titular 'Suicide Squad', includes Will Smith as Deadshot, a paid for assassin who's accuracy with a rifle is unparalleled; Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Joker's girlfriend who's even more mental than he is; Jay Hernandez as Diablo, a man blessed/blighted with pyrokinesis; Jai Courtney as a mercenary robber Captain Boomerang; and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, a human-reptile hybrid.

The Suicide Squad are headed by a surly, non-nonsense soldier who holds his criminal squad in utter contempt, Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman, quite the babe *swoons*). Rick won't take crap from anyone, but unfortunately for him, Amanda Waller has his balls in a vice due to Rick's girlfriend, archeologist June Moone, being the host body of a 5000-year-old witch called Enchantress (Cara Delevingne, living proof that partying with celebrities and nepotism can get you places). Waller has Enchantress' heart, and Enchantress possesses June's body, who in turn possesses Rick's heart. Phew!!!

The convoluted plot setup is reflected in the first act of the film, which takes rather too long to get to the action, and under-develops several character's story arcs, preventing the audience from forming an attachment to them. But that was always going to be an occupational hazard of translating such an ambitious, multi-faceted comic book to the screen, and at least the overarching message, of that of the blurred lines between good and evil, has been retained.

Suicide Squad makes for a very entertaining watch, even if the over-reliance in CGI is at times a little distracting. The occasionally over-done visuals are enhanced, however, by a slick soundtrack, featuring everything from Queen to Eminem. Two songs which play over the credits, “Heathens” and “Sucker for Pain” will go down in pop culture folklore, for how well they were employed in the advertising for Suicide Squad (the latter, on a Snapchat filter!). The watchability of the movie as a piece of entertainment is also largely thanks to the ensemble cast, who are, bar one jarring exception, all pretty great.

The star of the show is Viola Davis, whose superior acting and Juilliard credentials lends gravitas to even the corniest of Hollywood lines. She's a natural, and Davis completely embodies Waller's Machiavellian personality and her cool-as-a-cucumber demeanour. Her formidable screen presence carries her throughout, and even when her character is in danger, Davis never lets even an inkling of fear creep into her visage.

Will Smith is also very good as Deadshot. He's never not been cool, even back in his Fresh Prince days, but it's his scenes with his cute daughter, his one weakness (and his justification for only accepting hits on men, never women or children) that ground his character. Similarly, Jay Hernandez as Diablo illustrates how his skills with fire aren't so much a gift as an affliction, in a tragic subplot which I’m not ashamed to say I shed a tear over.

Margot Robbie is deliciously nutty as Harley Quinn. Much has been made of the update in her attire from harlequin outfit to stilettos, a ripped T-shirt sporting 'Daddy's Little Monster' and the shortest of hotpants, but it's not what she wears (or doesn't wear) that lingers in your impression as Harley. What I'll remember is her mannerisms, ranging from the wicked cackle to the sly winks, as well as the casual panache with which she beats up the badder baddies with her trusty baseball bat. Adding to the element of girl power is Karen Fukuhara as Flag's personal bodyguard, a samurai sword-wielding lady who takes no prisoners. As an actual martial arts champion, Fukuhara makes a fierce impression, doing her east Asian sisters proud.

Unfortunately, Nepotism Delevingne proved my doubts about her suitability for the part of Enchantress completely correct. Not content with having stunk the place out in Paper Towns (voted my second least favourite performance of 2015, holla), her performance here is a bad conflation of flared nostrils to emote, a weird, booming voice, and, in the last act, gyrating so earnestly you'd think it was tryouts for a hula-hooping contest. Her terrible acting even impairs other performances: because her and Joel Kinnaman had such stunted chemistry, you just weren't engaged in their relationship, which is problematic as it represents one of the main incentives of one of the characters.

I feel it may be a tad rich to criticise someone for getting where they were through their connections, given one of my friends, Dominic, liked to joke that the only reason I got accepted on my Masters was because my father used to work at the University.

Regardless of the veracity of that claim, at least I worked hard on my Masters once I got in. I'm not getting that vibe from Delevingne, an individual who's modelling work I am actually a great fan of. There’s no denying she’s a striking girl; it takes something special to out-shine even Margot Robbie at the London premiere of Suicide Squad. But Cara, honey, in movies, it's not enough just to be pretty.

So you wore a bikini and showed gameness for writhing around. There's way more to acting than that. Compare Delevingne's wooden acting here to that of Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch in the Marvel movies. Both played comic book witches, but whereas Olsen was convincing, injecting humanity and depth into Wanda, Delevingne brings nothing to Suicide Squad other than maybe Taylor Swift or the Jenners doing an Instagram post about it, if she's lucky, and detracts from the overall quality by being in it. #SayNoToCaraDelevingneInFilms

That gripe aside (and it's a pretty big one; Cara is so poor it's hard to focus on any scene she's in), I can see what David Ayer was trying do with Suicide Squad. Due to the sheer volume of ambition, he didn't achieve all his aims. But a couple of bombastic set pieces, witty lines of banter between members of the squad, an onrunning kid-unfriendly tone (still celebrating that 15 certificate) and the entire cast bar that blonde model woman bringing their A-game, makes this a thoroughly silly ride.

6/10

Bar review: REVEREND J W SIMPSON (Goodge Street)

Tucked away behind one solitary door, Reverend J W Simpson juggles clandestine positioning yet popular location to give the visitor of the bar a distinctly 1920s, Prohibition-era vibe. Such an enterprising display means that you can find somewhere to go drinking on a weekend evening in central London, and still benefit from an intimate, unobtrusive ambiance.

The service in Reverent J W Simpson is impeccable, with waiters and waitresses topping up your water level without needing to be prompted. Booking in advance means they'll find a decent amount of space for you to sit (on comfortable sofa-type lounging), rather than shove you on a bar stool, which was very much appreciated. Evening badinage is always so much more fun when your bum's well-placed on plush seating!

There were an abundance of interesting-looking cocktails; particularly loved the Aphrodite (pictured above), which was a must for people who like fruity drinks! The decor was quirky yet elegant.

The only downside of Reverent J W Simpson is that the toilets, which consisted of a door in the wall, would have been very easy to miss after you've had a few drinks. The gents and ladies were all in one room as well, which I didn't love.

But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at this drinking hole. An ideal spot for a date!

Grade: A-

Weekend with the boyf.

True Colours.

I wore a rather bright pair of Hollister tracksuit bottoms to Stamford Bridge last Thursday for Chelsea vs Rubin Kazan:

They're a bit on the bright side, but it had to be done for the banter~~

First day of the Month Nostalgia.

I'm not rolling back the rivers of time too much with today's photo, which was taken around this time last year, when my brother Tom and I spent all afternoon trying to perfect our renditions of Justin Bieber's Baby and Eminem & Rihanna's Love the Way you Lie (with me rapping Eminem's part and Tom singing Rihanna's, just for the gender role-reversal bant). The look of unadulterated glee on our faces is due to Tom having fudged up a line, and both of us cracking up laughing.

It's also worth noting that, whilst this photo wasn't taken too long ago time-wise, it feels like a universe away in the sense that it was taken at our old house. Since then, we've moved to a new, larger (to say the least) abode, and with it, already had several legendary moments of sibling lolz. But this was one of the most endearing of our old place. :)