Film review: THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick, 2011)

Pretension. It’s a funny thing. I prescribe to the Monica Bing school of thought, that a little bit of pretension never hurt anyone. It is definitely a thing of which, however, too much of can kill. 

Cannes winners have, in the past, gone into one set column or the other for me. Pretty much half of them, I appreciated their artistry, but, even more than that, connected with them on an emotional level, and thus really adored them. The others, I have found frustrating and to be perfectly honest, far too clever for their own good. The Tree of Life is one which firmly falls in the latter camp.

Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain head a good ol’ Christian style family in Texas. Pitt's character is the epitome of graft as he trains his songs to fight, build things and generally toughen them up against the big bad world, which he believes will take advantage of you if give it the chance. 

My world has been rocked.

This is all that matas as far as I'm concerned!

Some sale shopping I've done in October.

You know me, I love a bargain, and thee month of October, with all its Autumn sales, bought plenty of those. Unfortunately, I couldn't buy absolutely everything that I liked, but here are a few of the ones that I did.

Gap dress. Original price: £45, Sale price: £9.99

It was only after buying this that I realised that I already own a grey dress, but that one's a sundress, whereas this one's slightly more formal with the collar. Nice with a belt!

Shoes. Miss Selfridge. Original price: £45, Sale price: £10

I'm insanely in love with the heels, they're called "Monet" and the purple-splat design on it is very Monetesque. The heels are highest of any shoes I've ever walked in, a good five or six inches, and I've fallen over them plenty of times. But it's worth it.

Jumpsuit. Miss Selfridge. Original price: £38, sale price: £7.

This is my favourite from the october sale-shopping lot, and an absolute steal at seven quid!!! Now that winter's looming, obviously a jumpsuit on its own is just asking for trouble, but I plan on pairing it with woolly tights and a thick cardigan and working that look! Ha.

Dress top. H&M. Original price: £7.99. Sale price: £3, H&M; Cardigan. Miss Selfridge. Original price: £35. Sale price: £15.

The cardigan is probably too thin to wear on its own during the winter, but for boozy nights out, it'll certainly suffice as a wear-it-in-the-cold-then-stuff-in-handbag kind of apparel. The dress top is pretty multifunctional, sadly, I don't have the legs to wear it in isolation, but with a pair of skinnies, the boldness of the colour works a trest.

Toga dress. Miss Selfridge. Original price: £37. Sale price: £12.

I absolutely adore togas; I have a dress in very similar style in navy blue, but I was just in love with this salmon colour. The collar is lovely and wearing it with a belt really gives the dress some shape.

Pyjama top. Topshop. Original price: £18. Sale price: £8.

This top should actually correctly been worn as PJs, but I love Mickey Mouse and am not afraid to show it, so I'll wear it out in daylight, thanks. ;)

Dress. Topshop. Original price: £35. Sale price: £17.

I had a similar yellow dress from Primark two and a half years ago, but that was when I was a thin size 10. I do not even fit into that dress any more, and hence I had to get a size up, in a slightly different cut and a different shade from that sunshine yellow; here be a mustard yellow dress!  I used a safety pin on the chest because otherwise my bra would have shown and  I just don't think it's a good look!

Two restaurant reviews: MY OLD PLACE (Liverpool Street) and L'ARCO (Victoria)

My Old Place (Liverpool Street)

Smack bang in London’s financial centre where lots of the people who work there are too busy to sort out their own packed lunches, My Old Place is a favourite among busy commuters to sit down in and eat their lunch. 

The fact that it’s frequented by Chinese clientele is a testament to the authenticity of the food. The food is made on order and thus fresh and delicious, unlike in several other diners in Chinatown, where items such as egg fried rice taste horribly stale. 

The quantities of salt, pepper, sauces and various other condiments are added just the right side of tasty without being over the top in the usage, and there are some exciting dishes to be experienced. 

However, what lets this place down is the quality of the waiters, which is haughty bordering on rude. One of our orders were mixed up, for which they didn’t even apologise for, merely act as if it was our fault we couldn’t read the menu. 

So it’s a shame, really, because the food is great, the prices are very reasonable considering the location, but the staff could really do with a class or ten in bedside manner.

Grade: B-

L’Arco (Victoria)

A highly likeable restaurant in Victoria with a genuinely homely vibe, Ristorante L’Arco boasts some genuinely Italian waiters who really take the time to get you whatever you want. 

The food was served promptly on ordering, and cooked to perfection, as well as fairly well priced considering the to-die-for-location. 

I had tomato omelette and chips, which came to around ten pounds, which I considered fair, particularly as the tomato sauce tasted divine. 

My only criticisms with this place were that, whilst the food was good value, the drinks were far too expensive, and also that the menu, whilst would most certainly suffice, didn’t offer anything massively imaginative. But, if you want to play it safe on a date, you can’t go wrong with L’Arco.

Grade: B+/A-

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

Concert review: KATY B (O2 Academy, Bristol)

22-year-old South London girl Katy B took to the 02 Academy in front of a very young, very trendy crowd for her On a Mission tour. And, from the moment she took to the stage in a pretty sparkly top, her firey red hair cascading down her back in electrifying style, we all knew we were in for a treat. Starting with a fan favourite Broken Record, Katy B was firmly in command of the audience throughout. 

The two female back-up vocalists and band accompanying her were all highly competent, without being so loud so that they stole the thunder from the main attraction.

Katy B was chatty and lively throughout, often engaging with the crowd to check that we were getting into it (rest assured, we were), and her accompanying MC was equally spirited. Her performance of Louder had everyone in the arena jumping up and down. Vocally, Katy B has a very powerful recording voice, as demonstrated on her effortlessly reaching the high notes on Power On Me. Her unusual style of half-rapping, half-singing some of her songs were exhibited at their best in Disappear, when she delivered the line “but how can I change direction / when you smile at me I’m infected”.

Her renditions of her crowd-pleasers Easy Please Me and Lights On, the latter which was done as the encore, also didn’t disappoint, and the headline song, Katy On a Mission, was fantastic with excellent production value.

Katy B has a great talent for writing about the mundane and the amusing and making poetry of it, as exhibited from the opening line of Easy Please Me – “standing at the bar with my mate Olivia, we were trying our best to catch up”. Choosing to tell us the rationale for writing some of her songs as an introduction into them also helped to keep the audience entertained. 

For me, however, the best Katy B’s performance of the night was of Witches Brew, wherein her back-up singers sang the sultry “oohs” perfectly to complement her on lead vocals, and the lighting crew also did a great job to help re-create the eerie Twighlightish vibe that was emulated in her music video.

All in all, it was a great 80 minutes spent with a young woman who quite clearly loved music, and loved performing. The audience loved it, she loved it – everyone had an ace time. 

Mission accomplished, Katy!

For more of my concert reviews, click here.

Film review: KUNG FU PANDA 2 (Jennifer Yuh, 2011)

Having established himself in the first Kung Fu Panda film as more than just a cuddly bear, Po and the Furious Five find themselves up against something which threatens the Valley of Peace – an evil peacock, Lord Shen, and his canons which destroy everything that stands in their way – even kung fu. At the same time, Po comes to realise that his dad, a goose, is not his biological father, asking questions about where he originated from. 

It probably won’t surprise you to know that the former and the latter are very closely cause-and-effect interlinked as Po struggles with inner demons as well as physical ones, but the journey, in which Po and his ensemble of wisecracking fighters – headed by the badass Tigress – makes for one of the most entertaining Summer films of this year, as well as a film so emotionally layered that I was moved to tears at more than one point.

For the most part, the voice actors do their voiceovers without entering the relms of excellence such as Eddie Murphy in Shrek, or Ellen DeGeneres in Finding Nemo, which is a massive shame to say the least, considering there are talented auteurs like Dustin Huffman, Dennis Haysbert and Seth Rogen on the books here, the latter who’s comic timing could have been put to much better use. There are, however, four exceptions to this rule in Kung Fu Panda, only one of them bad. The bad is Angelina Jolie. As the hardcore Tigress with a taciturn demeanour and fists of steel (quite literally), she is drawn to exude an air of unapproachability, but deep down with a heart of gold. It’s quite a difficult kind of character to portray in animated film, but Jolie never veers out of the monotonous in her voicework, and it is safe to say she makes a tiger’s dinner out of her “performance.” 

The other three exceptions, however, are all good ones. Gary Oldman is absolutely fantastic as the evil peacock, springing menace in every line he delivers, and Chinese actor James Hong, so often typecast as a Chinese takeaway guy or waiter, voices Po’s adoptive father Mr Ping, who is, surprise surprise, a restaurant owner. But that unmistakable Asian voice of his, so hilarious in it’s over the topness, is also called on to deliver some things other than jokes in Kung Fu Panda 2, and one scene in particular, in which he tells Po about how he found him (in a vegetable crate, Po had eaten all the radishes) is an emotive tour-de-force in heartfelt voice acting.

But, as with the prequel, the film belongs to Jack Black, and whilst the film could have done just as well with any other actors voicing the Furious Five, it most certainly would not have been anywhere near as special without Black. Whilst I could name a smattering of his previous film roles which perhaps haven’t truly tested him as a serious actor- and indeed, there are those who would add Kung Fu Panda 2 to this growing list – he is a revelation here, funny in the comedic scenes, loveably goofy throughout but just as good at the melodrama.

Indeed, the theme of adoption might unsettle a few parents watching Kung Fu Panda with their kids, as they were expecting something a little lighter from a Summer blockbuster. And, to its credit, Kung Fu Panda is one of the few films I’d have paid to watch in the cinema – the fight scenes are breatakingly detailed and so well-choreographed that you forget that you’re watching cartoon animals fight. The score, with its Chinese instruments and motifs, sounds beautiful. But the over-arching quality that elevates Kung Fu Panda 2 above that of run-of-the-mill well-made but forgettable animated films is the story, and that of Po’s personal voyage of self-discovery. 

I particularly liked how Po’s flashback scenes were drawn with a different king of animated detail used in the rest of the film; something about that really struck emotional chords with me. And Po as a baby panda is absolutely adorable, sweeter than toffee. KFP2 is very very funny, but more importantly, it has a huge amount of heart. There is a lot of thematic material in Kung Fu Panda 2 and those who choose to judge it by its cover and give it a miss are really missing out; as Dolly Parton might say, “I’m a real good book”.

Grade: A-