I cringed so hard I had to laugh...

Movie Title: "The Room"
Director: Tommy Wiseau
Lead "actor": Tommy Wiseau
Writer: Tommy Wiseau
Producer: Tommy Wiseau
Co-Producer: Tommy Wiseau


I am struggling to find words which could aptly describe this movie. Made by a man who sold raincoats full of cocain in Korea to raise enough money to make it, "The Room" is the shoddiest, worst-written, most cringe-worthy, throw-things-at-the-screen (we literally did, they were spoons, you shall understand) worthy, yet funniest movie I have ever seen. Reading this, you won't even be able to comprehend how ridiculous the script is, but after you've seen it, "Oh hai danny!" will become a sentence enough to send you into hysterics. There are only two characters in the film who seem to have any grip on reality, but in the second half of the film you'll be struggling to find one of them because the original actor walked out, and Tommy Wiseau made no conceivable attempt to find a similar looking replacement. With too many incredibly distasteful sex scenes between Lisa and whichever man she happens to be in the room with at the time, you may need to bring a bucket if you have a weak stomach. I feel I should also mention that as director, lead actor, producer and co-producer, Tommy Wiseau didn't have the energy to successfully speak his lines during filming, so he has dubbed his voice over the top of his character Johhny in the film. He doesn't appear to be very good at dubbing. I don't really think there's anything else I can say about this, you really do have to see it to believe it. "But that's confidential. Anyway, how's your sex life?"


"The Room" scores both a -10 and a 10 from me. It just doesn't fit anywhere in between.

I Shall Return!

Hi all!
I apologize for my long absence! I have been extremely busy over the past few months, and I'm finding that I have a lot less free time than I anticipated!
I will be moving down to Sydney in the next three weeks or so, and HOPEFULLY once I'm down there and everything is settled, I will have time to continue the blog!!
I apologize again, and I really hope that I can get writing again ASAP!!!

An Edit To My System

Just letting you know, I'm abandoning the "chocolate rating" system, for now. I'm beginning to find it a bit tacky, so unless I find another way to utilise it, I'm removing it for now.

Happy reading!

A Fantastic Almost-Ending

Movie Title: "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part One" (2010)
Director: David Yates
Writer: Steve Kloves (screenplay), J.K. Rowling (novel)

This movie surpassed all of my expectations. Despite knowing that the director had changed, again, I did not have high hopes for the quality of this movie (by themselves, the previous movies have been relatively good, but as someone who has read the entire series multiple times I could not handle the inaccuracies and bad changes to the storyline that have been in every other movie), but David Yates proved me wrong. The script followed that of the novel closer than in any previous movie, and the only things which were changed were trivial things that did not directly affect any important aspect of the storyline. The quality of the acting has also improved greatly, with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson's ability growing in each movie.
The film starts in a very sad tone, playing quiet music while showing the Dursley's leaving forever and Hermione saying goodbye to her family as she wipes their memories. From here on it plays out almost exactly as the novel does, and Yates picked out the perfect place to end this half of the film, setting the second half up for a very dramatic beginning.
With a short but sweet cameo from Bill Nighy, as Rufus Scrimgeour, I felt this movie has everything I was looking for. It seems the film-version of the Harry Potter series has finally been saved!
I give this a 9/10!

Classic Fantasy

Book Title: "The Lord Of The Rings"
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Publisher: Harper-Collins

"The Lord Of The Rings" is one of the most classic fantasy novels of all time. If you haven't read this book, and are up for tackling it's 1112 pages ( one-volume paper-back edition, inclusive of the 108 page Appendix), then find a copy and start reading! Tolkien's epic is constructed of three books within the novel ("The Fellowship Of The Ring"; "The Two Towers"; "The Return Of The King"), followed by a series of Appendices (A-F) which describe in detail the historic background of Middle Earth and it's inhabitants, family trees of relevant characters, deconstruction of the multiple languages used within the novel ( Elvish, Westron, Common Speech, Entish, Orcish, Torog and Dwarvish) and a series of maps detailing the landscape of Middle Earth. All considered, Tolkien has created an entirely believable world in which no detail is left unwritten and no character is without a background. Any minor details which are not covered in the three books are covered in the Appendices, the most extensive and descriptive of any novel I have ever read. To think that this novel started as a bed-time story for Tolkien's children is amazing, as it has become a novel which although unread by many who aren't brave enough, is known by everybody.
"The Lord Of The Rings" takes us through the journey of Frodo Baggins, and his companions: Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, Merry Brandybuck, Gimli son of Gloin, Aragorn son of Arathorn, Legolas, Boromir and Gandalf. Tolkien's story is one that is both original and entertaining, and despite it's length it does not for one word falter in it's brilliance.
One could almost believe that Tolkien must have spent many years in another world to create something so intricate and word-perfect as "The Lord Of The Rings".
This is one of my favourite novels, and definitely earns a 10/10

So Life Begins...And Moscow Rules

Before I start this review, I'm just going to give a brief little update on Me.
Today, I finished my last High School exam, so hopefully I will have a lot more time to blog from now on!
From here on I should be posting quite often, and after I get my HSC results back I will also post my creative writing piece from Paper One.
I hope my reviews are useful and good reading for all!

This shall be my first novel review.

Novel Title: "Moscow Rules" (2008)
Author: Daniel Silva
Publisher: Penguin Group

"Moscow Rules" is, as I have said about every other Daniel Silva novel I have read, brilliant. Again Silva uses his famous lead character, Gabriel Allon, and again Silva creates a masterpiece of a novel, filled with intrigue, well-placed twists and stunning imagery. Silva's detailed characterization, historically accurate descriptions of places and events and realistic dialogue work together perfectly in creating a novel which is easy to read, and captures your attention from beginning to end. 
Silva begins his story with the murder of Aleksandr Lubin, Russian journalist, in Courchevel, France. Allon, who is restoring a painting for the Vatican while on his honeymoon in Umbria, Italy, is summoned to conduct an interview with a Russian insider, who claims to have information regarding the murder. When his contact is killed before the interview can begin, Allon is dragged further into the case, which leads him on a global chase to catch arms dealer Ivan Kharkov before a batch of deadly weapons ends up in Al Qaeda's hands.
Silva offers everything a spy-novel should have and more, setting this novel apart from those in the mainstream which don't tend to vary in terms of plot or interesting dialogue.
"Moscow Rules" is not the first in the Gabriel Allon series, but Silva writes in a way that allows for the reader to read the books in any order, as I have done (not having access to all of the books, I have only read "A Death In Vienna", "Moscow Rules" and "The Defector").
Other titles by Silva include: "The Unlikely Spy", "The Mark of the Assassin", "The Marching Season", "The Kill Artist", "The English Assassin", "The Confessor", "A Death In Vienna", "Prince of Fire", "The Messenger", "The Secret Servant" and the sequel to "Moscow Rules"; "The Defector".
Although I myself have not had the chance to read the entire series (yet), I am confident in recommending them to you, because from what I have read so far and what I know of those novels I haven't yet read, I would rate Silva as the best spy-novelist of today.
If you like to read, and like me haven't given up your six-year-old dreams of being a super-spy, then I definitely recommend any Daniel Silva novel to you.
I give "Moscow Rules" a 10/10.

All Good Things Become Average, But It's Better Than Trash

Movie Title: "Resident Evil: Afterlife" (2010)
Writer & Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Commercialised, cliché, over-done and typically American, but still built from the bones of the original, this movie proved to be better than I heard it was on the grapevine. Milla Jovovich ("The 5th Element", "Ultraviolet") and Ali Larter ("Heroes", "Legally Blonde") return as Alice and Claire in the fourth installment of the "Resident Evil" series, which lives up to it's predecessors despite the obvious amount of Hollywood which has seeped into it. With many scenes looking like something out of "The Matrix", and the use of 3D (although thankfully this wasn't overdone like it seems to be in everything else these days - "Alice In Wonderland" and "Avatar" left me feeling sick), much of this movie was just acrobatic stunts and explosions, but Anderson kept the storyline strong. Beginning with a destructive battle at Japan's Umbrella Headquarters, Alice then starts her search for the elusive Arcadia, a safe-haven supposedly free from infection, and the place where her companions from Extinction should be located. Instead of Arcadia, Alice finds a near-savage Claire, who has lost all but snippets of her memory, and they head to Los Angeles in search of survivors and information. They join up with another band of survivors, including "Prison Break" star Wentworth Miller, in an abandoned prison, and continue to fight the (evolving?) mutants. From here on they make for the elusive Arcadia, but what they find isn't what they expected. There aren't a lot of twists and turns in this movie, with Alice and her nemesis, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), having many a cliché, acrobatic face-off, and the mutants being, as always, annoying and everywhere, but it was still a lot of good fun, and it was nowhere near as disappointing as I had been told by my more judgemental friends.
Even if you aren't a huge fan of the "Resident Evil" series, this is a good film to see, especially for those who thrive on special effects and slow-mo fights.
I'll give this one a 7/10.

Oh, and a little teaser too, the ending leaves it open for a fifth!