A Surprising Film -- Spoilers.

The Social Network. A film about Facebook, or at least that's how word got around. The tagline "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies" is so much more telling. Far from being a film "about Facebook" it explores friendships confronted with money, power and business.

Coursework makes the world burn.

I got extremely bored whilst failing to complete more of my coursework. I think I'll try again tomorrow...

English Coursework...

...requires too much brain power. I'm not even joking. I want to write a comical, educated, well written review of Stephen Fry's The Fry Chronicles. This is already proving to be really hard. I've re-written the introduction a couple of times and only just decided upon an opening sentence. My attempts at planning have left me disinterested and unhappy with it.

We have to use a style model, a piece of writing with the same audience, genre and purpose as what we want to write, and I've chosen Andrew Rawnsley's review of Tony Blair's A Journey. Without getting into too much detail, it describes the failings of the work -- which there appear to be many -- and the highlights, using known information from Tony Blair's past. I like the way the review is done, it does what it's meant to, but it doesn't grab my attention. I want to write something that will. We are allowed to deviate from the style model as long as the audience, genre and purpose stay the same. I'll probably end up doing this, and quite a lot. I'll still use information from Fry's past, write about the many highlights and the sparse downsides of the book but I'll try and make it more entertaining and interesting to read using as many literary techniques as I see fit.

TL;DR
Basically, I'm going to write an entertaining *ahem*, informative book review aimed at an educated, adult audience, nothing like my style model. It will take me a billion years and it will show no relation to the first draft.

The Social Network.

"No one man should have all that power

The clock's ticking, I just count the hours"

  This song gets in my head, any time I hear the trailer of The Social Network. I do love the song though.

  Anyway...

  Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake play main roles in the new film about Facebook. Now, it's not a film about the users and daily use of Facebook, that would be weird and boring. It "explores the moment at which Facebook,... was invented". That sounds better, could be interesting and maybe even funny in places.

  Even the reviews look good, and that's rare. I've seen many films that reviewers disliked that I've really enjoyed so I've pretty much come to the conclusion that most people who write reviews aren't reliable and will follow what others say. The fact I write that and then want to write some professional reviews in the future is hypocrisy in itself. However, a film rated 8.5/10 has got to be well written/directed, surely?

  David Fincher, the director of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Panic Room and the last of the Alien trilogy, directs this film and Aaron Sorkin, the writer of The West Wing and A Few Good Men, wrote the screenplay. I admit, I had to Google them and look at their IMDb profiles to find any of that out, but I've heard of the other titles and I know they're good. So maybe their prowess has rubbed off on The Social Network.


  I'm writing all of this out of presumption and hopefulness as I haven't seen it yet but want to, and soon.

P.S. I apologise for the bitty, non-flowy writing... It's late.

(The Social Network)

(IMDb: Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher)

Tuition fees, screw you.

  I hate the government. Just FYI.

  They appear to be removing the cap on university fees. UK university fees were capped at £3,290 but the plan means that fees could go up to and above £7,000, possibly up to something like £12,000.
Needless to say, my friends have been annoyed and worried. If all went well, some, if not most, of us were planning to go to university in September '12, the year they plan on releasing the cap.
Even the university groups and boards are split on this. The UCU lecturers' union said that it was "the final nail in the coffin for affordable education". Others are saying that it will hit middle-earning families the hardest as the rich could afford it and the poorer get more help with it (a proposed £3,250 more). But The Russell Group of leading universities said that it would provide much needed funding. Mmm... Kay...
I knew it would happen, it was in the news for a while when they were listing the government funding that would change after the election.

  These changes wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't found out today, whilst researching for the figures above, that MPs pledged to phase out tuition fees. 500 Lib Dems and 17 Tories signed the Vote for Students pledge earlier in 2010. The Lib Dems said that they would phase out tuition fees. The only sign of this I see is the reports of a possible backbench rebellion and Vince Cable's press office saying that it was still official policy to scrap them. It's not going to happen.

  Anyway, other than that rage which appears to have consumed my day, it's been an alright one, need to do some work then collapse.

(BBC: Cable Accepts Unlimited Tuition Fees Plans 12/10/2010 08:00)

(Telegraph: 1,500 Candidates Vow To Oppose Tuition Fee Rises  05/05/2010 15:58)

Photography, Graphics and Books.

Today's been good. Spent a whole two and a half our lesson taking photos around Wellington; that's what I call a good photography lesson. I took over 400 photos, 1.6 gigabytes. Sorting through these is going to take up my whole weekend. Fml. Annnnyyywwwaaayyyyy..... We "finished" our Identity project last Friday and started Reflections on Monday. I already have, like, double the photos I had for Identity and it's only been two lessons...

I got my Graphic Communication finals finished too, I'm happy with them.

The one on the left is a traditional piece in ink, mono-printing and yellow chalk. The one on the right is a digital piece using two photographs and edited in Photoshop.

On another note, I bought two books today! I'm really enjoying Stephen Fry's new book, as I've said before, so I bought the one before it, Moab Is My Washpot. He makes references to it in The Fry Chronicles and the stories sound funny and interesting. The other book I bought is incredibly geeky/nerdy. I'm pretty ashamed to say that I bought the graphic novel of Kick-Ass. I saw it in HMV and could resist. I love the film, I think it's hilarious. It's macabre humour makes me laugh no matter how many times I watch it. It also evokes some sense of "Maybe I could do that" in me but, alas, I'm neither naïve or confident enough to do it.



And anyway, superheroes don't exist, right?

Wanting and English Coursework

Get me this phone. Now.

It's a new phone by Lumix. It has a 13.2 mega-pixel camera and acts as a phone too. Apparently it's going to have a 3.3 inch touchscreen, weigh 146g and be 17.7 mm thick.
It looks good but I'll have to wait until prices are released.

In the mean time... I still want an iPhone...





With the wanting/lusting over, now for something more realistic. And inevitable.
English Language coursework. Urgh.
We get to write anything we want to, it just has to have a style model. I'm tempted by Simon Callow's review of The Fry Chronicles, or his actual book, or even a Jeremy Clarkson piece, but definitely a review of some sort.
But then I have to decide on what to review. Do I make it a book? Or a film? And what book or what film?
Urgh. I'd love an essay title right now. I could pull that to pieces and find a way to make my answer relate in a round-about way. Nevermind. 
I'll probably post some more about it in the future.

(Lumix Phone: http://panasonic.jp/mobile/lumixphone/)