The Social Network: 7/10

I will start this review with a bit of name dropping. About two years ago I met Jessie Eisenberg star of this week’s film ‘The Social Network’. He was at the Edinburgh film festival promoting the chronically poorly advertised Adventureland. He was, I am glad to report a thoroughly decent chap who was filled with excitement at being in Britain for the first time. We talked about the weather and the workings of the devolved government and I will say it again he was lovely. That night I went to the premier of Adventureland in which he played a character who was, yes you guessed it lovely. Which made his appearance as Mark Zuckenberg a man as famous for being an arse hole as a programmer raise an eyebrow.

The plot follows the story of the creation of Facebook through the litigation proceedings brought against its founder the brilliant but socially inept Mark Zuckerberg. The film is told in through flashbacks and in the words of Zuckerberg himself, the Winklevoss twins and facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin.

The conversational pace of the film is frantic. The opening scene in which Zuckenberg gets dumped by his girlfriend sees a rally of words across the table quicker than a baseline battle between Nadal and Federer. Once I had tuned my ear to the frantic pace of the conversation I found the script to be filled with an intelligent dry wit that resulted in more laughs amongst the audience than I would have expected.

Reputation wise there are few winners as is often the case when business dealings are scrutinised. The Winklevoss Twins (or the Winklevie as Mark memorably refers to them) come out as numpties squared; Napster founder Sean Parker comes across as a bit of a chancer and a freeloader riding on the coat tails of Mark Zuckerberg, who is himself portrayed as cold and charmless but for a reprieve given to him in the film’s final scene.

The film has been criticised for taking liberties with the truth but quite frankly I don’t care this is an entertainment blog not a history blog. (If it were both I would tell you that Louis XV was the first person to use an elevator: in 1743 his "flying chair" carried him between the floors of the Versailles palace.) As a film the screen writer (Aaron Sorkin) and director (David Fincher) have done a great job at presenting what is essentially a court room drama in an intelligent way to as wider audience as possible.

Do you have the X Factor? No but I do have a massive wang.

The Inbetweeners Series Three 8/10
The X Factor 6/10

This week’s TV digest will focus on some nobs acting like pricks and some dicks singing in front of a panel of golden wangs. In honour of one (or both) of these programs it may also contain one or two phallic references.

So let us get started with the Inbetweeners. For those of you who don’t know the Inbetweeners follows some ‘typical’ teenage boys (typical in that they are colossal wankers) and is written by at least one of the brains that brought us ‘Flight of the Conchords.’ Will, a socially awkward geek has to transfer from a private school to the local comprehensive to complete his A-levels. There he is befriended by three misfits: lovable but easily led Simon, brash and boastful Jay and Neil who is as thick as two short planktons. Series Three finds the quartet in the upper sixth and still pre-occupied by the holy trinity of booze, parties and ‘clunge’ (a new word for me but one that apparently refers to a vagina as in the phrase “Balls deep in clunge.”)

I am so ashamed that I like this program that was I to be watching it in your presence I wouldn’t laugh, quite the opposite. I would dig my nails (specially grown for the occasion, you didn’t just drop in) into my thighs and think of Gordon Brown speaking on fiscal prudence instead of letting you know which nob joke or teenage sexual fallacy I found so amusing. I have to admit that the show does parallel some of my school experience (although the characters do seem to be a little old for some of their behaviour) I certainly met a Neil and the Jay character can be found in all schools private or comprehensive. In honour of Jay I will leave this section with my top three sex boasts that I remember hearing at school:

3. “Yeah we do all sorts, last night she tit wanked in front of me.” It turned out he believed a ‘tit wank’ was when a girl QUOTE: “Wanks her nipple till milk comes out.”
2. I had sex at the top of the Eiffel Tower with a French girl I met in the lift. I don’t have her name or number because she didn’t speak English.
1. I broke my wrist when I was fingering a bird on the bus and it hit a bump.

Now that we have dealt with that filth let us move on to the glitter infused, self-congratulatory public stooge fest that is the X Factor.

The X Factor is currently in that awkward phase of the program where most of the nutters have been weeded out but the field still stinks of mediocrity. Few of us in the public have much invested in any of the acts and at this point we can all pick out at least five contestants who will be making their way to the openings of grim shopping centres over the next five weeks or so. Yet we watch. This weekend’s shows offered the following highlights:

• The Arctic Monkey’s arrangement of ‘Diamonds are Forever’ being dragged out from somewhere.
• Katie singing a song from the jungle book.
• Rebecca Fergusson appearing with what appeared to be her abscess twin attached to her hip.

I would like to comment on one final thing, the length of the program. Where the hell is all the extra content coming from? The format certainly hasn’t changed. I have a theory; let us look at the Cream egg: 1.They are definitely getting smaller each year. 2. You can’t destroy or create energy. Conclusion: that bastard Simon Cowell is shrinking our cream eggs and using the left over energy to make the X factor longer than ever.

Tut tut Simon Tut tut.

Kings of Leon & Two Door Cinema Club

I will usually just be reviewing one album in this post however as a special Brucie bonus this review features two albums. I had initially intended on reviewing the new Kings of Leon album but for the reasons that will become evident in the short review .

Kings of Leon ‘Come Around Sundown.’ 2/10

This album is predictable at every turn and has, at every opportunity to do something of interest instead opted for something monotonous and mediocre. Prior to writing this review I was sort of prepared to compare KOL to U2 in that they have a knack of producing great singles that long outlive their albums. But that would be doing U2 a disservice as this album contains no stadium filling cock rock singles or in fact anything remarkable at all. A detailed analysis would follow but I don’t want to listen through enough times to be able to produce more words than this on the subject.
Stand Out Tracks: There really aren’t any.
Listen if you like: Feeling bored and numb. (The emotions not the bands)

Two Door Cinema Club ‘Tourist History’ 7/10

Two Door Cinema Club are one of them Welsh bands that seem to have gotten an awful lot of great pre-release press. There first LP ‘Tourist History’ is out next week but thanks to the wonders of the internet here is my musings on it.

The Cinema Club album plays host to angular guitar sounds, yelped verses and electric keys with the polished and produced choruses that have been so in vogue the past eighteen months. Unsure what I mean? Think Friendly Fires, Foals et al. Something of the pop sensibilities of the British or more specifically Welsh ‘Emo’ scene have also made their way on to the record the first example being the chorus and middle eight on ‘come back home’ which on first listen reminded me of the high production values of fellow sons of Wales’ Kids in Glass Houses.
Do you want it, do you want it, do you want it, do you want it all irritates until the refrain drops away to reveal some lovely electronic sounds that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Nintendo shooter circa 1996. (Did anyone here have a SNES scope? If so you were lucky bastards.) Drum performances are something that are rarely talked about and rightly so in the case of most modern rock and indie efforts. However, increasingly more innovative drum patterns have started to find their place in the indie rock scene. Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys and Vampire Weekend are all noticeable big hitters in this field. Whilst Two Door Cinema club don’t do anything outstanding in its originality they haven’t settled for the simplest of options and this occasionally catches your ear. (This is the Life, I Can Talk, Undercover Martyn.)

At the albums midpoint is the sample driven a cappella introduction of ‘I Can Talk’. Which is a song that screams “I AM THE SINGLE” being both a record that you can sing and dance to, much to the annoyance of those on the train where this review was written.

There are a couple of false starters buried in the album one example being ‘Undercover Martyn’ which starts as though it is going to try to hit some delicate notes but then gives up on that idea in pursuit of a rhythm led poptastic chorus before giving up on that and playing with the laser gun effects on the keyboard.

On the whole most tracks seem to be thirty seconds too long insisting on the repetition of choruses that aren’t always strong enough to survive sustained scrutiny. But that isn’t to say that there isn’t plenty to like. Not much of it is original but the majority of it plays well and whilst I’m sure Two Door Cinema Club won’t be changing the course of music they fit nicely into what is happening around them at the moment.
Listen If you like: Friendly Fires, The Sunshine Underground, Owl City, The Departure, The Rapture and Cow Bells (the instrument not the band)
Stand Out Tracks: I Can Talk, Come Back Home, Do You Want it All.

The Life and Death of Charlie St. Cloud: 6/10

Spoiler Alert: Severe

For those of you who think Thursday is an odd day for film reviews I offer an explanation, an explanation in a single word, that word being Orange. With that bit of corporate unpleasantness behind us I will move on to my musings on this week’s film.

As an act of kindness to my long suffering girlfriend this week’s cinima trip was to see Charlie St Cloud. ‘The life and death of Charlie st. Cloud’ (to give it its full name) or ‘The complete mental breakdown and partial recovery of Charlie st. Cloud’ (to give it its accurate description) is the latest film to star the swoontastic Zak Efron. This went some way to explaining the demographic of those in attendance who chatted, texted and chomped their way through the performance whilst their hormones’ performed cartwheels down the aisles.

Ok, plot. Charlie (Zak) is involved in a car crash. His little brother is slightly more involved in the incident, so involved in fact that he dies. Zak had promised that he would teach his brother to play baseball and honours this promise meeting his brother’s ghost in the woods every day at sundown. Because Charlie is spending more time than the average twenty-something with his dead brother life somewhat passes him by. That is until he meets a sailing gal and falls in love. The problem is it turns out that sailing gal has recently come a cropper and it is in actual fact her spirit who is giving him the run around in the hope that he saves her stricken body from a dubious rock.

Right, Improvements that I would make to the film, I have two ideas. Firstly get rid of any scenes without Mr St Cloud the elder. Given the trailer, the poster and the reviews why else would you be here if not just to gawp at Mr. Efron, who, now that he isn't playing a high schooler it is ok for you to get hot and bothered about. Secondly, there are a few scenes in the film where Charlie is seen talking to thin air when he is talking to a ghost. There is also a scene when he shags a goast in a cemetary. May I suggest that viewing this latter scene from the perspective of a bystander would have made for a much more entertaining experience, though the world may not yet be ready for the sight of a Disney heartthrob nobbing someone’s family plot.

Acting in the film was fine, the script wasn't as incipid as the plot suggests and the production was completely without pretenetion with regards to its taget market.

I will leave the last words of this review to my girlfriend. “I could spread him on a cracker.” As, rather worryingly could I.

Need more Zak Efron watch the trailer for the film here: