Film Review: Limitless

Title: Limitless

Director: Neil Burger

Writers: Leslie Dixon (screenplay), Alan Glynn (novel)

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Anna Friel and Abbie Cornish

Rating: 15

Review: I’m the sort of film watcher who thinks merit can be measured by explosion frequency. I’m not the discerning viewer after high brow story lines, superb acting and thought provoking direction. I like fast, I like stylish, I like genre.

So to all appearances Limitless should satisfy my tastes as a film watcher fairly easily.

I wouldn’t say it didn’t, but I wouldn’t say it did either.

Limitless starts well, with a slightly dishevelled guy (Bradley Cooper) precariously balanced on a balcony ledge of a penthouse suit, while someone tries to break the door down. Before we find out if he steps off and plummets to his death we wind back some months before to where this all started – when a hopeless writer, significantly more dishevelled than he is in the future, bumps into an old school friend who offers him a drug that allows him access to 100% of his brain. Feeling he couldn’t be in a worse situation than he is right now – girlfriend left him, deadline for pages looming and nothing written, house a mess – our protagonist Eddie takes the drug and with his heightened intelligence starts to see things going his way for a change. He gets his pages written, tidies his house, bangs his landlord’s irritating wife after sweet talking her with advice about college papers.

But of course, drugs wear off, and most of the rest of the film is Eddie trying to stay ahead of those who would take his stash from him, while trying to advance himself as quickly as possible and make a quick fortune.

While the film is great to look at – the trippy sections of drug fuelled indulgence are stylishly done, there is some brilliant make up (Anna Friel’s brief appearance being a particularly good show) and the acting is reasonable – and in all fairness, I was really enjoying it until the final section, the finale that occurred once we were back with Eddie on the edge of his penthouse balcony left a lot to be desired.

It’s not that there wasn’t a resolution, or even that the resolution was particularly unbelievable. It was just… wrong. Morally wrong. (Warning: Slight spoilers ahead.)

The overall message of Limitless seemed to be: take loads of drugs, get everything you ever wanted. It was edgy, and saw Eddie doing terrible things – taking him as far down as to shoot a criminal and drink his blood for the drug in it. But at the end everything was fine – better, in fact, than it had ever been – and rock bottom, drinking human blood Eddie was on his way to being senator.

I guess I wanted a little more consequence. If the final exchange between Robert DeNiro’s character and Eddie had gone a little more DeNiro’s way, then I think it would have been better. But as it stands, Limitless just seems to suggest that you can do whatever the hell you want, and still be en route to presidency, just as long as you’re smart and pretty enough.

Overall Verdict

A flick that does its best to be fast, fun and footloose, and succeeds, but with a questionable morality that left me feeling a little jarred by the ending.

Rating: 3/5

January

I don’t think January is ever a particularly productive month for anyone. Quite apart from the post-Christmas slump, you have bad weather, short days and usually a bunch of restrictive New Year’s Resolutions to contend with, if you haven’t already broken them.

I’m not going to keep to my January reading list. I was doing well, and had finished two of the books on the list fairly quickly – but then I had a week of working 7am-10pm, and after that it all went a bit downhill. But that’s okay. The beauty of books is they don’t have an expiry date, and I’m pleased that I’ve read the two and a half that I have.

The posting on here hasn’t been going so well either, but every time I feel bad about that, I remember that no one except my mum actually reads it. XD

So, I’m sat in bed nursing my poorly toe, which was throbbing quite uncomfortably when I woke up, and wondering how far Mum and I will get with the decorating today. I am also wondering if my decorating shoes will actually go on my feet, as we may have some problems if they don’t, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now, I’m just going to enjoy this chilled January morning, because for the first time in ages, I’m not panicking about the hundreds of things I have to do.

I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Yeah, My Toe Is Definitely Going To Fall Off

Exaggerating? Who, me?

A Not So Disappointing Injury…

This is what I imagined my fingers would look like after the mouse trap incident.

Instead, it took a table dropping on my toe with some considerable force to get the bruise satisfaction I desired last time.

Only this time, it’s much more painful. And I don’t particularly feel like celebrating the impressive purple splodge on my toenail. Or walking, for that matter.

The Mousetrap

Among the many problems we’ve had with our new house – not terminal things, understand, just things that need fixing before we can move in – was a rodent issue.

Our first evidence was a mousetrap stashed under the sink, and a few mouse droppings beneath where the washing machine used to be. Given that washing machines don’t get moved too often, I didn’t really think much of it, taking the evidence to be of an old infestation, and not a current one.

At least, I did until I saw one of the little buggers running across my kitchen surfaces, having made a meal of a chocolate muffin I foolishly left out.

It was tiny, and very cute, and the Boyfriend totally didn’t believe that I’d seen it, until I pointed out said muffin evidence. We tried to set the trap from under the sink, but it turned out to be a dud when setting it only resulted in my fingers being trapped. So the Boyfriend, being an anal sort of character, bought about 5 different mouse traps and set them all up.

He wanted to buy a humane trap, but I told him it was a waste of time. I used to live in a big country cottage when I was little, and it had a garage with a significant mouse issue. We quickly discovered that humane mousetraps only ever involve the mouse walking in, eating the bait, and walking out again. The Boyfriend was disheartened to hear this, but having it reiterated by the shop keeper at whatever shop he bought the traps (I want to say ‘Pet shop’ but that sounds somewhat counter intuitive to me…) convinced him that lethal traps were the only way forwards.

I wasn’t with him when he went round to find our unwanted visitor caught in the trap, tiny hands purportedly reaching out for the cheese bait. It’s probably a good thing, and not because I’m squeamish and hate hurting animals. Quite the opposite.

I would never hurt something that was just minding its own business, but as far as I’m concerned – you come in my house and eat my chocolate muffin: you’re toast.

The Boyfriend is more of a delicate creature.

He rang me to tell me we had caught the mouse and that he didn’t know what to do. I told him to empty the trap and reset it, in case there were any more. The Boyfriend couldn’t bring himself to touch it, let alone release the mouse from the trap. He threw it away whole.

‘I just feel so guilty,’ he said later, clearly traumatised by his experience. ‘I just hate to bring harm to living creatures.’

‘Darling,’ I said, entirely unsympathetic. ‘You had a bacon sandwich for dinner.’

Review: Bleeding Hearts By Alyxandra Harvey

Title: Bleeding Hearts

Author: Alyxandra Harvey

Series: Drake Chronicles #4

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Summary (from Goodreads)

The Drakes and friends will be tested when an infestation of deadly vampires threatens Violet Hill.

Lucy’s cousin Christabel has come to live in Violet Hill, and adjusting to the difference between life in a small mountain town and her home in the city is difficult enough. The strict curfew that Lucy’s parents enforce is the worst part. Something really dangerous couldn’t possibly happen in this tiny town.

But Christabel has noticed some mysterious happenings, and it seems like Lucy, her boyfriend Nicholas and his brother Connor are all in on a secret that Christabel doesn’t understand—one that seems deadly serious. Although she won’t admit it, Christabel would love to be in on any secret with Connor Drake. But when she is kidnapped by the ruthless Hel-Blar vampires, Christabel must cause more and more trouble in Violet Hill, Lucy and Connor finally fill Christabel in on all the undead drama. Together, they must find a way to stamp out the Hel-Blar for good.

What’s Good About It

After three fun but decidedly mediocre instalments, Bleeding Hearts starts to realise some of the potential Harvey’s books always had. It’s darker and edgier than the previous books, with some consequences that reach further than whether or not the Drake brother du jour will like the plucky heroine.

For starters, the book returns to Lucy’s point of view, which gives a largely ignored character some development. It feels for the first time like the girls’ lives really continue once they land their Drake, not that their stories finish as soon as they get snogged.

The intrigue with the Hel-Blar was a nice boost to the mythology, though it still feels underdeveloped at times, and the series retains what made the first three books okay reads: fast pace, humour and some good action.

What’s Not So Good

While this book is better, it’s still not as good as I feel it could be. The romance is still wafer thin, the Drakes still only distinguishable by tiny, inconsequential quirks – such as liking DVDs, wearing frilly lace cuffs – and fairly interchangeable. But, if still considering this a ‘beach read’ sort of series, it doesn’t disappoint.

Rating: 4/5

A Disappointing Injury

I don’t deal well with pain. I curse and cry and shout and am generally unpleasant when I’m in any sort of pain. But I always feel somehow justified in my suffering if I get a good looking injury. You know the sort – giant purple bruise, bursting into green and yellow at the edges, a horrific gash that looks like it cuts all the way down to the bone.

Today, while trying to kill an unwanted visitor in our new house, the Boyfriend and I managed to trap three of the fingers on my right hand in a mousetrap. It was probably the most painful thing that’s ever happened to my hand. I am still smarting now, an hour or more later.

My fingers feel about four sizes bigger than they should be.

They look… normal.

How disappointing.

Decorating

My skin is starting to get accustomed to the feel of paint flecks. My hands are acclimatising to the strains and stresses of filling, scraping, scrubbing, rolling. My nails are cracked and I haven’t been able to get the dirt out from underneath them for days.

The holiday that was meant to be a chance to catch up on lost sleep and relax has turned into a maelstrom of activity. The Boyfriend and I completed our house sale on the 21st of December. Being in the fortunate position of not having to leave our flat immediately, we have been working hard to get the place into shape.

It’s not that the house is run down and unliveable, but it’s not how we want it, and there are a number of small jobs that need doing that are easier to manage without furniture in the place. While the Boyfriend and the Step-dad have been busy fixing gutters and render, my mother and I have been busy bees cleaning skirting boards and painting.

I am a very bad painter, and not a particularly skilled ‘DIYer’ but under the careful tutelage of Mum I have been learning a lot of tips and tricks, and I’m starting to feel brave enough to take on the next room myself.

Of course, with being back at work this week, I’ve got less time than I had before. I’m having to work hard to get everything I need to do for work done during the week so I can have the weekends free. It’s equally frustrating as it is beneficial to be still living in the flat, as I feel any time spent maintaining the flat is time wasted, time I could have spent scrubbing the oven clean in the new place, or some other job that will need doing before I can start to feel it’s our house, not somewhere we’re housesitting for someone else.

It’s an exciting project for the new year, and I’m hoping that by the week in February that the Boyfriend and I booked off ages ago, intending to visit some people I think, that we will have got most of the things we wanted to do done, ready for one last push during that week to get the last bits and bobs finished. I’m not anticipating that the place will be perfect by then, naturally – it’s going to take years before it’s exactly how we want it, and more money than we have to our names at the moment – but I hope that it will at least be starting to resemble home.

Review: The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer By Michelle Hodkin

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

Author: Michelle Hodkin

Series: Mara Dyer #1

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Genre: YA Paranormal

Summary (from Goodreads)

Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.

What’s Good About It

It’s been a while since a book kept me up until the small hours of the morning. Granted, they don’t get many opportunities to, as it only ever happens when the Boyfriend is out or away for the night, but there have been a few occasions lately where the chance has been there, but I spent the time doing the normal thing and sleeping instead.

Mara Dyer hooked me from the first chapter and wouldn’t let go. It was the sort of book that demanded I kept reading until I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, then sleep the minimum required time before getting back to reading again. I finished it in an evening and a morning, bent double sat in a camping chair while waiting for something to soak in the new house. I snatched pages in between – while waiting for the bathroom, while waiting for my toast – like some sort of drug addict seeking a hit whenever no one is looking.

The prose is beautiful, the characters interesting and well realised. The whole premise was fascinating, especially when it became quite clear this wasn’t a contemporary with paranormal overtures.

I’ve hesitantly put the genre here as YA Paranormal, but there are definite moments of horror creeping into the narrative. It’s unnerving in places – the shaky world Mara exists in, where reality and and unreality have had the edges blurred by hallucinations, is a frighting one, and it’s discomfiting how you are never sure if what Mara experiences is real or not.

An eerie read that will have you questioning such concepts as ‘sanity’, and will leave you a little too spooked to have a bath late at night for a while. Can’t wait for book number two!

What’s Not So Good

Well, I wasn’t expecting it to be the first in a series (don’t know where I got that impression) so it was a little disappointing when it wasn’t a complete story… but on the other hand there will be another book or two, so yay!

Oh! and the prologue was an annoying waste of time. It gave away a bit too much, I thought. I would have preferred not to have it.

Rating: 5/5

Celebrating The New Year, Gilmore Style

My family has never pretended to be civilised.

My mother is the proud inventor of such ‘family traditions’ as Christmas Baseball (using the stalk of a brussel sprout plant to bat all the offcuts of vegetables across the garden while waiting for the dinner to cook) and I recall one New Year’s Eve spent with little plastic gold nuggets on our heads ‘meditating’. I don’t recall the reason, but I do remember we were all laughing so much that they kept falling off our heads.

This year, we set off some fire lanterns.

In our minds, our house was going to look like this:

Two went off perfectly, and sailed majestically into the night sky.

The rest… not so much.

The fourth and final lantern never made it off the ground, after a gust of wind sent the flames in Mr Taylor’s direction and he panicked, his motion pushing the paper part of the lantern into the flames, prompting Mum to urge him to drop it on the lawn before he lost some eyebrow.

The third, however, takes the prize for the funniest (and most potentially terrifying, phew that was close) thing I’ve seen in a very long time.

It didn’t fill properly. The wind that would soon destroy the fourth lantern kept blowing the paper inwards, pushing the hot air out of it. We, perhaps foolishly, let it go, and it drifted in a limp sort of manner up into a tree.

That was funny enough from where I was sitting – the tree was bare, damp from earlier rain, and unlikely to set on fire – then, as others in the family were rushing forwards with brooms to retrieve it, another gust of the tricksy wind pushed it up out of the tree, and for a brief moment it soared gloriously. Until it clipped the roof and sagged downwards, wedging itself between the neighbour’s caravan and the wooden shelter it lived in.

Being the sensible sort of person, concerned about health and safety, I was by this point crying with laughter. In my defence, I had my baby brother in my arms and couldn’t exactly abandon him in the garden where a merry bonfire that used to be a fire lantern was blazing on the lawn (these two events happened fairly simultaneously) and so wasn’t of much service. And the Boyfriend is a fireman – he would be much more use than me.

The Boyfriend had climbed onto the water butt to see where the lantern had gone, and had announced in a slightly concerned voice that it was on the caravan. With his experience, he knew it would be a very short window of time in which it could be put out, before the caravan caught and burned. Caravans burn very quickly apparently.

The Boyfriend leapt down from the water butt and grabbed the first thing that came to hand, dashing heroically through the house to save the caravan. Unfortunately for both the caravan and this heroic image, the first thing that came to hand was a little wooden witch’s broom – part of a fancy dress outfit for the 3 year old. I am slightly gutted I didn’t see the Boyfriend beating out the fire with this child’s toy, but part of me thinks I might have passed out from the hilarity of it all.

Thankfully, he returned a few minutes later with a prognosis of smoke damage and nothing else. Soap and elbow grease would restore the caravan to full glory. He was holding the singed broom and destroyed lantern in his arms.

So, here’s to an eventful, fun filled 2012. I think we’ve filled out quota of nearly setting things on fire already, and should probably be careful around candles, lest karma tries to get us. However, if the past few days have been anything to go by, it’s going to be a good one.

I leave you with the fire lantern scene in Tangled. Next time you think it might be romantic/beautiful to reenact it – remember our cautionary tale. These things are much less flammable in CGI.