Why I love "Cloud Atlas"

Hey guys! So today I'm gonna do something a wee bit different by reviewing a film I actually liked. By that I don't mean that I didn't enjoy some of the other films that have featured on this site but that this film didn't disappoint me are have anywhere near as many annoying problems as something like Man of Steel, which I did enjoy while I was in the theatre.

No caption can aptly describe the pure, unadulterated wonder this film inspires

I love this film so much. And I'm putting that straight out there because it's gonna be pretty damn obvious anyway. The word I would use to describe it is magnificent or spectacular (I'd use epic for it's actual meaning: a story of grand size, scope and significance, but the word has lost meaning because of its overuse, which I'll openly admit contributing to) I found and watched this movie because a film reviewer I very much respect and take a lot of inspiration from said it was her favourite film of 2012 so I decided to check it out. Damn, am I glad.

I'd like to specify quickly, while I have so much love (and in some respects, loyalty) towards this movie, I am going to be looking at the good and bad points of it. No film is perfect, I'm not the type of person to let my enjoyment of a piece block any flaw from sight or critical analysis. This is going to be a discussion of the film as a whole, occasional warts and all. I'm not going to try and be objective in this review, because that would be impossible for me, but I'm not going to skip any failings because of my own fangirling. One final note before I begin analysis, this film was a critic devider. Any reviews I've seen or read of this are very mixed and usually polarised. Not to seem patronising or overly artsy but I get the sense that people who found this film "unnecessarily confusing" or "trying too hard" or even offensive have missed a lot of the point of this film. That sounds incredibly douchey of me but I'll stand by it.

Right, now that's dealt with, what is this movie about? Well, at the increased risk of sounding pretentious and artsy, it's kind of difficult to explain. It's based on a really long book by David Mitchell and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. To give people who haven't seen it a little insight, here's a trailer:

There are six different storylines, set in different places, times and following very different characters. The cast features eight main actors who play varying different roles from story to story in the ultimate ensemble piece; Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Bae Doona and Ben Whishaw, with other repeating characters in more supporting roles.

• The first of these storylines is led by Adam Ewing, a sick lawyer helping with a slave trade in 1849s, sailing to San Francisco. 
• The second focuses on a young musician, Robert Frobisher, who becomes apprentice to a famed composer in 1936. 
• The next is a journalist, Louisa Ray  investigating a conspiracy involving a new nuclear reactor in 1973. 
• Fourth is a book publisher and writer, Timothy Cavendish who accidentally ends up trapped in a nursing home, in 2012. 
• Then there's a "fabricant" worker, Sonmi-451 in a fast food restaurant in new Seoul in 22nd Century.
• Finally, Zachary a tribe member, who guides a "prescient" visitor called Meronym to the top of a mountain in return for saving his niece. This final takes place a post apocalyptic 2321 according to the book.

It primarily explores the idea of interconnected fates, how everything and everyone are connected to each other and make up the intricate tapestry of the universe. It also looks at some more tangible issues such as corruption, betrayal, human nature and prejudice. Prejudice in particular is dealt with cleverly in this film. Each story deals with one form of prejudice, one flaw in human thinking as it were:

1. Racism (there's a black slave stowaway in Ewing's cabin, who befriends him)
2. Homophobia (Frobisher is bisexual)
3. Sexism (Louisa Ray is met with sexist attitudes as she works for a feminist magazine)
4. Agism (Cavendish is in his 70s)
5. Elitism (or keeping down of the working class, the whole slavery idea)
6. Xenophobia (the tribe is wary, sometimes hostile towards the prescients because they're foreign)

It's interesting because the anti-prejudice message is not all that stressed and some people who I've spoken to about the movie missed the prejudice motif. I see this as a good thing. It means that the message is there but the most important part is the character's journey. I think the fact that we're so used to having anti prejudice messages waved in the air and bludgeoned into is in popular media is why it comes across as subtle, because when you think about it, it's not really that subtle it just goes a little under the radar.

Each story is connected to the last with something, usually a telling of that previous story. For example, Robert Frobisher is reading Adam Ewing's diaries of the voyage, Sonmi-451 watches a film about the "Ghastly ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", a screenplay which he was writing in his story. Something that kind of threw me the first time I watched this film was that there's a distinctive stone in Zachary's story that is reprised in Adam's story. This led me to believe that the time in this movie was more cyclic than a straight line, as it was probably intended. It still works with the message of interconnected lives and the stories that are told in different incarnations over and over. From a storytelling standpoint this movie is also interesting because of the patterns (highlighted by the repeated character pairings) which are a visual reminder of how little human nature has changed and is likely to change over time.

Anyway, that's what the movie's about. There is much more to come, folks, it's a long-ass movie so this is gonna be a long-ass review. Don't worry, I'm going to try and keep some of the psychobabblic, English essay material to a low from now on and talk about more accessible things. I will be speaking as if you've seen the movie so this is a cautionary, POSSIBLE SPOILERS warning here.

A little thing you need to know about me to understand why I loved this movie so intensely. The way my mind works is quite... manic. As a kid I always liked fast things, fun things, running around for no reason, you know the sort. A lot of this, while it has been naturally watered down for sociability reasons, is still true today, especially in what attracts me to a film. I also consider myself a smart person (IQ averaging 125: above average) so I like things that engage my powers of deduction, things that I can "get" that other people maybe won't and things that make me feel smart. Why did I enjoy this movie so much?

Thanks Doctor, you always know what to say. All jokes aside, I liked this movie for many of the same reasons that I like movies such as Memento and Sherlock (that's BBC tv show, but each episode is effectively a movie). It's why I liked "Q and A", the book on which Slumdog Millionaire is based on, a truly fabulous read if you like this sort of thing, better than the film in my opinion, though that was good too. I digress. I like films that are somewhat interactive. I'm that one kid in English class who's constantly voicing theories and notes to the teacher because she's over-thought things and has to participate (seriously, ask anyone). When it comes to movies there's a slight downgrade in interactivity from books, you can just sit on your ass and let the movie wash over you without much thought on your part. This has become the appeal of film for many of the, um, (how do I put this without sounding like a terrible person?) less academic members of the public. Movies are more fun than reading books. Because reading takes effort. And literacy (Dammit, I was so close!). 

Now I'm all for laziness but with something I'm as passionate about as stories and storytelling, I like being involved. I can't sit at the back of the classroom with my hand down the whole time, that's boring. I need to get engrossed in the story and if there's something that I need to focus on or a mystery I've to try and figure out before the protagonist, all the better. This movie had that by the bucketload. You literally couldn't look away because then you might miss something. Not even something vital, something as simple as a waistcoat that was in another facet of the story or a sliver of thought that was repeated. Little things like that totally suck me in, I need to collect them all, connect all the dots.

This seems to be a common theme with nerd culture. Nerds are attracted to the same things because they engage them. Shows like Star Trek, Doctor Who and a lot of anime have such huge nerd followings because so many of the plot points are so contrived and out there. People who don't want to participate don't bother to try and put these things together but people who are smart enough and committed enough do, and that's rewarding so they come back. They form loyalties, they theorise, they expand on what they know to figure out what they don't. It's story maths, you're given X and Y, find Z (I also really like maths). This is why I

enjoyed this movie so, and why I get the feeling that people who didn't like it are maybe not trying so hard.

(Last point on this, I also have a thing for stories within stories, I love that meta stuff. I even wrote a short play indulging my love for dual and triple parallel plot lines)

Anyway, wasn't I reviewing a movie? Oh, yeah, Cloud Atlas. What else made this film awesome? The characters were incredibly engaging and well fleshed out, ten minutes into each separate story and you feel as if you know them. Considering that there are six this is quite a feat, especially when so many films can't even make their one protagonist interesting. This film has such an epic feel to it (I know I've said this before but it's so true it warrants repeating). The music is fabulous, the one "Cloud Atlas Sextet" in all its different forms stretching and winding itself into every storyline so well. The use of the same characters worked really well for the narrative and it's nice looking back when you realise that in the case of the two main couples (Halle Berry and Tom Hanks' characters have two love storylines, as do Jim Sturgess and Doona Bae) for the one tragic ending they get a happy ending in another life. It's difficult to say whether or not the end of this film is a happy one, many of the characters lead tragic and short lives, others have the pain eased by passing the years away with a loved one. I think it's a commentary on life as a whole; life has high points and low points, endings and beginnings, when one story ends sadly there is always another happy ending. Going back to the music, this encapsulates this emotion and these ideas phenomenally with quite subdued stretches and great orchestral surges. 

There's really always going to be something to like in this film. Timothy Cavendish's story is light hearted and funny, Louisa Ray's story has suspense and mystery, you have futuristic action scenes, an inventive, fantastical and dangerous would in which Zachary's tribe lives. 

Now, I promised I was going to look at this critically so here are some potential bad points about this film. The first is probably that it's so long. The running time is almost three hours and while I personally enjoyed every moment I can see how one might find it tiring, especially keeping up with all the stories. There's that as well, I mentioned earlier that I like the constant motion and intrigue and all the little things to watch out for. It you aren't like me it's plausible that you'd need to sleep this movie off from the strain. If you're anything like my Mum and Sister (ie. constantly asking questions because you can't wait for the film to tell you who or what something is) this maybe isn't the film for you. 

There are some slight issues with accents:

(Disclaimer: I apologise for the god awful quality of everything in this video, I had this one idea and it took much longer to film than anticipated, especially considering I was doing all the camerawork myself (can you tell?) Then I couldn't edit it because my laptop is slow as hell, but I couldn't just not put it up at that point. Technology, why do you hate me?)

Another little qualm is that, because different people are different, they're likely to favour one or two of the storylines over others. This is great when the focus is on those storylines but one might find themselves waiting for a storyline they like less to finish because they want to get back to their favourite one. I found this a wee bit with the Adam Ewing sections, I just wanted to get back to the Sonmi parts. It also felt like Robert Frobisher's bits were shorter than others'. That's the nature of variety though, you're probably going to like something but that may make it worse for the things you don't like as much. 

One issue that more negative critics touched upon was the race-changing roles in this. As I mentioned in my vloggy bit, there are some interchangeable nationalities and genders featured. Most of the characters are in "Asia-face" for some part of the Sonmi storyline and some viewers thought this to be racist. I get the feeling that these people are clutching at straws with their nitpickiness. The message of the over arcing story is stressing that things such as race, age, sexuality, gender and nationality are arbitrary in the grand scheme of things and on top of that it's quite obviously against prejudice, as I've previously mentioned. You can go ahead and think that it's racist, that's your opinion, but I ask you to examine the actual definition of the word. Racism is hatred or hostility towards people of different race to yourself. The way that the future Koreans are portrayed in the film is not in any way negative, not any more than any other race in the movie, that is. I'm not going to be persnickety and defend the idea that "technically it's not racist because future Koreans aren't a race yet", they're still recognisable. There was no uproar at Hugo Weaving playing a female character (or indeed most of the man playing wonem at some point) or Halle Berry playing an old Asian man (that's all the issues in one little, really difficult to spot bundle). Is the cross dressing more acceptable because the Pythons did it? Like, a lot? Are we really so insecure in the multiracial society of today that we can't make observations and replicate things? Maybe it's like the whole "white people can't say nigger" thing (I can because I'm Irish. Our oppressive history is less to do with race and more to do with the British fucking with our shit. Also, we had Phil Lynott) Speaking of, they do actually say the "n-word" in the Adam Ewing section, and that appears to have received much less negativity, I suppose because the time period in which it's set means that it was a normal thing. I feel this particular criticism to be a stretching things a tad but I guess it counts as something against this movie, that one factor might make certain people uncomfortable.

Overall, I thought this was an incredibly engaging, creative and enjoyable film. The settings were great, the costumes intricate, the characters believable, the message profound. It is , in my eyes, everything a film should aspire to be. I loved every moment and I highly recommend that you watch it, if even to disagree with me. And to get a look at Jim Sturgess' Asia-face. I think it's pretty cool. Doona Bae makes a kickass mexican woman.

Embrace the Madness

Radioactive cover

Hey guys, here's my cover of Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive! It's such a great song, I hope you like it.

Also, this is gonna be my last upload to youtube in a while, I'm going to Spain for two weeks to improve my espanol so while I might send out a blog or two (though don't count on it) I won't be recording any music videos. Sorry! Depending on factors, I might fish out an old recording from the laptop video stores but again, I'll probably be doing things in the real world.

Embrace the Madness

Songs explained: I'm Sorry

Hey there blog readers! Today I am finally getting round to that thing I've been saying I'll do since the setting up of this blog (it was one of the original reasons for doing so, oops). I am going to write a song backstory explanation thing. Hold your fanfare, I know how avidly you've been waiting for this moment, please, my good people, no tears of joy (no one was waiting for this). The first song I'm going to shed light on is "I'm Sorry", the video I uploaded today in fact. I'm starting with this one, not because I think it's my best song or that it has the best lines or message or anything. I'm choosing this because I think it has the most interesting story behind it. It also had a big influence on my life for the proceeding month or so after writing it. I'm putting my best song forward story-wise, it's all downhill after this. Here, give it a listen, then we'll chat:

I'm just going to start with a disclaimer; I don't think you're stupid. I'm not trying to be patronising, it is my incredibly biased opinion that this song may be a little confusing to outside ears. I may be totally wrong but I'm going to operate on the assumptions that I've made. 

This song is not a conventional love song. It is a song about love, or confusion in love, but not strictly a love song. I wrote this song almost a year ago, for a purpose. It's one of the two I've done so with and the only one that I actually used for said purpose. I wrote this song to tell my best friend that I had developed feelings for their ex. Their recent ex. Who they had dated for over a year. Those feelings may or may not have been developing subconsciously while they were dating. Also, it may not have been intended as a permanent break up, more of a "Ross and Rachel" dealy (is it ironic that my name is Rachel?). 

This was my dilemma: Do I tell my friend about this and risk our friendship over a relationship? Or do I ignore it, while love interest is still (in effect) single and I pass up this rare chance at a functioning relationship?

I decided, as I often do, to gamble. I chose a time when my friend had been talking a lot about a potential new relationship, so I felt it was as good a time as any to confess my feelings. I wasn't totally sure how to go about it. I was certain that if I tried to do it in a conversational way that I would either screw it up completely or chicken out. 

So I wrote a song. 

Any time I recount this story to people (which isn't often) their reaction to this is "That's kinda weird". I know. My thought process was thus: 

1.If I put the effort into writing a song, with rhyme and everything, I'm much less likely to back down, purely for time and effort lost. 

2. I am much more eloquent when I've had a chance to write down my thoughts and learning a song is less tenuous than writing and learning off a script.  

3. A song gives me about three minutes of uninterrupted speech to get everything across, which could be useful. 

What you have already heard is the result. I was going for a "determined but apologetic" tone. Bear in mind, the object of my affections knew nothing of this. The song is basically, "Look, I know there's history but this is what I'm doing, try to be okay with that." It sounds bitchy put that way. Maybe it is bitchy. I was torn. I'm seventeen, I was sixteen at the time. Life is trial and error in these in between stages, I took a chance. 

Anyway, I sang this song to my friend. What followed was rough for me. The friend took it well at first but then not so well. We didn't have a normal conversation for nearly a month. 28 days, to be exact. Like I said, It wasn't a good time for me. I can't assume it was better for them but in that time I pretty much lost my only friend, they had others. I gravitated towards the only things I had left (also the people who had started this) myself and the person after whom I was pining. We started dating 23 days after the bombshell was dropped.

So yeah. I don't mean that to sound as melodramatic, this is mostly a relay of my feelings at the time. Looking back, I don't know if I should have handled it differently. This did work out in the end but I don't know if I would have saved myself a lot of pain in keeping my stupid mouth shut. My friend and I are back to more or less normal, though I'd be lying if I said nothing had changed because of this whole thing. They are currently with the person whose mention triggered my decision to go through with it, seven months I think it is. They are happy. Myself and love interest have been going out for almost nine months and we're both really happy. I guess that's the thing that would sway me had I to make the decision again. My gambling paid off. And hey, I got a song out of it.

Embrace the Madness

Monsters University or "dammit prequels!"

Hey guys, sorry for not blogging for a while, I was in West Cork (ie. down where the wifi don't shine). While I was there, however, I saw three movies and will probably review all of them here, because I have opinions and stuff. I'm starting with Monsters University because it's the most recent and I think I have the most to say on it. I'll cut the intro and begin... now.

Monsters University: Because everyone loves prequels, right?

I'll be honest here, I wasn't expecting much from this movie. I saw the ads and people freaking out over "OMG they're bringing back Monsters Inc!". It was quite clear that Pixar wanted to replicate Toy Story 3's success by targeting that same audience as the first film(s) only now that they'd grown up. When there were the first rumours of a "Monsters University" movie, I though it was going to be the children of the original protagonists (because sequels have a tendency of doing that) and despite the Disney sequel "tell the same story with the kids" (ahem, little mermaid 2, ahem ahem) I was intrigued by the idea of this because of the ending of the first movie. This is where my main source of disappointment stemmed from.

In going for a prequel angle the makers of this movie effectively nullify all the revelations from the end of the original. A quick recap for those of you who haven't see Monsters Inc in a while. The movie is about a world where power is generated by the screams of human children, which they collect by going through door-portals into their closets. It centres around Sully and Mike, two monsters who work in generating this power, whose lives are turned upside down when a child escapes into their world, as everyone believes that children are toxic to monsters. It's a really clever idea, a great world, so much creativity went into the first movie. At the end of Monsters Inc, they come to the realisation that human children are not toxic and that
their laughter creates more powerful energy than their screams. The human girl, known as "Boo", is sent back to her world and they think that they will never see her again, but in the final scene we see her closet door has been pieced back together by Mike and Sully sees her one last time. The film ends here. It is practically begging for a sequel. This is why the prequel annoyed me so. The first movie had some really strong messages, it was a story about acceptance, about questioning the norm, about growing and about letting go.

The prequel? It's a buddy comedy.

While I'll accept that it's maybe not the most fun approach to take (which is what I think they were going for with MU) I for one would have been really interested in seeing the world adjust to laugh energy instead of screams. There's still comedic potential, as well as room for some of the strong moral messages we saw in the first movie, though in slightly different forms. You have the potential for new antagonists in the form of rival energy companies who are dubious of the newfangled laughter energy and even a chance for Mike and some of the monsters who were outcast in the scare orientated world to shine, because they can excel in making people laugh. Sully, who doesn't strike me as a talented comedian, could have somewhat of an existential crisis now that his life up until now has essentially been flipped and he has to deal with not being the best at something. See, I've pretty much written this movie and I'm sure that the clever folks down at Pixar could add to such a concept, especially since they already have such an interesting and relatively unexplored world to work with. When they hit the reset button and went with a prequel it really just felt like they were being lazy and playing it far too safe.

Now that I've got my biggest qualm out of the way, let's get the the movie itself. This is something I tend to say a lot before I spend a long time complaining about a movie: I didn't dislike it. I did enjoy myself watching this movie, as I do watching most movies because I love the medium and what can be and is done with it. That said, I have many problems with this movie. I've already made clear my thoughts on the decision to make a prequel, they were playing it safe in sticking with the same damn premise of the first film, when they had a perfectly good new premise to work with. I've also expressed my dislike for the downgrade in message. That's not to say that the message of this movie isn't heartfelt or thought provoking, it's just been done to death in every coming of age story. We're desensitised to it at this point. It's the whole "be yourself because you're awesome just the way you are" spiel from every TV special and family movie you've ever seen. And it's not a bad message to be sending. In fact, the story of this film gives it an interesting perspective and raises interesting questions about the world they live in, where, essentially, your whole life depends on your appearance. There's a lot of potential in what they can explore when it comes to that kind of world, and that angle is very distinct from that of the first movie. But they didn't do that. I question whether they could have, because it's a prequel.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record here, going on about prequels, but I'm going to drone on just a little longer, please bear with me. Prequels are very tricky territory to be getting into. As a writer (who may or may not currently be working on something resembling a prequel, at least in part) I recognise this. Writers are very constricted when it comes to prequels because the story's ending is already decided. They can only learn so much and no matter how much they do learn they will always be less than the character at the end of the original film. Any characters who show up in prequels must be carefully placed, backstories must fit with any established in  the original, characters must not be more wise than they were at the beginning of the former. It's hard, catastrophic if not handled well. Consistency is key.

This. Movie. Failed. At. This.

And it did so rather clumsily. Pixar, I expected better of you! Prequelville is full of pitfalls, falling victim to any one of them can doom your movie in the eyes of the critical viewer as soon as it is triggered. This movie fell into three prequel pitfalls which I shall address in order of appearance. (Warning, SPOILERS begin here):

1. Blunted Stakes:

This is the most common prequel pitfall, and the most difficult to avoid. As I've already stressed, the movie has to end up where the last began and so the viewer already knows where their protagonist is going to end up. It's kinda like reading a book where the hero is dangling from a cliff in chapter one with no apparent means of getting to safety. The thrill is blunted slightly by the fact that the reader knows they'll survive, otherwise there's no way the book would be that long. This is made up for by creating interesting ways for the protagonist to get out of the jam.
("Timothy used all of his gymnastics training to open his backpack with his feet and pull the scarf his grandmother had given him from it. He was thankful he hadn't left it behind like he had his grappling hook and proper climbing gear as he used it to snag a nearby rock and pull himself to safety")


In MU, little Mike Wazowski dreams of being a scarer for Monsters Incorporated. The viewer knows from the first movie that he does not in fact become a scarer. This would be alright if this dream wasn't the main focus of the movie. The fact that it is the primary focus makes the story fairly redundant in the eyes of the viewer. The whole film is framed like an "underdog" sports movie but so much of the excitement is dulled by the fact that you know they lose in the end. Some of this is sidestepped by the introduction of "The Monster Games" an inter-frat competition in which Mike, a reluctant Sully and a ragtag band of misfits compete against much stronger, scarier and capable teams with the power of teamwork! This didn't really work because everyone's seen it a hundred times before. To it's credit, the challenges are very inventive and enjoyable to watch.

One of my favourite scenes in the movie is a maze challenge where the monsters are faced with cardboard cut outs of either children or teenagers; they must scare the children and hide from the teenagers. It sounds mundane but here's the thing, when the teenager cutouts swing out there's a "typical teenage" catchphrase to accompany them. These are some of the best jokes in the movie, they're hilarious. You have things like "Ugh, you don't understand!", "Like, whatever" and my personal favourite, "But Daddy, I love him!". The delivery really makes it, so it's hard to capture on a page, but believe me, you'll laugh. I love the tongue in cheek nature of these jokes (though I don't know if this was amplified by that fact that I'm a teenage girl myself) and I wish there were more of these, considering it's a college movie.

Here they did adequately avoid the problem of the "children are poisonous" with some handy substitutions but it was still annoying to the viewer when they're making a huge fuss over something you know to be nothing and what's more, they can't realise it's nothing because they don't until the original film. It really does take a lot away from tense scenes when you know the danger isn't real. This wasn't a huge concern though, on to pitfall two.

2. All your Favourite Characters!:

One thing that prequels need to be extra careful about is characters. Obviously in the original you can have as many colourful characters as you want consequence free as long as they remain consistent over the course of the story. That much cannot be said for if you want to bring characters back in a prequel. First and foremost, it needs to make sense to have them in the prequel. Sure, you can have throwaway characters make appearances if they wouldn't be referenced in the original film.

BRINGING BACK YOUR MAIN ANTAGONIST FROM THE ORIGINAL IS A NO NO. 

This guy. Pretty scary right?

While I'll admit that this can work when done well, if you're going down this road it needs to be the focus. Wicked proves as much. If Wicked was about Glinda and Fiyero's love, leaving her friendship with Elphaba as a mere footnote, the story would suffer. Props to Gregory Maguire for good judgement. They feature Randal in this film. Remember that creepy purple guy who hated Sully for being better than him in the first movie. D'you know what he needed? Another reason to hate Sully. Some kind of vendetta. Because his existing reason isn't at all relateable or strong enough. Who's ever been angry and jealous of someone more talented than them? No, we need to ham-fistedly create a pointless second reason for Randal to hate Sully. This will never be referenced in the original movie because the filmmakers pulled it out of their asses. Seriously guys, does it really make that much of a difference? Randal's fate is decided one way or another, you did not need to make it so that he already hates the protagonist by the end of the prequel. It does nothing for the plot, nothing for the character, why is it here? Also, the reason he holds this grudge isn't even directly Sully's fault! In the final round of the Monster Games, Sully and Randal are against each other in a scare off. They are scaring separate children, in separate rooms, each one totally unaffected by the other. Randal falls and accidentally camouflages with a heart patterned rug, doesn't scare the child very much and he is humiliated in front of the popular kids. That's it. That's the stupid, unnecessary second reason he hates Sully. Why, filmmakers? Just... why?

They made him this. Just... no.

They also make Randal Mike's original roommate, which seems pointless because when Mike joins the frat he starts rooming with Sully anyway. Couldn't that step have been skipped? Make them the typical odd couple of roommates? If the filmmakers wanted to be slightly less predictable in doing this... no, you do it anyway, this route simply delays it. They have a subplot about Randal becoming one of the popular crowd and leaving Mike in the dust but it's difficult to care about this when you know how much of a dick he is in the first movie. The film tries so hard to make him likable at the start (he brings cupcakes to a frat party, daw) but then his subplot is so heavily sidelined that it feels like an after note, like the makers decided they wanted him to appear but weren't sure how it would be relevant. Also, it's distracting that he and Mike have a relationship in this movie when there was no evidence of this in the original. This is a plot hole that can't be overlooked, it comes across as really sloppy. It's a stupid pointless cameo, it cheapens things.

There are some other annoying and unnecessary cameos, don't worry. The abominable snowman from Inc is back as head of the Monsters Inc mailroom? Why? Again, they don't know him in the first movie so why put him in there? I know there's a running Pixar thing where the voice actor (John Ratzenberger) has been in every Pixar movie but you could easily put him in as a random college student, no one will mind that he's the same voice. This just doesn't... ugh. Roz from the original comes back too in a little head nod to the end in which she turns out to be part of the CDA. She has a distinctive voice and look, would they not remember anything in the original? Stupid. The third pitfall?

3. Haven't I heard this before?:

The third pitfall this movie succumbs to is repetition. This is so head-wreckingly common in prequels and so easily avoided. You literally have the material you're working from in front of you, you wrote it, how hard can this be? You see, the third pitfall this movie succumbs to is repetition. In Monsters Inc Mike and Sully have numerous fights about their respective selfishness. In this movie, Mike and Sully have numerous fights about their respective selfishness. Is there an echo in here? I'm not going to go into too much detail on this flaw because it's just more of the same; laziness and unoriginality.  A lot of the jokes are recycled (they have that one joke from Flushed Away with the slugs being slow, but it doesn't work nearly as well because the context is nonexistent) the storylines are tired and this brings nothing new to them except the world which I still feel is wildly underutilised and underexplored. 

Did I mention her design is pure epic?

Now time to talk about the positives. I really liked the villain in this film. Allow me to clarify, as there are two. One is the obligatory school related film's Jerk villain. This is the popular elitist douchebag who is bad because he's douchey and mean spirited. This is not the villain I like, though he does seem somewhat real as a character because we all kinda know this guy. The second villain is the University dean, Hardscrabble. She's voiced by Helen Mirren and she is arguably the best thing in this movie. Here's what I liked, they didn't make her a full out evil villain. Her main "villain" qualities stem from the fact that Mike wants to be a scarer but he's not scary so she discourages him from continuing in the scaring programme. She is not sitting in her black leather chair chuckling to herself that Mike Wazowski and his little friends will never succeed. No, she's being realistic and doing her job. Now, I generally feel a bit uncomfortable when movies, particularly kids movies, villify people for doing their jobs. More so when these people are teachers. I have a lot of respect for good teachers, they have hard jobs. So unless the character in question is Mickey Rooney from Ferris Beuller or Ms Trunchbull, lay off teachers. They're just doing their jobs. 

Hmm, what else did I like? Despite myself, I did like some of the frat banter between the main characters and the new doofy fraternity brothers. Yeah, they're annoying at times and stereotypical as hell, many of the jokes are hanging on the fact that they're "not cool" but there is some good stuff in there. There's one joke with the two headed character that really made me laugh, where one head is like "I'm a dance major!" and the other's all "and I'm not (complete with grump face)". Also, their names are Terry (with a "y") and Terri (with an "i"). There's one gag after the guys sneak into Monsters Inc for motivation where they're escaping in Squishy's Mum's camper van, and she's driving. The guards are on their tails and she's still concerned with "does everyone have their seatbelts on?", "does anyone want gum?". Let's be honest, we've all been there. 

Overall? I think this would have been better as a stand alone movie. It's fun, it's somewhat creative, it has good characters. It's just the clear downgrade from the original that makes it so disappointing to a fan such as myself. It has its merits but not as a prequel and all the plot holes get frustrating after a while. A lot of the time it felt like more of a high school movie than a college one and it was obvious they were aiming at a much younger audience than college students. The blunted stakes are a constant concern in your mind watching this and it's difficult to wish Mike well when you know what his future holds. I don't think we can expect a sequel to Monsters Inc and at this point I don't know if I want one. It's too late, in my mind and while I'm still interested in seeing what they would do with the sequel I had envisioned, the disappointment of this movie would discourage me from getting my hopes up. Again, I didn't hate it. 

Embrace the Madness

"Safe Haven"

Hey guys. So, last night my mother convinced (and by that I mean forced those who were unwilling) my family to watch Nicholas Sparks' latest film: Safe Haven. Ironically, this movie made me want to go find refuge somewhere other than my living room, where it was being played. Find a safe haven away from Safe Haven, if you will.

Nice to see that Nicholas Sparks is mixing it up
when it comes to his movie posters...
hey, wait a second!

Beaches, sunsets, beaches at sunset. Who says he's not being original?

As you can possibly tell from my thinly veiled contempt, I am not a fan of Nicholas Sparks' work. He blatantly panders to a very specific audience, an audience that I do not consider myself part of but I am, unfortunately for me, close enough to it that I have to hear a lot about and/or watch his films (they can't make me read the books. Just no). His stories are consistently fantasy fodder for teenage girls and housewives, with some arbitrary twist that is ultimately resolved in the end anyway so why even bother other than to half-heartedly convince yourself that you're not simply writing crappy romance novels. It's not crappy romance, it's crappy romance...with a twist!

Ugh, if you want to write a story that is not a romance, make the romance secondary. If it's a romance, make it interesting. The way it is, it barely comes in above "insert yourself here" twilight style romance novels. I do not like. But that may just be me.

Anyway, what's the plot of this generic NS romance, I hear you ask? The basic story is that our protagonist, "Katie" (played by Julianne Hough) had killed someone and is on the run from the law. She gets on the only bus that the cop chasing her doesn't check and gets to the small fishing town of Southport, North Carolina, where she decides to stay despite the fact that it would make a lot more sense not to stay within reach one of the bus' stops. The first ten minutes or so is her getting a job, a house (short notice much? Do real estate agents generally have whole decent sized houses lying around to sell to complete strangers at a moment's notice? This is never explained, because real estate isn't romantic enough). She also talks to the only guy in the town who is around her age, the obvious love interest, and has some interactions with a little girl, who it turns out is his daughter. These cutesy conversations are mildly entertaining if not obvious sympathy fuel for the character. The audience is meant to think "She can't be a killer, she's so good with kids!". A note for future reference, no one in this film has any idea what sociopaths or psychopaths are. It is possible for someone to be a cold blooded killer and not look it, people! The world is not simply "You seem nice, you must be a good person." Has nobody seen "Dexter" or "American Psycho"?

She seems perfectly pleasant, doesn't mean she can't be a killer!

A must admit, I went into this film knowing nothing of the premise and I did intrigue me. A Nicolas Sparks female character with moral ambiguity and questionable motives? This could actually be interesting! But no. SPOILER warning here. I'm gonna stop summarising the plot about now, just mention major plot points. There are two twists in this movie. One is totally predictable (when I was told there was a big twist by my mother, I expected better). The other is SO STUPID IT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO ACTUALLY MURDER SOMEONE! It's totally unnecessary and pointless and sappy and... I'll get back to that later.

So there are some scenes of Katie settling into the small town, some gratuitous "looking out over the ocean at sunset" shots for the trailer and the introduction of the only other youngish female character, played by Cobie Smulders or Robin from "How I Met Your Mother". She is one of the more interesting characters but she gets very little screen time. I originally thought that one of the reveals would be that this character develops feelings for Katie (the relationship is built up like it's leading to that, there's a suitable amount of chemistry and this is before the love interest has had much introduction) but no. I personally think this would've been an interesting dynamic but apparently there are no lesbians in the Nicholas Sparks universe.

Then, of course, we are introduced to our love interest, Alex, played by Josh Dunamel. He works in the "hardware and other stuff" shop and he is clearly interested in Katie, despite her reciprocating none of it and the fact that his wife died of cancer (another Nicholas Sparks cliché, yay!) an undetermined length of time ago. It seems recent enough considering that his son (he has two kids, a boy and a girl) is still pretty torn up about it. Geez guy, you'd think if a girl is clearly not looking for a relationship and you have your own family issues to deal with, you'd leave her alone! But, of course, he wears her down and they begin spending more time together, having heart-to-hearts and such. 

Nick Sparks loves his beach scenes.
I don't complain because... Josh Dunamel.
Well played, Sparks, well played...

Oh, there's also this weird thing where she's painting her floor and the floorboards in her kitchen keep breaking. It's never explained why she's painting her floor, I think it's an attempt to make her quirky. Alex orders paint in specially for Katie to show that he likes her, I guess, even though it's obvious anyway. They also use the floor painting thing as a reason for Alex to come into her house a few times, which begs the question, why not just have her painting the walls? And that's the end of that not sub plot. There's also some running...thing (is it a joke? I don't know what it is) A running thing where one of the doors to the shop Alex works in is stuck and people keep walking into it. This isn't really for laughs, if I understand this film's comic tone (hint, there isn't one) so I don't know why it's in there. It does kinda come back, but I'll get to that later.  

She's your wife? And it turns out
her twin sister has amnesia and
killed your father!
Find out more next week! 

This is where I start getting into real SPOILER territory, turn back if now you want to see this film and be somewhat surprised by the twists. From the beginning of the film there are cuts to the stereotypical "obsessed cop" who is searching for Katie on grounds of first degree murder. Then in a big, shocker, ehr mah gersh, did not see that coming twist, it turns out that he is her husband, an abusive drunk and Boston police officer, who has made up the whole thing about her murdering someone because he wants an excuse to chase her down after they had a fight and she left (she does stab him in the side in self defense but he's not really affected by this much). Oh, relief! She's not a murderer, she's just misunderstood! Bite me, movie. That was an actually interesting plot point and you killed it (ironically). So the chief of police in Boston find out that he's doing all this (the guy sent out a notice to police departments in other states, how did the chief not know this?) and suspends him in one of the crappiest reveals I've ever seen. "Stop all this, she's not a murderer, she's your wife!" Honestly? I thought I was watching a soap opera. I did consider this possibility in my predictions but dismissed it on the grounds of "Well, why would the Boston PD let him launch this huge investigation if there was no body? They can't possibly be so stupid as to not keep track of something as severe as MURDER." I also briefly (and jokingly) considered the "sixth sense" twist, that the cop is the guy who was murdered's ghost out for revenge. But that would be too stupid.

Anyway, in the meantime Katie and Alex are getting together. Alex, visiting his friend the town chief of police for reasons relating to the 4th of July parade, sees the wanted poster for Katie and confronts her. This scene is choc full of the stupid that this film embodies. He's yelling at her, outraged that, what... she didn't tell him? Dude, seriously, is that information you'd expect someone to offer up if it wasn't relevant? "Oh, by the way, I killed a man." As well as this, the guy seems more upset that she's been using a fake name, her real name is Erin or something. Yes, because that's your main concern in this scenario. I can accept that you're a murderer but I can't believe you didn't tell me your real name?! I feel so betrayed!

So she storms off, completely put out that someone would see an official police report saying she's suspected of murder and think she's a murderer! How would someone possibly come to that outrageous conclusion?! She packs her bags and is about to get on a boat somewhere when Alex realises the error of his accusing ways and rushes to her, professing his love for her and begging her to stay. They kiss and that scene's over. This is the part where you begin to question many, many things. If the film is trying to be realistic it really should have considered these points. It looks sloppy and stupid otherwise.

1. Why the hell does Alex believe her? If you have evidence that this woman is suspected of murder and you still know very little about her other than she's good with kids and willing to have sex with you, on what grounds are you basing your unfailing belief in her claims?!!! Serial killers go undiscovered for so long precisely because of douchehat morons like this guy!

2. Why did Katie not go to the police? True, her abuser is a cop but there are other officers she could quite easily go to, especially considering that what he's doing is doubly dubious because he's abusing his state given power. This movie is essentially redundant because the protagonist is not smart enough to know that if you're subject to abuse, you call the police!

3. Does Katie know that she didn't kill her husband? If so, why does she keep having these nightmares about killing someone? She seems to know he's chasing her, why doesn't she go to the authorities somewhere else?  She's being chased by a madman and no one is dead, why all the secrecy? I know she's been beaten by her husband and all that but there's a point where common sense kicks in. If she's had the courage to leave him surely she could tell the police!

So there's that unpleasantness, the climax of the film occurs when the cop finds her, sees her with Alex and decides to burn the shop down. There is fire and struggling and eventually the cop is shot in self defence while he's trying to shoot Katie. Oh, I forgot to mention that the "stuck door" thing is reprised in the form of the cop walking into it, then using brute force to unstick it. Why include this, movie? There is no point to it whatsoever except maybe to show that the cop is violent, because there were no other indicators of that! I thought briefly that the cop would try to shoot Alex and miss, hitting the boy but no, that would involve some kind of lingering connflict! Everything is resolved in the end, nothing is lost, the two end up together, the kid gets to be ok with his dad's new girlfriend, Cobie Smulders goes off on her travels because that's her dream yadda yadda yadda. The only thing missing is a wedding.

Cobie Smulders (brunette) and Julianne Hough (blonde)

"But Rachel", I hear you ask, "What about the second twist? The incredibly stupid one?" I will address that now. One thing I forgot to mention was that the dead mother wrote a load of letters to her kids "on their graduation" and "on their wedding day", soppy, tear-jerker crap like that. It turns out one of the letters is "for her". Alex gives it to Katie after the resolution and she reads it. It's fairly stupid and unrealistic, it has lots of stupid little lines that annoy me like "I wish I could see you together" and "he truly loves you, I can only hope you love him back". Bleeeeauuugh! Unnecessary sentimentality, make it stop! Anyway, she read this letter, you're supposed to cry or whatever. And then, oh, then you see a picture of the mother. AND IT'S COBIE SMULDERS!!! Yes, poor reader, you read that right.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT COULDN'T GET WORSE, THEY THROW THAT AT YOU!!! 

NICHOLAS SPARKS SHAYAMALAN-ED IT! 

NICHOLAS SPARKS IS OFFICIALLY THE SHAYAMALAN OF ROMANCE NOVELS!

Not only is it the most incredibly shitty, cop out twist ending ever, it is totally unneeded! They didn't need to have an idiotic ghost afternote subplot! They didn't need to add more patronising, exploitative sentiment! The story was over! No, they just had to slam that in your face, like "Bet you didn't see that coming!". No, movie, I didn't. BECAUSE IT'S TOO STUPID TO EVEN IMAGINE! In the sixth sense, where they had this twist ending, it at least made sense. The boy in that could see ghosts, there was a cohesive lead up, it made sense. This? No. You can't do that. You have no right, movie! I- I have no explanation for why someone would feel the need to chuck this in at the end. So stupid. Ugh.

This movie in a nutshell.

Actually my dad and I had this little joke throughout the film about Cobie Smulders being the only other youngish female character. Why had Alex not made a pass at her if his standard plan of action seems to be "You're hot, I shall pester you until you date me". Silly us. Turns out the one youngish guy in the town has banged both the youngish women.

So that's Safe Haven. I didn't like this movie. Pointless and idiotic plot twists aside, the romance is just dull. The have all the clichés in there, the dancing in an empty shop, the dead wife, the caught in a rainstorm, romantic canoeing, the kids having a problem with their dad's new love. It's all in there. There is so much effort put into establishing chemistry between the romantic leads, it's blatantly obvious and it ultimately fails. They have a conversation about kale and whether or not there's protein in it. KALE! The little girl and Katie have better conversations. Katie has very few solid personality traits other than "nice" and Alex is kind of obsessed with her, strangely so for a guy who's lost his wife. It's not endearing how fervently he chases her, it comes off as insensitive and you see the boy's point when he's saying that the dad's trying to move on too fast. It bothers me that they don't tell you how long ago that was.

As far as visuals go this is nice to look at. On mute it could possibly pass for a decent film, it's just the story that kills it. The premise was good until they decided to totally erase it with one stupid reveal. All of the characters are so naive and the choices they make are so unabashedly dumb that it's difficult to like any of them, really. They don't seem like normal people. The two children are the only ones with a shred of realism and they're secondary characters and, let's face it, only in the movie for sentimentality and "damsel in distress" value. I liked Cobie Smulders' performance and character, and I maintain belief that the story would be twenty times better if her character had a bigger role, or if the mother was still alive and they had to deal with that conflict as well as the silly fake murder one.

This is for you, Nicholas Sparks. 

For me, the things this film does wrong are unforgivable, no one with an ounce of critical thought could watch this without screaming at the screen a good few times or leaving altogether. Nicholas Sparks, I dislike you with a passion and the fact that you will continue to make money with your half-assed Shayamalan romance novels and films sickens me. I would not wish a viewing of this movie on anyone, I implore you not to see it. I'm gonna go watch Cloud Atlas again, I need some cheering up. Review of that (possibly to be multi-media) on the way.



Embrace the Madness.

ONE THOUSAND PAGE VIEWS!!!

Hey guys! Today this humble bloggity thingy has reached a milestone: 

One thousand page views has been reached!!!

Gotta love that face

That means that you, if have previously visited this page, contributed to the page view count. Even if it just came up on your facebook feed and you took a look before deciding it was stupid and leaving.

This is thanks to you. You helped this little self indulgent derp fest to bloom into a kinda sorta less insignificant thing, and for that I thank you. I thank you muchly. I very much hope you've enjoyed reading the things I put up here, or if you get a brief laugh out of an otherwise time-wasting rant.

For some stats, 61% of the views were from Ireland (go raibh míle, lads), 11% from the United States of Murrica (oh my gawsh, thanks so much, guys!), 10% from Germany (Besten Dank!), 8% from Russia (большое спасибо),  4% from the UK (Awright, fanks bruv, solid!/ I say, how very kind of you!)  and the remaining 6% was from Romainia, France, Spain, Ukraine and the Netherlands, in that order. Thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate your viewership.

Yes, that is Blaine from "Glee".
He was in Starkid first, look it up.
It's amazing

Enjoy these gifs of happiness, I particularly like the snuggie family. They's too cool for everything. Stephen Colbert's dance if pretty cool too. And you can't hate Cosmo and Wanda, those wacky lil' fairys. Look at Matt Cardle's dance. Look at it! What ever happened to him? I liked him, he was a good singer.

I'm really just riffing now, bit I found all these awesome gifs and I just had to include them all. Sorry if they hurt your computer. And once again, thanks to you for visiting this page, I encourage you to continue to do so. But then again, I would.

Embrace the Madness

Fame and why it seems so attainable

Hey there internet. So, it's time to talk about that thing. That thing everyone kinda wants but also doesn't. That thing that is really very relative when you think about it, but is simultaneously incredibly universal. I'm talking about FAME! The most commonly referred to form of this being in showbiz, baby. I'm probably going to be talking about that kind of fame more than anything, simply for that reason; it's the form most commonly seen, most examined, most judged the hell out of. I'm not talking about the TV show or the terrible, terrible movie "Fame", just to clear up any misunderstanding. Why am I discussing this? I'm bored, I think it's interesting, I want to self-indulgently examine something to sound smart, I'm procrastinating; Choose one. This is my blog, I can write what I want.

So, what is fame? It's not simply being known, everyone's known by someone. Is it being known by a lot of people? Again, that's relative. Is it much different to infamy? TO GOOGLE!

fame  

Noun 1. The condition of being known or talked about by people other than your mother to her book club friends. eg. When your artwork goes on other peoples' fridges.

Huh. Thanks Google, that was... helpful? Not that I doubt your vast knowledge or anything, great master of the internet, but I might just check dictionary.com quickly...

Fame
Noun
1. The phenomenon where you have significantly more twitter followers than followees

2. When people are surprised that you perform mundane tasks such as buy groceries, "just like everyone else"

...... I'm so sorry I ever doubted you Google. I meant no disrespect.

Now that's out of the way, let's talk about fame. We've all been through that phase (and a lot of us are still in that phase) where we are convinced that one day we will be famous. Regardless of where we live or how much talent or skill we have in reality, we live in this constant state of hopefullness that we will one day "make it". Why is this? I personally blame two things.

Hollywood and human nature (they're effectively the same entities at this point)

I'll start with the first, It's gonna be shorter and it's a bi-product of the latter anyway.

Look at him!
He's buying food like the plebians!

Hollywood is big on the idea of "follow your dreams and you'll make it big". Of course they are. The more people believe this, the more people will move to LA with nothing but a pocket full of cash and a dream, desperate for glory and fame. The bigshots need this desperation, it makes work cheaper. This attitude benefits the machine so of course they're gonna keep spewing out the same old message. It's a cliché for a reason, folks, can't deny it. Hollywood is particularly keen on their stories about people who do make it big, especially when they're true. People like Justin Beiber (I'm using the most repulsive case of this for effect) was "discovered" busking in his hometown in Canada and now he's a super-ultra-mega-chocolate-coated-gee-whilickers-batman-all-the-screaming-jailbait-following-him-around-he's-practically-jesus-get-the-angels-from-"dogma"-in-here-STAR! People lap that shit up. And you hear about this so much, real cases, fictional cases, one hit wonders, two hit wonders, that one guy who's in everything wonders. It's in song lyrics, movies, tv shows (the more realistic side is shown through Penny in the always awesome "Big Bang Theory", the smalltown girl who moved to LA to become an actress... and got nowhere)- You can't help but be hopeful. It's in your programming.

Which brings us to my next point. The human nature, how things work, gosh, I'm so smart, listen to my bullshitty science stuff, section of this post. This ties in a fair bit with my "knowing people I don't know" post a while back. We. Are. Tiny. Absolutely teeny-weeny.

We as humans are totally incapable of comprehending our infinite smallness. Would you be able to draw 7 billion dots on a page? Probably not. Not even close. Knowing my attention span I'd get to around 120 before fecking off to do something marginally more important. Think about all the famous people you've heard of. There seems to be a lot of them, right? People you know from movies, Tv shows, Youtube, The internet in general, comedians, your favourite bands and singers; that's a lot of people. Averaged out that's what? Maybe a thousand? Fifteen hundred? That's a good lot of people, probably a lot more people than you are, realistically, going to make an impact on in your life. You have, what, 500 Facebook friends? Let's reduce that down to 100 for the people you could actually talk to, and down to 50 for the people you could hang out with. Then down to 10 or 20 for close friends. You have very little reference for what a lot of people really truly is.

If you squint reeeeally hard, you can see people waving. 

But I'm getting side tracked. Back to famous people. We said you'd heard of about fifteen hundred famous people. Now, because that's a big number, it's seems realistic enough to assume that you could, someday, be in someone else's fifteen hundred famous people list, yeah? Take that 1500, and multiply it by one thousand. Yes, a thousand. Now you have one and a half million. Those famous people are a tenth of a percent in that huge number. Does that dream still seem attainable? Multiply the 1.5 million by a thousand once more. Now you have 1.5 billion. That fifteen thousand? It's one ten thousandth of a percent (0.0001%) These people have made it to the top ten thousandths of a percent of the world, at least. That's not even the entire population of the Earth. Justin Beiber and Nickelback are in your top ten thousandths of a percent or the global population. Feel bad, world, feel bad.

Are you feeling sufficiently teensy yet? It kinda makes your head spin. I'm guessing that around the ten thousands and millions the numbers pretty much lost all meaning. Completely normal. Humans were never meant to get this big for our boots. I can hear you now, "But Rachel, what do you mean "never meant to"? Are you suggestion belief in some higher being or plan?". Um, no. I'm just saying that, as far as we can tell, and judging by our genetic makeup and how we operate in contrast to other animals, we're kinda freaks of nature. We became (I'm taking this straight from "Chronical", I did not research this) the apex predator. Too powerful for our own good.

We're all nerdy little humans. Also, cats with glasses are cute.

We outsmarted all our natural predators, now we have none. We expanded, grew larger than our species was ever designed to grow. But our brains didn't change. Our mentality is still very much tribe orientated. We divide into little groups, bands, before we even really know we are. It's cleaner that way, more organised. We're the nerds of the animal kingdom, we like our organisation.

You have your family, that's one little group you belong to. That's maybe five people, plus a good few more in extended family. But they're separate. You have your group of friends. In schools, even when the authority figures don't demand it, we tend to fall into little cliques of like minded people. Again, this is the tribal mentality. It's just easier for our brains to cope with.

And now to my conclusion of this long winded rant-information-thing. We are incredibly small. But we can't really know that. So we reach for things that are way our of our grasp. And sometimes we get somewhere. Sometimes we knock over the shelf and break that jar we were reaching for. Sometimes we stop reaching altogether. I like to look at it this way: If you make an impression, any at all, you live a little longer. Because you live in someone else's mind as well as your own. Try and make that impression a little better than the likes of Justin Beiber's. Shudder.

Don't forget to look up some of my feeble attempts at leaving an impression on my Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Racheloconnor28

This is ma twitter, I'm working towards 20 followers:
https://twitter.com/Oxymoronic28

And, as always, Embrace the Madness

New videos

Hey guys! Just finished uploading two new covers to Youtube; Bastille's "Icarus" and Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know". Here is the first:

And this is the latter:

For anyone who's subscribed, I apologise for not uploading anything in a long time, my reasons are more or less synonymous with the reasons that I didn't blog for so long. I'll hopefully be putting stuff up more regularly from here on in (my next video will probably be an original song and/or an Imagine Dragons song...). 

Those of you who aren't subscribed, SUBSCRIBBY NOW! Y'know, if you want to... I'm contemplating integrating some videos into my blogs (don't hold me to that) to prove points. Also, I'll be explaining the stories behind some of my already uploaded original songs, so stick around! 

Embrace the Madness