Review: The Visit

I was meaning to write this as soon as I watched this, the best M. Night Shyamalan film I have seen to date. He brought us great films like 'The Sixth Sense', 'The Village' and terrible films like 'The Last Airbender'. This film follows kids Becca and Tyler who go on a trip to visit their estranged grandparents. Their mother ran away from home many years ago and refused to make amends with them, however one day the grandparents request to meet their grandkids. So while the mum and her boyfriend go on a cruise the kids go to visit the farm.

It was a great start showing single mother explaining bits of her past to her children and not being able to come to terms with her childhood at the farm and struggling to talk about it. However Becca decides she wants to go in order to restore her mothers severed relationship with her grandma and pop pop. Armed with a camcorder the two kids happily travel into the stix where there is barely any internet or life.

Not being to keen on amateur filming this film however revealed lots of errie atmosphere where scenes worked out perfect from the kids perspective rather than the normal view - hiding the reality. The grandparents really have their quirks whether it be grandmas's senile ramblings, and odd requests fror Becca to get into the oven to clean it or pop pop always going into the mysterious shed out back.

One of my favourite scenes is when the kids decide to crawl under the house and play almost hide and seek but grandma appears and chases them out. This reminded me of scenes from the game Project Zero, crawling in close confinement and being unable to escape. When the kids mention this on skype to their mum she exclaims this is how she used to play as a child, passing it off as 'normal behavior'. With the mother condoning all the bizarre behavior I began to feel uneasy about the whole arrangement as Tyler does.

One of the rules of the house was never to leave your room after 9.30 as strange things occurring, noises, screams, scratching. Tyler encounters what looks like naked Grandmama crawling on the floor. Things don't add up and Becca reluctantly films the occurrences in the night and eventually gives in to Tyler's notion that something isn't quite right with their grandparents.

It is the day before they are to return home that Becca tells her mum to come pick them up early as something isn't right and puts the web cam on the grandparents standing outside, mum drops the bombshell of 'That''s not my parents." Yes they have been living in a house with two complete strangers lying about everything. This also explains the lack of photos and grandma trying to break the web cam. This has alarmed the kids and they pretend that nothing is wrong and try riding it out till mum comes to their rescue.

This film has some shocking scenes and a real plot twist and I urge you to watch the film for it's black comedy. Shyamalan has produced and written a well though out story and witty script for the children who steal the show. Also great baking is displayed and made me wanna eat cake till i bloated into Fat Princess. Recommended for people who appreciated 'Drag me to Hell'.

For more adventures of me at conventions and anime reviews follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Aisha Anime ^_^

Review : The Danish Girl

This film has been rumored to receive many oscars, starring mainly Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander. Redmayne already famed for playing Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, the BAFTA Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award.

The Danish Girl is fictitious love story very loosely inspired by the lives of real Danish artists Einar Wegener and Gerda Wegener. We follow the lives Einar and Gerda's both artists within their own rights evolving in their careers and the interesting aspects of their personal life.

Einar is a famous landscape artist who often props up his wife for which she resents him as she believes she can be respected as an aertist without his recommendation. She focuses on portraits and one day she asks Einar to do a favour for her to wear stockings and ballet shoes to help her complete her ballerina painting which triggers a series of emotions in Einar.

Einar is not social-able and loathes art parties, even for his own work and would rather reside in his work or privately with his dominating wife. It is her dominance that brings to light Einars hidden side. Upon wearing one night a satin under garment she unearths a dark secret Einar has been keeping locked within his heart for years.

Einar is in fact struggling in a battle within himself as he has been unable to impregnate Gerda and has been suffering stomach cramps every month and having nose bleeds...similar to ladies periods. These motions tied in with a series of cross dressing antics bring to life Lili Elb, his alter ego if not his true self. Gerda after witnessing an emotional infidelity ends up supporting her husband or Einar's cousin as they introduce Lili to others through her mental anguish. After many diagnosis of perversion, schizophrenia they finally find an american doctor willing to preform a groundbreaking surgery on Einer, making him a transgender pioneer.

This film delved in deep into a persons psyche and I was quite suprised at how important art was and how art as a profession which meant everything to Einar was a reminder of Lili's past life. Einar the painter was now Lili the muse. What Gerda awakens in her husband, his true self Lili she now awakens Gerda's artistic potential. Gerda's portraits of Lili sell like hot cakes, and are exhibited in Paris and yet all Gerda longs for is her husbands embrace which is forever lost.

This film is for thinkers and I would not recommend for anyone under 18, my friends walked out very pleased with the film, I walked out feeling empty and sad. Happy or tragic ending, you can decide.

To follow my adventures at conventions, and to read my anime/gaming reviews and see general cat photos follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

^_^ Aisha Anime

Red Light Revolution Review

My friend Ronnie un suspectingly in front of the raunchy poster :D

(Chinese film with English subtitles at Prince Charles Cinema in West-end, London)

One of the perks of joining so many groups on Facebook is that the active ones ACTUALLY send notifications of events regularly. Courtesy of the Korean fan club and Third Windows films I found out there was a showing of Red Light Revolution at the Prince Charles Cinema (PCC) in the West-end.

This was a chance to check out the PCC as I had never been before and to my surprise, through the small entrance, the downstairs held a large waiting area and bar. Upon entering the room I was amazed to find a decently sized screen and comfy squishy seats (oh yes these things definitely add to MY experience).

I knew the film was a saucy comedy already focusing on the sex industry of China, as much as it was taboo, everyone was a apart of it, you just didn’t know they had a dildo in their briefcases ^^; The main character though easy manipulated by others, is a very likeable character and you enjoyed what downfalls awaited poor Shunzi  (Jun Zhao).

We follow Shunzi after he loses his job and wife and by randomly bumping into an old friend he is thrust into the money making world of the sex trade along with his new friend and partner in crime Lili (Vivid Wang and yes that is her real name!)

Director and Writer Sam Voutas (also cameo’s in movie as sex guru Jack Deroux) wanted to explore a subject that most Chinese Directors shy away from and flaunts the notion with parady and the utmost of seriousness at times too.

A truly enjoyable movie (with not a lot of smut actually despite the name), a journey to make money; please the pushy parents and having fun with your friends. Best part is i saw it with my friend Ronnie who isn't accustomed to such kinky display, she even liked it (she won't admit it out loud but I saw her laugh ;).