Loathe List

Lots of bloggers out there enjoy putting together a Fav List or a Lust List or a Love List. This trend, like so many on the internet, is great and also annoying! Sometimes the lists are fabulous, like Felicia Day’s Fav Five on her weekly Flog (YouTube her! Seriously, like now!). Other lists are less than cool, often just trite. So in opposition of this I’m starting a Loathe List!

1. Ombré! Whether it’s your fingernails, cakes or your God Damn hair, I hate it! Ombré is French for dark to light or vice versa. Great. But stop pretending you’re not growing out a bad dye job by making it something trendy! And dark purple to lavender cakes, enough! You baked a cake, it doesn’t taste any better if you make it a different colour OK!?

2. Cake Pops. There is no way to make cake better! Putting cake on a stick is cute if done right, but it’s also a logistical nightmare! It’s hard enough to eat a cupcake imagine the loss of cake once you bite into said cake pop. These are not toffee apples people. These are a food stuff that loses it’s integrity upon eating. Cake pops make me sad.

3. Movie Chatterboxes. As a former notorious movie talker (seriously, people have been known not to sit next to me for this very reason) I have worked hard to curb my desire to chat in the cinema. Especially if the numbers in the cinema are below 15-20 people. It’s the acoustics in a cinema that makes even the most whispered of comments audible to other theatre goers. This problem is exacerbated by limited numbers. More bodies in the movie somehow provides sound proofing between rows. Or perhaps if numbers are limited then people feel they are in a more intimate setting and want their comments heard. Whatever, people please SHUT THE FUCK UP! OK sorry to get all green and gamma rayed on you there.

4. Instagram. Controversial I know but I can’t stand Instagram. It might be that I’m sick of looking at photos that are filtered, square and have borders or it could be that Instagram doesn’t make anybody a photographer, yet a lot of people are under that impression! Before I went to Europe I worked out how to use my point and shoot Sony and since then I have taken some photos that I’m really proud of. Does that mean that I’m going to open an exhibition soon? No. And all I had to do to get these photos was learn about my equipment. I didn’t need an app!

Thursday gripe complete!

PS I mostly only mildly annoyed by these things, except number 3. I hate those guys!

Stupid film is Stupid.

I actually don’t mean the title of this post in the way that you think I do. I’m not about to start talking about another Will Ferrell comedy. I’m going to talk about the 2008 film Keith.

Sometimes in life a story resonates with you so much that you can’t get it out of your head. Keith has done that for me. Admittedly when I hired it from the video store I wasn’t expecting great things, Jesse McCartney was the key selling point for me on this movie (DON’T JUDGE ME!). But I was surprised. Very surprised.

Brief synopsis: Keith is a teenage boy, about whom we know very little. Natalie on the other hand we know a lot about. She’s the captain of nearly every club at school, star tennis player, and on the track to getting a $10 000 scholarship to Duke. Then Keith and Natalie become lab partners.

While the rest of the film is slightly predictable there were certain elements that kept me glued. Keith is not at all forthcoming with details about his life, you could say that he’s troubled but that’s not the half of it. And the further Natalie goes to try and find out about Keith, the more distant she becomes from her family, friends and the life she has worked so hard to build. A life she starts to view as pointless.

Jesse McCartney plays the kooky, enigmatic, beguiling Keith superbly, charming the pants of his audience as he seduces his lab partner. Elisabeth Harnois (who, at 29, played an extremely believable teenager) really sinks her teeth into the role of Natalie, a part that could have become affected and stagy in the wrong hands.

Ultimately this isn’t a film that will leave you too soon. Parts of the story will stay with you long after you’ve put the DVD away. Keith rates a 2 on the You, Me and Dupree scale.