'Love Happens' Film Review

'Love Happens' (2009)

Okay Impartiality is going to be difficult on this one as it's hard to point at the positives when there is an extreme lack of them.

For a start I can not think of a more inappropriate title for a film that has almost nothing to do with love and everything to do with grievance. It has to be said that it had the potential to be a truly heart wrenching portrayal of someone that has experienced unimaginable loss. With the talents of Aaron Eckhart at the helms of Brandom Camp (Writer/Director) his ability as an actor has been truly wasted in a film I can only describe as a confusion of genres. Its as if the creators have attempted to put a comical/romantic spin on 'what dreams may come' (1998) which quite obviously is a structural mess.

Jennifer Aniston's presence was unnecessary in every way, she was more of a side kick to protagonist Burke than a love interest. Burke felt the need to open is heart to Eloise after just one day of meeting which screamed CRINGE! Even though Burke's story was truly tragic, the writers felt the need to emphasise more on the conventions of romantic comedy than to play to the strengths of the plot. As the story progressed the events became increasingly more pointless and painful to watch. It was a struggle to keep the DVD player switched on and only remained so due to my respect for Aaron Eckhart as an actor and their was also the fact my girlfriend wouldn't have allowed it, she seems to have an undying love for Jennifer Aniston.

Although my criticisms of the story are severe its important to illuminate Burke's occupation as having some interesting Philosophical values in such a way that he is a self-help guru for others that have experienced loss. Through the connection of a certain patient, Burke finds away to finally face his own problems and begin to deal with them in ways that he has taught onto others. But this minuscule part of the plot is short lived and it soon goes back to mono-tonal dialogue between monotonous characters with little meaning and no entertainment.

The surrounding characters had almost nothing to do with anything going on within the story and was a waste of wages. O yeah Martin Sheen appeared to for like 5 minutes. What a waste.

Sean's Movie Rating 3/10

Heavy Rain - PS3 Game Review

Okay so I'm getting into the swing of this so now for a game review.

Heavy Rain PS3

If your sick of 3rd person shooters that all attempt to be new and unconventional when really their all adaptations or duplications of Call of Duty, Halo and Half-life. If you have had enough of Square-Enix hopelessly trying to get back to the glory days of Final Fantasy 7 with feeble attempts such as Kindgom Hearts, the last remnant and the very recent disappointment Final Fantasy 13 then Heavy Rain will satisfy you to no end.

Spoiler Alert!

When Heavy Rain asked me to kill the father of two young girls to save my son amongst many other unethical and immoral proposition it brought my mental stability and decision making skills into question ( sounds strong I know, wait until you play it ). Ignore some slight downfalls or ambiguous plots and you will feel a very enjoyable, intense and satisfactory gaming experience.

The graphics of the game prove to be very impressive through the use of new technology that allows actual people to act out scenes of the game which is then converted into game graphics that completely replicate the features of that actor. This is all very impressive but you can see this for yourself through the special features unlocked as you progress through the game.

How this game is very different to anything else you have played before is through the use of characters. You play as four different people throughout, but it gets really exciting when you are faced with difficult situations which lead to susceptible fates. So yes if you make the wrong decision at any point of the game at any time with any character this could result in a ripple effect and will change the fate of the remaining characters.

Chris Ropper ( IGN ) says: "What's really interesting is that Heavy Rain manages to always keep you on your toes, and if you don't pay attention and keep your cool, you'll pay for it. There are action sequences that happen when you least expect them, and if you're not ready, you may "fail" them. In other cases, the opposite is true: events can happen very quickly and your gut instinct may be to react to them, when the best option may have been to wait for a better opportunity (or not react at all). The first time this last bit happened to me, I had to stop playing for a minute and think about what I'd done and what the consequences would wind up being. Things can get pretty intense, to say the least. "

Once I completed this game I just wanted to play again, but instead I took much enjoyment in watching friends make the same or worse mistakes in different scenarios. If you get to this point it's most enjoyable if you do not help them in any way so you can then laugh in their face. Good times.

Sean's Game Rating 9/10

Day One Of My Blog

I have been studying Media at university now for 2 years and all I here from my lecturers is "you should be Blogging". WHY?

So here I am trying to understand why people blog, so from time to time I will write something about something every day related to my course until I understand.

For a starter I am going to do a short review of the most recent movie I have seen. Don't worry I don't go into any media jargon so i'll save the Genre, Semiotic, Philosophical and Content analysis for the future of Sean Duffy's blog.

So for now lets call this 'Film review for Dummies'

Today's Topic - 'The Fourth Kind'

Okay, so last night I watched The Fourth Kind and it was straaaaaaange. What is it about Milla Jovovich that makes her want to make the weirdest movies ever (Ultraviolet 2006)? The Fourth Kind is eerie to say the least, who would have thought that an owl could be so scary. This film must have had a range of disturbed minds behind the scenes or maybe just one. Yes Olatunde Osunsanmi insisted on doing the story, screenplay, directing and yes he was also in the film which may been one of it's biggest downfalls, after all two heads are better than one! Maybe you should remember that for next time Olatunde.

The Fourth Kind is based on a true story and actually shows evidence of regularly mimicking actual events which is fascinating at times. The plot follows Abbey Tyler a psychologist living in Alaska who suffers from an ordeal that involves the murder of her husband and the disabling of her daughters vision. Abbey begins to see a pattern in the interviews with her patients, they are all having troubles sleeping and are all seeing a white owl, or are they? Without giving away to much the audience witnesses the events of alien contact within the community and it's up to you to decide what is authentic.

The real life footage will scare the crap out of you, if it really is real. As Olatunde and Milla make it clear to it's audience that it's up to you to believe what is real and what is not. The constant flickering between real footage to acted film is done to perfection, at times the script even overlaps one another which is quite creepy but effective. It has to be said that the real footage is somewhat disturbing but the part of your mind that is actually sane screams HOAX! but all the same it does get you thinking.

Forgetting the ideologies for a moment and thinking about the production values. It is very well structured and formatted although sometimes the sound quality lets it down, subtitles will sort that out for you. The filming is original and keeps you interested throughout the duration of the film but the similarity between Will Patton and Elias Koteas may confuse you to who is who?

Overall the movie kept me interested but Milla Jovovich I feel needs to go back a year or two when she was making great movies like The Fifth Element (1998) we all know she's got it in her.

Sean's Movie Rating 6/10