To Uni or Not to Uni?

All through my life I’ve thought I’d complete my A Levels, go to university, get a job and have a family. However, this thought is now becoming a reality as I’ve just finished my second term of my As levels and have started first of many weeks of revision.  At school were getting bombarded with talks of all kinds, what uni to go to and what courses to choose, I am starting to wonder if university is the right path for me. I know I want to go into some section of the film industry, and on every piece of work experience I’ve completed in this field I have been told that I don’t need to do a film related course at university and that it wouldn’t help me. My mum still thinks it would be beneficial to get a degree just incase I change my mind. For a while I went along with her and looked for uni degrees that I thought would be interesting, however, I have since realized if I didn’t want to do the degree I probably wouldn’t work for my exams and therefore come out with bad grades AND masses of debts! All of a sudden uni doesn’t sound so good.

Uni is such a common thing now-a-days you feel you have to go in order to get a job but what’s the point in going if it’s not going to help me? Having being brought up in a family of academics and been lucky enough to go to a good school which my parents have had to scrimp and save in order to send me to I know I would feel less intelligent and slightly guilty if I didn’t go to university. But just because you don’t go to uni it doesn’t mean you not clever, university just isn’t for some people, I personally don’t know if I like the idea of going straight from school to more homework, essays and exams. This then opens up even more questions like; do I take a gap year? I think I would love to do this, I would love to travel to America and Canada and see countries I have never been to; there’s just one slight problem… I would never be able to afford this.

I also think university would be an amazing opportunity where I would meet lots of people that I wouldn’t normally get to meet. I would also get to do things I wouldn’t otherwise get to do. I know I would have so much fun making student meals, living with my friends and being more independent.

After all this I still don’t know what to do… all I do know is that if I didn’t go some part of me would always regret it but if I did go I would be thinking how I could be working in film instead of learning something  I don’t really want to learn about.

Please follow me on twitter @elliekay96 and comment if you have anything to say :)

Ellie xxx

'Cyberbully' Film review

Although not based on a true story, Cyberbully is unfortunately based on a very true topic. Cyberbully is the story of Taylor Hillridge (Emily Osment), a teenage girl who falls victim to online bullying, and the cost it takes on her and her family. Taylor is a pretty 17-year-old high school student with an over protecting mother (Kelly Rowan). When her mum gives her a laptop for her birthday, Taylor is excited by the idea of going online without her mother always looking over her shoulder. However, Taylor soon finds herself the victim of betrayal and bullying while social networking, and afraid to face her peers at school, including her best friend Samantha Caldone (Kay Panabaker), she is pushed to a breaking point. Taylor’s mum decides to take on the school and state in order to make sure others don’t go through the same ordeal as her daughter.

In this role Emily Osment if far from her witty comedic acting in Disney Channel’s ‘Hannah Montana’ she plays a serious role and one with raw emotion and I think she carried the film amazingly. At some points she had me in tears (and I’m not a crier) and at other points I was so enthralled that I was screaming at the TV for her not to be doing something.  Kay Panabaker plays Taylor Hillridge’s best friend; Panabaker also shows off her amazing acting ability and, without trying to spoil anything, when the ‘twist’ happened I had to pause the TV just to compose myself from the shock. The whole cast is great and each one brings something different to the film.

The Story is good and although there is some stereotyping amongst the characters (A group of mean girls is suspected to be behind the bullying, and some victims include a gay teen and overweight girl), there are also a few twists in the plot that leave us shocked and surprised. Cyberbully is not a film that you can sit and predict what’s going to happen the whole way through, but it is a film that has you gripped from the very beginning.

Thanks for reading please follow me on twitter @elliekay96

Ellie X

Lennon and Maisy YouTube review

I first stumbled across Lennon and Maisy when they appeared on my YouTube suggestion list, thinking they looked cute I thought I’d give them ago. The song they were singing was their own take on ‘Call your girlfriend’ with their margarine pots what I then found out was that they were a bit of a YouTube sensation, especially for this song. Although my first impression of them was ‘cute’ Lennon’s voice was far from it; with her being the older of the two sisters, but still only 12 years old, she had a voice which made you believe she felt and believed everything she was singing. Maisy added another dimension to the song with her harmonies and backing vocals and the mix of young and slightly older seems to work like a charm.

Although ‘Call your girlfriend’ gave them their first taste of viral stardom, I think my person favourite cover of theirs is ‘I won’t give up’ by Jason Mraz, this song again demonstrates their amazing harmonies but also showcases Lennon’s guitar playing. However, it is not just Lennon who is gifted at the guitar, in Maisy’s solo cover of Missy Higgins’s ‘Secret’ she also shows of her guitar playing and surprises us all with her tuneful yet also mature voice. Their ‘Call your girlfriend’ cover has inspired other YouTubers to also try making music with cups or empty cartons and it has now become a bit of a craze.

Their new Christmas song ‘Christmas coming home’ is an upbeat joyous song that makes you want to sing along, it was written by Lennon and Maisy’s parents and Maisy herself said “I love to sing it because it makes you feel happy.”  They have millions of twitter followers, however perhaps the most exciting of these are One Direction and teen heart-throb Harry Styles even tweeted one of their YouTube videos.

When I was trying to find out more about the two Stella sisters I found out that their parents are also musically gifted, they finished in fourth place CMT’s Can you duet?I also found out that they grew up on a 170-acre farm without Phones or even TV and Internet, which is ironic since they now appear on both the internet and TV being watched by millions of 
viewers.

Not only are they showing the viral world what they can do, they have also booked the roles of Maddie and Daphne Conrad in the ABC hit show Nashville and wowed the world of TV with their great acting and their cover of ‘Telescope’ is one of the best music moments from the season.

Lennon and Maisy are definitely ones to watch and I know they’ll become stars.

Follow me on Twitter @elliekay96

Ellie Kay

'LOL' Film Review

‘LOL’ is a coming of age chick flick staring Miley Cyrus as Lola (also known as LOL to her friends.) It follows Lola and her friends in their quest to grow up and find love. Recently heartbroken, when her ex cheated on her, Lola begins to realize that her long time best friend Kyle, played by British actor Douglas Booth, might be the one for her. It shows us the complicated life of teens and the extent they go to in order to pretend they don’t care.

The writer Lisa Azuelos has adapted her 2008 French hit ‘LOL: Laughing out Loud’ for the American viewers and she has kept some of the traditional French features, for example, families openly bathing  in front of each other, adults smoking marijuana and a school trip to Paris. She has also added some more American factors for example texts and status updates pop up on the screen for the now more technical age.

Although sometimes over-acting in her tantrums Miley Cyrus brings her charm and likability to the role and acts out the complicated life well. However she does not have a lot to work with, the script shows teenagers to be sex obsessed and smoking pot constantly; It also shows teenagers to be obsessed with their own problems and although Anne, Lola’s mother (Demi Moore,) and her friends dinner parties give us a break from this, again they only seem to talk about their problems and their sexual wants.

Demi Moore plays a parent trying to be the perfect single mum while in a love triangle with the father of her children (her ex-husband) and Jeremy (Jean-Luc Bilodeau) a police man who gave her a lift home when her heel broke. Moore successfully sheds her usual ‘sexy look’ and becomes a tired looking woman and it is easy to believe that she is a single mum running around after three children.

The cast have believable chemistry especially Cyrus, Ashley Hinshaw ( Emily) and Lina Esco (Janice) they make you believe that they have been best friends for years they interact with each other like real best friends. Demi Moore and Miley Cyrus also have great chemistry and because of their great acting it is easy to believe that they have a complicated mother-daughter relationship. Adam G. Savani is also part of the cast and he plays the loser Wren wanting to have some fun with Emily, he brings a comedic aspect to the plot.

Over all I think LOL is a good film and one that should be watched, it has an amazing cast with buckets of talent.

Please follow me on twitter @elliekay96

Ellie Kay

Fun Size Film Review

Fun Size is the newest film that is sure to be watched by tweens all across the country. It follows the life of Cleveland High School student Wren (played by Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice) and her best friend April (played by Suburgatory star Jane Levy) as they set out for the best Halloween night of their life, however it soon turns out to be the worst.  Wren’s Halloween plans go a-wall as she is forced to look after her little brother, Albert (played by newcomer Jackson Nicoll,) instead of going to “the hottest guy in school” Halloween party and just when Wren thought it couldn’t get any worse she loses Albert and has to find him before her mum finds out she ever lost him.

Directed by Josh Schwartz it plays out the classic story of a girl who thinks she likes the hot boy but ends up liking the nerd. It is hard to understand why Albert helps the convenience store manager get revenge on his ex-girlfriend and I do not think the script shows Justice’s and Levy’s well known comic skills to the best of their ability. The script is badly written as there is nothing to suggest a relationship going on between Wren and, the ‘hottie’ Aaron Riley (Thomas McDonnell.) It is not clear who this film is aimed as for this film Nickelodeon has left its family friendly PG rating and has made it a 12A, they have hired tween stars such as Victoria Justice but then placed her alongside Chelsea Handler, who is probably unknown to anyone under the age of 18. It contains Fart Jokes and sex references, however its jokes always seem to fall flat, although the randomness of the script did mean it never became boring and the one-liners kept the audience on their toes. From watching the trailer we get the idea that the main plot of the story is Wren and April trying to find Albert, however a big part of the plot goes  to Wrens, recently widowed, mum and her love life; which is barely mentioned in the trailer. The search for Albert always seems to be more important when there is a lull in the teen romance area.

As usual in the tween comedies Wren does not get help from the hottie who she thinks she likes she gets it from two nerds, Roosevelt (Thomas Mann) and Peng (Osric Chau.) As with all tween comedies this film involves funny one-liners, nervous first kisses and a message that social hierarchy doesn’t matter, however anyone in secondary school will tell you this is not true.

Director, Josh Schwartz (OC and Gossip Girls) doesn’t tell the typical Halloween horror story but instead just retells every other tween film that has already been made, and he fails to repeat the winning formula that has been performed so well with his TV shows.

Justice is pleasing to the eye and charming on screen; however she occasionally tends to over act which is common for actors transferring from child stardom to more adult films. Levy plays the social climber character perfectly and seems to help carry the film naturally. Mann seems to portray a slightly more masculine nerd and Chau seems to play a nerd as if he were a natural.

Please follow me on twitter @elliekay96

Ellie Kay

'Jacks Gap' YouTube channel Review

‘Jacks Gap, Jacks Gap, five minutes of your life that you won’t get back!’ This is certainly true, and like Jack himself says in his first video- “Who would want to listen to five minutes of me?” Well somehow millions of people do, and I can proudly admit that I, myself, am one of those millions of people who log in every week to see if he has uploaded a new video yet. So, who is Jack? Well Jack is Jack Harries, you may have seen him in School of Comedy when he was younger, and in his early videos he films every week of his gap year; however, in his later videos it soon becomes him in front of his camera making the millions of viewers laugh in hysterics.

What’s that I hear you ask? Why does he have so many subscribers? Jack is just a naturally funny guy and when he invites other YouTubers onto his channel it becomes twice as hilarious. In his videos he seems to do the activities all of us wish we could do but for some reason we know it would never work for us, he goes street surfing and even makes the most boring of tasks (like opening mail) hilarious. When you combine this with his amazingly good looks it is hard to resist staring at him instead of doing your homework, and then when you think it can’t get much better he brings his TWIN BROTHER along and anybody who understands girls knows we can’t resist good looking twins. He even manages to make us cry sometimes (he has to say goodbye to his pet lizard.)

Jack has a twitter following of nearly three hundred thousand and is constantly updating his followers with what he is doing that moment in time and I have no doubt that each picture and tweet gets thousands of re-tweets. Although Jack has now gone off to study acting at Bristol, and I’m sure they’ve had an increase of girl applicants this year, he is still posting videos.  It is not just his good looks and charming wit that attracts YouTubers to his channel it is his knack for making each video different, nothing he does is the same and nothing he does is ordinary. So I recommend everyone to go onto youtube and check jacksgap out!

Please can everyone go and follow me on twitter @elliekay96 you can see every time I post a new review I would really appreciate it!

Ellie X

Ramona and Beezus Film Review

Ramona and Beezus is the perfect film for all ages. Based around the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary and directed by Elizabeth Allen, it followsthe energetic, imaginative and accident-prone nine year old Ramona Quimby (Joey King) and her overachieving big sister Beezus( Selena Gomez) through their fights and make ups. The plot revolves around Ramona and Beezus’ father (John Corbett) losing his job and the family running into money problems, which may unfortunately relate to many families at this time, however it tries to show the brighter side to this situation. This causes Ramona to try and do everything she can to try and save the family home, which involves her getting into a lot of mischief along the way.

I think Gomez and King appear like perfect sisters; you believe their fights and love their make ups. Newcomer Joey King carries the film perfectly and sellsRamona's particular mix of earnestness and mischievousness flawlessly. You always believe her when she says she's sorry for her latest misadventure, even though you know another one is just around the corner. King manages to turn, in seconds, from infectious grinning to tear- jerking emotion while acting out some of the busy scenes which include- losing a pet, throwing up at school and moving house all squeezed into 104 minutes. In Cleary’s books Beezus is portrayed as image conscious, however Gomez may be too pretty to get this across to the audience well enough and I think Allen lacks the ability to capture the fact that Ramona acts up the way she does (emptying a full tube of toothpaste into the sink) because she is frustrated at being the middle child, she is an underachiever compared to Beezus and feels like she doesn’t get enough attention because of her baby sister Roberta (twins Aila McCubbing and Zanti McCubbing.)

There are also scenes in the film for the older audiences which include Ramona and Beezus’ aunt Bea (Ginnifer Goodwin) flirting on her old flame, Hobart, (Josh Duhamel.) There are also scenes that include Beezus trying to impress her long-term friend, Henry Huggins, (Hutch Dano), which doesn’t go well when she drinks some lemonade with a wasp in it and ends up spitting it all over Henry.

Although I enjoyed the whole film I do think that a film series may have suited the books better to show the different adventures in more detail, but instead screenwriter Laurie Clark and Nick Pustay have picked memorable moments from Cleary’s eight book series and fashioned them into one single film. In my opinion Clark and Pustay have picked moments that show Ramona’s sense of imaginatively seamlessly with the animated daydream sequences which transport the audience into her world and allows all ages to feel like and child again.

I would recommend this film to families and children aged 6-13.

Thank You for reading, follow me on twitter @elliekay96

Ellie X