Candy Film Review

Perhaps of all the movies I’ve seen in recent years, only one has had such a bold, believable sense of realism to it that it’s stuck, and not lost it’s standing, in my all time favourite movie list. In the tired and often poorly made genre of drug related drama, Candy throws itself in head first, and surprisingly avoids the traps most films of this type fall into. The characters do not simply beat their addiction with the help of the other, they do not live a glamorous lifestyle as in most drug films of today and they do not, as most drug films tend to trip themselves up on, come out better in the end, in fact in most senses the characters come out worse. And in many ways, this is perhaps what struck me most about this film, it’s not your typical Hollywood flick with the same overused clichés, it is a hard hitting, and frighteningly faithful vision of real life.
From the first scenes of the film, it uses a great amount of juxtaposition between the bleak and cold life of drugs and the bliss of love. Indeed, if I had to summarise the film in one sentence it would be about this contrast and of the films realism. The opening scene of the film is hypnotic and unique, luring the audience into what they would expect from the advertising of the film. Indeed, for the first scene, if you had been expecting a gritty and hard hitting drug romance film, and only caught the opening of the film, you might be turned off with by blissful, but still strikingly eerie, vision given, of a perfect relationship, with no worries. But after this mix messaged opening the film, you are thrust directly into the thick of things, with the beautiful drug addicted artist Candy (played by Cornish) overdosing in the bath, and her boyish, fairly idiotic poet boyfriend Dan (played by Ledger) rushing in and amid breaking down in fear for his lover saves her life. Instantly the previously apparent soppy love story you might have half been expecting is proved to be a fallacy, and you are instead thrown headfirst into this bruised reality.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for the hard, cold realism is the two breathtaking performances given by Ledger and Cornish. There are often eerie moments in the film that you can almost feel as if their performances lapse from acting into an actual real life situation. The dialog written between the two is perhaps some of the most superb and well thought between the two, there are dramatic pauses in the right places, violent whips of anger when you might expect apologies or the mood to change towards something lighter.
For a while, when first watching this, I was expecting what I often see in drug movies in which two lovers become addicted, the pair to have drugs come between them, the pair to overcome their problems and come out stronger. Such clichés have often be used in film making, and for much of the film, there is a sense that at any moment, this abyss that some otherwise great films have fallen in would consume Candy also. But thankfully this is not the case. At any time it feels as if there is a chance of the two getting over this, of which there are many, it is quickly ruined, the rug below the two suddenly pulled and they fall deeper apart, and as in the case of the pregnancy and detox scenes, often pull the characters deeper down and into even more uncompromising gloom. However, though you might expect this to get repetitive and eventually less compelling, strangely this never happens. You honestly can feel from the performances that the characters believe with every inch of their self that the next time they’ll beat it, that next time they’ll manage. This in itself, makes you believe, but again, you eventually realise they are only lying to themselves, and all hope is gone.
One could argue one of the few down points to this film is that in comparison to Cornish’s performance with other characters when Ledger is not around, when Cornish is not there for Ledger his character seems less powerful, and much of his superb performance in the rest of the film is slightly muddied by these scenes. However, in a sense, though Ledger is not as compelling when Cornish is not around, it almost adds a new level to the character of Dan, without his lover Candy around, he is desperately vulnerable, unlike the headstrong character he often seems to be at other times.
The films ultimate triumph though, comes in a few scenes, powerful, horrifying and sickeningly frank. Perhaps the best example comes in the scene where the two lovers attempt to kick their drugs after learning Candy is pregnant. This scene is perhaps one of the simultaneously sickening and heart wrenching scenes I have seen in the hundreds of movies I’ve watched. The gradual deterioration of not only the two characters mental, but physical state over the few days they try to kick their habit, coupled with the awkward silence between the two emphasises the struggled each of them faces not only internally but externally as their bodies fight against their every will to receive the poisons they each crave.
The film is divided into three aptly named sections, Heaven, Earth and Hell. Heaven is the start of the film the mix of euphoric happiness and strong love, mixed with the steady decline in the pair’s relationship as Candy begins to sell her body to pay for her hits and gives up all hope of her promising career as an artist. This swiftly turns to the Earth section, in which the two begin to fall dramatically apart, and in a desperate attempt failingly try to give up drugs in what I have said is my favourite scene in this film. The hell section begins on the aftermath of Candy’s miscarriage, as her and Dan are thrown directly back into drugs by their depression. The way this film moves through these three sections is mesmerising in a way, but in some sense dispels all hope a viewer might have of a happy ending before it is clear why this might occur, which in some senses doesn’t leave the viewer as vulnerable for the shocking ending as it might have been.
In addition to this smallest of things, Candy does have a few downfalls. Perhaps the biggest being much of the later part of the film, for most of the Hell section. Though inarguably vital to the plot, these scenes seems dull compared to the creeping and ever growing foreboding at the start of the film and then the shocking and sudden ending. These scenes are almost definitely some of the more lacking of the film, though there are still little gems in the subtle acting between the two, gentle hints of what is to come. Though this drags the film down from being what is set up to be a groundbreaking piece of cinematography, it ultimately doesn’t take away the most important part of this film, which is its accurate depiction of real life, and not the usual Hollywood mockery of the world.

Team Fortress 2 Review

Now, when I first picked up this game, I have to admit, apart from small doses of halo 1 + 2 I was a pretty big FPS noob. In fact, if I had to say it, Halo 1 and 2 could really only class as foreplay, they were only fleeting and not full on encounters.

So, with my 1 month gold trial, and no wish to try out Half Life 2 just yet, I picked up my controller, created a Live account, and rushed my FPS virginity out of the window. Now, as shameful as it is now, I can definitely say like the real deal, losing your FPS virginity is an extremely embarrassing ordeal you will never live down till the day you die. Me, being the absolute whore for flames and burning pick to play as a pyro class. Not a bad choice for those who know how to use them, and it's a fairly simple class to learn the game on, with a shotgun (as with a large percent of the classes) and the ability to deal death fairly quickly.

Of course, never playing more then a few hours on an FPS, and never online, I automatically figured the average player was intelligent as your average AI.

Boy was I wrong.
First game down, and no kills.
As you can expect, my "team mates" flamed the hell out of me for not flaming the hell out of the other team, and to say the least at the end of the 3 game run of 2fort, I was booted.

Feeling as if I had been robbed of what should have been one of the biggest landmarks in my gaming career, and feeling like a cheap whore who'd failed to please his man, I through my controller away and went and playing some crackdown with a friend.

Two days later I had finally built up enough courage to re-try to shake off my newby ways and enter the hardcore world of FPS gaming. And so it went, me slowly gaining an ability with A pyro, then a short affair was spent with the scout class, acquainting me with the scenery and locations of health spawns and giving me a general look around the maps.

Moving round the classes I quickly found a love for the Sniper and Engineer class, two of my most played classes, as well as medic and heavy.

Little pyro and scout seemed a little too fidgety for my tastes with lack of any range, and spy was useless unless you know all the tips off by hearts and used your cloak well. Which of course I had no idea.

So there you go, a little history of Cyberfreak's first (and most dreadful) attempts at playing an FPS. Forward 5 months and a hell of allot of playing on the halo games and a few other FPS games (including the Half Life titles, which reviews are pending) and I've slowly gained myself some skill, especially in the 4 classes I've mentioned.

Now, onto the real bulk of the review. I guess you can say out of all the big Multi-player FGS games out on the 360, when you ask "Which is your favourite?" hearing an answer like "TF2" is almost as uncommon as hearing people in the streets shouting "WOOO I'VE GOT AIDS AND I'M GOING TO DIE!!!". Well I guess that might make sense, with Halo Fan-boys at every corner and the madly talented game-whores who live breath and shit COD4, an admittedly brilliant and clever game.

So why would one such as myself pick TF2 over all of those games? The answer is simply these, so please read on if your actually interested.

Firstly is TF2s community. Unlike games such as Halo and COD4, where Winning is rewarded with levels and special things to show off your awesomeness on the game, TF2 tends not to focus on that. Although there is a ranking system, besides those users who are bred to be ultra-competitive on games like COD4, it's more of a back feature few care about. And that's a great advantage for TF2. The community isn't watered down with overconfident idiots who believe that because they're awesome on a game they deserve some sort of shiny medal with "I have no life and proud". Team Fortress two has a much more laid back feel to it, the users are usually incredibly chatty within their teams, which always ends up having hilarious results. I can recall several times I have accidentally spent 40-50 minutes in the lobby before starting a game just because of the chatter going on.

And sadly, this sense of laid-back comedy is lacking in allot of Online FPS games. Make of that what you will.

My next love of the game comes in the class system. Unlike Halo, in which your ability to find a good weapon may make your ability either as amazing or incredibly shit, people can pick a class they're abilities are suited to. It also leads to allot of more playability.

However, there is one thing the class system holds as a problem. And that's the ability to react to scenario's quickly because of the limits of a class. Now, with almost half the classes having shotguns, especially for classes such as Pyro, they have no ranged ability and if they come up against a heavy/medic combo there's very little chance they'll even get in for a good flamebash. Of course, that may still be down to my lack of skill, but there's times I've wished the sniper had a better mid-range weapon then the useless piece of shit he has. Seriously, is he shooting sesame seeds out of that thing or something?

But confining weapon limits aside, there is another problem.
And that is lack of maps. Now, I'm aware this is not the case for the PC version, however, where are the map packs that games like halo have on every know and then. I'd kill for two or three more maps. Also, each map has a set mission style. And although that kind of makes sense, seeing as the maps are built around fitting that game style, it can get a little bit annoying, seeing as with a little bit of thought there could have been one map with all types of mission on.

But again, that's just small personal feeling. I know allot of people who feel different.

And I guess that's all there is to say on it.

Also, fyi, taunts are awesome.