Room - a movie review

I was sent a preview dvd of the Oscar winning movie, Room , to watch. It is a movie I had seen advertised but the subject matter had put me off watching it. I like kids films, adventure films, sci-fi, comedy but gritty realism isn't usually my choice. And the theme of Room, is a difficult subject, especially for a parent of a teen daughter to watch.

Room tells the story of a 5 year old boy and his mother, trapped in a single room. As the film progresses we discover why they are in the room, how they got there, and what their life is like. The film manages to show the horror of their existence in a calm way that never strays into the salacious. Somehow the understatement of the awful abuse and horrific nature of their imprisonment makes the situation all the more ghastly. A situation that should be your worst nightmare has become commonplace and routine.

But amazingly this film is not depressing, it shows the strength of love, the power of the human spirit and is ultimately extremely uplifting. Don't be fooled, you will cry, I cried 7 times (and one of those times lasted through several scenes) but it really is a great film and well worth a watch. An adult film with very adult themes, it is not suitable for young children (it has a 15 Certificate in the UK, an R is the US) .

There are many scenes in the movie that provoked very strong emotions in me. I think as a parent I identified most with the mother who lost her daughter, rather than 'ma' the girl in Room. But in the early part of the film I did feel for her and the way she tried to keep her son happy, the way she made things about him, and stayed strong through routines. She is shown in such a powerful way, despite her seemingly powerless situation. The normal anger of a child rebelling against his mother when we, the viewer, know what she is going through is heartbreaking. To see her cope with his rage at her is difficult. And to see things through his eyes as he pretends to sleep in Wardrobe at night when Old Nick visits is clever as we are left to know the horror while he does not.

The thing that made me cry the most (and there were a lot of tears) was when we see the bedroom of the lost daughter, still the same as the day she left, 7 years before. The hope her own mother always had that she would return. I held DD and wept.

While it was Brie Larson who won the Oscar (for Best Actress) it is Jacob Tremblay the 8 year old Canadian child actor who plays Jack that stole the film (and a piece of my heart). His brilliant acting on first seeing the sky outside of Room was just wonderful, totally mind blowing.

But I mustn't tell you the whole film, you must see it for yourself.

STUDIOCANAL is delighted to announce the DVD and Blu-Ray release of the multi award winning ROOM on May 9th 2016. 

Directed by Academy Award® nominated Lenny Abrahamson (Frank) with a screenplay by Emma Donoghue that she adapted from her best-selling novel, ROOM stars Brie Larson (Kong: Skull Island, Free Fire), Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen (The Bourne Ultimatum), William H. Macy (Fargo) and Sean Bridgers (Trumbo), ROOM is one of the most highly acclaimed films of the year.

Whovians...take a peek at this

I like Dr Who but I'm not one of those super fans that knows all the villains and the order the Drs regenerated in etc etc

I'm happy to watch an episode if I'm about, or miss it if I'm not. But I'm aware there are people that are rather more keen than I am on the entire timey-wimey-ness of it all and so when I received this press release I thought I had better share!!

I confess it did even make me consider a visit, it does sound like the most awesome fun! And for homeschoolers and ...well anyone really, it sounds rather educational too!

The National Space Centre is going all Dr Who!
National Space Centre, Exploration Drive, Leicester, LE4 5NS
31st Jan-1st Feb 2015

Step out from behind the sofa as they look at the science behind Doctor Who – they'll be looking at Time Travel, Teleportation, Regeneration, Robots, Space Travel and providing you with all the information you'll need to stop the next alien invasion on your screens.

You could come face to face with the Deadly Daleks and Cybernetic Cybermen. They've a galaxy of heroes and villains lurking. Maybe K9 will come to your assistance?

Follow their Science Trail around the centre and learn more about the facts behind the Science in Doctor Who. Answer a few simple questions to be in with a chance of winning a prize!

Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy will be appearing alongside his Doctor Who Companion, Ace, played by Sophie Aldred.

They will aslo have a stunning, full size studio replica of the TARDIS console as it first appeared in Doctor Who, alongside not one, but two TARDIS police boxes (well this is time travel after all!)
Members of Project Dalek will be attending the event, with fully mobile Daleks patrolling the Centre too, watch out, you may be EXTERMINATED!

The Daleks are joined by members of the UK 15th Cyber Legion, who will be showing how their amazingly accurate Cyber Costumes are created. Warning, You may be DELETED!

K9 will be trundling around the centre, so look out for the Time Lords best friend! (I adore K9 I wish they'd bring him back for a visit!)

If all that were not enough, there are prop making workshops, live action walk through encounters, a Knitathon (completing a Tom Baker scarf in just two days), costume competition and even the opportunity to design and have your own monster created live!

National Space Centre

The National Space Centre is the UK's largest visitor attraction and research facility dedicated to space.The National Space Centre opened to the public in June 2001 and has welcomed over 2.8 million visitors, including over 550,000 school children.

I just re read it....I'm all excited again...now If I can just find the time and sort out travel - if only I had a TARDIS!

A Utopia of Dystopias

utopia - 1 ( usually lowercase ) an ideal place or state.
            2 ( usually lowercase ) any visionary system of political or social perfection.

Dystopia - noun, a society characterised by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

I can't help noticing the influx on the YA (young adult) reading scene of the 'dystopian novel'. It seemed to catch fire (see what I did there?) with The Hunger Games and has continued with the Divergent series. Both sagas have been made into films.

There are so many of these novels on the shelves now. Uglies, Matched, Gone, I'm sure you could name dozens. 

Of course dystopian novels are nothing new. There was 1984 and Brave New world. The brilliant Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep (filmed as Blade Runner) and Fahrenheit 451.

But lately two things have struck me. The first is that they are very firnly aimed at young adults rather than adults and the second that they seem to also be aimed at girls. Female leads and heroines have been popular for a long time, Mina Harker in Dracula, Julia in 1984 to name a couple. But suddenly it seems the female lead is back with rather a bang!

Suddenly the 'feisty' (I hate that word!) female is the norm, the woman that notices the rot in the supposed utopia, revealing the horror beneath. The young girl  that dares to kick out against the society that controls everyone including her.


Is this only a blip? Or are our authors (male and female) seeing the important role the female lead can have in society?


Or maybe, they just realise that it's still the girls that do the most reading...


What do you think?


(and are there any great Dystopian Novels I've missed, with excellent female leads?)

 

A war time memory.

"My daughter was born at my sister’s house in November 1944. I returned home with her when she was three weeks old. I had photos taken at a studio soon after we arrived home. These were to be the only photos of my daughter before the accident. I hadn’t collected them from the photographers at the time of the plane crash so they survived.

Mosquito De Havilland

The plane crash was on the morning of Saturday 17th February 1945.

I had put my daughter outside the front door in her pram. I then went into the bedroom to tidy myself and to put my coat on. I was looking in the mirror when I saw this huge plane coming into the garden, it was silent, no engine. I thought that my baby would be all right as the plane was coming toward the back of the bungalow, so remembering what we had been told to do during raids etc. I lay on the floor. The last thing that I remembered was debris falling on me, which must have knocked me out for a few seconds. I came to and my wardrobe was holding up the ceiling where I was lying. I scrambled up, thinking that I must get to my baby, I walked through the bedroom to the lounge, there wasn’t a wall there any more and no glass in the windows. I fell out of the window and my friend was there and she helped me out.

I rushed round to where the pram was shouting “MY BABY!” by that time the bungalow was alight and burning rubble had fallen onto the pram. I was pulled away, still screaming for my baby but I was held back. A man who was visiting his brother’s family across the road ran over, and with his bare hands got my daughter out of the pram. When I saw how badly she was burnt I wished that God had taken her, as her little face was burned also her arm and hand. The man who lived opposite was about to take a bride to her wedding, but no more ado he came and took us to the hospital, ribbons flying.

I don’t think that I have ever spent a more unhappy night, my baby was crying and I couldn’t pick her up as my hands were bandaged, so I continually called the nurse. Eventually the Matron came and said, “ What are you making all the fuss for?”

The next day a Doctor came from East Grinstead hospital and we were taken there and we stayed for three months. Fortunately my baby was still able to breast feed. Which helped to save her life. She had saline bathes everyday and was the youngest patient they had ever had.

My husband was serving in India at the time of the crash and didn’t even know that he had a daughter until she was about four months old. He didn’t know about the accident because his mother had written to him and just said that I couldn’t write as I had hurt my hands. (I used to write several times a week).

The first thing that he knew about it was when one of the fellows that was with him had the Local newspaper sent to him and this news was on the front page. You can imagine the shock. He put in for leave but wasn’t allowed to come home. Our daughter was nearly two years old before he came home and saw her, he walked through the door and she was in her high chair, my husband kissed me and she said, “Oh Mama!”.

We spent years going to and fro to East Grinstead for her to have skin grafts; she had the last one when she was sixteen.

There were five people killed that day including both pilots, we were the only two saved."

The memorial to those that died

Record of the crash on Flight Safety Org
(My Grandmother, Jan 1917 - June 1999  wrote this account in about 1995, the baby is my mum)