Must watch TV
How Not to Live Your Life
By Orin
It's okay to get a bit giddy while watching a show for the first time, because if it turns out to be actually good, the rewards are endless. It can provide hours of entertainment and make you laugh long after the show has ended. The tough part though, is finding shows like that, and that's where we come in.
How Not to Live Your Life is a show about a twenty-something chronic slacker Don Danbury (played by the show's writer and director Don Clark), whose biggest enemy is his overactive mind that tends to act on things that he's not supposed to. Dan inherits his granny's house and delightfully goes to live in it, where he meets Eddie Singh (who is apparently 1/32 Indian and provides the most fun), his granny's carer who 'takes care' of him without Dan asking for anything. Since Don isn't really interested in working to pay his bills, he has to rent a room and his roommate turns out to be his high school crush Abby. There's also Mrs. Treacher (called 'Gollum' by Don), who is an old neighbour that Eddie takes care of.
The first series is mostly about Don's failed attempts at winning Abby's heart while her rather arrogant boyfriend Karl keeps a close eye on him. In the second series, Don manages to get a job, despite all his efforts to not get one, and is forced to find another roommate, Samantha, while pursuing love interests all over town.
The storyline does not gear you up for the actual show. The show is hilarious, but is one of the grossest you'll ever come across. Some of the parts may even seem downright offensive to some people. One thing is assured though, while watching the show you'll be wondering how they let that air on television, that too on BBC. That is, if you don't put your snobby hat on while watching this.
Another fun thing about How Not to Live Your Life is that they have small clips of 'advices' during the sitcom - things like '6 things not to say to your hairdresser' or '5 things not to do alone in a restaurant' - that add a lot of fun to the show.
It has been said that this show is an insult to the intelligence of stupid men all over the world. But you have to face it, Don Danbury is almost wilfully unlovable and the whole show is, to say the least, quite unorthodox; but does that mean it's not good? It's hilarious and addictive.
Give it a watch and you'll know!
127 HOURS
By Musarrat Rahman
Filmmaker extraordinaire Danny Boyle has done it again. Director of major motion pictures such as Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle gave us, at the end of 2010, 127 Hours, a film about real-life adventurist Aron Ralston.
Starring major man-candy James Franco as the protagonist, the film is the real life account of Aron Ralston's book 'Between a Rock and a Hard Place' the film centres around Franco-as-Ralston, a carefree mountain climber and self-proclaimed adventurist who decides to take a trip from his home Aspen, Colorado to Canyonlands National Park Utah, an adult's jungle gym for thrill seekers. While there, he meets a pair of pretty girls in search of a tour guide and, being a man, decides to show off.
What follows is the most horrific moment in his life, but it made him famous, so maybe it was all worth it?
Aron, a veteran climber, becomes cocky in the presence of the other two hikers and he offers to show them an underground hot spring. An ancient crack on the floor, however, had other plans for him that day. He tumbles through the crack into the void, only to be saved at the last moment by a giant boulder that falls down after him and sandwiches his crushed arm against the walls of the abyss. The man was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The movie is essentially about the next five days, 127 hours, that follow his psychological train of thought as he waited in the isolated canyon hoping to be rescued and his discovery that he himself had the courage and the strength to save him. He took matters into his own hand with the aid of a rusty pocket knife, he then proceeded to scale the walls of the 65 foot canyon and walk eight miles before he finally did get rescued. And that is how Aron Ralston lost his arm.
The film is not for the weak-hearted or children, containing very graphic scenes. The emotion portrayed is why this movie, where the protagonist barely moves, is a must watch. The man is stuck in the canyon for 90% of the movie, but it's what he goes through for that torturous period - hunger, thirst, loneliness, horror, fear, remorse and then finally hope and courage that he experiences through hallucinations of objects and important people in his life, that is what makes it such a great movie. Danny Boyle sure is a genius!
The theme of this movie is freedom. Aron may have been pinned by a boulder but his soul refuses to be locked up, and when he finally faces up to what he has to do to survive, he not only sees it as cutting off his trapped appendage but as cutting off the part of him that has long been dead. His sheer will to be free is what saves him from the brink of death.
THE ULTIMATE ADDICTION FLASH
By Professor Spork
Yeah, yeah, Halo's awesome. Halo's also like chicken-pox. It's not like you can't catch the fever twice, but it doesn't usually happen. The ones we're talking about, they're different. They're the worst kind of drug known to mankind, the fabled Last Cigarette Ever. You have a minute to spare, you go back. Just once more. Then you'll stop. Or so you believe, till next time.
Fruit Ninja Fruits shoot up from below and you use your finger to slice a neat white line through 'em. Except it's not very neat. Something vicious surges within you as the fruit juice splatters all over the screen, especially during an onslaught of strawberries. Raining blood wouldn't serve to describe the total and complete awesomeness of the scene dripping with red. Bonus points for getting all the fruits thrown up on screen in one slash. And the best part? When you're out, you go back in, again, and again, and again. You get tired of it, of course. For the entirety of five minutes.
Angry Birds For some odd reason a bunch of green pigs went and stole the birds' eggs. It's time for revenge. How do you get revenge? Why, use a giant slingshot to throw the birds at the pigs to destroy them, effectively killing the ammo bird as a bonus. You have the minimum number of birds required to take out all the pigs in a particular level, and at each new level, the pigs obtain an extra barrier. Also, you get to see where you're supposed to aim for only a few seconds. The rest is physics and guesswork. Mostly physics, for those of you who paid attention in class. Why is it addictive? Wait till the surviving pigs cackle at you when you run out of birds to chuck. It makes your blood boil.
Paper Toss The setting contains cubicles and wastepaper baskets. There's also a fan set to swing mode. So you work out the angle and direction of wind, and toss the paper ball into the basket. Not as easy as it sounds, but sometimes you wish the obstacles would move a bit. The sound effects are superbly annoying, so don't try this game after work. You just got home from the office. No point wandering right back in. Your mistakes have rewards too. It feels great when you accidentally hit a co-worker just minding his own business in his own cubicle.
Plants vs. Zombies Yours truly doesn't appreciate gardening. However, when the plants are kicking zombie butt, it's hard to complain. The objective of the game is to prevent the zombies from crossing the lawn to your front door, using plants as weapons. You need sun to obtain functioning plants, so you must plant sunflowers to obtain extra sun. Each new level adds a new kind of plant and a new kind of tougher, faster zombie. The pea shooters are your basic weapons, along with barrier plants, which slow the enemies and give you time to recuperate when you're down. The cherries are totally amazing. They go boom and fry zombies. Hell yeah!
Snake Classic There's no need for further elaboration on what is possibly the greatest game ever invented. Only thing is, on the touch screen it is way harder to control the snake. The campaign mode is more interesting, since it provides a bit of variety. Other than that, there's no better way to spend time when you're early for that meeting.
