Hall Pass (2011, Farrelly brothers)

Hall Pass was widely recognised as one of the best comedies of 2011, and it's easy to see why, with its appeal to both male and female audiences.

The basic premise is two women (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate), fed up of their husbands wandering eyes, give them a week off of marriage, on the advice of a friend who did the same thing. The wives leave town for a week, taking the kids with them and leaving the husbands to their own devices, no questions asked

I remember seeing the trailer at the cinema when it was released around this time last year, and thinking it was a film that I really wanted to see. As usual, life got in the way and I didn't get round to seeing it until a couple of days ago.

From the first scene, it is clear that this is no usual comedy. An intelligent understanding of both sexes is displayed, and despite the subject matter being of more appeal to a male audience, the female interest is maintained in the way that the female protagonists are one step ahead of their husbands.

One letdown is that the majority of the material used in the trailer features within the first 15 minutes, meaning that the majority of best moments are already over before the film has been established.

Owen Wilson is beautiful as always, but special mention has to go to the highly underrated Stephen Merchant.

Laugh out loud funny in some parts, toe-curlingly cringeworthy in others. Overall, a good watch, albeit enough to put a girl off the idea of marriage!

Adios enero.

The wet dog that is January has reared its ugly head and quietened down back to sleep for another year. Happy to say, I seem to have survived unscathed, without any major disasters, and with a few successes along the way. A brief rundown of my January:

• Secured two work experience placements for 2012, one at Gay Times and one at Women's Weekly.
• This blog got around 730 hits, more than triple any previous month.
• Was involved with the launch of the new site for The Yorker, which has involved implementing new Careers and Finance subsections.
• Conducted my first journalistic interview, with Steve Gallacher of Trespasser Films (article here)
• Had a guest blog published on Inspiring Interns.
• Discovered a fabulous little place in the heart of York.
• Spent more hours in the library than I care to remember-third year is beginning to take its toll

So it's been a pretty busy month, hence why I've not been blogging more, and specifically why my weekly TV round up didn't take off-I've barely had time to watch the programmes, let alone write about them!

Aims for February

• Work on the social side of university life-everyone is so busy with final year, there are some people I haven't seen yet this year (yes, you. You know who you are). I aim to pin you down to a place and a time very soon.
• Make some solid travel plans for the rest of the year, post-graduation!

On another note, today is 1.2.12. What a great day for microphone testing.*

Happy February. Just don't talk to me about Valentine's Day.

*Joke stolen from Twitter

Review: Miracle on Regent Street

Miracle on Regent Street was one of the top Christmas reads of 2011, being raved about on Twitter, the blogosphere and beyond.  Unfortunately due to my penniless student state, I didn't manage to get myself a copy until well into January, but it was well worth the wait.

Focusing on one girls attempts at saving a department store, the story was well structured if predictable at times. It is doubtful if, at time of writing, the author knew quite how poignantly relevant much of the story would be, when you consider how many retails businesses went into administration over the 2011-2012 festive period.

The writing, although powerful for the most part, was at times very amateur, and I found myself wincing at the painfully over the top description, which was often simplistic and unnecessary. On reflection, this is more to do with the fact that Harris' writing style is  remarkably similar to my own fictional narrative style (and the reason why I avoid this genre), than due to any lack of talent or ability on the part of the author.

One area in which the novel excels is creating a festive atmosphere-curled up in bed on a cold January night, I was temporally disoriented briefly, believing that it was really December and Christmas was still yet to come. Bad luck. The descriptions of the beautiful vintage clothing that forms part of Evie's transformation are inspirational, and certainly gave me a hankering for a black and white dogtooth skirt!

I won't lie and say I read it all one sitting, At first I struggled to get into the story, but after a couple of chapters, I was glad I persevered.

Conclusion: Partly questionable writing, but overall a good read.