The Notebook

'The Notebook' is one of those films that a lot of people call their favourite movie and a lot of other people say "uh, It's boring". That's when you know a film is really something, when it has groupies. And I don't mean the type of groupies that 'Twilight' has. That was hyped and sold by the studios & then bought by the teenagers.

But 'The Notebook' affects a certain type of person. Its following built up over the years (and it only came out 7 years ago).

The idea behind the film is that love is the guiding principle of our lives.

The reason most of our lives are a mess is that we can't figure out what it all means. A good movie gives us answers. The main concern of the characters in the movie is their relationships. The love they feel. Everything else is secondary, and for two hours It's the same for us.

The best films aren't realistic, people get that wrong. The best films present an idea, they paint a picture, and they convince us It's real. 'The Notebook' convinces us that love conquers all, that love can achieve anything. There are those of us in the world who, despite evidence to the contrary, believe that love is what matters. How we held onto this notion before cinema, I really don't know.

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Attack The Blog

1. The Hangover 2 - For once the critics are right. This is just the first movie all over again. The first one was hilarious, but this is just the band regrouping for a greatest hits tour. The setlist is the same and the magic is gone.

But it's beautifully shot and there are worse things than two hours with these characters.

2. Champions League Final - Barcelona are unreal. Lionel Messi makes football an art. It's hardly worth the other team showing up.

3. Frankie & Johnny - I watched it again, it's too good. You can just feel their pain. And their love. It's a great journey, and it's meaningful. You bring your own bullshit into this movie when you watch it. Michelle Pfeiffer is beautiful. And she's a great actress.

4. What Women Want & Helen Hunt - This is interesting to watch now, knowing what Mel Gibson has become.

There are so many actors in this who you'll recognize. It's a great cast, no weak links. I love Alan Alda.

But it's Helen Hunt who is special here. When I finished this film I was desperate to watch 'Cast Away', just to see Hunt in those final scenes again. I didn't have time to watch it, and still haven't, but it's on my mind.

And I guess that's why people become actors. If you're good, you reach the heart. Helen Hunt is one of those rare actors who I'd watch in anything. There's something about her that is quietly heartbreaking and endearing. There's something in the little smile she does, you know the one I mean? It's just so uniquely her personality, you feel like you know her. It's like the sarcastic raising of the eyebrows with Hanks, or the confused Downey Jr look, before a wisecrack. It's these little personality traits that you come to know. It's what turns movie stars into people who feel like us.

Helen Hunt had a great run through the nineties until some time early this millennium. Then what happened? We need her on screen more.

5. Attack The Block - Saw this in the cinema today. It was great fun! Aliens land in a South London estate, and a local gang, comprised of 15 year olds decide to deal with it.

It's crazy. But a joy to watch, because it has a realness to it. It's how the kids around here talk. The film entered their world and gave them a platform. A crazy platform, but it was a joy.
Jodie Whittaker is a huge talent.

There was no bad acting in this film.

My friend turned to me halfway through and said "you should have written this", and I wish I'd thought of it, because the concept is hilarious.

6. Genre - I think the problem with genre films is that half of your brain shuts off. At the beginning, you think you're watching the best film ever. You get hugely excited.
But when you're locked in a genre, the plot will eventually have to conform to it. Decisions aren't based on character, they're based on "how can we get the killer to find the knife without the wife seeing him."

When "Attack The Block" started today I was SO into it. The characters were hilarious, the jokes were great. But then the genre took hold-- and you find yourself losing some kind of thread.

I'll figure out what the hell I'm talking about and re-approach this topic soon.

7. London - I was standing outside Leicester Square station yesterday, waiting for the lead actor of my movie. It was to be a day of casting.

I paced up and down, by the station, feeling a bit disgruntled because our casting efforts hadn't been very productive of late. And the theme music from "The Apartment" came into my headphones. And I looked at the Theatre across the road, and wondered what wonderful actors had graced that stage, and how many stories had taken place inside there over the years.

I was overcome with good feeling. It felt as if the spirit of art had visited me. I felt good, is what I'm saying.

Casting went well.

8. I have a clean reading slate. Tomorrow I will start a new book, exciting.

9. We need to be genuinely excited when we can. It's hard, because we forget. I was telling an actor friend this at lunch the other day: so often I'm walking around with 'stressed' as my default mindset. It just happens.

There's no reason for it most of the time.

10. I wrote the other day about how Tupac and Anne Frank were great because they knew they were going to die. It was the same for Bill Hicks. After he knew he was dying he amped up his routine, his message.

And yesterday I watched a Steve Jobs commencement speech from Stanford University. He said he always lived as if he was about to die. And then he got cancer and really was about to die. This guy invented Apple and Pixar.

When you're about to die, the excuses are bullshit. Bill Hicks says "it's just a ride". Opportunities we're scared of. Women/men we never ask on that date. Phone calls we keep delaying. We die. What are we waiting for?

The thing about living like you were dying, is that you can't just throw out your responsibilities. But most of the time it isn't about that. It's just about following up on an email, or making sure you sit down and write the damn scene.

For gazillions of years you and I didn't exist. And eighty years from now, once again, we'll be hurtled into non-existence for countless millennia.

We get to stumble around this rock for 80 years, if we're lucky. What rules are worth keeping? What work is worth doing?

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Girl From Far Away

And there she was. You have precisely one second to make a first impression when you meet a girl like her.

Twenty minutes later and we were walking along the pier about ten minutes from my hotel and four minutes before it rained.

An hour goes by and she's sitting opposite me, watching my films on my phone. She quietly sits there engaged in the film, with this little smile that I've only ever seen on her.

I got on a plane, I came back to life. The years passed by and she has a husband now.

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Schools & Education - Wake The Fuck Up!

I have done some talks and workshops in schools recently, and am part of an organization that works with troubled youths, trying to help them see that the world is bigger than the bully in the playground.

But the bully isn't just in the playground. He's in the staff room. He's in the system.

I met this girl today who told me her dream. To be a singer and actor. She's never told anyone that before because when you're thirteen and you tell people you want to sing and act they think you're insane.

They don't like insane in society. They don't like ideas and dreamers. They wanna teach us maths and science, even when we hate maths and science. All they teach most of us is how to add up how low our paychecks are and then how to set fire to them with a Bunsen burner.

There was this other kid who we met because he's the 'bad kid', which is code for 'black' and 'gets restless during French lessons'. We gave him a folder and said "make it your own." We thought he'd write his name and class number. Instead he designed graffiti. It was amazing, and he did it for the other student's folders too. 

But schools don't get that. They think singing and graffiti don't lead to a career but knowing 3.14 is Pi does.

I was 12 years old and I was exactly how I am now, but less tall. My English teacher told me "Writing isn't your skill, find something else". It hurt. But she was my teacher. I didn't write for fun again for five years, and school was a nightmare.

I lost five years of my growth as a writer and it's because my teacher said I can't do it, and I believed her. 

It's time to wake the fuck up. The talent of young people is getting squandered. It's hard to be an entrepreneur from a prison cell, or from behind the counter at the supermarket. By then most people are dead. Because when you have big dreams the system doesn't allow you to exist.

And the system is broken. Half the people aren't working. I know geniuses who went to university because that's what was insisted, and now they work part time doing admin in the back offices of shoe shops. Everything is fucked yet we still make them call the teachers "Sir" and we still make them read shit that has nothing to do with who they are.

It's time for the educators of our young to wake the fuck up. I don't know how we do it. But the world is changing. Our young people are Facebooking and developing iPhone apps. It's different now. But still the artists suffer. 

That girl today was so shy about wanting to sing. It doesn't HAVE to be that way. That shyness isn't nature--- its growing up and having to push your aspirations so far inwards that pretty soon you convince yourself that not only do you not want to sing, but you really want that extra shoe shop shift.

I've got nothing against the shoe shop. I just know that people have bigger dreams. It's hard enough if you know what you're doing and have resources; but when your teachers, schoolfriends and everyone around you is forced to be exactly the same as everyone else, you get oppressed. You get stuck at home.

The world is a giant place, dreams come true. But we can't keep killing it at such a young age. Because how you are at 14 is usually how you are forever. Let's make it about possibilities and uniqueness. 

It's down to us as individuals -- as teachers, parents and teenagers. But there are also larger forces. Our governments, the men in grey suits who run the schools, and God knows who else. School is a place to learn, to have your mind opened to the possibilities. It's almost never the thing I just said. We need to change that.

Wake the fuck up.

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Cinema Visit Checklist

You're going to see a movie? Print out this handy Kid In The Front Row guide to make sure you are always prepared for a fantastic cinematic experience! Do not go to the cinema without these five things!

1. A Blackerry.

I'm talking about the electronic device, not the fruit. You can take the fruit to the cinema, but it is less capable of storing text messages.

A blackberry is essential. No movie is complete without BBM'ing your friends, especially when they're in the seat next to you!

2. Candy/Sweet Wrappers

I use the American term 'candy' and the English term 'sweets' to make sure nobody misses out on this one.

Wrappers are an integral part of the cinema. The rustling of the wrapping, together with the tap-tap sound of your Blackberry, means you're arguably deserving of a 'Foley Artist' credit.

Please note: I am, once again, referring to the Blackberry device, and not the fruit, as the fruit rarely makes a tap tap noise, unless trying to grab the attention of a friend.

3. A Girlfriend With An Annoying Accent

Women are so beautiful and wonderful! Especially when they are sitting two rows in front, in the dark cinema, talking with a twang that is part Southern, part retard.

Rather than jealously watch the guy in front of you talking to her, bring your own. But you must be strict. Regardless of how pretty she is her voice must be of a particular style, tone and diction, which can at best be described as the sound of a parrot that has been brought back three months after its death, made to swap genders and then forced to give a lengthy speech about hairdressing.

4. A Pretentious Laugh

Be sure to bring it. Every now and again, you spot a joke in a movie that most people in the audience missed, apart from the one person who spotted it and laughed loudly so that everyone knew they got it.

The only people who do this are either 54 year old bald men, or pretentious 19 year old students called Yvonne. Find out which one you are most like, and dress accordingly. You can also practice your laugh before the film, by giggling condescendingly during the trailer for the new Nicholas Cage film.

5. Loud Shoes

Loud shoes are wonderful, and they come in all sizes!

With these you can tap along to the musical score, you can kick the seat in front in a subtle, unobtrusive manner (when I say subtle and unobtrusive, I mean in a way similar to a small elephant jumping on your head whilst yelling in German).

The shoes are great for walking, for pushing the entire row of seats in front of you, and for running away should a member of the public want to kill you (cinemagoers just don't appreciate loud shoes these days, you can't be too careful).

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Super Injunctions: Everybody Is Wrong

Most of my readership is American - so let me catch you up.

Google defines a Super Injunction as:

"An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order, whereby a party is required to do, or to refrain from doing, certain acts."

This means a variety of things, but what is in the limelight at the moment is that celebrities are paying the courts for the rights to have their extra-marital indiscretions kept out of the newspapers, by law. In the UK we don't have freedom of speech or freedom of press, we just have celebrities and rich people. 

So, to begin with, we have the dumbness that the mega-rich are able to pay the courts to silence the press from printing stories. 

But then we have the other side of it. Who a footballer has sex with is not news. If David Beckham is found in the midst of a passionate threesome with Alex Ferguson and Thierry Henry: this isn't news. It's people's private lives. Newspapers like 'The Sun' aren't in court fighting for the right to print these injunctions based on principle, it's based on smut, based on printing titillating bullshit for the masses to spend their days reading about. It sells copies. 

So we have super injunctions, the very existence of which strongly curtail the freedom of press. 

And then we have the newspapers on the other side, who use whatever freedom they do have not to report on corruption and power and poverty -- but to print which actors and soccer players have been getting their penises out in their private lives.

And then there's us, the public. Storming onto Twitter and retweeting every bit of sordid bullshit about which footballer's fucked which model. There is so much in the world that is wrong, really wrong, and there is so much we should be focusing on. But we're a society obsessed with breast-implanted TV stars and sportsmen who get paid £200,000 a week. What the hell are we doing? 

I realise that by sharing this picture, I am becoming a part of the very crap I am arguing against -- but I want to make a point. This is a picture from The Daily Mail.

This is what our country is getting excited about. This is what sells our newspapers. These are the conflicts that matter in our world. How many of these are newsworthy? 

I am not saying all this in defence of these overpaid celebrity men who can't keep it in their pants. It's embarrassing just how common these affairs are. 

I'm not saying the newspapers shouldn't be allowed to print these stories. I'm saying they shouldn't want to. This isn't news. A few of the alleged super injunctions aren't even affairs, they're just private stories about people's sexuality and preferences. The ethics of these news organisations is so much worse than the people they write about every day. Maybe they should stop writing about celebrities, even stop writing about dictators and murderers, and just publish stories about themselves.

The important news is harder. A story about people being killed in Georgia or gangs raping women in the DR Congo is tough to read; I understand why we need nonsense, I understand why we can't bare to look at this stuff. But the energy and time we spend on this absolute bullshit about celebrities is INSANE. 

Everyone, on all sides of this --- they are insane! It's insane that the press are restricted by the courts when it comes to this stuff. It's insane that everybody cares so much. And it's insane that I am writing in this way. We are all nuts!

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Radio

I was 14 and I'd lay on my bed with my eyes and ears as close to the speakers as I could get. And I'd have the cassette ready on 'record' and 'pause', all I had to do was click pause to begin recording.

Back then it was no career path, I wasn't a blogger ranting about art or a filmmaker desperate to capture life in a jar: I was just a kid by the radio.

And within a split second of a song starting I knew if I should be recording or not. I wanted to record everything that was great. I probably taped hundreds of hours of radio.

It wasn't crystal clear digital then, the music sounded like it was from somewhere far away (literally, I had interference that sounded like aliens). But at the same time it was right there in my room.

When you lay there in the dark, at fourteen, hearing Sam Cooke for the first time, and remembering the names of every Beatles track they play; you can't help but have it shape who you are.

The music was so authentic.

I didn't know what I was doing. There was no set task, no job to win. I just recorded anything I loved. And I loved so much of it. And this was in the days when DJ's who actually decided what to play were dying out, the last few remained.

Without doubt, a good DJ is an artist. Even deciding what track follows "What's Going On", that's an art. Not many get it right.

Night after night, I was a kid who loved to hear the voices of the world. I loved music that described how I felt. And that was enough, just to be there, engaged in the night and the music beamed across invisible radio waves.

A few nights back I listened to "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay" at 2am. And tonight it's "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" and wow, they don't make them like this any more, they don't even try.

Music in headphones whilst heading to work is just a distraction, or an energy boost, but there's something deeper on offer. The history of music is filled with tracks that will change how you see the world. They'll make you understand yourself and the people you love better.

Radio is something else now. It doesn't mean anything. But the music lives on. Find it, listen to it, and get those cassettes ready.

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