Le Boucher. 
I have to admit that despite that fact I want to study French at university and that I claim that the thing I love most about French culture is the cinema, I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in watching Le Boucher. The only reason I watched it was because I was roped into doing a Modern Languages Symposium with another school and the topic of 'Claude Chabrol' (French, Nouvelle Vague Director) had already been chosen for my partner and I. That said, it wasn't a bad film at all. Granted, it wasn't exactly to my taste, but I could certainly see its merits.


Le Boucher, a film with a significantly ominous title, is about a school teacher, Helene, who moves back to a small Perigord village to begin a new job. She meets the town butcher, Popaul, at a wedding as they happen to have been placed next to each other during the festivities. Popaul takes a liking to Helene; however, she harbours only platonic feelings for Popaul due to the memories of a particularly bad past relationship. Several women are murdered and Helene thinks she knows who's behind it all - but is she correct?

I didn't read the plot synopsis prior to watching this film so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. When the murders started happening I was really shocked because they were so sudden and unexpected. The beginning of the movie has you fooled into thinking that this is going to be your standard love story, but it is, in fact, nothing of the sort. Claude Chabrol is seen to be Alfred Hitchcock's French counterpart and this thriller focuses on sexual frustration.


The acting in this film was excellent. The film centres around Popaul and Helene and the other actors don't really get very much on screen action. The relationship between the two is thoroughly bizarre and I think the actors do a good job of portraying that. Interestingly, Helene is played by Stephane Audran, the wife of Claude Chabrol and she is really good at playing a slightly reserved character as she did in Chabrol's short film, La Muette. Jean Yann, who plays Popaul, has a rather sinister look that goes nicely with his character and I was genuinely a bit creeped out by him. (No offence to him). The climatic end is the best part of this film and that is when the actors are really in their element. There is a sudden change in character from one of them which is carried out extremely well and the end of the movie had me gripping the duvet covers in anticipation.


It has been a long time since I watched this film but no distinctly 'New Wave' techniques stood out for me. Chabrol is seen to be one of the pioneers of this French cinema movement; however, nothing about this film shouted 'New Wave' at me. I probably missed something. This film does; however, raise several interesting questions about repression and the representation of people's characters. If you were to look at the basic plot line you would think that you had a good idea of who was in the right and who was in the wrong, but Chabrol blurs the lines between victim and murderer, often making it hard to distinguish between the two, which is intriguing.

All in all this is a great film, though probably one for those with an acquired taste for French thrillers, which probably wipes out a large percentage of viewers. The beginning of the film was slightly dull but then it built up to a brilliantly climatic ending that I wasn't expecting at all. My main criticism of this film is that ketchup-blood was used. Though, New Wave films were all made on a budget so I guess I shouldn't complain too much about that. If your French isn't that great then you'll definitely want to watch this film with subtitles because the language isn't that simple, though you could probably get a good guess at what's going on from the screenplay.

The Artist.
The Artist has made it onto my list of favourite films of all time. This may puzzle a few of you since my other favourite films include the Lord of the Rings and the Dark Knight trilogies. I must admit that despite the brilliant reviews, I wasn't all that keen to watch The Artist. I'm not particularly fond of either black and white or silent films but The Artist completely blew me away. This film has everything. Moments of happiness, moments of comedy, moments of heartbreak, you name it. I was smiling widely from the very beginning of this movie and the first half of this film should win some sort of award for being the feel-good film of the year. In contrast, I spent most of the second part of this film clutching my pillow and either covering my mouth in shock bawling my eyes out. Before I started watching the film I'd told myself that I'd just watch half of it and then go to sleep, but once the movie got going there was no way I was going to bed without finishing it.
The story is set in Hollywood between 1927 and 1932 and follows the lives of George Valentin, a falling silent film star struggling to find his place in the rise of the 'talkies' and Peppy Miller, a young actress whose fame is rapidly increasing.

As this is a silent film, the good acting and miming were essential to making this film a success. The actor Jean Dujardin is my new favourite French actor because he is simply hilarious. He is an excellent actor who really brings this film alive and his story brings with it the comedy and heartbreak. Not only is he good at acting, but he is also an excellent dancer and he does some pretty nifty tricks with his dog. Parfait! Oh, and don't forget that brilliantly French moustache that he pulls off so well. Berenice Bejo was also a great actress but I think she was outshone by Dujardin which is a shame. Curiously, there are also a few Hollywood actors in this film including John Goodman and Missy Pyle. (If you don't recognise their names you'll almost certainly recognise their faces)


The soundtrack for this film is delightful. It is so brilliantly French and romantic and fits perfectly with the atmosphere of the film. The music is one of the utmost importance given that it's a silent film and in this case I think music speaks louder than words. I have already downloaded the entire score and I have repeatedly danced around my room to it imagining myself to be in the 1920s. The music and the costumes are enough to make you wish that you had been born 100 years earlier.

This production of this film confuses me greatly, because it is deemed to be a 'French Film' and yet there are a great deal of Hollywood actors in it, the film is set in Hollywood, the subtitles are in English and it's distributed by Warner Bros. Very perplexing. The general style of the film makes it easy to identify as a French film though because Hollywood could never come up with anything this ... happy, heartbreaking, funny, the list goes on.


If I haven't already convinced you to go and watch this incredible film then perhaps this little fact will. The Artist has an entire wikipedia page dedicated to all the awards that this film has won (check it out here: List of accolades received by The Artist (film)). Just to name a few: the film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, at the British Academy Film Awards, it won seven BAFTAs out of twelve nominations, at the Golden Globe Awards the film was nominated in six categories, more than any other film nominated, The Artist is the first French film to win a Best Film Golden Globe and Dujardin is the first French actor to win the Best Actor Golden Globe since Gérard Depardieu, who won it in 1991, receiving ten César Awards nominations, the film managed to win six of them. The Artist is the most awarded French film in history.

Title: Undeadly
Author: Michele Vail
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: 20th November 2012
Goodreads Summary: The day I turned 16, my boyfriend-to-be died. I brought him back to life. Then things got a little weird...

Molly Bartolucci wants to blend in, date hottie Rick and keep her zombie-raising abilities on the down-low. Then the god Anubis chooses her to become a reaper—and she accidentally undoes the work of another reaper, Rath. Within days, she's shipped off to the Nekyia Academy, an elite boarding school that trains the best necromancers in the world. And her personal reaping tutor? Rath.

Life at Nekyia has its plusses. Molly has her own personal ghoul, for one. Rick follows her there out of the blue, for another...except, there's something a little off about him. When students at the academy start to die and Rath disappears, Molly starts to wonder if anything is as it seems. Only one thing is certain—-Molly's got an undeadly knack for finding trouble....

{ Review }

I have a confession to make. I was actually supposed to post this review a couple of days ago as part of the Undeadly blog tour, but I got so caught up in Uni crap that I forgot. Apologies to the author and the tour host for my delay, but I just couldn't bear to post a review having only read half of this brilliant book.

I've never really been into zombie stories or anything to do with necromancy until I read Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard (see review here) but when the opportunity to participate in the Undeadly tour arose, I jumped at the chance.

Undeadly is written from the perspective of the main character, Molly. It's all in the first person and it feels as if Molly is directly addressing, you, the reader, which really draws you in and makes the whole book feel like one big conversation. Molly is a really down to earth character who's really likable. I have to admit that I didn't like her that much at the beginning of the book, but after she moves to Nekyia Academy you see more of her personality.

There's one main love interest in this story with the hint of another one that will develop later which made the story a lot simpler, and I liked that because when too many guys get involved a. it's not realistic and b. I get far too confused. It's quite obvious that something isn't quite right with Rick which is a shame because for the first few chapters he seemed like the perfect guy - probably a little too perfect actually. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more romance in this novel, but reading a paranormal young adult book that isn't dominated by a teen romance was quite refreshing.

What I love about this book is that the zombies and necromancers weren't a secret in this novel, they are simply things that are accepted as a natural part of human life so there's no fear of exposure, a theme that dominates most paranormal novels. I don't think I've ever come across a young adult book like this so I'd highly recommend this if you're thoroughly bored of the Twilight craze and the subsequent paranormal series that followed. I also love how there's  a whole history behind this story involving the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses which are rarely used in books, but are absolutely fascinating. In addition, each chapter starts with a quote and whilst they are completely made up, they add a sense of reality to the book and foreboding for the coming chapter.

The only problem I have with this book is that I thought it took rather a long time for it to get started and I don't think that a lot actually happens in this book until the very end. Nonetheless, this was a fantastic introduction to a new and unique world so I'm very excited for the sequels to Undeadly.

Bond is back. (and so am I!) Apologies for my long absence and sparse posting, I've been so busy with university applications and the likes. Now back to the good stuff. I haven't actually been that excited about the upcoming Bond film which is probably because there wasn't as much hype prior to its release as I had expected and I wasn't particularly fond of Adele's 'Skyfall'. However, when trailers and adverts started popping up everywhere I still to feel a bit more buzzed which turned into ferocious anticipation during my recent trip to Paris the week before its release. This was mainly because I happened to be visitng the Champs Elysees on the day of the Paris premiere and saw them setting up the red carpet and the reporters getting into place. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to stick around and wait for the stars to show up, but it was cool nonetheless.

Bond is dead?!

The last Bond film was actually a whole four years ago and you can definitely see Daniel Craig's age. It's hard to describe a Bond film without giving anything away, but basically Bond is trying to recover a stolen computer hard drive containing details of agents placed undercover in terrorist organisations by NATO states. 'M' has a real presence in this film and her character is integral to the story line which is interesting as she usually works on the sidelines.

So cool.

I was sitting next to a guy I know who sighed at frequent intervals throughout the film and though I never found out how he felt about the film, I'm assuming he wasn't that impressed. Then again, he sighs a lot of the time so who knows. For the most part I have heard raving reviews for Skyfall and I would have to agree with those people because it is a truly excellent film. It would make a lot of sense of this was Daniel Craig's last Bond film, though it's hard to say because there are a lot of rumours flying around at the moment.

I've found that all three of Daniel Craig's films have been a lot more emotional than Bond films were in the past. I feel that the pre-Craig Bond films were very focussed on a central mission that Bond had to carry out and there wasn't that much more to them; however, all of Craig's films have a deeper emotional intensity to them. I can't really say much more about this without revealing the plot, but trust me, it's a good story.

Men's Fashion Trends for Winter 2012

Now more than ever, menswear is forming a harmonious parallel with what is trending in women's clothing.

Men's fashion for winter 2012 pulls inspiration from television shows, the state of world affairs, cultural motifs and the changing landscape. Every man should strive to have a piece from several of the major themes to update existing wardrobes.

Gothic Gentleman

With "Twilight: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2" opening in theaters, now is the time to embrace that vampire staple, velvet.

The beauty of velvet is that it swallows up light and adds a nice texture and masculine romance to otherwise mundane fabrics. You can use it to your advantage for everything from date nights to holiday parties. Black blazers work best, pairing well with skinny dark denim jeans, black square-toe dress shoes and a simple T-shirt. You can also play with some of the season's colored denim. Red, dark teal and royal blue jeans work especially well with the look.

You can channel a more preppy attitude, however, if you wear a velvet vest, such as this one from Express, over a plaid shirt and pair the look with a contrasting bow tie.

The silhouette adds polish and is slimming, making it a great wardrobe staple for seasons to come.

A Call to Arms

With the economy still lagging, people out of work and the world being engaged in so many conflicts, it doesn't hurt to build up your armour -- both literally and figuratively.

Military-inspired coats are still going strong, but this season they have special touches, such as oiled leather belts, leather cuffs and non-traditional closures.

This look pairs best with gray or camel wool pants, skinny denim or a muted plaid pant. Non-fussy black ankle boots complete the statement coat.

The Sweater Set

If you are a man who hasn't worn a sweater since childhood, this is the year to change that. You have plenty of styles to choose from, but the front runners are Aztec and Nordic prints, preppy collegiate cardigans and chunky New England cable sweaters.

This Nordic sweater by Topman works well because it is made of a nice neutral navy with splashes of red. This color palette is safe for first-time sweater wearers and the zip closure will give more styling options. Funky professor patches add additional flair.


Another great option is a cardigan sweater that has a vintage university appeal. This style was almost singlehandedly revived by the popularity of the show "Glee."

You can either take it to a dressy level with some skinny khakis or jeans, or you can use it as a chance to accent signature sneakers or high-tops. Just be sure to keep the cut slim and slightly longer.

You'll want to look for oversized toggles or buckles when choosing a cable knit to keep things modern.

Men can round out the looks in their winter closet with some printed knit scarves, printed blazers, pocket squares and some camel or dark gray clothing.

This is a guest post by Nisha who represents a company called http://www.bradshawandlloyd.com/.