This summer was the hugely anticipated end of the highest grossing movie franchise the world has ever seen, this was of course Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2. I've never even read the books so I feel like I'm cheating to say I was a fan but I enjoy the adventures of geeky super wizard Harry, as much as the next guy. Given this I was quite eager to see the last installment of the series, so me and three other dedicated movie buffs made our way to the 9:10AM viewing the morning after our prom, with no sleep and some nasty headaches we gave the film the remainder of our attention and energy as we entered the emotional roller coaster world of magic. Two hours and ten minutes later the lights came up and the credits rolled, as if rehearsed, all four of us stood, grabbed our belongings and walked out in synchronization. Not a word was said. The picture explains how we were feeling. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating slightly. It was a good film, great production values, an excellent cast and an overall beautifully polished product but we were not amused. This was the end of a ten year journey, we'd followed Harry and his little friends since we were just starting to learn our times tables and the final destination just wasn't sufficient. This film, like the one before it, really changed the direction of the series, the quirky lighthearted humor that founded the films was replaced with the dark, dismal, gloom of He who shall not be named and the inevitable doom of Hogwarts, all in all making the franchise much more serious and targeting a different target audience, which is fine but to completely discard a winning formula was risky and for me it didn't pay off. I did, however, enjoy the huge twist at the end that revealed Dumbledore as the antagonist and Snape as the protagonist, I guess I should have seen that coming but either way I was very pleased (whilst quite upset) that things turned out that way. Harry Potter will be sadly missed but the films and books will live forever.
I've never given Big Brother the time of day and don't ever intend to but I have to admire their marketing campaign. It was really quite beautiful. About two months before it came on TV I started to see "The Eye" popping up in-between adverts on Channel 5, just for a second or two, then the same image was on billboards with the text "THE BIGGEST BROTHER EVER", then the full TV adverts started flooding Channel 5 and every billboard was pasted with "The Eye", seriously, for about two weeks I didn't see a billboard with anything else on it! I haven't followed the show at all, It's probably already over? I don't know and really couldn't care less.
"Panic on the streets of London, Panic on the streets of Birmingham... I wonder to myself". So this summer we had a little Anarchy on our hands in lovely little London town. The working and lower class set to the streets in their favourite tracksuits, hoods up and bandannas on. Looting various Poundlands and Footlockers throughout the land, smashing windows and setting fire to our beloved double deckers. Blue blooded murder of the English image. Millions of us sat glued to our TV screens to watch the same clip of that burning bus, repeated for hours on BBC News 24, whilst a journalist told us of the horrors of the rioting. The news channels encouraged us to stay in doors and lock up, stay away from town centers and check on your children. In reality the whole thing was blown massively out of proportion by all parties, when really it was a few days of panic and disarray which the country very quickly recovered from and reached equilibrium. Every one under 21 was blamed, the youth were once again kicked down by the media and to be honest, even as a teenager myself, who can blame them because most of it was just bored youths venting some frustration and taking it as an excuse to act up but for the actions of that minority the majority of us will have to pay for the next five years. We've basically buried any chance of having our views respected and taken on board by the government, which is just excellent with the rise of university fee's and apparent eradication of government funding of any student perks. Now we've just got to live with anything the government throw at us, let them trample all over us and what for? Because a few people wanted a free pair of trainers and a free 12 pack of Quavers.
