Film Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Release Date: January 21st 2011.
Director: Sean Durkin.
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy.
Running Time: 102 Minutes.
Distributed By: Fox Searchlight Pictures.

The film is both plot-twisting and genre bending. When you first start to watch it you think that you know what is going on straight away, but then as the film progresses you find out that what you once thought to be the general idea of the ending and substance behind the film, was totally wrong.

It starts off with the introduction to a girl. She is seen going out of a house that would be classed as possibly poverty ridden- lots of people sharing one room, farm-type location and all the people sharing everything they have. When the girl runs towards the forest, a man comes out the house and shouts "Marcy May, where you going?" This name is later contradicted, when she has escaped the forest and rings her sister, she is referred to as "Martha." This causes a sense of mystery, as the enigma of why is she using different names, is planted. The name "Marlene" is used later on, both in a flashback where she is still in the house, and when she calls them, whenever the phone rings, they use that name to ensure that the peoples identitites is kept hidden.

We later find out a string of shocking revelations about where she lived previously. The events seem to have scarred her mentally, making her exhibit some types of behavior that her friend she goes to live with, gradually begins to almost resent her for. The film is set out in a rather hectic manner, you see a lot of flashbacks from the various places that she has lived in before, and then the aftermath, what she behaves liek as a result of the things that she has dealt with.

The film ends with her friend offering to get her some kind of professional help, she agrees somewhat reluctantly. Then, at the very end of the film, she is sat at the back of a car, going to get said help, then the film abruptdly ends, with her fate yet undecided. This leaves a lot of space and room for you to decide what happens to her next, as the audience.

In my opinion, i think that the film was quite good because not all of the answers were given to you, and so you sortof had to piece the mystery together, and you kept getting contradicted, so you were always kept on the edge of your seat so to speak.
Rating: 3/5

Album Review- Priorities

Artist: Don Broco

Video Title: Priorities

Date of Release: 2nd April 2012

Don Broco had remained a fairly unknown band for a very long time, even though they had toured with well-known bands such as The Used and Four Year Strong as support acts, they still had to work hard to get their music out there and to get people listening to them. Previous to this album they had one out already, entitled ‘Big Fat smile’ which was released in February 2011. However, this was the debut album that dragged them out of the shadows and into the light- giving them tons of opportunities such as the popular Reading and Leeds festival, and touring a headlining tour as the main act.

The video starts off with the band in the middle of an abandoned warehouse type place, before the first twenty seconds are over they have shots of each band member, with their name in large lettering flashing up on the screen. This is to establish each member and remind the old fans, and maybe advertise them in a way, because if you know their names then you are more likely to look them up. The next section of the video, and probably around half of the video, is the band performing the song. 

On the other side to the video is all different scenes; in one of them one of their friends leaves them to go home with the pizza delivery girl, in another the band put on masks and walked out of an elevator, all the way through there is reoccurring shots of the pizza delivery girl and the man. I think all these shots break up just watching them perform, it makes the video a lot more interesting to watch, and gives it an edge of confusion- making you watch more because you do not know what is going on in the video.

Towards the end of the video we see the man getting arrested whilst the girl runs away, then the band are running around the warehouse getting chased by the police, the same shots that established them earlier on are then shown again. I think this is a very good effect because it puts together the questions you have been asking yourself throughout the text, and now you know the full story.

In my opinion, I think that it is a very good first professional video for them. It shows all the band and their names, doesn’t reveal too much or too little, the video has a good storyline behind it, and too be quite frank, the song isn’t half bad either.

Rating: 4/5

Gig Review- Tracer 25th September 2012

Artist: Tracer

Location: The Cockpit, Leeds

Members;

Andre Wise- Drums

Patrick Saraceno- Guitar

Micheal Brown- Guitar

Support Band: Virgil and the Accelerators

Rating 4/5

Upon arrival to the venue, it seemed rather deserted and dead, but nevertheless, my friend and i stood at the front for around half an hour to ensure complete certainty that we would get a good viewing place. The support band 'Virgil and the Accelerators' opened with a violent, deafening noise that seemed to be more actual noise than a band that already has a record out previous to the tour. It looked as though they had a technical fault, as the instruments were much louder than the vocals and this meant most of the time you had no idea what they tracks they were performing. The rest of the crowd also seemed to have similar problems as they were mainly unresponsive and barely managed a cheer upon their arrival. The guitarist however, amused me by watching his rather original facial expressions as he played guitar.

When Tracer finally did take to the stage, after many minutes of the the drummer awkwardly trying to begin the set while the background music of the club was still blaring in the background, and a false start where they came on without getting into their stage clothes, and then leaving after a minute to get changed and come back, they kicked in immediantly to one of their most popular songs. (Their setlist can be read below.)

They played tracks from all of their albums, and this seemed to please the genrally morbid crowd, including their hits 'Devil Ride' and 'Too Much.' The whole stage presence of the band was brilliant, they seemed to be utterly at ease with the many complications that occured during the set- the drummer, Andre had a pair of painful looking blood blisters on his thumbs, making it difficult to play, and then when all seemed to be under control, Micheal split open his finger on his guitar strings! (A rather impressive picture of his guitar body after the mishap can be found above.) He remained perfectly calm however, and simply walked of stage before the encore to go get a 'Band-aid.' They remained throughout the entire set, an absolutly amazing band to see live, and i would fully recommend the gig to everyone, purely because of their stage presence alone.