Monday, 29 December 2014

Film 2015

THE AWARD-WINNER
Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (January 1st)
Ever hear that one about the former superhero actor now washed up and trying to climb back to the top? Birdman, given its shorter title, narrates a story remarkably close to that of its leading man Michael Keaton: washed-up superhero actor attempts to restore his fame by writing/starring/appearing in an ill-fated Raymond Carver adaptation for Broadway.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s fifth feature is looking likely to be his most award-baiting, a meta-comedy epic shot (almost) in one long tracking shot, with outstanding, playing-against-type performances from Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts. And Michael Keaton finally plays what seems to be the role of his career: to say he was born to play this is perhaps pathetically romantic, but it could be said his whole career his built up to his point. And boy does it fly high. (SPOILER: Expect a review very soon.)

THE CULT
Inherent Vice (January 30th)
The Big Lebowski is hands-down the best film of all time, and so when the trailer for P.T. Anderson’s Inherent Vice landed in my lap, depicting (according to IMDb) ‘drug-fueled Los Angeles detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of a former girlfriend’, the comparison had to be made. And to see P.T. Anderson, one of the great auteurs of our generation, reunited with Joaquin Phoenix, legendary character actor, after their sterling collaboration on The Master, is nothing short of a cinematic blessing. Anderson returns to his comedy bones, a la Punch Drunk Love, following the brief albeit fantastic hiatus that brought us There Will Be Blood and The Master, and I simply cannot wait.

THE BLOCKBUSTER
Avengers: Age of Ultron (April 24th)

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight franchise taught us that to make a good superhero film, you need to emphasise the humanity behind the mask: Joss Whedon, meanwhile, taught us that you need to make it funny. Perhaps the best ensemble superhero film of all time, 2012’s Avengers Assemble packed action and laughs in equal measure, and miraculously gave equal screen time to several of the biggest actors in Hollywood. Now eleven (yes, eleven) films into the franchise, Whedon reassembles 2012’s cast with star-children Aaron Johnston and Elizabeth Olsen, plus James Spader voicing big bad Ultron. Undoubtedly an absolute thrill ride – Whedon doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘disappointment’.

THE CONNOISSEUR'S CHOICE
Knight of Cups (2015, date unannounced)
Considering in the first 40 years of his career, Terrence Malick released only five films, his current rate of production is reaching terminal velocity: 2011’s The Tree of Life was quickly followed by To The Wonder, while an unexpected three films have been slated for a 2015/early 2016 release. One of these is the aforementioned Knight of Cups, about which we know little other than its almighty cast including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Natalie Portman, and a typically Malickian enigmatic trailer. With Malick, however, to know little about a project is not necessarily a bad thing: with a track record this good, we can know we’re expecting stunning visuals, a mystical screenplay, and the poetic quality attached to all of his films. This, combined with Blanchett straight off the back of an all-time great Oscar win, and Bale at the top of his game, is sure to be a formula for success.

THE REBOOT
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (December 18th)
With a franchise this big, and a mythology this mighty, there really was only ever one man for the job: cue J.J. Abrams. Earning a name for himself as the greatest science-fiction director since Spielberg, Abrams career reads like sci-fi geeks dream: his Star Trek reboot truly reached new found territory, embracing old fans and new discoverers alike, while his original works, including Lost, Cloverfield, and Super 8, have all been met with great acclaim. As a self-professed Star Wars fanboy, the next stage of the franchise (following a somewhat questionable phase) will be sure to recreate the magic of the original, while bringing Abrams own unique charms to proceedings. Indeed, the fist-pumping reappearance of the Millenium Falcon in November’s trailer and the reunion of Hamill, Fisher, and Ford ensures some of Lucas’ original charm. With shaky-cam and lens-flare galore, this is sure to be, fingers-crossed, the much needed shot-in-the-arm of the sci-fi bible.

THE BEST-TIL-LAST 
The Hateful Eight (2015, date unannounced)

Never someone to be fucked with, Tarantino decidedly and whole-heartedly announced that, following the leak of his latest script, he would refuse to produce his next planned endeavor, The Hateful Eight. A somewhat legendary script reading, however, let forth a tidal wave of persuasion, and one which has led him to backtrack, and subsequently begin production on his 9th feature film, a revenge western (as hinted by its title) in the vein of The Magnificent Seven. The Western has been a tried, tested, and proven formula for Quentin: pseudo-western Kill Bill enraptured audiences, while the somewhat controversial Django Unchained lovingly homaged Leone et al. And, out of the blue, Tarantino announced recently this was to be his penultimate film: so enjoy them while they last, there’s nothing quite like a Tarantino film.

Thursday, 18 December 2014

2014: Year of the #Bandwagon

What a year it has been. The inevitable death of English football, the long-awaited War of Independence up north, and not to mention enough #neknominations, #nomakeupselfies and #icebucketchallenges to keep our over occupied social-media lives filled to the brim. Film-wise, it hasn’t been a bad one either: turns out Matthew McConnaughey, despite his best wishes 5 years ago, is going to go down as one of the acting greats, and that someone can make a good animation outside of Studios Pixar and Ghibli (see The Lego Movie if you haven’t already). So here I present to you, my hotly-anticipated, critically-definitive, and massively oversold Review of the Year (the film year, here, starting post-Oscar frenzy). Devour.

Male Performance of the Year: Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)
Considering his glorious career of star-making performances, from Donnie Darko to Jarhead and Brokeback Mountain, Jake Gyllenhaal might just be earning a name for himself as the next DiCaprio: all applause and no awards. Gyllenhaal might just be breaking that curse here, with a character that’s equal parts petty thief as it is Patrick Bateman. Slightly autistic and near psychotic amateur cameraman Louis Bloom dominates the screen in this morally troubling neo-noir, spouting out regurgitated online business hints as he happily films families being murdered and car crash victims bleeding out. Mixing Gyllenhaal’s everyman charm with a chilling air of insanity, here we have perhaps the earliest frontrunner for the Oscars.

Runner Up: Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel)
Wes Anderson is known for, among many other things, his ability to assemble casts of acting royalty, both a blessing and a curse: the curse being that impressive performances can often get lost in the mix. Here, Fiennes, as the flamboyant and sharp-tongued M Gustave, consistently steals the show, quite a feat when coming up against Bill Murray, Adrian Brody, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, et al. A wonderful mix of charm and scheming, Fiennes gives an outstandingly understated comic performance, perhaps the most memorable in all of Anderson’s backlog. 

Female Performance of the Year: Scarlett Johansson (Under The Skin)
Back in March, my excruciatingly over-excited piece on Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin tipped Scarlett Johansson’s central performance as an all time great, and nine months later I still stand by my brash statement. Johansson’s unnamed extra-terrestrial communicates an emptiness and coldness beyond human conception, one who unflinchingly seduces members of the public into her fatal ‘den’: as a character which speaks minimally throughout the film, Johansson’s predatorial eyes and steely expression consistently convinces as a hunter stalking the hunted.

Runner Up: Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
Poor poor Rosamund Pike, for after this film undoubtedly any family or friends, were I in their shoes, ought to run for the hills. As the so-called ‘Amazing Amy’, the thrilling rollercoaster ride of the film is all pinned on the conniving and manipulative performance of Pike as the eponymous ‘gone girl’. Shout out for perhaps the most white-knuckle scene of the year as Amy appears to, er, change her mind about a possessive ex-boyfriend, played by Neil Patrick Harris.

Most Overrated: Locke
Tom Hardy seems hardly able to put a foot wrong these days, in a spate of films that has seen him in a scene-stealing role in Inception to full on supervillain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Here, unfortunately, he has been plonked in what might be considered the most boring film of the decade so far. The quantity of reviews along the line of ‘See how good Tom Hardy is when its just Tom Hardy being Tom Hardy in a car’, oh and ‘how good is his welsh accent?’. Well, Locke is a film which becomes increasingly claustrophobic, not on account of its thrilling suspense or superb cinematography, but simply because you are wondering how long of your life you have wasted this completely yawn-fest. Oh, and Hardy’s accent isn’t even that fantastic.

Most Underrated: Cheap Thrills
Sold as a cheap horror comedy and slipped under the radar in the early months of the year, this outstanding horror-comedy presents what is perhaps the most spot-on social commentary in years, to both hilarious and horrific results. Two out-of-work losers bump into each other after a number of years apart: their evening turns sour as David Koechner’s eccentric playboy propositions them with what seems like an easy money-making exercise, which quickly twists into possibly the worst evening of their lives. A spot-on commentary of consumerism and the extent one would go for money, especially at our lowest moments.



Top Five Films:

5) Frank (Lenny Abrahamson)

Possibly the weirdest film of the year, we follow experimental band Soronprfbs based loosely on Jon Ronson’s account of his time with Chris Sievey’s Oh Blimey Big Band on tour. Michael Fassbender excels as the half-genius half-mentally deranged Frank, despite being masked by an enormous papier-mache head for the majority. 



4) Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)


Christopher Nolan’s long awaited arrival in the science-fiction genre left heads itching for weeks to come. A space epic with stunning visuals, a mindblowing score, and a script that just might be too clever for its own good. Given all this, plus top-flight performances from Matthew McConnaughey and Anne Hathaway, this did by no means disappoint.




3) Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

To the hordes of critics saying Interstellar was the most ambitious film of the year, look no further: Boyhood, if you haven’t heard already, was filmed over the space of 12 years! 12 years! Passion projects don’t come bigger than this, as Richard Linklater not only pours vats-full of emotion into this, but in a beautiful way sums up his illustrious film career so far. Cameos of contemporary references, including the Gameboy, US elections, and a plethora of music which wonderfully encompass the year, make this particularly pleasing to an adolescent who has practically undergone the same thing.

2) Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)


Still the most thrilling alien invasion film in years, Jonathan Glazer strikes a chord that’s less Steven Spielberg and more The Old Firm. Glazer and Johansson plucked unknowing strangers off the streets of Glasgow, both fictionally and real life, to be devoured by unseen force. Mica Levi’s score echoes Close Encounter with heaps more suspense, a fantastic work of art in its own right. Prize for the most spine-chilling scene of the year, involving a trusting surfer, a baby, and the relentless power of the ocean.

1) Gone Girl (David Fincher)

Never before has a film left me unable to walk, let alone speak. David Fincher’s dissection of marriage twists, turns, and crashes like a rollercoaster that has fallen off its tracks. An analysis of the media, a redefinition of trust, a fresh perspective on love, and an incredibly unreliable narrator, Fincher leaves no ground untrodden. Gillian Flynn’s outstanding script is brought to life by Fincher’s characteristically shadowy cinematography, and at the centre a career-high performance from Ben Affleck, notable considering his recent directorial rebirth. Most certainly not for the faint hearted, and hard to describe as ‘enjoyment’, this is truly the full package, and certainly the most ‘on-the-money’ film of the year. Viewing compulsory, caution advised.


Best of the Rest
Album of the Year – Alt-J, This is All Yours
Song of the Year – Jungle, The Heat
TV Show of the Year – True Detective
Hero of the Year – Pope Francis
Villain of the Year – Nigel Farage/Russell Brand (joint winners)

Friday, 14 November 2014

To The Stars and Beyond

Particularly fitting for a film which turns over themes of exploration, unearthing untrodden ground, and pushing the boundaries of human expectation, Christopher Nolan’s ninth film Interstellar goes where no brave soul has gone before. Nolan and ‘ambition’ go hand in hand, and this is certainly his most ambitious film to date: and maybe, just maybe, he’s gone too far this time.

Nolan, better than almost anyone still in the business, knows how to bring it when it comes to the blockbuster game: he does ‘big’ in his own very unique, hand-crafted way. In short, you never really know what you’re getting yourself in for, but boy do you know its going to be good. Memento combined gritty film–making with mind-numbing twists, Inception practically defined the word 'mindfuck', and his Dark Knight Trilogy rewrote the rule book on how to make a superhero film. Sci-fi, therefore, was the next obvious choice for the man who’s done everything.

Interstellar has science fiction stamped all over it: set up by a well-established background of a dying earth desperately reaching out for salvation, Nolan marvels in the majesty and ambition gifted by his deep space locations, both inside and outside of the spaceship. What is more, the Nolan brothers writing team have clearly invested a considerable amount of time in analyzing the science and physics behind the possibilities of space travel between dimensions, and are more than happy to show this off in the actual film. Nolan revisits themes of time which appeared at the forefront of Inception:  without giving much away, we learn that, due to the way a black hole can sap energy, time on one planet could be vastly different to that in reality. It is for this reason that the urgency of the mission feels so pressing, especially in the one instance when 1 hour is equivalent to about 7 years on earth. While competently introducing new themes, it is very clear where Nolan takes inspiration for a considerable chunk of the film: while 2001 is an obvious reference point, I’d like to see it as a loving homage rather than idea theft, successfully capturing the brilliance of Kubrick’s film while arguably achieving the depth which Kubrick perhaps lost in style.

What is worrying about a film on this scale, meanwhile, is that style overcompensates for a lack of substance, and that the characters can get flushed out into the voids of deep space. Not true here, however, since Nolan is a director who knows how to get actors at their very best. Channeling some of the desperation of DiCaprio’s Cobb in Inception, and the blind compulsion of Guy Pearce in Memento, Matthew McConnaughey, as we have become accustomed to, brings his absolute A-game. His likeable albeit pretty flawed protagonist Cooper channels all of the energy of a man who is grounded on earth but who’s head is up among the stars. An immensely powerful father-daughter story replaces what could easily have been a simple romance dynamic, and we are all the more grateful for it. Not only this, but Cooper’s relationship with his daughter (played with equal charm by Mackenzie Foy and Jessica Chastain) becomes integral to the actual physics of the mission. Love, as we are often reminded, is the one dimension which physics can’t understand or evaluate.

But this is not just the Nolan and McConnaughey show: on the contrary, Interstellar, just like the Endurance space shuttle, is packed full of the brightest minds in the business. Anne Hathaway brings genuine spark and drive to the on screen action, without any of the underlying sexualisation of Aliens Ripley, and is offered am intriguing plot-thread separate to that of McConnaughey’s, albeit cleverly intertwined. Visually, the film is perfected by first time collaborator Hoyte van Hoytema, whose visions of deep space are terrifying and beautiful in equal measure, while the acid-trippy journey through the black hole channels 2001’s final sequence while becoming increasingly disturbing. The film, meanwhile, would be incomplete without Han Zimmer’s ever-ingenious score, a perfectly symphonic piece which includes a chillingly eerie organ, and the majestic strings reminiscent of Wagner’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. 

On a project of this scale, there are inevitably going to be some cracks in the vessel. The influence of Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece were always going to, and inevitably do, overshadow the critical achievement of the film: the humanised robots, the string instrument score, and the cold white spaceship is almost too much for a devoted Kubrick fan. When it comes to the science, meanwhile, it may seem that the Nolans have bitten off slightly more than they can chew: the science of blackholes and wormholes is immensely complicated, and it at times felt like the effort of the audience was focused too hard on understanding these mindfucks rather than enjoying what was an exquisitely created production.
  
But with Nolan, of all people, we cannot condemn for being too ambitious. Indeed, it is for this very reason that we anticipate his films with such intrigue, and know that the price of the ticket is not going to be for something of the ordinary: with the science, it might sometimes be better to sit back and accept that you won’t understand everything. And with Interstellar, the perfection of every other element outweighs this prospect of misunderstanding in every way. It seems that, despite being flawed just as Kubrick’s was, Nolan’s Interstellar may just be the true successor to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and has perhaps even surpassed it.

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

Trick or Treat

Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Samhain, call it what you want. Its that time of year again. That time of year when it seems half the female population seem to lose all sense of creativity and just go as cats. When it seems acceptable to walk out in a ‘Slutty (insert profession here)’ and still pretend it’s a children’s festival. When clubs in every direction try to flog you their ‘Halloween extravaganza’, and it suddenly seems fine to walk around with a fake axe in hand and covered in corn syrup without anyone calling the police. This year, in my 20th year, it finally seems that maybe Halloween is losing its magic, and instead seeming like a bizarre celebration of serial killers, borderline racism, and pumpkins. So this year, I propose something different: watch a movie. So here I present to you, not cheap sweets and blood-splattered t-shirts, but the five horror films which redefined the genre. Convention was so last year.

1.    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Before A Nightmare on Elm Street there was Friday the 13th , before that there was Halloween, and before that there was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Voted the scariest film of all time by Empire Magazine, Tobe Hooper’s 1974 low budget slasher entered realms where no film had gone before: filmed for less than $300,000, Hooper used gritty realism and cutting-edge camerawork to make up for lack of effects and flare. By no means was this the first slasher film, considering its predecessors Psycho and Peeping Tom, but set out what can now be considered an almost iconic formula for any slasher film: group of harmless youths enter house, discover maniac, maniac kills all but the main protagonist, main protagonist barely escapes, inevitably to meet the same maniac some time soon (usually in the prequel). Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kreuger, Michael Myers all owe a huge amount to Tobe Hooper.

2.    Alien (1979)

What Ridley Scott did in his 1974 breakthrough feature was nothing short of revolutionary: he made what might be conceived as the world’s first sci-fi horror film. Not just a sci-fi film with scary elements, nor a horror film with a extraterrestrial twist, a true sci-fi horror film. See, what Scott did was take the killer/maniac/monster on the loose plot which we know and love so well, and do something which no one would expect – put it in space. Here, the spaceship is the haunted house, the astronauts the helpless youths, and the eponymous Xenomorph the killer on the loose. Not only does he grasp the sci-fi genre with such intensity and intrigue, the film is truly terrifying. The formula works: John Carpenter followed it just years later with cult classic The Thing, as did the near knock-off Predator in 1987. This is convention, don’t get me wrong, but with an unbelievable twist and spot-on execution.

3.    The Scream Quadrilogy (1996-2011)

For some, sitting back and watching a film isn’t really enough: for Wes Craven, it clearly wasn’t. Evidently inspired/overwhelmed/unsatisfied by the classic conventions of horror films, he decided to make a horror film about horror films. Scream reads the rule book aloud, staring down the camera and nodding approvingly: it follows a group of horror movie fans very aware of the horror genre, and how this helps/definitely doesn’t help when dealing with a ghost-faced serial killer on their hands. Scream II lovingly acknowledges the one-up man ship of sequels, while Scream III goes full out meta, following the disastrous film production of the fictionalized account of the events of the previous films. Can’t help but feel the Scary Movie gang slightly missed the point when spoofing a spoof itself.

4.    The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Ever waited for a film reveal for so long and then suddenly realize there isn’t one? 1999 The Blair Witch Project really changed the game when it came to film marketing: shrouded in mystery upon mystery, it began with a report of a supposed lost film crew, gradually building momentum and ending with the resulting 90 minutes of truly terrifying and gripping found-footage. Adhering to the age-old film trope that ‘more is less’, we never see the titular ‘witch’, and are all the more relieved for it. For without the appearance of a CGI nightmare, the true terror lies in what is unseen, guided along only by some spine-tingling sequences involving wooden sculptures, not to mention the bone-chilling finale. Everywhere you look now, found-footage is all the rage: Paranormal Activity, V/H/S, Cloverfield, but none have managed to recreate the first-person thrills injected by this horror masterpiece for the ages.

5.    Cabin in the Woods (2012)


Truly the horror film to end all horror films. If Scream reads out the rulebook, Cabin in the Woods grabs the rulebook by the shoulders, tears out its pages, and sets them on fire while cramming them down the audience’s throats. To say that it’s a rollercoaster is an under exaggeration, and to say it’s a horror film is perhaps in accurate. To be honest, I don’t really know what this film is, and I’m not sure writer Joss Whedon does either. Without trying to spoil anything, it spoofs horrors of the Cabin Fever and Evil Dead ilk, while adding in cheeky shout outs to just about every other horror sub-genre out there. A truly phenomenal undertaking, you may be thinking, but Drew Goddard’s horror-comedy-thriller-etc does it with such panache that you’ll come out screaming with joy about just how bloody clever this film is. Consumer warning: it may just ruin every horror movie you ever watch.

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

A Whole New Breed of Class War

If you wanted to sum up the whole of Marx in one short, snappy quote, I would probably choose this: ‘the history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles’. Class is something which runs deep in the veins of our country: since the beginnings of the monarchy, an deeply traditional and status-based institution which still stands tall today, Britain has been defined by its vast range from the Upper Class to what was once called, and perhaps still is, the Working Class. The Riot Club, the new film by Lone Scherfig and based on the play ‘Posh’ by Laura Wade, satirizes our culture of exclusive clubs, more specifically those drinking societies which have become so notorious at the more prestigious universities in the country: hilarious and utterly shocking in equal measure, it tackles the issue of what I think is a whole new kind of class conflict in Britain, and why it has become so dangerously rooted in our psyche.

The actual Bullingdon Club, in the days of Boris and Dave
On the surface of things, we have a fairly simple set up: a group of ‘filthy rich and spoilt rotten’ adolescents whose solution to everything is throwing more money at it, and whose thirst for authority is only exceeded by the nepotism on which they all thrive. This makes very close reference to The Bullingdon Club, an exclusive members club at Oxford, which gained notoriety through its rampant hooliganism in the Oxford area, or perhaps more so by its famous alumni including the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, the film beautifully paints a portrait of members who above all want to succeed: the club’s president James Leighton-Masters expresses his deep passion for ‘investment banking’, while the mysterious Uncle Jeremy demonstrates the sort of contacts which the boys are clearly eager to gain through membership.

And strangely enough, this ‘surface’, or at least the first half an hour or so of the film, is intensely enjoyable: just as Jack Whitehall has made his name in comedy, in particular his JD caricature in Fresh Meat, we relish the opportunity to see how ‘the one percent’ live, and even more so have a good old laugh at them. The ten young actors playing the ‘Rioters’ enter into the roles with such ease and delight, spouting off some of the film’s funniest lines (‘How do you make an Eton mess? Tell him he only got into Bristol’). We perhaps indulge in some irony that the majority of these actors have come from comfortable middle class backgrounds, while indeed some sort of nepotism is clearly in play, notably the presence of members of the Irons and Fox families, Max and Freddie respectively. The stereotype remains lighthearted, endearing, and most of all, very likeable.

Yet, as I recall, I left the cinema feeling pretty shocked and ever so slightly sick, and having thought about it, I feel I can put this down to a variety of things. First and foremost, the members are absolute animals, in the most literal of senses. The lighthearted joviality descends quickly into what is perhaps one of the most raucous and vulgar dinner parties that might ever appear on film: champagne and cocaine are consumed in equal measure, sexist propositions are bandied around freely, and the ‘banter’ quickly descends into pretty full on character assassination. Without wanting to spoil the outrageously shocking climax, you leave the cinema wanting to punch every single one of these bastards.

'''Old Money, New Problems'
The original poster for Laura Wade's
play at the Royal Court
But there is more, something slightly more unsettling the simple on-screen grotesqueness. What becomes more and more apparent through the underlying themes of the film are the changing paradigms of this class war which runs through the history of our nation. Alistair Ryle, a particularly contemptible individual, with a penchant for screaming lines such as ‘I’m sick and tired of poor people’, raises an interesting, albeit slightly ill-timed argument. Have the rich and poor become utterly inseparable, regardless of belief, politics, or even personality? George Balfour, a more likeable member of the group, talks of how he spends many an hour in the pub drinking with the locals: Ryle, points out that he has paid for the rounds, and that once he has left, the locals are surely laughing at him. We find this distinction becoming more and more rigid: if you are ‘posh’, you are posh, and no matter how you try you can never become one of the others. Miles, the main focus of the film, is discovered to be the ‘Right Honourable Miles Richards’: it is just a title, he replies, and its ‘only historical’. Bur our treatment of him doesn’t differ: he has been labeled posh, and thus finds himself inevitably lured in by the other ‘poshes’. It is in fact Miles’ story that we find so heartbreaking: clearly infatuated by his girlfriend and a desire to be ordinary, he is corrupted and tainted by the allure of tradition and exclusivity, and eventually becomes on of the rest of them. He can’t escape his background.

What is so shocking is that we can see this obsession with classism everywhere we look. We love, adore, and enter into ‘tradition’ at every possible opportunity, without actually stepping back and thinking why it is actually so respectable. As with this ‘posh’ stereotype, we laugh at them for one very simple reason: because they are different. Simply because they have wealth does that make them fair game? On a daily basis I, as I’m sure any other reasonable and liberally minded individuals do, take offense at the classist slogans of publications such as the Daily Mail, and their slander of their so-called ‘feral underclass’. We are told their social norms are merely a subject of the environment in which they are brought up: is it not, therefore, justifiable to apply the same to the other extreme of society. The Riot Club does a fantastic job at showing what happens when the greedy and grotesque get their hands on too much money, in a fascinating way. The emerging message for me was one of the very essence of the word ‘Posh’, a slander perhaps on the same level as the frequent Daily Mail-isms. Our history is a history of class war, and it doesn’t look like its going stop any time soon.