Liverpool Travel Review

Liverpool

Travel Review

I can't understand why people don't like Ryanair. I really think they look at it the wrong way. The whole experience of booking a flight with the much maligned carrier needs to be viewed as a game. If you can fulfill all the conditions the airline imposes, and win the game, you can fly for next to nothing. Correspondingly, each “failure” results in a “fine”, whether its not possessing a Visa Electron card or your desire to bring more than a single carry on bag.

With this in mind, I had trawled the Ryanair site looking for a truly cheap return ticket to a major European city. I found Liverpool for one day (or just over 21 hours) for €15. It would have been €5, but I dropped points by booking with regular Visa. So, cue the Mission: Impossible intro music because here comes Liverpool in (slightly under) a day.

22:00 - Tuesday

Here is what you need to get from the main entrance of Dublin Airport in under ten minutes. Online check-in, one carry on bag with all guns, knives and most especially containers over 100ml removed, no queue at security, and finally, if you're flying with Ryanair, legs of steel because you know your boarding gate is going to be at the far end of the terminal. All of these things combined, and as I pistoned my way to my gate, I contemplated that this time all the cherries might line up to produce my most hassle free flying experience to date. These thoughts faded as I noticed one hundred Real Madrid fans waiting to board my flight.

23:00

The plane performed a dip of roller coaster proportions on take off, which left me on edge for the rest of the flight. The only thing keeping my mind off the persistent turbulence was the chatty Italian girl next to me who didn't let the fact that I had a death grip on the chair in front dissuade her from carrying on a largely one-sided conversation.

The Madrid fans were quiet for most of the flight, despite the odd nihilistic whoop when it seemed as if the plane might go down.

0:00 – Wednesday

John Lennon Airport. On the verge of kissing the ground when I exited the aircraft, I relented when I was hit by the wind and rain. I said my goodbyes to chatty Italian girl and went to find a bus to my hostel. Liverpool has recently stopped running night buses; something which I and three fellow travelers only found out after waiting at the bus stop for twenty minutes. A taxi ride for four was the next best alternative.

1:00

I was staying at the Embassie hostel. The vague directions given by the taxi driver lead to more rainy wanderings than I would have liked, but eventually I found my way there, to be greeted by more Spaniards than you could shake a novelty straw donkey at.

I haven't stayed in hostels alone much, and although I appreciate the monetary savings,the demands made on my sleeping patterns might prove just enough to force me to graduate to budget hotels. For instance, its a special ability, an innate talent that hostel owners have to apportion one snorer per room. I don't know, or care to know how they do it, I only wish it would stop.

One of the nicest things which you could say about the Embassie decor is that its basic, something which a hostel dweller cannot malign. It gives no clues that it was once the Venezuelan Consulate, but its clean and that's enough. The major plus points to staying here are that the staff are friendly in the extreme, the price is right (£15 Sunday to Thursday) and you get all the tea and toast you can drink/eat. www.embassie.com

7:00

A few hours later I awoke and, pleasantly surprised that I had not been sodomised in my sleep, showered, ate enough toast to constitute breakfast and lunch and began the short walk to town.

8:30

The Anglican Cathedral and entrance to Chinatown, which I passed by, are both worth a look, as are the shops, the lands which exchange rates forgot. The euro has weakened slightly since it reached near-parity with the pound, but sterling shopping still represents the next best thing to taking a trip to the States.

10:00

All museums in Liverpool are free (the ones I visited anyway). Laden down with goods, I started with what turned out to be the best museum in Liverpool, the Walker Art Gallery. The John Moores Prizewinners exhibit featured the most vibrant and interesting paintings, including the above birdcage. Avoid the current Fashion v Sport exhibit. Its a waste of time. The George Always painting series isn't too hot either.

11:30

The Liverpool Museum is more child oriented, relying on multimedia and live exhibits to make its point. I spent most time in the Natural World section (pretending to be a dinosaur, if you must know) and found that most of the fun had evaporated from the experience before I reached the fourth floor.

1:20 PM

A quick lunch later and I hit the slavery section of the Liverpool Maritime Museum. I generally like museums that are long on information, and this one did not fit that description at all. Large empty spaces abounded on what should be a packed floor. Those that were filled did little to give an overall picture of the history of human ownership. An ironically all white amateur dramatics group filled another space with a heavy handed and condescending portrayal of exactly how much screaming and bad acting took place on board a slave ship. The highlight, if it can be called that, of this lowlight was the stark reminder that less than 90 years have passed since the above picture was taken.

2:00

No visit to Liverpool would be complete without engaging in a Beatles related activity, so just before two I boarded the Magical Mystery Tour Bus to be whisked away to several Beatles related sights such as Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane and the former homes of the four band members. I booked on the day, but would advise doing so further in advance as I got the second last seat.

The tour itself is excellent, and along with the Walker Art Gallery, is my pick of the trip*. Things started off quite rockily though, as one of the non-English speaking patrons *coughRealMadridfancough* decided to conduct a loud telephone conversation as he couldn't understand the tour. One bad tempered conversation later though, and we were a much quieter and more civilised bus. I won't ruin the tour by writing any of the interesting facts but in true Murder Mystery-ruining style I will say that Mark Chapman did it.

4:30

After being dropped off by the coach, I had time for a quick look around the Tate Liverpool Gallery. The Tates are known for offering more modern (synonymous with crap) art. For the most part I would agree with that. There are some gems like the Warhol paintings and a Picasso, but a tilted head and scrunched up nose greeted most offerings.

5:15

A bus back to the airport and a flight that left early took me out of Liverpool before the fuse ran too low.

Liverpool offers just enough to do in one day, a slogan that won't be on their tourist website any time soon. I packed in a lot, simply because I booked purely based on frugality and before I determined what sights were worth seeing. In hindsight, and after two days sleep, a more sedate pace is to be advised.

As for the people, Liverpudlians are generally helpful and friendly, if you can keep yourself from saying “Alright, Alright. Calm Down, Calm Down” to them every time they speak

Liverpool was a real find, mostly because I wasn't expecting to find much of anything. Its a recommend for me. Just give the Slavery Museum as wide a berth as a 21st Century advocate for its reinstatement.

8/10


*Trademark Pending

Its A Wonderful Life Movie and DVD Review

Its A Wonderful Life

Movie and DVD Review

When the end credits of Its A Wonderful Life rolled (well i say rolled, but they were static), I imagined that I was sitting in a smoke filled movie theatre beside a zoot suited man puffing on a cigar. He turns to me and says, his voice full of gravel and New York “Kid, they don't make 'em like that anymore”. And, after wondering what a zoot suit is, I agree with him.

Films as genuinely heartwarming and life affirming as IAWL are thin on the ground at the moment and its a compliment to Capra's classic that all movies touching this subject matter (the value of the individual) feel like clones of this classic. The most recent that springs to mind is “The Pursuit of Happyness” which, despite being a powerful statement of the American Dream, is one capful of Capra wallowing in a litre of the pursuit of wealthyness.

The story concerns the life of George Bailey, as viewed in flashback by two angels discussing his upcoming “big night”. You see, George has always done the right thing, regardless of the impact upon his own life. The flashbacks show that he saves his brother's life as a young boy, at the cost of the hearing in one ear. When his father dies, George steps up again and delays first a much anticipated trip to Europe, and then college, to keep the Bailey savings and loan from being closed down. His life continually gives him lemons and he drinks down the bitter lemonade which seems destined to be his lot.

When George's big night arrives (which culminates in an attempt to throw himself off of a bridge), his guardian angel is sent down to intervene and shows him what his hometown would be like if, as George wishes, he hadn't been born.

“Your money's not here, its at Bill's house, and Fred's house”

Fresh out of uniform as a World War II pilot, Jimmy Stewart turns in an achingly brilliant performance as George Bailey, the young man who wants nothing more than to spread his wings and fly away from a small town which slowly and inexorably digs its claws into him.

Capra was looking for a new actor to star in his first post war picture, having used Cary Grant and Clark Gable in his previous pictures, and in Jimmy Stewart he said he had found his quintessential leading man.

Stewart adeptly flits from comedy to tragedy to romance and back again. The scene in which he and Mary, his future wife (played by Donna Reed) share a telephone receiver to talk to her current boyfriend, is my personal favourite. Between them, they melt the screen with unenunciated longing.

The supporting cast is excellent. Donna Reed is by turns funny, heartbreaking and palpitation inducing and Lionel Barrymore is aptly repugnant as the small town Machiavelli, Henry F. Potter.

Capra's not a fancy director. If you see one of his movies expecting Hitchcockian use of camera and film technology, you will be disappointed. Rather his talent lies in the sheer strength of his scripts, the quality of his casting, and his ability to get every last emotion up on screen.

The extras on the one disc version I watched were slight but reasonably interesting. There's an introduction by the underwhelming Frank Capra Jr, who brought the phrase “Capra-corn” to my attention (used to describe Capra's movies, which were deemed schmaltzy and saccharin by some critics) and a making-of featurette hosted by Happy Days' Tom Bosley. Bosley details the usual rundown of people who declined parts, stars recounting their time on set and some “Did you knows?” (for instance, did you know that most of the snow filled scenes featured in the movie were shot in the midst of a heat wave?).

The most interesting tidbit is that IAWL was not incredibly popular during its initial theatrical run. Its popularity has stemmed from the fact that the films copyright expired accidentally in the seventies, which meant that TV stations could run the movie while avoiding some royalties, something which they have been doing ever since (although I can't remember a Christmas screening on Irish TV despite the monotonous regularity with which Santa Claus: The Movie is replayed).

To say that IAWL is a great Christmas movie is to sell it short. Its a great movie regardless of setting or the time of year its watched. If you don't feel at least a little emotional during the final scene you need to buy a stethoscope and check whether the thumping in your chest has ceased.

Movie: 9/10

Extras: 5/10

The Unborn Movie Review

The Unborn

Movie Review

“Abort! Abort! No longer a phrase exclusively used by submarine commanders.” I think this would have made a fitting tag line for The Unborn, a movie which is as unintentionally funny as it is hackneyed.

The film itself isn't actually about abortion. Casey Beldon (played by Odette Yustman) is a college student who in true horror movie fashion likes to run alone, take lots of showers and walk around in her tighty whiteys (see poster above) whenever the mood takes her. After she starts having strange nightmares she finds out that she had a twin who died before he was born. No points for guessing that the twin (Jumby to his friends) is somehow trying to kill her. Cue lots of running in the dark with flashlights.

I don't pretend to know much about the writing of screenplays, but one thing I do know is that they are supposed to unfold more slowly than, say, your average TV advertisement. Not so with this movie. The plot, such as it is, comes on strong from the very first scene. This might not seem like a problem, but the rapidly moving storyline is being used to mask tracing paper thin characters and a plot which relies purely on jump scares to create tension.

Before I go any further I just want to point out that I am aware that characterisations which would fall down in a stiff breeze have long been a mainstay of the horror genre. Usually though, there is some bone thrown to the audience, be it the slacker student just wanting to get away from things for spring break or the timid girl who finds her inner strength during the course of the goriest camping trip ever.

The Unborn however, offers none of this. What do we know about Casey? She is a student, but is she a good one, bad, indifferent? What does she study? The one interesting attribute which could have saved her, a mother who went mental when she was young, is used as a plot point when it would have served much better to develop her character, or lack thereof. The end result is a character who I would have happily seen have her limbs turned into piles of kindling for my amusement.

There are only two actors worth mentioning. Gary Oldman earns his presumably large paycheck playing a Rabbi and Meagan Good, as Casey’s best friend gets all the best lines and what’s more, some of them seem to be knowingly funny. The rest just serve to move plot.

What other problems? A list is the only way to fit everything in. The film revels in the horror clichés that Scream satirised. People go hunting around for the source of electrical failures, when they really should know better. They walk unbelievably slowly towards disturbances which are better left the hell alone and ignore obscure, oblique warnings like, “if you try to help her, he will kill you”. I mean, who could be expected to distill meaning from such a cryptic clue?

Script wise, character development is heavy handed (an old lady who survived the holocaust answers her door clutching a star of David and sporting one of the worst accents since Johnny Depp in From Hell), and the writers do a good job of creating a thin yet confusing storyline. Characters disappear into black holes for large portions of the script, making it difficult to care about their eventual demise. A case in point is Casey’s father, who is transported to another world after he has served his expository purpose and explained whatever happened to baby Jumby. Discrepancies like this make you wonder whether the final script draft was written in crayon.

Easily the most enjoyable portion of the movie was the “gloryhole” scene (don't ask). The fact that more than one audience member was laughing during it should tell you all you need to know about this stinker of a film.

Only see this movie if you don't care about plot, characters, a cohesive storyline or being scared beyond loud noises mixed with quick camera cuts. In short, The Unborn is a movie the seed of which should have been extinguished in the creative womb.

Despite critical pummeling’s though, The Unborn is performing quite well at the box office, and the ending leaves the way clear for a sequel, so watch this space for the review of the straight to DVD “The Unborn 2: Jumby goes to Africa”.

2/10