A film review - Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road – Film Review

Directed by: Sam Mendes

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet

I have been a Leonardo DiCaprio ever since I can remember and somehow this film has eluded me until now. They say you must never judge a book by it’s cover – this is so true as I saw this as a desperate attempt for DiCaprio to prove that he is not only a badass and can actually play a sentimental romantic.  My perceptions were completely blown out of the water and this proves that a good solution before doing ANYTHING is to have no expectations.

As the film began I started to feel like I was in some strange reunion between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet from Titanic. This film is a parody of what many couples feel in a relationship – imprisonment. Frank and April in are crippled by their own acute self-consciousness and their sense that they are superior to the excruciating banality they have fallen into. April is driven by the fantasy that she will somehow make her husbands’ dreams come true when she proposes that they leave their ordinary life in suburban America in search of adventure by moving to Paris. This was prompted by Frank saying that he wasn’t interested in living a life of external achievement but rather he wanted to feel life, to really feel things. He teaches us a lesson in that we should always be careful what we wish for because we just might get it. He forgot to edit out the pain of unfulfilled dreams and the loss of his wife and child simultaneously.

Revolutionary Road is an excellently crafted film: The script is intricate, the performances real and the direction is great. This is the type of film that makes you very conscious that you are watching a film. It was engrossing but I always felt like an observer looking in – sort of like watching two people in a social experiment; but the performances were riveting enough to keep me involved.  

I found DiCaprios’ role extremely courageous due to the fact that his character Frank was riddled with such self doubt and lacked all courage to go after his dreams. It was refreshing to see him move away from his latest trend of being a tough outlaw. His character reflects the truth about so many people who are so content in being discontent that they seem to remain in the adolescent stage of talking a big game without actually getting into the ring.

Being an advertising man, I believe we should watch movies like this every now and then to understand the human condition a little bit more. I also think I will remain unmarried for the rest of my life.

Blind Eagle

(The headline reads: age weakens even the sharpest vision)

If you have a sneaky suspicion that I love eagles then you are correct. I do. I love this Ad almost as much as I love bald eagles and that means it’s right up there with the best I’ve seen. This charms the socks right off me. It allowed me to have a little inner revelation, a sort of epiphany about what a print Ad should be.

This works so well because it shows what is happening after the event and also because we know that he is in for a shocking surprise when he sinks his teeth into a fur hat while he is oblivious to the fact. Another thing that makes this work is that the eagle looks so content in his old age, his expression is saying: “I’ve done this so many times before, and besides I’m only going to find out when I get into my cave!”

What makes it even better is that I DON”T necessarily have to use my imagination, and anyway it needs a break! The only thing I could imagine is a little bald patch on his head or the poor mans below holding onto his ice cold head but that would just be going too far.

Why do Other men watch sport?

When I was in school I played every sport under the sun and can remember idolising the Springbok Cricket Team. I begged my grandfather to take me to cricket games at Newlands and when we went I ran around the edge of the field collecting autographs of my heroes. When I couldn’t get to the stadium I was glued to the TV, I cried when we lost and celebrated when we won.

I remember the Christmas of 1994 so clearly: It was the year I was given my first golf club, I remember looking at it mysteriously wrapped up under the tree and could not be contained when I discovered it was for me. I became obsessed. I practiced every single day and watched every major tournament on TV. I watched because I wanted to be like them.

So why do other men watch sport? What makes men who have never even stepped onto a rugby field go ballistic in a bar with Blue Bulls sticking out of their head?

We have been wired from the days of battle to cheer for the winning team.  Long ago, battles were a matter of life and death, with "our guys" having a serious interest in winning. If "our guys" lost, generally the men were killed and the town looted. If "our guys" were the winners, they got to do the looting and killing. Back then it was all participation sports. Everybody played, and everybody had a serious interest in the outcome. Nowadays we have focused this primal urge into team sports.

We have a nonstop supply of sport beamed across the world and if we feel the need we can watch sport 24 hours a day, it’s kind of like being plugged into a sports drip that feeds us with a drug that allows us to live our lives through others, (unless we are winning at our own lives of course.) We all know the sports fanatics in the office, they are the ones who come in grinning and throwing around comments and collecting cash from their colleagues or swearing non stop depending on which way the game went in which case it was always the referees fault!

Despite what women think we men are a lot more sophisticated than simply barbarians wired from the days of gladiator warfare. There is a part of us who aspires to be in “the zone.” The majority of us are hopeless at sport and we admire the way an athlete can pull off astonishing physical achievements while under incredible pressure. I will take golf for example: For anyone who has stepped onto the first tee knows how his palms become sweaty and his back seizes up. Now imagine playing the same shot with 15 million people watching and $ 3 million in the balance. It is no wander sportsmen are paid such ludicrous amounts of cash – they do what we only dream about. They inspire us to reach our potential. Tiger Woods represents a part of all of us because he has such complete control over his mind, body and emotions (when he is on the golf course) and he wouldn’t have achieved what he has without an audience. It is because of the audience that he is paid billions of dollars, so it is a two way street.

When I watch rugby I don’t actually watch – I spend most of the time pretending to know what is going on and most importantly – pretending to care! I scream like a madman and always root for the wrong team and I ask myself why? Why bother? It is because it makes men feel a part of men, we like to scream at the TV and pretend that we know more than the referee because it offers us an escape. It is the ultimate escape because we didn’t have to do it on our own, we are all escaping together and it feels good. It releases dopamine in our sophisticated brains while we drink sophisticated beers out of green bottles.

A Party in my Head

I was in another serious mood until I saw this mans hair. Just when you thought the afro couldn’t be pushed any further they had to go and do this. When you only have an A4 page at your disposal you may as well use it properly. You don’t get better than filling the entire page with the benefit!

This guy better be rich because when he looks for an apartment he is going to have to buy the entire block and knock out the upper stories to accommodate his afro, this is assuming that he would live in flat. Maybe he is more of a house kind of a guy; even so he would need atleast 3 stories.

There are prbably several permanent hair assistants that live in his afro spraying Schwarzkopf get2b from the inside out. He wouldn’t have time for a girlfriend and besides they would clash in the bathroom.

This Ad works because we have no idea how big his afro actually is, so, you guessed it: I can use my imagination! It makes a party in my brain and invites the whole neighbourhood.

The Migration of Egyptian Geese

Egyptian geese are criminals, they steal from the pump and ultimately from your wallet. Nobody has ever suspected them because everyone is too busy reading the newspaper trying to find the answers there, well I’m sorry but you’ve been fooled since day one.

Egyptian geese have been using petrol since unleaded hit the market in 1996. They were never able to run on high octave leaded because their digestive system rejected the lead and many died horrible deaths in the late 1980’s. The spokesperson for the Egyptian Geese family in the Western Cape failed to release the news at the time due to certain language barriers.

The annual migration from Cape Town to Egypt used to take them two to three months on their regular diet of seeds and grass; it now takes them two weeks on 95 unleaded. They target certain petrol stations in the middle of the night using sophisticated flying sequences that simultaneously distract the petrol attendant and siphon petrol out of the pumps.

Now a rational argument against such a statement could be the mere size of an Egyptian goose: I mean, how can they be responsible for oil shortages and massive petrol price increases? Their bodies are tiny in comparison to your 50 litre tank. When they fill up for their migration they can only hold 1, 24 litres per goose on average.

Their secret lies in the shear number of them. We all believe the latest survey by National Geographic which states that the Egyptian goose population is 567 000 and counting when in actual fact the official record has been kept a secret from us. The number of geese populating this earth right now is over 98 billion and is expected to reach the 101 billion mark by the end of their festive mating season in the northern hemisphere.

So we’re looking at over 100 trillion Egyptian Geese by September 2011. How have they managed to fly in such large numbers unnoticed since unleaded petrol hit the market in 1996? Their secret lies in their stealthy flying methods. They fly at night except for the few who are used as decoys in the early morning.

A chemical reaction has been taking place over the past two decades since they began using petrol: Their feather coating now blends into the surrounding sky; they have developed a chameleon-like effect that camouflages them so they can discreetly take over the world one petrol station at a time.

Don't be caught dead on a BMW Motorcycle

This Ad works because it cuts into the heart of what it is to be a Hells Angel. They are notorious for causing mayhem. Their famous motto is: “When we do right nobody remembers, when we do wrong nobody forgets.” Nowadays they have been known to do quite a lot of good but their reputation definitely precedes them. To see a Hells Angel Motorcyclist sitting in a confession chamber pondering over his confession is such a powerful image.

BMW Motorcycles lack one thing: Street cred. The majority of bike fanatics wouldn’t be caught dead on a BMW Motorcycle, and the ones that are definitely don’t belong to any bike gangs.

I really love this photograph. I saw the expression in his eyes way before I saw anything else, so it leaves the rest of the image and the headline to drive the point home even further.

Imagine him saying to the priest: “Forgive me father, I am considering buying a BMW Motorcycle. I have been having sleepless nights, it is not the sin that frightens me, it is my brothers. They will slaughter me if they see me on the streets. I’m thinking of riding to Mexico.”

I used to own a Suzuki Bandit 400 and for the brief time I felt like I was part of a brotherhood, I met other motorcyclists wherever I went. There is a bond that ties all motorcyclists together unless you own a BMW Motorbike, in which case you don’t even receive a nod from passing bikers.