Parks and Recreation Season 1 Overview

Set in the fictional Indiana town of Pawnee, Parks and Recreation is a newly devised comedy from part of the creative team behind NBC’s The Office, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. It follows the day to day drudgery of the parks council as they bid to improve their lowly town by making small changes to the local surroundings.

Making up the cast is a selection of Saturday Night Live alumni, including the bubbly Amy Phoehler as Leslie Knope, the ever-enthusiastic ring leader who smiles in the face of rejection and adversity; alongside the likes of Aziz Ansari, as Tom Haverford, the joker of the pack and Nick Offerman, the belligerent and serious Ron Swanson, a man who takes great care and pride in his work.

With a show that relies on its mockumentary style of presentation, comedy and its overall sense of unpredictability, it lacks any real originality within the television market. With programmes like The Office and Modern Family offering superior reactive dialogue and dysfunctional character work, it’s hard to see Parks and Recreation ever beating either of its main rivals to the punch.

One of the highlights of the show itself is the acting from Rashid Jones (I Love You, Man; The Office) who portrays the gentle Ann Perkins, a local resident whose husband falls foul within a desolate dumping hole, an area she wants to fill in, leading to her joining the committee. Jones brings to the show a sense of comfort, for she fits the ‘girl next door’ role to a tee, and always seems to represent the mindset of the viewer, playing perfectly off the wacky try-hard in Knope.

Perhaps my major issue with ‘Parks…’ is the forced reaction shots featuring Knope, a character the writers clearly want to emphasise as the hard-working and resilient force behind the committee, namely the one character who actually cares about the position she holds and the significant effect she believes she can have on the town. Whilst this in itself is understandable and Phoehler fits well into the role, it is outdone by Steve Carrel in The Office, a programme which effectively created and dominates ‘awkward’ comedy. In trying to emulate the same exact characteristics, the writers seem to shoot themselves in the foot, for it is not a strong enough character to carry the show on its own, whereas The Office has magnificent support from other areas of the show, meaning it was able to extend its reach across several seasons. ‘Parks’, it seems, does not.

Four Lions Review

Four Lions

From the crazed, yet genius mind that is Chris Morris, Four Lions takes on the world with unedifying bravery in depicting the often ignorant and naïve perspective of aspiring suicide bombers. Set in the North of England, a group of young and misguided Muslims set forth what they believe is a radical and non-conformist set of beliefs regarding the afterlife, and how they feel Muslims as a whole are mis-treated by the global media.

One criticism to no doubt be aimed at the piece is that it perhaps makes light of what is a grave and appalling way of life for many in the Middle East, and indeed pain and suffering witnessed and experienced by thousands of victims’ families. By contrast, Four Lions sets out a very clear message from the beginning. In laying out the stereotypical characters from your atypical comedy film; the family man, the idiot, the troubled leader, and the misguided extremist, the film addresses the prerequisites for such a film to then deliver the comedy goods. Where Four Lions excels is in its ability to push home the grave truths and morbid understanding (or lack thereof) of how Muslim extremists believe that joining a Jihad and declaring their own war on their own citizens and indeed those in other territories will in some way reward them for giving their lives for a worthy cause.

Morris has, in a sense, set out to mock the core extremist sects for their farcical notion of laying down their lives for a cause which not only destroys lives, communities and peoples’ perspective of these very religions, they also contribute absolutely nothing to the world. There are few laughs in the film itself, and they are achieved through slapstick humour, glib and moronic remarks from the film’s jester, though little does he know of his own ignorance and gross stupidity.

Four Lions is a comprehensive fable complemented perfectly by a comedic punch which softens the blow of the subject matter in such a way that the audience feels at least subconsciously comfortable with finding humour in such a horrific and in your face subject matter. However, Chris Morris deserves recognition and praise for addressing an area often reported about on the news but never directly confronted, a matter which will likely never cease but should at least be exhibited as the flawed and ultimately tragic topic of concern on the lips of this very generation.

8/10

The Orphanage Review

Psychological horror is, in my humble opinion, often a scarier concept than that of the 'jump horror' genre. The sense of mental torture, one which can drive its victims to suicide or a life-long suffering, is a far more terrifying realisation than that of an axe-wielding maniac. Or at least that's how I see it.

Whilst [REC] and The Orphanage are both Spanish films, that is where any similarities end. Whilst the former is about intense physical horror, exploiting gore and the concept of 'jump' scares to wrap its audience, this is a film which explores the pain of losing a loved one, but also the torture of trying to embrace life without them. Belén Rueda is the beautiful lead, playing a foster mother who accidentally kills her son in a freak accident but doesn't realise, leading to a series of traumatic hallucinations and psychological breakdowns.

Where The Orphanage excels in its ability to merge the concept of reality, and that of the imagination. Throughout the film, it is never clear whether Laura, the tragic mother, is in total control of her own pysche.


With an ending as touching as it is poignant, the film serves up a truly mind-bending experience. The treatment of death as a pyschological wound is wonderfully realised, and the camerawork is on the whole a fantastic aspect of what makes the film so enjoyable to watch. Not just as a practice in subtle horror but also as a means of appreciating the tragedy of personal grief.

7/10

[REC] Review

Having almost exhausted the extensive Western corridor of the horror film catalogue, I decided to try my hand at some foreign horror pieces. First on my list was [REC], a film I knew had received universal acclaim for its effective suffocating style of filmmaking, and the cleverly placed shots (provided by the trademark shakycam) which make it infamous, in the shadows of The Blair Witch Project.

With Manuela Velasco in the lead role as the excited reporter always looking for next big breakthrough newspiece, [REC] starts slowly, setting a gentle pace by examining the often mundane life of the fireman as they anticipate the warning sirens signalling a call-out.

Naturally, this sets the contrast for the rest of the film, which soon escalates as the audience learns of a troubled woman in a nearby apartment, who is heard screaming 'bloody murder'. As the film progresses, the cause of the 'flu' virus outbreak becomes more detailed, and more people mutate. The film continues in traditional zombie-film style, with the body count increasing and the environments becoming ever-more claustrophobic, as healthy inspectors close off the apartment block from the outside.

Where [REC] breaks the fairly predictable formula in its final third, as the Angela, the reporter, learns of the real secrets behind the outbreak and finds herself in the very apartment where the problems all began. Combining natural darkness, visceral diegetic sound effects from nearby zombies, and a constant state of panic from the on-screen characters, the film immerses the audience. The sense of panic, entrapment and a real lack of visual awareness - provided through the handycam's nightvision feature - really pushes home the feeling of terror encompassed by the doomed reporter.

Not even lousy CGI can dampen the quality of the film's closing moments, as any hope of escape is snatched away - quite literally - and the audience is left with the uncomfortable and surprisingly rare (in film history) sense of the never-ending nightmare.


8/10