Review of Unknown

If your looking for a dark and captivating mystery that will have your eyes glued to the screen and your heart racing then look no further as Unknown is the film for you.

Starring Liam Neeson as Doctor Martin Harris and January Jones as his beautiful wife, Liz, the film begins with, what appears, as a happily married couple arriving in Berlin for a work related presentation.

With only a few minutes in, the film takes a wild turn which results in a taxi crash that plummets Martin and his driver, Gina (Diane Kruger) into a river. Banging his head and leaving him in a coma for 4 days, he awakens to find that his identity, his marriage and his life have been stolen from him by an intruder claiming to be the real Martin Harris.

A series of unfortunate events lead to fast paced car chases, struggles, fights and a unsettling feeling that not even you, the viewer, is sure whether or not you can trust your main character.

Complete strangers to each other, Martin and Gina, are propelled into a world of violence where their lives are at risk for something they know nothing about. This film is not about revenge or vengeance; it’s about survival and escape and how far you would go to getting back a life you have lost.

Diane Kruger plays her part well as the illegal Bosnian immigrant striving for a better life by working any job she can get. After saving Martin’s life she feels compelled to help him, and throughout the film, consistently gets him out of many sticky situations.

This film bares a strong resemblance to Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, in the sense that not all is what it seems, however if this puts you off, as it would have done me, don’t be, the story lines are stronger and the action is believable.

The only weakness with this film is the ending, it leaves you feeling a tad unfulfilled as the set up behind all the drama and confusion is a simple one, one that anyone could indeed understand, but is extremely unbelievable.

Directed by Jaume collet- Serra it is not a surprise that this film is dark and twisted as he is previously known for directing such films as The house of Wax and The Orphan.

A fist clenching film that is not meant to be taken too seriously but definitely worth a watch, an enjoyable experience that has not forgotten that the art of entertainment is through mind baffling action and a strong cast.

Speed Flying

It would appear that the newest craze for adrenaline junkies has hit Lancashire and involves as little as a kite and a hill, confused?? So was I when I first heard about it but as time passed it has now dawned on me that Speed Flying is indeed catching on.
I first head about it from my friend Dave, who I used to believe had sucidal tendancies, as he was always picking strange life threatening sports to keep himself entertained :) However the more I have heard and the more videos I have watched I have (surprisingly) become quite intrigued with Speed Flying.
When searching for an actual defination of Speed Flying I came across this website, http://www.speed-flying.com/ and it says, "Speed-Flying is an extreme sport that involves a combination of paragliding and skiing skills. It is a relatively new sport that is growing rapidly and gaining lots of attention"
The quote I have pulled is describing the winter side of the sport, the summer side (which is also known as Ground Launching) is pretty much gliding of hills/mountainous areas, keeping fairly close to the ground until it is time to land.
When watching the videos it does give you a false sense of what is going on as it looks as though the person is slowly gliding over land, however in reality is it much faster and the above website does highlight some of the dangers and (most importantly) if you wish to take up this sport you should definately get in touch with a professional :)
So here is a video of my m8 Dave doing it :)
http://www.youtube.com/user/CHUNDERvision#p/a/u/0/4l06L9wWvBc
Check it out (as he has informed me) he is the one in the white Nike trainers :)

My trip to Sweden :)

After finishing university and finding myself so deep in an overdraft I was unable to sleep properly I threw myself into 2 jobs and literally worked myself to the ground, so after Christmas with my bank balance at a steady £0 I decided to treat myself to a little holiday.

However I didn’t want to propel myself into further debt (I have done a very good job at forgetting about the thousands of pounds I actually owe the university) so I decided to visit my very good friend, jenny, who lives in Sweden and was amazed when I managed to get flights for £12!

Now I have always had a desire to travel and considering I managed to fit in a three year degree I have done pretty well for myself in finding cheap ways to see the world. However part of the reason that these flights were ridiculously cheap was that it departed from London Stanstead, but for £12 I didn’t care! I managed to book my trains for £33 which would take me down to London Euston and then pay for a return ticket on an airport transfer bus for £11.50. So in total the cost of travelling to Gothenburg, Sweden for a week was £56.50. I was a very happy girl!

I had never been to Sweden before but whilst landing the only words that could come to my head were “winter wonderland.” Considering Sweden is only an hours flight away, the weather difference amazed me, I mean don’t get me wrong we have received our fair share of snow this year but what I was seeing was something that I had only seen in pictures, and it was very beautiful.

So equipped with my woolly hat and leather boots I began my Swedish adventure for the week and dragged my friend around to every tourist site that was possible, despite the fact that she had grown up and lived here all her life she had seen surprisingly little. Gothenburg City is just like every other city, tall high rise buildings, shops of every nature, the hustle and bustle of hundreds of people and trams flying around in every direction ready to take you to your next destination. I immediately loved it!

Now the beauty of my trip was that my friend didn’t live in the main part of Gothenburg, she lived in the forest, so I got to see 2 very different parts of Sweden. The Swedish are also a lot more adventurous than the English when designing their homes, which were painted of every colour you could imagine, they were all quaint pretty houses, built of wood and had massive porches, very fairytale like.

During my trip we did everything we could think of which included visiting The Universeum, the national science discovery centre, where you could experience rainforest and aquatic environments with live animals. We also visited The Gothenburg Art Museum, The Natural History Museum (not quite a match on our one in London, but still worth a visit), The City Museum and of course the shopping centre, Arkaden, not to forget the many wondrous restaurants you pass on your travels.

There is also a boat trip you can take to see Norway, which was something I would have loved to do, but unfortunately I ran out of days, well there is always next time.

So it was fair to say that after my 5 day holiday I was pretty exhausted but enjoyed every minute, Sweden is definitely worth a visit, especially with it being only an hour away and with flights going for as little as £12 there’s just no excuse not to visit our neighbours.