My Forty-Eight Hours

Since I don't have a TV licence yet and don't own a TV either, I haven't watched much TV at all since I moved to Glasgow. Instead I watch a film almost every other night so this was hard!

iplayer, Tuesday 3 November

Last night the girls who share my kitchen put on Sunday's show of the X-Factor and so I watched that. A lot of yelling was involved when I realised that the twins had gotten through and Rachel had dropped down to the last two, and some threw a little mini tantrum (not I..)when Lloyd stayed instead of her. The load up was slow though and the sound wasn't working so we got a staggered and jerky show and we worked out everything from body language and facial expressions which was fun!

BBC Three, 12.20am, Sunday 1^st November/iPlayer, Wednesday 4 November

85 mins

Alisa, Becky. Katie. Derek. Claire. Moony, Jay and Trife. Sam. Uncle Curtis. Pregnant with Trife's kid. Slut who gives blowjobs for drugs and is Alisa's best mate. Girl who hangs herself after she gets beaten up by the scaffs, slept with Trife. Brother, who tries to kill Sam, who threatened to kill Katie. Slut no. 2 cheating on Sam with Jay. M helps Derek get a gun off Uncle. Said Uncle initiates T into the gang by getting him to scar a guy who owes. Alisa and T get back together. Sam kills Trevor. Boom.

Watching this really took it out of me, often leaving me with my jaw on the ground, and when it finished I was in a daze. I watched Kidulthood on iPlayer (my first time) and I picked it to be part of a list of things to watch but it was only at the end the penny dropped that it was a film...not an extremely long TV episode...so I only got round to watching the one thing. It wasn't great either, that when pausing the credits a little button with an S on it leaps out and I realise I could've had subtitles on the whole time! Argh! Going back over “Imgunablowyurfuckinheadoff” made more sense, second time round. I seem to be watching a stream of hard core films these days...in the last 10 days I've seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Pulp Fiction, 8 Mile, The Constant Gardner and I'm wanting to watch This Is England, but I might not for a while!

Kidulthood impressed me most with its camera work though, and particularly liked the ending sequence. I was touched by the scene between Alisa and Trevor (good performance given by Aml Ameen) when he offers to 'take care of them both' even he still thinks the baby is Sam's and they get back together. The cinematography helps me feel shocked as the fight goes on even though I had been shocked plenty enough already (Claire and Jay getting on in front of three other guys and Becky giving a guy a blow job in front of Alisa and another guy for drugs.) As Sam reaches for the bat, you can hear the gravel rattle – which for me really gave it an ominous atmosphere, and the clip is slowed down to accentuate his action and so you know this is going to be big. As Trevor is hit the shot is in slow motion and so you see him fall to the ground as a snappy white out brings you a close up of him unable to get up again. As he is dying another shot is taken with both Sam and Trevor in the frame, both lying parallel to each other, when Sam is being held at gun point and its powerful because you are still unsure about who's going to make it. Throughout the film it's been obvious who stands where on the pecking order but here, both of them are vulnerable and either could die. Trevor dies and unwittingly saves Sam, telling Derek (who has him at gunpoint) that “he's not worth it.” Watching something on iPlayer was good, it loaded up fast and since my DVD drive is mashed, it was good to watch a film even though after 40 minutes I was thinking it was going to finish!