E-Book Review: Benchwarmer

A poignant tale about where imaginary best friends go after we are done with them. This story focuses on, Mr Paloobi; a suited bear like figure that is conjured up from the imagination of a lonely, overlooked young boy.  They play chess and eat dinner together, but never share chocolate, and build up a very sweet and innocent relationship.  When the young boy discovers girls and finally starts growing up Mr Paloobi gets sent to “warm the bench” where he spends his time dwelling on the friendship that developed, was nurtured and then lost.  After 70yrs on the bench, he is finally called back into play. As the ageing process starts to deteriorate his long, lost friend’s mind, you are left contemplating the worries faced when getting older. The author has put a positive spin on these problems by providing a comforting idea that it may not be all that lonely when your memories start to fade.  An accessible story that touches on the uncertainties of ageing in a sensitive and thoughtful way. 

Bench Warmer is available to buy here and is published by Fortykey.

Catfish

I watched this film at the London Film Festival, and have been dying to post a review about it ever since. Now its general release date is looming in the UK, I thought it was time I gave my opinion on this fine documentary about social networking via the internet.

I have been recommending this film to nearly every person I come into contact with, for two simple reasons, it is highly entertaining and an extremely relevant, thought provoking documentary. It follows Nev Schulman's life in New York and online as he builds up a relationship with a young girl and her family via Facebook. I didn't read anything about this film before I went to see it and I am pretty grateful for that. The element of surprise and intrigue drew me into the film and kept me glued to my seat with anticipation. A light-hearted beginning that introduced you to the upbeat world of Nev and his friends and family soon took a dark turn that weaved into a story I wasn't expecting. With a whole plethora of emotions in tow, happiness, delight, fear and sadness it kept my attention throughout.

Sure, there are questions about how linear the filming process was, and I did start to question this about a week after seeing the film. But I was still thinking about the film for a long time after I actually viewed it, which speaks for itself. A good documentary should certainly get you thinking and questioning and I spent the entire train journey home talking about how I would deal with certain situations and dilemmas brought up in the film that (in my opinion) were dealt with in a graceful and sensitive nature by the filmmakers.

Facebook has quite simply changed the way my generation interact with each other and Catfish steers you to tread the path of cautiousness when starting an online relationship. I don’t want to give away anything more about this film as it may spoil your viewing pleasure. All I will say is if you use any internet social networking tools you will probably have an opinion on how and why this documentary is having such an impact on its audience.

The reason I left it a while to post my review is that this film has made it into my top ten films of 2010. A feature that will be posted in the next couple of weeks.
Catfish is on general release in the UK on 17th December 2010, let me know what you think of it...