Drive (2011) Review

Drive (2011), dir. Nicholas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, run time 100 mins, cert 18.

Ryan Gosling plays an unnamed character, referred to only as 'The Driver' in the credits, who is a part-time film stunt car driver/ part-time mechanic by day and a getaway car driver for hire by night.

He forms a close relationship with his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son, whilst her husband is in jail. However, when Standard (Oscar Isaac) gets out, The Driver gets mixed up in his criminal dealings, after a threat is made towards Irene and her son if Standard does not settle a debt. As The Driver deals with the fallout from a heist-gone-wrong, things turn gruesome and the reasons for the film's 18 certificate become very apparent.

The whole look of this film is beautiful (anyone who hasn't got the latest issue of film magazine Little White Lies should do so while they can - the magazine has based the issue's entire aesthetic around Drive), as is the soundtrack - with music from artists including Cliff Martinez, College and the Chromatics, the sound is loosely 80's techno and, whilst this seems to contradict the film at first glance, it is precisely this juxtaposition that makes it work so well.

The car chases and crashes are exciting and very well edited, so the viewer is kept interested but also gets to see all the important parts as the chase plays out. The Driver stays calm in these scenes, but shows just enough nervousness so the audience isn't sure if he'll pull it off and walk away alive.

On a couple of occasions, the violence in the film seems gratuitous and almost parodic - but when it's done properly it's gruesomely chilling. The low budget for the film meant fake blood had to be used for filming, with more digitally added in post-production, but on a whole the violence and injuries seem realistic which makes the film more shocking.

Those expecting to see Ryan Gosling in a 'romantic hero' role, similar to the one he plays in The Notebook, or (more recently) Crazy, Stupid Love, will be disappointed and most likely very shocked, but he plays The Driver very well. At first he seems withdrawn but kind towards Irene and her son, but as the story progresses a much darker side of him emerges, which Gosling deals with well. This role further demonstrates Gosling's versatility and with The Ides of March coming out at the end of October, hopefully audiences will get plenty of opportunity to show just what he can do.

Overall, Drive is a cold but beautiful look into LA's crime culture and the lengths people will go to protect the ones they love. Although sometimes a bit slow and very gory, it's worth sticking with Drive and seeing it through to the end.

(Picture by starbright31 on Flickr)

Digital Journalism 29/9/11

Today we examined different ways of utilising and organising social media/networking, as well as RSS feeds.

First, we looked at Google Reader, (www.google.co.uk/reader) which is quite useful and easy to access- you just need a google account. From there you can add RSS feeds from the websites you visit frequently (or not so frequently). It's just a simpler way to look at all the websites in one place, but you can sort it into categories if you find it easier to manage that way.

We then went onto Twitter, (www.twitter.com) looking at how to potentially increase followers, as well as finding interesting people to follow, for example through lists and followers of people we follow.

Delicious (www.delicious.com) is exciting (not to mention very useful), as it allows you to bookmark your sites in one place. Bookmarking sites on a laptop or personal computer is all very good, as long as you always use that one computer. Delicious allows you to access your bookmarked sites on whatever computer you're using, as long as it's connected to the internet. Just one username and password could save you from hours of re-searching for that really useful website you found. You can also view other people's bookmarks, in categorised lists: for example you could search 'lions' and then view websites about lions that other people have bookmarked.

Twitterfeed (www.twitterfeed.com) lets you post things you particularly find relevant from your RSS feed (for example on google reader) straight to your Twitter account. You can control this, on Google Reader there are various different categories or tags you can put your favourite pieces into and through twitterfeed control which of those goes to your Twitter.

Even though I frequently use a range of social media and networking etc, If This Then That (www.ifttt.com) is very exciting! It allows you to set certain actions to happen at certain times or when something else happens. I think perhaps the most useful bit is that you can set a certain action to happen at a certain time. For example, if you want to post a specific Tweet at 4pm every Tuesday, you can do that. Not sure how many people that would be useful for, but there seem to be a whole cavern worth of more features to explore when I have some spare time to see how I can utilise it best for me.

All these tools and new websites are good ways of managing all the information we get thrown at us every day, and quite vitally, a way to filter what we actually want to be seeing, which is personal for us. So on my Google Reader, I've got a lot of film magazines' websites, as well as the sort of news I'm interesting. It kind of reflects the people I follow on Twitter, but allows more content to be posted.

I'll probably spend some time in the near future looking at what's best for me, but maybe some of the web addresses will be forgotten by next week!