The Wild Bride (WYP, 19/11/11)

basics...
Last Saturday's stint of volunteering had me watching The Wild Bride, a tragi-comic drama from the Kneehigh production company about a young woman's experiences with her father, the devil and a princely suitor. 

brilliant...
I knew even less than I usually do when I go into a play, mainly because since I didn't choose and pay for the ticket I had done no research into the plot or company behind The Wild Bride. It's an excellent way to go into a performance, unhindered by any preconceived ideas or prejudices. As such I thoroughly enjoyed this particularly grim(m) fairytale, told in an imaginative, kinetic fashion with songs, jokes and even audience participation. The central female character was played by 3 different women at various stages of her life, and each brought new nuance to the part - Audrey Brisson's Girl was delicate, innocent and made you feel the pain when her hands were cut off; Patrycja Kujawska's Wild was a stark depiction of despair and madness that was complemented by innovative props work; and Éva Magyar's Woman showed a strong side, with enough life-taught mettle to refuse the devil. Stuart Goodwin's dual role as unfortunate Father and optimistic Prince were imbued with great humour - he and Stuart McLoughlin's Devil had the lion's share of the dialogue and narration to deliver opposite the mostly mute female trio and they were both magnetic. I particularly enjoyed Goodwin's Scottish, slightly camp Prince, and his mother, represented by an old Renaissance-style painting of a noble-woman, with arm holes for the actress behind. The humour was well balanced against the tragedy and bleak outlook for the Girl, and it stimulated an electric atmosphere in the audience. The Wild Bride ticked many boxes for me - drama, humour, music, and sheer exuberance of performance - so was an unqualified success.

but...
I was volunteering at the other side of the theatre to usual, where the view isn't great, so I didn't get to see the whole stage. It didn't impact much on my enjoyment though.

briefly...
A wild ride full of excitement and new ideas melded to a classic fairytale, simply wonderful.

Bad Monkeys (Matt Ruff, 2007)

basics...
Following the weighty Sophie's World, which took me about a month to plow through, I wanted to read something fast and funny. So I picked up Bad Monkeys, one of those books on my shelf that I bought based on the front cover, title and blurb alone. It sees Jane Charlotte narrate to a police doctor the events that led her to be arrested for murder. The story takes in her initiation and subsequent work with the Bad Monkeys, a group tasked with killing evil people with guns that shoot heart attacks...

brilliant...
Bad Monkeys is bonkers, and I loved every minute of it! The reviews on the back are not kidding when they compare the story with The Matrix - Ruff's tale is cinematic, action packed and a bit of a mind-fuck as twists pile on twists and you question everything that has gone before - before the rug is once more pulled from under your feet. I really like the way the novel evolves from a seemingly normal criminal situation, to a possible unreliable narrator who is proved to have been mistaken, and then the whole conceit of the interview is called into question... Jane Charlotte is a flawed, believable hero, but can she be trusted? Revelations about her brother and her allegiances build quickly through the final third of the book, but never once do any of the twists feel forced or implausible, considering what else has happened. This book is going to be a keeper, I intend to devour it again with the knowledge of the ending to try and properly work out just what the hell was going on.

briefly...
Bad Monkeys posed even more questions than Sophie's World, and was a great deal more exciting while it did so. Stunningly imaginative and inventive. 

Sound of Noise (2010, Leeds Town Hall)

basics...
The third and final film we saw at the International Film Festival, Sound of Noise is, like the film the previous night, difficult to describe without sounding insane. It's a Swedish crime drama, about a gang of anarchists who terrorise a city by... playing unusual pieces of music on a hospital patient, in a bank, using heavy plant machinery and on electricity powerlines. Oh and everything the group play on is rendered mute... for music-hating detective Amadeus Warnebring (Bengt Nilsson). See how hard this is to describe??

brilliant, but...

It would be a little unfair to compare Sound of Noise with Detroit Metal City as they are very different prospects, united only by an unusual approach to music and comedy and my having seen them on consecutive nights. However, Sound of Noise suffers in comparison as although it has a lot of inventive content, it takes itself far more seriously than DMC. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy Sound of Noise - I think part of my resistance is that it was a busy work week, with 3 subtitled movies one night after another... I could have done with something a bit lighter to finish the trilogy. The cast underplay the roles, keeping everything low key, not even questioning the preposterousness of the film's premise, which really helps the audience buy into the odd reality in which Warnebring and co exist. The musical compositions themselves are the movie's highlights, ingenious sequences of novel music-making that actually work as melodies. There are not enough moments of musical exhilaration though, and the characters can be frustratingly laid back.

briefly...
A weird Swedish hybrid of comedy, crime drama, musical and romance that would work better with a greater degree of knowingness.

Detroit Metal City / Detoroito Metaru Shiti (2008, Leeds Town Hall)

basics...
Our second trip in 3 consecutive days at the Town Hall's Film Festival saw us settling in for a Japanese comedy-musical about Soichi (Ken'ichi Matsuyama), a young man who dreams of singing trendy pop songs but somehow ends up lead singer for a death metal band who sing about rape, killing and gore.

brilliant...
I had no idea what to expect from this - the blurb in the Festival programme made us want to see it but didn't explain a lot - and I'm still not quite sure what it was! Whatever Detriot Metal City is it's utterly hilarious - Matsuyama is alternately adorable, gormless and, when made up as DMC lead singer Johannes Krauser II, terrifying. The plot is wacky, unpredictable and oddly touching, while the rest of the characters are either bat-shit bonkers (DMC's sadistic manager, who likes to put cigarettes out on people and likes it when the band's music get her 'wet'), a celebrity cameo (Gene Simmons of Kiss plays DMC's biggest rival for death metal icon status), or sweetly adorable (Soichi's mother, who seems oblivious to everything but knows much more than she lets on). Full of day glo pastels in Soichi's perfect world, muted soft focus in his childhood home, and black dystopian goths in the metal clubs, Detroit Metal City is a visual treat. 

but...
It could have been shorter, losing some of the running around and overlong battle in the finale. 

briefly...
An odd delight, Detroit Metal City is daft and it knows it, which just adds to the enjoyment. I've not seen anything this camp and scary since Lordi won Eurovision.

Gnarr (2010, Leeds Town Hall)

basics...
A documentary that follows comedian Jón Gnarr's entry into the Reykjavik election for mayor and his subsequent landslide victory that saw The Night Shift's Georg assume assume in 2010. Shown at the Town Hall for Leeds International Film Festival.

brilliant...
Gnarr is the funniest documentary I've seen. If I didn't already know the events depicted really happened I could easily have taken the film for a clever satire or mockumentary. Beginning low key with Gnarr addressing his web cam (looking very different to his Georg character), the movie continued in a low-key, student-project type style. There were no talking heads or voice overs, just the odd onscreen caption to identify the key players. Gnarr created the Best Party in the wake of the financial and volcanic disasters that gripped Iceland in the years before 2010, and his refreshing take on politics resonated with a public fed up with a city council they perceived as old fashioned and grid locked. The film shows Gnarr making up policies on the spot, from acquiring a polar bear for Reykjavik zoo to getting parliament drug-free by 2020, and being as surprised as everyone else at how his campaign got traction and propelled him to greater fame and power than before. As the film is made with Gnarr's total cooperation there is little critique of his progress or balance, but the whole documentary is an inspiration to people fed up with politics and is damn funny too. 

briefly...
Almost too good to be true, the story of Jón Gnarr is one that has to be seen to believed. A funnier documentary I am yet to see.

Sophie's World (Jostein Gaarder, 1991)

basics...
Sophie is a 14 year old school girl who receives a letter with a lesson on philosophy in the mail. What follows is a history of the subject told alongside a mystery that could affect Sophie's whole world - who is Hilde, and is she real?

brilliant...
This is one of those books I got as a teenager, started, and then put to one side. Catch-22 was a similar tome, and after trying a second time to get into it I gave up on that one as a bad job. Sophie's World, tackled as an adult, is a more enjoyable experience - it's far too hard going for a young reader. And to be frank, at times it had me scratching my head. The best part of the book was the bits that weren't long treatises on specific philosophers or eras, where Sophie tries to figure out a) who the hell is sending her these mysterious lessons, b) why they have picked her, c) who Hilde is, and d) whether she even exists. I enjoyed the plot for the sheer gutsiness of what Gaarder does with his young protagonist, and these parts really zipped along.

but...
Unfortunately, try as he might, Gaarder's passages on philosophy slow the book down in places. I know this is the book's raison d'etre but still. Sophie's World is not really a great book to pick up at bedtime after a hard day's work. It's a book that you have to take time to dive into and think about later. There's too much info coming all at once though and I did not keep up and take it all in as Sophie does. 

briefly...
A great idea for introducing people to philosophy, if only those lessons were as interesting and compelling as the actual plot. 

Top Boy (2011)

basics...
A four part drama set in the murky world of a London estate, complete with drug dealers, revenge killings and flat-based marijuana farms. It ain't Pride & Prejudice.

brilliant...

I liked Ashley Walters in his brief one-series stint in Hustle a few years ago, and he's part of the reason I was intrigued by Top Boy, spread across 4 nights on Channel 4. The series made a change from the usual detective shows, comedies and American dramas that litter the schedules, and presented a fresh, modern take on the gang and drug culture of some of the dodgier areas of London. Populated with interesting characters who are often only involved in this culture because they see no alternative, Top Boy does little to glamourise the subject. Drug dealing is shown to be cut throat, as well as finger-chopping and chest-burning, and with very little happiness. It was inevitable that some of the characters wouldn't survive the series, but it was never clear which of them would be unlucky enough to make an early exit, and this really heightened the drama. Walters was a part of a largely unknown ensemble of young black actors, and although it's a shame that black casts are reserved for gangland crime dramas (or stereotyped Caribbean natives as in Death in Paradise), at least these characters are sympathetic and human, not mere ciphers.

but...
Ra'Nell, the adolescent who features in one of the main storylines, was a bit dull at times, and his relationship with his troubled mother could have been better explored. Some of the violence was a bit too much as well, although it needed to be to deglamourise it. 

briefly...
A gritty, devasting drama that provides excellent antidote to the Downton mania of recent months.

Bill Bailey: Dandelion Mind (York Barbican, 12/11/11)

basics...
Bill Bailey brings his unique talents to a massive theatre/shed in York, with music, slide shows and plenty of laughs.

brilliant...
I'm so pleased that I've got to see Bill Bailey live as he's one of those comedians I can watch again and again, who is not offensive but has a satirical edge, whose comedy comes from a place of intelligence as well as the absurd, and who brings something fresh to the usual stand up routines - namely a gift for musical instruments. At this gig Bill played guitars of many varieties, the keyboard, French horns (including one that was unexpectedly flat, causing Bill to fall about laughing himself), and a Persian curiosity called an Oud - a half-onion looking thing that is not a bad guy from Doctor Who. From musings on the current state of 'Broken Britain' to slides showing paintings of Doubting Thomas and the wounds of Christ, from a French version of Gary Numan's Cars to a film about self scan supermarket checkouts there was never a dull moment and by the end of the evening I'd laughed myself hoarse. 

briefly...
Absurd, musical, intelligent, hilarious. A top night out.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

basics...
The Twilight series finally kicks it up a notch and gets *gasp* exciting! The Cullen clan of good vamps teams up with Jacob's wolf pack (introduced in New Moon) to take on some evil vamps who are intent on destroying Bella - not because she's a petulant miserabilist, but because she helped kill bad ass Victoria's beau in the original movie.

brilliant...
With the third movie the series can rightly start to call itself a 'saga' as plotlines from the first movie come back to bite everyone in the ass here. Whether it's a change of director or a stronger plot Eclipse is much more enjoyable and thrilling than the preceding films. Bella is not quite so irritating, while Robert Pattinson is afforded the opportunity to breath life and personality into his gloomy Edward. Taylor Lautner spends about 80% of his screen time with no shirt, never a bad thing, and the script is playful enough to reference this. The best scene sees Edward and Jacob chatting in a tent over Bella's sleeping body - rather than butting heads they bring some warmth and humour to the characters that improves them both immensely. While Bella's friends (including the ever wonderful Anna Kendrick) are sidelined, we get to see more of the Cullen family, particularly Edward's 'sister' Alice (Ashley Greene) one of the few to be given personality and a winning smile. The movie explores Bella's wish to be turned into a vampire by Edward to be with him forever and how that would be selfish to her family and friends, but she ultimately decides she wants to do it anyway. These more complex issues could have been explored in more depth but at least add more adult subject matter to a slightly neutered 12-certificate vampire flick.

but...
I've said it twice before and I'll say it again: Bella Swan is a rubbish protagonist. She has few redeeming or even interesting qualities, just a selfish desire to be with a vampire she's known not all that long. What Jacob and Edward see in her is a mystery, although Kristen Stewart does do a better job with the character third time round (or the script does). There are still odd moments that don't make much sense, like why vampires shatter like glass rather than exploding in a gore fest as in True Blood, and why the climactic face-off between vamps, wolves and vamps didn't result in any fatalities on the good guys' side. I think the death of a Cullen or a pack member would have brought some extra emotional weight and showed that the fight wasn't too easy. I know Jacob got his bones crushed but we know he'll be ok, there're another 2 films to come.

briefly...
It would be too easy to say that the third film 'Eclipses' the first two, but it would also be accurate. Twilight finally becomes a series worth (some of) the fuss.

Paul Merton's Silent Clowns (Leeds Town Hall, 09/11/11)

basics...
Earlier in the year Paul Merton's documentary about the Birth of Hollywood opened my eyes to tales of early movie making that I knew little about. Impressed with Merton's knowledge and approach I was delighted to come across his Silent Clowns, which was on as part of the Leeds International Film Festival.

brilliant...
In the magnificent setting of Leeds Town Hall, Merton introduced 4 silent film extracts, a Laurel & Hardy short and the feature length Harold Lloyd movie, Safety Last!, all accompanied by a live pianist and musicians. The whole evening was an unqualified success, with the biggest surprise for me being how much I enjoyed all of the films, particularly the final one. In the first part of the 'show', Merton introduced the concept of silent movies and gave potted histories of some of the stars before showing clips from: It's a Gift (1923) with Snub Pollard; Get Out 'n' Get Under (1920) with Harold Lloyd; The Pawnshop (1916) with Charlie Chaplin; and Seven Chances (1925) with Buster Keaton. I've not seen any silent cinema before, aside from a couple of Shakespeare shorts when at uni, and I've only seen Chaplin's The Great Dictator, a much later talkie. From the clips I saw I certainly can't wait to see more Chaplin and Keaton - Seven Chances was a breath-taking delight featuring special effects and stunts that hold up against anything in today's cinema. 

The Laurel & Hardy short Big Business (1929) rounded off part one of the evening. In it the comedy duo are selling Christmas trees in Beverly Hills, but soon the whole thing descends into chaos as Stan and Oliver trash an unresponsive customer's house, while he pulls apart their car. I enjoyed the short, but I would have to say that the comedy of Laurel & Hardy doesn't seem to have aged as well as some of their contemporaries.

The second act was devoted to Safety Last! from 1923. The live music accompanying this and all of the previous extracts was first rate, adding to the experience and not once being distracting. In fact I forgot the musicians were there, which I suppose is a complement to how well integrated what they were doing was with the action on the big screen. The whole audience laughed along with Lloyd's hapless character, who was trying to make it big in the city and embellishing his successes to his sweetheart back home. When she turns up to surprise him it leads to new comedy heights - literally in the case of the extended final sequence, which features Lloyd climbing the outside of the building in which he works in order to draw the crowds. On the way up he faces angry dogs, men with guns and frisky pigeons... it all adds up to a funny and ultimately thrilling piece of filmmaking - as I heard one audience member say, he was tense during the scenes of the climb as Lloyd balanced precariously off a clock face, and I could agree with this. The tension was always released with a laugh, and not a cheap one either, generally the humour is physical (there's no words beyond occasional caption remember!) yet sophisticated. Lloyd is a truly gifted comedian, and on the basis of Safety Last! I intend to search out more of his prodigous output. The whole evening left me with the widest grin on my face, having given my chuckle muscles a thorough work out. 

but...
The only thing that was a bit of a let down on the night was that Merton's input was all too brief. I would have liked to hear him talk more about the early Hollywood era. In the end though, the movies spoke for themselves.

briefly...
A magical evening of comedy, with films that felt as fresh as they were 80+ years ago when first shown. Will today's blockbusters have the same longevity one wonders?

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

basics...
A second viewing of Singin' in the Rain for me, and it's just as fun and frivolous. Set in the twenties at the time of silent movies giving way to talkies, this musical sees Gene Kelly's film star fall for Debbie Reynold's young aspiring actress. Together with mate Donald O'Connor they cook up a scheme to replace Jean Hagen's voice with Reynold's as the former leading lady has a screech that's only suitable for silent film.

brilliant...
Some musical plots are a bit inconsequential, but Singin' in the Rain has a real humdinger of a premise, with a fantastic old Hollywood setting that gels well with the Technicolor MGM musical style of the 1950's. All involved are a delight to watch, Kelly and O'Connor show off some spectacular dance sequence, including the famous title song and the non-stop pratfall masterclass that is Make 'Em Laugh. Jean Hagen is particularly excellent, and I really liked the conceit at the beginning of the movie where she doesn't speak until just the right moment, her nasal twang like nails down a blackboard - she's a monstrous creation and really the unsung star of the show (although she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar, she's not one of the big names on the DVD box), as she remains likable despite her manipulative ways. I felt some sympathy with her as no one told her that her career was going to end as the talkies came in, a fate that befell many real actors of that time. It's true that overall some of the numbers are more forgettable than others, and except for Hairspray, that's true of any movie musical. The whole is an infectious, joyous celebration of old Hollywood glitz and glamour, with lashings of fantasy and sugar. 

briefly...
A witty, fizzy confection that draws on fascinating real life Hollywood events and recycles old songs to create a wonderfully fun movie.

Fry's Planet Word (2011)

basics...
A documentary about words - their origins, power, uses and abuses - presented by the National Treasure (TM) Stephen Fry. Like an extended offshoot of QI without Alan Davies, but with Brian Blessed, David Tennant and a lady with tourrette's instead. 

brilliant...
An absolutely splendid and incredibly entertaining series, Fry's Planet Word is one of those documentaries I would happily watch again, and there aren't too many of those - I prefer to get my information fixes from non-fiction books. Fry is such a reliable and exciting proponent of words, both written and spoken, and neither - the show takes in other languages such as sign and that of primates. Trekking around the globe, Fry focussed each programme on a specific aspect of language and did a thoroughly good job of exploring almost everything one could ask for in the space of an hour. The episode on language as power, with particular focus on swearing was a lot of fun, and I learnt a lot too. This episode is responsible for some hilarious intereaction with Brian Blessed, as the youtube clip below illustrates. It helps that Fry is so passionate and can call on many celebrity friends to assist in the documentary alongside eminent language experts. There was nothing about this series I didn't enjoy.

bollocks!

briefly...
Informative, thought-provoking and a whole lot of fun, if only all documentaries were this enjoyable.

Scott Pilgrim (Bryan Lee O'Malley, 2004-2010)

basics...
Andrew and I both polished off the 6 Scott Pilgrim graphic novels within a week. The series on which the awesome Edgar Wright movie is based, the books are: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (2004), SP vs. the World (2005), SP & the Infinite Sadness (2006), SP Gets it Together (2007), SP vs. the Universe (2009), and SP's Finest Hour (2010).

bitchin'...
It's hard having watched the movie first to separate the abiding memory of how completely fantastic the film is from the written experience. It's especially hard since whole lines of dialogue, plot points and even graphic panels are copied verbatim to the movie medium - this serves to remind me how brilliant the film is and took something away from my enjoyment of the books. I think I enjoyed the bits I knew more than the 'new' bits sometimes! Obviously, over 6 books there's a lot more backstory for Scott and his extended family of friends, and there's more meat on the relationship with Ramona, although she is still a bit of a cold fish. Each book builds to a fight with one (or two) of Ramona's evil exes and we see a little more of each of them. Knives Chau remains one of the best characters in the weird Pilgrim universe, closely followed by Scott's gay roommate Wallace who disappears a bit in later volumes. There weren't as many pop culture and video game references across the pages as I would have expected, although there was plenty of unexplained phenomena, such as Scott's fighting abilities and Gideon's weird omniscience. Ultimately, I felt that as a massive fan of the movie, the books act as an interesting added extra, providing more background and a slightly different overall flavour that probably would have had more impact on me had I read them first.

briefly...
An interesting look at how Scott Pilgrim came to be, and ultimately came to be made into one of the best comic book / computer game movies of the last decade/ever! The series reads like storyboards for the film, which is no bad thing.

Paint it White (WYP, 25/10/11)

basics...
Volunteering at the Playhouse has afforded me the chance to see a few plays I wouldn't normally have chosen for myself. Last time I was there I saw Paint it White, a piece about one man's love of Leeds United, from the 1960's to the present day, taking in all of the highs and lows and everything in between.

brilliant...
From a performance point of view, the 4 actors were very good. The youngest was particularly interesting as he was cute and had more varied parts to play, from a dim soccer fan to a camp Trisha TV alumnus. Some of it was quite funny. The trouble was...

but...
... I do not like football, and I have no interest in Leeds United. The audience, some in their football tops and clearly enjoying a rare excursion to the theatre, loved the show. Maybe if I had understood the references, the name checks and shared the experiences of following a sports team I would have had more fun. As it was I felt alienated, particularly at two borderline-homophobic comments. It was nice to see local Leeds landmarks name-checked, but that was as accessible as this got. I just couldn't understand the central character's obsession with this team or any team really. There's much more to life than football, and this guy bordered on the crazy, allowing football to ruin his relationships and dictate his working practices. 

briefly...
As a football-phobic snob, I wasn't really the target audience for Paint it White, so it's unsurprising that it didn't win me over. 

Spooks: Series 10 (2011)

basics...
One of the best British drama series of the last decade came to an end last month with a 6 episode arc that brought Harry (Peter Firth) and Ruth (Nicola Walker) to the fore alongside a tale of cold war espionage and divided loyalties.

brilliant...
I can't believe it's all over - the consistently awesome Spooks is no more. What an ending though! New characters Erin (Lara Pulver) and Callum (Geoffrey Streatfeild) barely made an impression, and hot returning spies Dimitri (Max Brown) and the unfortunate Tariq (Shazad Latif) didn't fair much better, but that was by-the-by as the real emotional meat of the series was carried by Harry and Ruth, whose long-running, steadily simmering relationship reached an inevitably tragic resolution. Firth and Walker are the real champions of Spooks, investing so much warmth into characters who could have been all too cold - they crack jokes in moments of crisis, they feel the hard decisions deep inside, but they keep giving and spying for their country because they know of nothing else to do. The central Russian spy thread this series provided multiple twists, turns and double crosses, and was never less than gripping. It was good to see Jonathan Hyde, of Jumanji, Titanic and Richie Rich fame, back on the screen, his Russian cuckold quietly brilliant up against cold Elena (Alice Krige) and fiery Sasha (Tom Weston-Jones, who will forever be the man who kept Harry and Ruth from finding happiness). Simon Russell Beale's Home Secretary brought a pleasingly light-hearted approach to the role, anchoring some of Spooks' more serious tendencies. Alongside the over-arching story were the usual tales of terrorism and hi-tech espionage, slickly produced, with great London location work and imaginative story twists that kept me guessing all through. A fitting finale to an accomplished series.

but...
Some minor character issues aside (I would rather have had Sophia Myles' Beth return than have to muster up interest in Erin), the main downside of Series 10 is the brevity of the 6 episode season and the fact its the final one.

briefly...
Smart, slick, sexy, Spooks. There's not been anything to match the thrills and spills since it began. 

Eyes Wide Open (2009)

basics...

How is it 10th November already? It's ages since I've posted, seem to have been so busy. And so it's a while since I saw Eyes Wide Open, an Israeli drama about a couple of Orthodox Jews who get up to some pretty unorthodox shenanigans in a butcher's job...

brilliant...
So this was my first Israel-produced movie, although I've seen a few dramas and animations about the country. This one differs as it has not a jot to do with any Israel-Palestine strife and centres on a purely emotional relationship between a married butcher and a mysterious young Jew who drops by his shop one day and turns his life around. Naturally the elders of the parish (does Judaism have parishes??) have a little to say about this, and the butchers wife is none too pleased. Told with minimal (Hebrew) dialogue and many pained looks, Eyes Wide Open is a touching little movie with many telling moments. It doesn't shout about the homosexuality of it's two leads, so much goes unsaid, in looks and subtexts. There are few locations - most of the 'action' takes place in the shop, the flat above and Aaron's family home, although there's a curiously sexually tense scene during a ritual bath that moves the relationship on a level. The smallness of the film works to its credit, and illustrates a novel take on the typical doomed gay romance - you know there's not going to be a happy ending for the pair but you still want Aaron (Zohar Strauss) to prolong the happiness he has found. Especially since Ezri (Ran Danker) is quite a cutie.

but...
I suppose at times the drama can be a little too slow moving. And it would really have been nice to have a glimmer of hope in the conclusion, although it's by no means a crushing downer.

briefly...
A well acted romance with an interesting social setting, Eyes Wide Open is a credible addition to the gay genre and to romances in general.