Film Review: Chalet Girl

19 year-old Kim Matthews was a British skateboarding prodigy with a bright future ahead of her. Suddenly her mother dies in a car accident and her skateboarding dreams comes to an end. Fast-forward two years and she is working in ‘Chicken Cottage’ and struggling to help her depressed dad (comedian Bill Bailey) pay the bills.

By the type of luck only found in films, she manages to get a job as a chalet girl, cooking and cleaning in a private, super-expensive ski resort for a rich family who only come in the ski season.

At first, it is a nightmare with her co-worker, the glamorous Georgie (played by St Trinian’s Tamsin Egerton), making it very clear that she does not belong in this world. Kim can’t even ski so the main plus of the job is wasted on her. But she soon gets a snowboard, a teacher and finds a love for snowboarding.



But what most people in the audience really care about is the person playing her love interest, Jonny (Ed Westwick) also known as Chuck from Gossip Girl.

Westwick plays the rich son of the family who own the chalet and he proves that he can be another character other than Chuck and still makes girls swoon – especially with his natural British accent.

Unfortunately Westwick and Jones don’t fully connect as a couple but they have just enough chemistry to make the film work.

The family that own the chalet provide quite a few laughs with Bill Nighey injecting some comedic lines. Brook Sheilds is the perfect rags to riches mum who desperately wants her son to marry a society girl, Sophia Bush aka Brooke Davies from One Tree Hill.

The best part of the film has to be the snowboarding and all the shots of the mountains. A lovely scene with the yeti does a great job in making you wish you could go on a ski holiday and live that sort of lifestyle.

All in all, a nice feel good British film that doesn’t quite do enough to make you connect to the story. But it has shown that there is a lot of upcoming British talent that we need to keep our eye on. I recommend this to anyone who liked Whip It or Blue Crush.

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Published: www.wirebournemouth.com

Article - MTV or RTV?

So MTV is looking for 16-24 year olds who might be considering abortion and want to share their experience with the world! Their Tweet was as follows:

mtvuk Are you pregnant, 16-24 and considering an abortion? Are you willing to share your experience? Contact mtvstories@mtvne.com in confidence

Why?

I’m guessing that the success of the MTV show 16& Pregnant (which has now been picked up by LivingTV) has led to the producers wanting to take this type of reality show to the next level.

But this is MTV…. MUSIC Television! Do the producers even remember this?



Probably not seeing as the new MTV logo has got rid of the ‘music television’ that was always written underneath it. MTV is only known now for its reality shows. Starting in the late 90’s reality shows steadily started to take over from the music videos. We’ve seen shows like The Osbournes, Jackass, Punk, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, The Ashlee Simpson show and 8th & Ocean.

And let’s not forget the gems such as South Park, Cribs, Pimp My Ride, Laguna Beach, NEXT, My Super Sweet 16, Viva La Bam, The Hills, The City and the controversial Jersey Shore. The list of shows that have nothing to do with music are endless.

If it wasn’t for death of stars such as Micheal Jackson and the Video Music Awards, you would be completely right think that MTV no longer has any involvement in the music world. There are sister channels such as MTV Base and MTV hits that still provide music but I think I’m not the only one who would like to see MTV go back to what it used to be.

Somehow I doubt this will ever happen! Oh well, we have a show about teen abortions to look forward to. Who needs music eh?

As I write, Gossip Girl is being shown on the channel and a quite look at the line up for the rest of the day shows that the only show that will even feature music is the dance contest ‘America’s Next Best Dance Crew’.

I suggest the logo should be changed again. In fact, let’s have a whole revamp and call it RTV, Reality Television. Maybe that way someone can just start MTV again and so it can do what it was originally created for no so long ago!

 

Published: www.thenewcurrent.com