₦airaland Forum

Please, I am looking for an affordable and high standard school in yaba. A friend told me of one that is 65k per term. I've seen their website and their social media. I am not certain that it's 65k from all I see. They look more expensive with all the activities they seem to be doing. Does any know about the school. They call it Evergreen School.

One thing’s certain about this movie: it is generally thematically focused; utterly focused, even. However, while dealing with an international audience (especially American), focus and intention in one area alone is never enough, and I’ll show you how in my usual grading fashion.

Read more here: http://filmscriptic.com/black-november-cuts-cut/

OgidiOlu3:
Kunle Afolayan has always been good with suspense, it's his finishing that needs more work. He finishes off lazily. He begins with a stable plot but he spoils it with "twists" that lack depth. If he wants to know how twists are made, he should watch more of Christopher Nolan's movies. That man is a genius! I saw Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and I know why they've hailed him as the king of suspense. He cleans up perfectly.

The CEO started well with a stable plot, as usual. It was still making logical sense when we discovered that Lisa was the antagonist. That might not have been the best twist of the century but it was a decent one. It made sense, to an extent, until Kola was portrayed as the antagonist and there was not enough screen time to finish up the mess he (Kunle) had made.

See, twists are good. Very good even. It gives the audience that "ohhh", "woow" feeling but that's it. After the first impressions the audience start to think. They start finding logical meaning to the twist and start asking questions. If it defies logic or doesn't answer some basic questions, they discredit the filmmaker(s).

Your review is good but I disagree with some parts. I liked Jomo. I think he played his role well. His facial expressions were really good when he had the dialogue with Kola. He did a good portrayal of someone who felt betrayed and was under emotional torture. Don't forget that he was involved in some shady deals as shown at the beginning so you can understand why he was looking like "person wey chop shit" throughout his screen time. The part "he arises from the pool and looks around like something is about to happen, but nothing does" is the fault of the screenwriter and the director. You blame the shooter, not the gun as the gun cannot shoot by itself.

I think all the actors did well in their performances, especially Kola, except for Yasmin and Lisa. I don't know if it's the makeup or just her straight face but her expressions weren't just it for me. I didn't feel for her. I couldn't put myself in her shoes. Maybe, like you said, she wasn't given any character development and that makes it difficult for the audience (or me) to understand what she might have been going through. Lisa was acting decently until the laughable "fight scene" between herself and Kola. She couldn't even hold the knife well and she's supposed to be the one that has been killing the potential CEOs, including the fat Jomo. *laughs*.

I don't like the directing. I think this is Kunle's worst directing in recent times. There are lots of unanswered questions and goofs. I won't bother to ask the questions again because you've written some of them in your post. In the scene where they removed Jomo's body from the sea after he had drowned, one of the spectators was actually laughing (or smiling) and I just wondered if there was no editor to remove that part or they just decided to let it slide. There was also a scene at the beginning of the movie shot in France (I think?) where one character (forgotten who it was) came down from a Peugeot car at the airport and pointed to the logo of the car just to show us that Peugeot was one of the main sponsors of the movie. That was not really needed. The viewers pay attention to these details and you didn't need to point out the obvious to us just like you didn't point out AirFrance to us. It just reminds me of The Return Of Jenifa which was just an advert in disguise with the way she kept shouting the products names (lifebuoy, glo, etc) in our faces.

The cinematography was good. The lighting and the camera angles were equally good. I think Kunle Afolayan is a great director, a very brilliant one too but he needs to take time to study scripts. He should know that we Nigerians are exposed and our tastes in movies have improved. We can't accept movies that don't meet international standards. If you're a filmmaker, you need to put in extra efforts now. We don't accept mediocrity again. It's not just about the budget now. It's about story and directing now. Great movies have been made with very low budgets; Crash, Memento, Primer just to name a few. I know Kunle will only get better from here.

Lastly, if you've not seen The CEO, you're seriously missing. It is very entertaining and like you said Isedehi, that's the sole purpose movies serve.

Lalasticlala, UjSizzle, Briareos, prof800

Thanks OgidiOlu3 for taking time out to read my review and giving a detailed comment.

THE CEO MOVIE MANAGES TO LEAVE A HUGE MESS (SPOILER ALERT)

The makers of this movie are known to be twists masters to many of their Nigerian viewers, because they have always somehow managed to turn a perfectly descent scenario into something exciting and tension-filled. This brilliance in story conception and planning might be good enough for Nigerians so far, however, I think it's time to break the ice, so that the upcoming film-makers, who idolize this sole concept and do not realize that there's more, do not make the kind of mistakes that will inhibit their chances at landing prestigious distribution deals internationally in future.

There are so many things to discuss about this movie which I will manage to squeeze into the theme, the plot, the characters, the dialogue, and the pacing, and I'll be as objective and ruthless as possible.

THEME:
One thing that really worries me about this movie is the message of its entirety. In as much as I'd like to pass this off as a satire (literature about the wrongs of a society or individual), satires don't come in that many different forms, and so this couldn't possibly be one. I'm talking about the theme of "The Nature of a Sharp Nigerian Man": he's charismatic, he's flirtatious, he's philandering, he's dubious, he's stealthy, he's scheming, and by all these, he's successful in the end! Is this the message we are passing on to the youth? What kind of men are we breeding by showing these things are acceptable with no consequences? "A cheat's a cheat, I'd say" doesn't seem to stigmatize the guilty man, but only the woman. Why is Kola even the protagonist? Protagonists are people the audience can learn from; it's inadvisable to pitch him as someone people should learn from!

Yes, Kola is an interesting character because Nigerians are interesting people, but he's also inevitably one-dimensional, and doesn't really change all through the movie. He should be remorseful about his nature at some point, but when the audience gets to the point of thinking he regrets and he's changed, we see a former, original him in the end. What's worse? We find out that he's the actual antagonist. What?! This is not how stories are told; the protagonist is always one person, and the antagonist is another!

Still on the aspect of satire, the movie nails it suggesting that an average Nigerian man doesn't have as much discipline or work ethics as, say, a white South African male, however, a Nigerian man, in his corrupt ways, somehow, can find a way to outsmart him. Fantastic idea! Then again, its delivery doesn't encourage Nigerians to be more disciplined or hardworking either, as Invincible Kola gets away with everything!

Another thing that worried me but later got cleared up is the theme of the "Human Conscience". I thought the candidates didn't have enough reason to commit suicide, because not many incriminating details is given about them (or maybe the details are all shrouded in all that corporate jargons), but thank God it was clarified as murder.

Then, the idea of "Management Techniques" was kinda watered down by its talky presentation; the screenwriter telling how it's done, rather than using active demonstrations to show how it's done. More on this in the area of DIALOGUE.

Further more, the only themes that seem to work in this movie are those of "Infidelity" and "Corruption"—as the culprits seem to be duly punished for them—but that was easy, wasn't it? After all, they are just very minor characters that could be done away with easily. Even Eloise couldn't be eliminated that easily, but her husband—yet another minor character—could. My mentor once commented in one of my old scripts that this method of killing off characters is a lazy-ass writer's method.

For the record, minor characters mean minimal effect of message. In the end, it appears this movie has no real message and is therefore not valuable to many audience. 2/10

PLOT:
Just as a boss needs his subordinates to achieve his full potential in an office, so does a plot needs it's sub-plots to achieve its full story potential in a movie. At the start of the movie, I was genuinely excited as each of the characters were introduced in their various countries. Although briefly, it was just a start, but then, that was it. The next thing, they all rendezvous on a boat narrating to us their achievements in the company. This is not what I expected; when I watched the trailer, what I envisaged was an ensemble movie (multiple protagonists movie) with the private and public life of each of them explored in such a way that we see how the retirement of the former CEO takes a toll on them all. But no, we are shipped off to Inagbe Resort and the story starts there. In a nutshell, this movie has no sub-plot!

In any case, I'd like to give credit for the little character development Eloise was given; especially with the audience seeing how sick her husband is in the beginning, they feel well carried along. This also pays off as we see the resultant effect of the mishap that befell them both, but not too well as the audience tends to feel more for Eloise than the uninteresting husband who we almost forgot. Damn, that lady is fine and she can act!

Moreover, I've always loved a meaningful sex scene. This movie regrettably avoids making use of a meaningful sex scene; then comes a sex video, a plain sex video that doesn't show the facial expression of how much Eloise enjoys it, or the very wicked, inciting styles her partner uses on her; this could help the audience and Eloise's husband feel it a whole lot more, but no, that never happens..

On a more serious note, there were not many definitive plot points in this movie. A movie should have up to 12 plot points, but here, we only see about 2 or 3 clear points. Not fair enough.

A number of standalone, unrelated scenes, in the usual Nollywood fashion, occurred in this movie. One would be the night party on their arrival at Inagbe Resort; nothing progressive happens here, and Adekunle Gold's song didn't seem to shed any light on the story either. Another, specifically, would be Jomo's lone time at the pool; the audience had no idea he was being portrayed as an excellent swimmer; what we, in fact, saw was a fat man trying his luck at the pool. Then he arises from the pool and looks around like something is about to happen, but nothing does (I guess he's not much of an actor). Till we later hear about his story of being a fantastic swimmer. I wonder why Kola never appeared with a glass of wine at the pool area to make smug remarks at Jomo in the pool; that would have had a better effect in the earlier scene than Kola revealing it as small-talk in a much later, completely different and unrelated scene. 3/10

CHARACTERS:
The South African (Riikard) kills it for me: his facial expressions, the way the words roll off his tongue, almost as if he wrote his lines himself. In as much as we don't know much about him apart from how he's, somehow, on the fast-track in the corporate world, it's always a delight seeing him. He's one-dimensional, but pleasantly so. Or maybe I'm just glad someone's there to give Kola a run for his money. He's the epitome of what conflict really is. He knows his worth and confidently claims victory over others right off the bat. Even at the last 'dancing chairs' game, he takes charge of that game by being the one to fearlessly pull out the dancing chair like "game on!". I wish he was the antagonist, because he has those qualities; he would have been a well loved antagonist. Unfortunately, there are bigger issues than he that inevitably unseat him as the antagonist we all thought he was at the start of the movie.

Dr. Zimmerman, later, appears to take the lead on being the actual antagonist, especially as people start dying after losing at her game. She's unorthodox, and a freakishly weird woman. It is with her character that the movie crew proves their prowess in story telling; she's one hell of a twisted character who appears to be against everyone, but not so. She's just a freak, and I love her! She's the antagonist in the movie till we realize that she isn't. Nice stunt there.

Eloise is a fine character, who unfortunately is not fully developed. It is with her that we feel the real anxiety of the 'dancing chairs'. She makes a human connection on what tension looks and feels like, and there's no better way of establishing that than storming out of the conference room in sorrowful tears.

Who the hell is Lisa? Zimmerman's assistant? Why do the Chinese dudes not want to give her an extra day? How did she get wound up in such dirty deal? Who are even the Chinese dudes, and why are we seeing that they matter now—at the end of the movie? Why does the taser that doesn't kill Kola miraculously kill Lisa? These aren't properly clarified in the movie, and the passion and interest of the audience gets lost at this point, even after we realize the major role Lisa's been playing. Sincerely, this area looks like an afterthought that wasn't well thought out before execution. The audience isn't pleasantly surprised, and this can't get past the fact that this area was badly manipulated; poor character development on the lady and the Chinese . We know she was all nice and chummy, but somehow, the audience doesn't feel the revelation of her true character. This may also be because the finishing of the movie fails woefully, and it really does, despite the fact that Kola performs beautiful Chinese.

Also, Yasmin shouldn't have been in the cast. She's meaningless to this tale. Lest I forget, the South African's secretary at the office, who appears like she's going to be active, but who we never see again?

Although, what I'm grateful for is that there are not too many characters in this movie, and all of them can be remembered, they need character development to enable the audience place themselves in their shoes. Right now, the audience doesn't really care!

Not to forget, the story in this movie drives the character, and not the other way round. The characters do not change much, also. This is all so wrong, however, a couple of other things, thankfully, do make up for these misappropriations (not entirely though). 5/10

DIALOGUE:
Nothing annoys me about Nollywood more than these two words: TALKING HEADS. They are just everywhere in this movie: Kola and Jomo, Kola and Eloise, Kola and Yasmin, Kola and Riikard, everyone at the conference, everyone at the boat cruise, Kola and the Police, everywhere, Argh!

Yes, movies can have dialogue, but a long dialogue is most likely going to fail when there are no associating progressive or meaningful actions or beats—then it would be tagged 'talking heads'. This movie fails a lot in this aspect.

Also, the dialogue reveals too much of what should be represented in action. It's a rule of thumb in screenwriting: show, don't tell. This, alone, devalues the movie, leaving it as a Nigerian/African movie, rather than it ever hitting international screens.

Another thing that worries me is the pompous delivery of the management lessons in this movie. The intention of the movie crew might have been to make this a form of business manual, but movies are solely for entertainment. For me, a successful execution of business dialogue happens in the classic movie Wall Street (1987); it's a business movie that could pass as not—because of the human connection it makes; the jargons are there, but they are also dumbed down in other related dialogues. Yes, the management jargons in The CEO movie go hand in hand with the selected victims' backstories, however, this can be easily lost on even an average IQ who is in it for the fun. It's a brilliant idea, but isn't tactful as the audience aren't duly considered. The dialogue in this area of the movie is too on-the-nose, I'd say; too real-life (corporate-like). This is not a good thing. 5/10

PACING:
The pacing in this movie is almost just right; not much time is wasted in a number of scenes. Some of the audience remain glued to the screen all the way, though they get disappointed sometimes, and in the end, as it appears that all that suspense they'd just experienced doesn't satisfactorily pay off.

There are so many expectations of the movie, as established from the trailer and a couple of conflicts in the movie, but they aren't fully developed or taken advantage of.

This movie crew may have assimilated, to a modest extent, the art of suspense and immediacy, they, however, need to understand never to underestimate the true importance of coherence in screenwriting; Alfred Hitchcock (the Master of Suspense) wouldn't be so pleased by this movie's engineering. 6/10.

On a more general note, this movie appears to be an offset of previous movies: The Figurine, where people die mysteriously till it's discovered that there's a killer who no one ever suspected; and Phone Swap, where there's a change in itinerary (Riikard's trip), and the concept of top executives going on a retreat at a resort, pitching against one-another. Apart from all that, these aren't new concepts in international screenwriting; the least that could happen—which I believe is what this movie tries its best to achieve—is the application of a fresh and unique approach to utterly bedazzle a hungry audience. 21/50

Percentage: 42%
Grade: D


Isedehi Aigbogun (ISD)
B.A., M.A., PhD (in view), English Language, UNILAG.
International Screenwriter. Screenplay Analyst. Movie Critic.

Facebook: @IsdScreenwriter
Twitter:@IsdScreenwriter

IrradiatoR:
how was the allotted time?

There was someone who thought he finished. Later, he realized that the questions were 20,20,20,40 and not 10,10,10,20.

This is not a true test of knowledge I'd say. If you get 40%, you sure are a genius.

For me, I'm satisfied with what happened, as long as it happened with everyone.

Good luck everyone.

Hmm. I heard Jamb is starting this Saturday, and Jamb uses JKK and others for their CBT. And guess what? It's every Saturday till the end of March. E be like say this Waec thing go tey o, especially now that they don't even have a date yet. God dey.

Drawsoup:
http://www.ngscholars.net/2013/04/free-gmat-sample-practice-questions-answers-pdf-download/

Waec is not this difficult. Lol. I read somewhere that the new aptitude trend that even Gtb uses is shl. Abi na wetin dem dey call am. I wouldn't mind someone with such free and downloadable material.

ruqoyah26:
Can I go to Osun state Waec office to check

Off course, what I meant is for you to visit any waec office near you. Yaba is near me, so go to where you're close to.

Edit: also, they are particular about seeing that first blank text they sent on the 6th of February. That's the only way they'd attend to you. Hope you still have it.

Just got back from waec hrm office, Yaba. I was given my details manually. I write am for paper o. So, if you never receive your second text, please make your way there. They have the list. The man was kind enough to show me a glimpse of it, with your phone number, candidate ID, venue and time.

Hansome001:
That's why I'm asking, for those of us who are yet to receive the invite, if after this test on Saturday are we still expecting another batch?

I actually went to the yaba office on Monday because if the blank text I received. I asked this question too. The man who answered me said that it's only one date nationwide. He also said Monday was too early for complaints. When it's like Thursday, and you've not received your second text, then you should come to the office to complain.

Daninya11:
My school insist that they will send the transcript themselves to the agency.

What should I do??

Same issue with me. I did a copy if the documents I used to apply for transcripts and their response. Try to get something in place, maybe.

Dongreat:
If u hv not published any works don't bother. Final year dissertation are not award, prize or publication. Do not embarrass urself by taking unpublished work or dissertation there. Any link to Dropbox is of no use to csc. It's not a compulsory document as a frnd of mine awarded last year got no publications. Once again if u hv no work published in any national or international journal, do not bring unpublished works

If it's no use, they'll simply ignore it, not disqualify the person. No embarrassment there. Or is someone worried?

With the kind of course I want to study, I should have a number of unpublished manuscripts, which I do. If your course doesn't require it, why then are you hating on one that does?

Who says links are of no use? There was a provision for links, except you didn't even bother with it cos you have no publications. P. S Dissertations were advice to be included, always read the fine print!

PresVA:
It's unpublished, yet you included it as one of your publications. .. Anyway, I think you should go with one copy as evidence...the pages are too much..

Just my opinion. ..

Thanks. Was thinking so too. If your research projects are unpublished manuscripts and accepted and even recommended, why not any other unpublished manuscripts. I included a Web link to Dropbox. If not that Nigeria is stuck in the olden days practice of using hardcopies, why not? Or what do you think? Do I make 4 copies of my bachelor's degree project too? Pls I need an answer. Thanks

Please, I have unpublished manuscript that I included as my publications. They amount to 1,200 pages in all, minus my degree project. Am I to make 4 copies of them too? Or is it just one copy as evidence. Pls, this is giving me headache. Someone answer pls.

Please, I have unpublished manuscript that I included as my publications. They amount to 1,200 pages in all, minus my degree project. Am I to make 4 copies of them too? Or is it just one copy as evidence. Pls, this is giving me headache. Someone answer pls.