Phew – got into work, couple of minutes to catch my breath before the day starts in earnest.
Had a big shock last night – our bathroom mirror fell off the wall, and (sort of) shattered on the floor. It’s a substational affair – 60x80cm, so made quite a crash! Actually it had some amazingly strong plastic backing, which kept all the shards together, apart from some small fragments which had flown off. Fortunately we were all in bed at the time, but it took a chuck out of the loo seat on it’s way down, and ended up just where we put Ben on the floor when he’s getting ready for a bath. Doesn’t bear thinking about. Probably the most extraordinary thing about it was that Ben didn’t even stir!! When that’s boy’s asleep, wow, he can sleep (bit like his father, I guess).
Depressingly my weight is going the wrong way – up to 82kg yesterday evening, although we had just had a huge meal.
Quickie – found out that the next Star Wars film is titled Revenge of the Sith. It is my opinion that the titles of the three prequels have failed to inspire, but I haven’t really thought about coming up with anything better, so I guess I shouldn’t say too much. Anyway, May next year (2005) is still the magic date.
Well, it’s official – I am now Dr Handley. Got my bit of paper on Friday morning, and got to dress up in a fancy gown and hat! I know it’s all a very serious matter and all that, but it is a bit silly – doffing hats left right and centre, processing up the aisle following girls holding big wooden spoons with holes drilled in them!
Still, it’s no worse than church, I guess, with men in frocks wandering around. I went to the installation of a Canon at Ripon catherdral (yes, that’s just 1 ‘n’ in the middle – it’s a person, not a projectile weapon!), which was plain bizarre. At times the servive was deeply moving, full of rich symbolism and beautiful music, in a beautiful setting.. but at other times it was like “what is going on?” Poor chap was lead around by the hand, until finally being deposited in the stall with his name on it. Not to mention the person in full legal dress, including powdered wig, making sure it was all being done properly.
Still, I suppose it’s no more bizarre than spending hundreds of pounds to watch 22 men run around on a pitch (especially if you dress up like you’re a player!), or to being glued to people hurtle themselves round race-tracks in precision engineering rockets on wheels.
Very speedy update – our Ben got home from Cornwall with his Mum yesterday, and he’s really grown! Got himself 2 teeth too (although he already had 1 nearly out when he went down.
Also had another thought about speeding, which was one further reason for a speed limit is, of course, environmental in that the faster you go the more fuel you consume per mile (and hence the more pollution you create with current cars). Guess if we all ran on hydrogren it wouldn’t be a problem – but cars with strapped on hydrogren tanks??
I’m turning into an old cynic – two reviews on the trot where I haven’t raved about a film. But I’m getting ahead of myself… I found Signs to be quite a disappointment. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I was sort of waiting for the shocks, the chills, and the gasp at the twist at the end – none of which came, and the film was over almost as soon as it began. M. Night Shyamalan did an amazing job on Sixth Sense, a fair job on Unbreakable, but Signs – pretty average, I’d say. Not that there was anything that much wrong with it – the acting was fine, special effects (such as they were) were fine – but somehow it didn’t hit the spot for me. I don’t think I jumped or got freaked out once, and the scenes that were either pitch black or just focussed on a flashlight seemed entirely for effect and just dragged on. Maybe it’s because I was sitting in front of the fire (Summer? yeah right!) with daylight outside (long days at least), munching pizza, but the bits that you could tell were meant to be scary and suspenseful plain weren’t. As I say, not a bad film – quite watchable, believeable characters, but nothing special either.
Here I am, blogging on the train again. This time I’m on the way to my cousin Emma’s wedding, in Gt Misssenden (which is Aylesbury way – we just left Rickmansworth, where I believe PGL Head Office is, and are now at Chorleywood, home of Soul Survivor. LBC not far either). Anyway, the inspiration for this ramble is that we’re basically following the route of the Metropolitan line, so what you may say. Well, not only are we following the route – we’re using the tracks!!
I was sure that mainline trains and the tube use different gauges – but the metropolitan line is the same track as the circle, district etc, and Marylebone is a proper mainline station. I suppose it’s possible that either the circle etc. lines are different, or indeed that the Aylesbury line is different? Or maybe the power rails on the tube make it look smaller.
Was a good journey down. I started off in coach C (my reserved seat), which is right next to the smoking car, stank of smoke and was full of very loud young men & loud families. So I decided to upgrade on weekend first (only 10 quid) but actually found coach D was half-full, totally quiet, and not smokey! It’s also the quiet coach, so no phones, walkmans, beeps – bliss. I got all my work done, and had time to read the paper! Think I’ll try the same trick on the way home.
What to say about this film? Gripping it certainly is, and follows closely that special genre of disaster movies. The story, special FX, casting, and acting are great, and it manages to be a global drama and local story very well. Only once or twice is excessive artistic license taken – but more on that in a minute. Make no mistake – this is a brutal film. Not in a graphic blood-and-guts type way, but more that, throughout the film there is constant wholesale slaughter! And it’s not just the nameless millions being topped – the film seems to introduce characters, spend some time with them, give a bit of back story, build some empathy, only to have them squashed under a bus, hit by a rooF, drowned, or frozen to death! Indeed, at one point in the film I began to seriously wonder if any of the main characters were going to be alive at the end of the film! Very unusual for this type of film – I normally find I know exactly who is and isn’t going to make it, much like the poor doomed ‘new-actor-playing-an-ensign-on-an-away-mission’ in Star Trek. However, and it’s a pretty big however, this film can very close to being completely ruined but stupid ‘technical’ gaffes, and some poor directing/screen-writing. For me, the whole point of a film like this is escapism, and as soon as something happens to make you aware you’re watching a film the mood is lost. I know films like Scary Movie employ post-modern self-knowing irony, but this is not Scary Movie! I could swallow the pitch about The Storm, I choked a bit on The Instant Freeze Air Stream, but – come on guys – pay-phones which work underwater?? When the rest of the city has lost power for hours? Come to that, cellphones still working after all the power’s out? Worst of all, the New York contingent hole up in the Public Library, in a conference type room with a large open foreplace – fair enough. But then proceed to only burn books. Shame there’s not an almost endless supply of wood to burn, like chairs and study-desks, eh? And don’t bother gathering around the fire, trying to make a heat reflector from tables, etc to keep the heat in – l no, no, no – just spread yourself around the room on sofas.. careful not to get within 15 ft of the fire tho, it might warm you up. Oh yes, and no need to worry about the floor to ceiling single pane leaded windows – I’m sure there’s no benefit to stacking it full of books for insulation.. hell, no need to even bother drawing the curtains. Grrrrrr – gets my goat up – would have have added nothing to the budget to get that group make a serious attempt at survival. Arguably worse than that is the shocking depiction of time. The bulk of the film apparantly takes place over a fortnight or so, yet (apart from occasional clues in the dialog), it feels more like a few hours. You shouldn’t have to feed in lines like ‘She’s only eaten crisps and chocolate for the lasst 3 days’ to indicate that 3 days have passed since the group where shown breaking into the vending machine about 10 minutes ago! It happened lots, and each time it was a shock (so you mean that arty shot of him walking on the snow was actually 2 days hiking then?) This is perhaps a harder issue to solve, but some advance ‘time about to pass’ warning would do – like ‘We’re just north of wherever – should be another 2 days to New York’. Or even ‘Ok, we’re walking from here – shouldn’t take more than a week’. Perhaps it’s just that most people look exactly the same throughout, despite being trapped for days without food or washing facilities, in sub-zero temperatures. Even their clothes are hardly soiled! I don’t want to sound too harsh – I did enjoy it, but I think the film would have greatly benefited from a little more time thinking about how a good of kids would be affected by being stuck in their situation for a week, how you would really survive in those conditions, and how the passage of time could be made clearer. Seen at Ster Century, Leeds
Two nice suprises yesterday – firstly Blockbuster Video have got a new rental deal, whereby you can rent 3 older videos or DVDs for 7 days for 5 pounds. I guess it’s in response to operations like Lovefilm (indeed, I understand that Tesco is to do something similar). So anyway, got myself Memento, Enemy at the Gates, and Signs. Just watched Memento – very odd (but rather good) film. Didn’t dare watch Signs – might watch it on Sunday afternoon when it’s light!!
The second surprise was at some point in the recent past I signed up for Ben & Jerry’s Buddy Club. As “one of the first members” they also sent me a voucher for a free tub of ice-cream (consumed watching aforementioned film – New York Super Fudge Crunch), although there’s a whole story behind actually getting the thing from Asda. Perhaps another day.
There seems to be a bit of an Emmanuelle Beart renaiscance going on at the moment. Saw in Blockbusters that Nelly and Mr Arnaud is being re-released, and her new film Nathalie was being plugged in today’s Metro.
If you’ve only seen her in Mission Impossible then you may wonder what the big deal is – I think M.I. did justice to neither her acting ability or beauty, compared with, say, En Coeur en Hiver, or Manon des Sources. Nelly is a great film – might even watch it again – and I’m certainly going to keep an eye out for Nathalie (funnily enough also the name – with that spelling – of a girl I once fancied when I was young, free, and single).
