Yesterday: Foggy commute to work. About 1/4 of cars drove in thick fog without lights on. On a bike, that makes it difficult to see them- especially since most cars are grey fog coloured. It just takes a lot longer to look and make out what traffic is around. Only about 1/10th of drivers put for lights on. they’re not really in a state to drive, I’d say.
Babel: Excellent film I thought. Three stories, connected at great distances by connecting threads. Each would have been an interesting short in its own right.

Film: Inception, a sort of Matrix/Bourne Identity cross-breed. Yes, I hated this film, it was full of computer game values: kill baddies, plant an explosive device and get to the next level. It wasn’t just that the film contained a car chase, the usual signifier of a hateful film, it wasn’t just that there was endless shooting and ludicrous fireball explosions. On that, why would a hand-held explosive timer attached to concrete produce a fireball of burning liquid fuel?
As is the trend in recent times, it was three hours long, relentlessly noisy and lacking depth of characters. About normal for a film aimed at teenage lads then. There were twists of plot & layers of meaning but I didn’t care. You do have to care to want to follow a story, some may feel there is deep meaning in there, but that’s as illusional as the backbone of the plot itself.

Film by the same guy who did Delicatessen & Amilie. A but confusing in places, but beautifully shot- once you get used to the sepia. there was no shortage of that French humour that made the other two films so charming & wonderful.

Angelica came into flower today, probably at dawn to be exact. I was not expecting it, it has developed several bulbous burgundy growths, but I assumed new clusters of leaves would fan out of them.what an excellent plant.

District 9: a South African science-fiction film. Okay, third time lucky: I liked this one.

Rushmore: Didn’t make it through this one.

I gave it 40 mins, but I felt nothing: I’d expect a comedy to have some funny bits, this has none in my experience. This is the second film in a row that left me feeling bored. We switched off and put BBC’s Springwatch on instead.
So instead, here are some summer ducklings, this morning:

First Orchid: (think it’s an orchid anyway). Seen in Woodland Trust land.

Even it it’s not, still a nicely light picture I’d say.
Getting ready to plant that Hornbeam tree. It’s quite an effort because I want it near the Eucalyptus stump- so lots of hacking away at roots to dig the hole.

Film: The Road. post apocalyptic road film + father/son film. I can’t quite put a finger on why I was largely unmoved by this film The slow storyline isn’t a problem for me, it’s just that something was missing. Perhaps it’s the director, it just needs a bit more Tarkovsky. In other words it needed some magic that would lift it above the predictable.

Had a lie-in ’till 7am. What a treat, except it’s not. It’s not a nice thing to do, but I am with cold.

For FSX, Olenyek.

"I have been twelve for a long time": a Swedish vampire film. Normally I’d avoid this kind of thing, but not this time. Glad I didn’t too. Thanks for the recommendation Kermode and Holly.

The film was funny, romantic and peppered with that female-juvenile fascination with blood. Vampire stories hold a strong appeal for women (or maybe just girls) I am told. Apart from these thoughts, this Swedish film was made in the winter, in a sharp artificial white light. there are some warnings on teh web that suggest the subtitles are full of mistakes, some of you may have trouble with this. Cinematography had everything it needs to captivate me. Perhaps even a poor film shot this well would do it for me.Wonderful.
I like pictures.

St. George’s day: a patron saint of England. Haven’t stopped to question this before, but why has England adopted a Lebanese man who killed a non-existant animal to be it’s spiritual figurehead? Since he is associated with the red cross on a white background, it would now appear that he’s the patron saint of football hooligans here in the England.

Fishtank: Raw, sharply realistic story of a mid-teens girl finding an escape from the dreadful estates around Rodney Marshes in Essex. What impressed me, apart from the almost Mike Leigh social-realism was beauty. There were moments in the film where it was more overt than others, sometimes beauty was just a prop in a scene. there must be something in the association between ugliness and beauty that makes the contrast more stark. Dipoles I suppose.
what about the scene where Mother is putting out the laundry, holding a cigarette while hurling verbal abuse at her daughter. the light in the shirts, the flapping fabric, all white and pure. Other moments- death is close, so is fear and violence but so is the will to survive in an oddly modern setting.
At times, my heart was in my mouth.
Beautiful.