Film: did I like lit, did I not?
The first half was okay- some interesting sub-plots; the boy’s relationship with the magic-man was interesting, his unbreakable ties with his roots were too. I loved the idea of hiding in the water tower, there were some gems in this film.
It was shot in an almost hyper-reality CGI style, with overblown overacting and shallow sentimental stuff dripping everywhere.

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.