Heavy rains & light suns
Film: the story of a diamond smuggler in Africa. At times compelling, at others cringe-some, clichéd and often peppered with an enormous body count. The scenery was stunning and Djimon Hounsoue’s acting was unflinching. Di Caprio was given the corniest lines which threw me in towards the end. Overall I would not recommend this film.
Clint Eastwood again, he’s on familiar ground with this one- vigilante, old damaged soldier in his last days struggling with a world that has moved on. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with an immigrant lad in a neighbourhood blighted by gangs. Fairly normal stuff for films of this genre, but there is an interesting relationship growing with cantankerous jousting. I kept going with the thread about soldiers living with ugly memories from war. I’ve always wondered how they do that.
I liked it enough.
Wind howling down the chimney, I can see rain out there.
RottenTomatoes, they cover much of what’s to be said about this. My impression? Violent, reasonably well shot, long, but I missed a character that I could like. Perhaps there was one or two, but even so, the lead men left me wishing something bad would happen to them. But hold on, something does!
Now for some peaceful gardening- A peony, and 4 others in a bag that means I can’t remember which is which. Each is just a muddy rootball wrapped in plastic. I dunno.
11°C, sunny bits, few wet bits.
This film had something in common with The Matrix; I started with much hope and left feeling cheated, annoyed and hating it. The lead character was fine but she threw the others into sharp contrast with their terrible over-acting. Was there some kind of competition to fill the film with every cliché of the genre? The scene with the emotional pleading in pouring rain on the bridge in London would have seen me leave the cinema had I been in one. the last time I felt such loathing for a film was The Matrix, shallow stereotypical characters, absurd but easily predictable plot.
Avoid.
4°C, grey, with traces of fog.
Running a trial of the newest Norton Internet Security suite. Nothing had changed over the years- it still slows the laptop down appallingly. At this rate, my patience will run out before the trial does, so will remove it.
+5C, same fog.
Tilda Swinton plays a slightly different role in Julia. I liked this one, despite the rather frantic endless feeling of peril. Go and see it.
Chronic Tendonitis: says the doctor. It’s worse right now, because, I think, I have a cold. I mean that there is a repeated coincidence where aching tendons occur when I have a cold. Is there a link? Does the virus attack membranes in joints at the same time as all that action in the nose & throat?
The doctor didn’t think so, but I will still look out for and studies on this. You have ot be careful about this sort of thing because as human nature- we are prone to look for patterns, sometimes where none exist.
12°C, rain;
Film: Helen, An enigmatic film about the disappearance of a young girl. Shot with full use of wide-screen format, Tarkovsky’s reach has made it here, but with vivid colour and contemporary 20thC townscapes. The dialogue is measure, understated and full of space.
I’m not sure what happened but perhaps sleeping on it would help, or maybe another viewing.
I can imagine many people hating this one. Some actors seemed a bit stilted delivering their dialogue, perhaps the slow measure style didn’t always suit their voice- we all have a natural pace in our speech & the director needed to actors who speak slowly. On the other hand, some people do speak in an awkward way, people who are not destined to have a career in broadcasting or performance.
See Guardian’s review HERE
13°C, cloudy and dark grey
This new house is all clean and white, no dust anywhere.
I’ve left thoughts unblogged recently, and now I find Microsoft are offloading their blog service here.
I don’t mind this; here things look a bit more grown-up to me.
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.
The second half was absurd in my view. It looked as if they thought up three alternative endings and decided “to hell with it, we’ll put them all in”.
The comic-book acting wore me down by the second half; I’d had enough by then and couldn’t wait for it to end, even at this point, after that feeling had sunk in, we were subjected to three endings in sequence.
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.
Micycle 