As far as ways to make people believe you're not racist, starting a sentence with the words "I'm not racist or anything but..." is not the best.
And so it was, sat at a desk doing the most mind numbingly dull work imaginable, that one of my colleagues began talking to the person next to her...great...i thought, another "they took our jobs" (see south park season 8, episode 6.) rant. Not so. A list of moderately offensive, not massively so, but still, a bit racist jokes, that either a) she was looking at on the internet or b) had been emailed...at work. And now I think that perhaps I'm not one to preach, as I didn't, as politely as possible, turn around and ask her to "please shut the f**k up" (at work, so having to censor slightly!).
Moving on, or rather, back, Wednesday night was a busy busy one. Almost a full three months after being given a home-brew kit, and after much procrastination (which, as a wise ladyonces told me "is the mother of all f**kups") I finally got round to bottling the stuff up, which took a fair old while, I tasted a bit, and it tasted like, well, bitter that isn't quite ready, which bodes well. Only two weeks and I can start drinking the stuff properly!
Haggis? Haggis. I had some in the fridge that need using that very night, and as I'd been making pizza bases before bottling my beer up, I thought, why not? As it turns out, haggis pizza is very very tasty indeed, not one for the purists in either camp, but I don't care, it made my mouth and belly rather happy.
Hopefully within the next week or so I'll have another couple of reviews up, one of which I've been meaning to do for 6 weeks...talk about procrastinating!
Finally, Shutter Island, that was a bit good.
Showing posts with label Films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Films. Show all posts
2.3.10
Why, Peter? Why
I recently re-read Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, by no means a work of ground breaking literary genius, but certainly a very enjoyable novel. Curious what Peter Jackson made of the source material, me and the Mrs went to see it last Wednesday.
Big Mistake.
Peter Jackson certainly has a proven track record of adapting novels to the big screen, and in Heavenly Creatures, he created another world, apart from reality, much like the ‘in-between’ featured in The Lovely Bones, so understandably, I had not prepared myself for just how awful this film was.
The most fundamental problem here is a complete and utter misunderstanding of the book, which is about the effect that the death of a 14 year old girl has on her family and friends, and their relationships with each other, something that is barely touched on in the film.
“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence” narrates Susie Salmon, the murdered girl, towards the end of the film (as she does in the book), but here, it makes little sense.
The film instead, focuses on Susie’s father trying to find proof her murderer is a man living just down the road from them. As, from the moment of her death, you are made fully aware of the identity of Susie’s killer, there is no tension, or surprise.
The film was given a 12A certificate, and was obviously written, filmed and edited in order the get it’s largest possibly audience, turning it into a family film, a detective story, neither of which it should have been, the rape and murder of a young girl is hardly family film material, so much so, that the rape is never mentioned.
Susie’s ‘in-between’ is so overly stylised that it hurt my eyes, all fluffy CGI nonsense. There’s a cloying sentimentality running throughout, you know, the kind that makes you wretch.
Peter Jackson, what happened?
Big Mistake.
Peter Jackson certainly has a proven track record of adapting novels to the big screen, and in Heavenly Creatures, he created another world, apart from reality, much like the ‘in-between’ featured in The Lovely Bones, so understandably, I had not prepared myself for just how awful this film was.
The most fundamental problem here is a complete and utter misunderstanding of the book, which is about the effect that the death of a 14 year old girl has on her family and friends, and their relationships with each other, something that is barely touched on in the film.
“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence” narrates Susie Salmon, the murdered girl, towards the end of the film (as she does in the book), but here, it makes little sense.
The film instead, focuses on Susie’s father trying to find proof her murderer is a man living just down the road from them. As, from the moment of her death, you are made fully aware of the identity of Susie’s killer, there is no tension, or surprise.
The film was given a 12A certificate, and was obviously written, filmed and edited in order the get it’s largest possibly audience, turning it into a family film, a detective story, neither of which it should have been, the rape and murder of a young girl is hardly family film material, so much so, that the rape is never mentioned.
Susie’s ‘in-between’ is so overly stylised that it hurt my eyes, all fluffy CGI nonsense. There’s a cloying sentimentality running throughout, you know, the kind that makes you wretch.
Peter Jackson, what happened?
22.2.10
Can you get drunk by eating waffles?
MICMACS is a strange little film, but then what else would you expect from the director of Amélie, and uh, Alien Resurrection (understandable that they left that off the posters).
Bazil (played by French comic Dany Boon) is a young boy when his father is killed by a landmine in the Sahara. 20 or so years later working in a video store, a stray bullet from a gun fight outside the shop lodges itself in his brain. Doctors decide (with the aid of a coin toss) not to operate, as this would have left him in a vegetative state. Doing so however, means that Bazil could drop dead at any moment. After leaving the hospital, Bazil finds himself both homeless and jobless.
He eventually falls in with a group of scrap-merchants, who include a human-cannonball, a contortionist and a man who rarely talks in anything but clichés. When collecting scrap metal, Bazil happens across the offices of two arms manufacturers, one of whom made the landmine that killed his father, and the other, the bullet lodged in his brain. With the help of his new family, he decides to take them both down.
It’s rare that I find myself out of bed, let alone out of the house at 10am on a Sunday, but the preview screening of this managed to get me out of both, despite the rather inclement weather and a stonking headache. It’s an immensely enjoyable, inventive and beautifully shot film, not quite as good as Amélie, but then Jean-Pierre Jeunet set the bar pretty high with that film. I think I may well be casting my eye over his previous work again soon.
Bazil (played by French comic Dany Boon) is a young boy when his father is killed by a landmine in the Sahara. 20 or so years later working in a video store, a stray bullet from a gun fight outside the shop lodges itself in his brain. Doctors decide (with the aid of a coin toss) not to operate, as this would have left him in a vegetative state. Doing so however, means that Bazil could drop dead at any moment. After leaving the hospital, Bazil finds himself both homeless and jobless.
He eventually falls in with a group of scrap-merchants, who include a human-cannonball, a contortionist and a man who rarely talks in anything but clichés. When collecting scrap metal, Bazil happens across the offices of two arms manufacturers, one of whom made the landmine that killed his father, and the other, the bullet lodged in his brain. With the help of his new family, he decides to take them both down.
It’s rare that I find myself out of bed, let alone out of the house at 10am on a Sunday, but the preview screening of this managed to get me out of both, despite the rather inclement weather and a stonking headache. It’s an immensely enjoyable, inventive and beautifully shot film, not quite as good as Amélie, but then Jean-Pierre Jeunet set the bar pretty high with that film. I think I may well be casting my eye over his previous work again soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)