The Gadders Guide to Surviving a Cold

I thought I'd avoided it - my usual tactic of drinking more red wine, taking a couple of all-in-one capsules and a spray of First Defence up the hooter had seemed to be enough to stave off the usual post-work lurgy. However, a combination of a drop in temperature and more free time spent in the company of a cute but contagious three year old niece has conspired against me, and I've had a stinking Bank holiday cold to contend with.

Bad Points: There is nothing good about being ill during your holidays.
Reasons to be Cheerful: I don't have to set any cover or feel any guilt about missing classes. I'm on holiday!

In the spirit of focusing on the positive, here are my ten things that make rhinovirus hosting more bearable:

The first items should go straight on your shopping list if you feel that tell-tale tickle and you start sneezing all the time.

1. Tissues

Obviously. You will hugely regret it if you run out of these. Buy a shedload. Make sure they're decent quality too - nasty little flimsy ones or ones that are scratchy will drive you to violence.

2. Olbas oil 

Some people like Vicks, but I prefer to stick a few drops of this in some hot water and inhale the steam. There is a good chance that it does very little to actually heal you, but it feels nice. All the gungey backed-up sinus passages in your mucus-filled head are like windows in a Parisian apartment being thrown open on the first day of spring. (Until the water cools down and you start feeling a bit cold in your world-beneath-a-towel - then it's time to get out of there.)

3. Lip salve or Vaseline.

Because it's inevitably going to happen. All that mouthbreathing and nosewiping is going to make you into a crusty-faced space monkey. Head off the worst of the damage if you can (rather than doing what I do and chewing your dried out lips as though it isn't going to make them really sore).

4. Fruit juice

So you'd stopped buying it because did you know, people think it's good for them but it's actually really high in sugar, there's like less sugar in a bottle of Coke, a Lion bar and a massive stick of rock than there is in one of those tiny cartons you used to have in your lunchbox. Probably.

But you're ill. All diet bets are off when your immune system is at war! Get some vitamin C in your corner!

5. Soup

Some people specifically like chicken soup when they're ill. I tend to lean more towards tomato. But basically if it's hot and wet it's going to go down amazingly well. As it were.

6. Tinned Peaches

This one might just be me...when I had measles as a kid and couldn't keep much of anything down, this was the one thing that I requested. It's a bit of a family joke now that this is my ill-food. Even as an adult, I find it quite a comforting thing to eat. Sweet, really easy on a sore throat, and they contain plenty of vitamins. Peachy. As it were.

7. Hot chocolate

I can keep this in the kitchen cupboard and not touch it for months at a time, but out of the blue, when I have a cold, I get a bit obsessed with it. It's hot, it's sweet, and all of a sudden I'm not bothered by the calorie content because who needs to watch their weight when they're already a dead-eyed crusty-faced snot-zombie anyway?

8. Ginger wine and whisky

Again, this one might be just me. In fact, I'm not convinced anyone outside my family actually buys, drinks or enjoys ginger wine. Still, as far as I'm concerned, nothing helps with that flagging feeling late in the evening like a sup of Whisky Mac.

How to enjoy a Whisky Mac experience

1. Get a glass.

2. Put a shot of whisky in it.

3. Put a shot of ginger wine in it.
4. Drink it.

5. Enjoy the exciting sensations of the ginger & whisky vapour combo blowing through your sinuses and into your poor ravaged throat. Feel all warm and nice.              6. Pretend you're a dragon or something. (Note: if you have more than three, you may start to actually believe this.)                                   

One note of caution - for some reason if I drink this I like to turn my music up loud. I don't know if it has some kind of temporary ear unblocking effect, but it can upset neighbours. Forewarned is forearmed.

The last two things on the list don't involve shopping, so can be enjoyed by germ-incubators on a tight budget.

9. Hot baths

.... Jo Brand?

Usually I prefer a shower. However, when I have a cold, I can't wait to get in the bath. I like some nice bubbly stuff (that I can't smell properly) and plenty of water.

I usually find it very hard to judge the temperature when I have the lurgy. Often I'll get in and only then realise that it's nuclear. But soon it's fine...it's warm...the steam's rising, clearing my head, heating my circulation...and relax!

Sooner or later I mess it up by forgetting that, tempting as it is to splash warm water on my face, I gets cold when it starts evaporating and then the snuffling starts all over again. Then it's just a matter of time before I abandon tub. Won't be long before I want to get back in though.

10. Hibernation and Nest Management

The instinct to hunker in my bunker when I have a cold is a strong one. This makes good evolutionary sense - I want to stay away from people I could potentially infect and in a place where I can easily manage my symptoms efficiently and therefore survive. 

Also, if I'm ill my tolerance level for any kind of noise or nonsense from other humans drops through the floor. In addition I go all grey in hue and I make deeply unsexy noises when I attempt basics like respiration. 

So hibernation suddenly is a very appealing option (I prefer the term "hibernation" to alarmist terms such as "quarantine", or "infection control", for example). But it's not enough just to stay in - no no! I like to make a nest!

How to make a nest

1. Select an appropriate site. This might be a bed, or a sofa. (Clue - if you're having trouble deciding, it's a toss-up between which is most comfortable and which has the best TV).

2. Dress appropriately for the occasion. Acceptable items of clothing are dressing gowns, PJs, massive jumpers, jogging bottoms, leggings. Basically, if it doesn't allow you to effortlessly make the transition between wakefulness and dozing, it's no good to you now. Cut it loose.

3. Bring the following items to the nesting site: a) tissues; b) water; c) snacks; d) all remote controls that might feasibly be required at any point; e) DVDs that you've been waiting to watch/ laptop computer in the event that all channels are showing unwatchable daytime tat instead of Frasier as they rightfully should; f) phone; g) good book; h) duvet.

4. Arrange items within reaching distance. Sit/lie down. Cover yourself with duvet.

5. Promise yourself that you never need move again. Sigh and feel all satisfied that your hardships are over.

6. Get up 5 mins later and go to the toilet due to all the fluids you've been drinking. Put some socks on because your feet are chilly.

7. Go back to the nest. Stick on the DVD of that important and worthwhile film you've been meaning to watch for months.

8. Snooze through most of it, because ultimately, what you need more than anything else on this list to get better is some proper rest.

9. Wake up suffocating because you're too congested to sleep properly. Drink a lot of water.

10. Repeat from 4 until 9 doesn't happen, you actually get some sleep and you start feeling like a human again.

11. Reach the point where you're all like "Yeah, had a bit of a cold last week. Feel fine now though! Let's go white water rafting this weekend!"

12. Totally forget what the whole experience was like...until the next time...

Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein

In this novel, the universe's oldest man tries to kill himself. He is prevented from doing this and coaxed into telling his life story by people who realise that his vast age might make him worth talking to. So far, so sci-fi.

His life story is told in several distinct episodes, purporting to show his rugged, adventurous, exploratory nature. Certain themes emerge however that make all the stories somehow the same.

Firstly, all the characters sound like exactly like the narrator. At first this seems a little weird. After a while you accept that this is one of the limitations of the writer. Perhaps you can even explain it away as being a result of him having so many descendants. Perhaps.

Secondly, and alarmingly, it emerges that each story is based around some kind of incest which you're invited to find acceptable. Early on he frees a brother and sister slave, only to then find that they are having sex. He ponders this for a while, then decides it's fine and helps them bring up their family. Oh, and she wants him, too.

Then he rescues a child from a fire and brings her up as his daughter. When she grows up she demands that he gets her pregnant. He is quickly talked into it. Then they go off pioneering for several hundred pages together.

By the time two women have begged to bear his cloned daughters, who as they grow get included in a strange menage a huit that he's created, you think nothing could surprise you any more. Then he decides he wants to go back in time and meet his own mother...

In short, this is a complete incest-fest masquerading as a rumination on the deeper purposes of life, the universe and everything. Everyone falls in love with the main character (for reasons that totally escape me, given his rather dodgy views and attitudes) and the whole text has a loose, unfinished feel. You get the sense that Heinlein had an even bigger story in mind, so certain hints and threads remain unexplored allowing him to go into other episodes in his life in sometimes painfully slow detail. This does become part of the style of the novel (the tale is dressed up as though it's fragments of historical records) but for me this didn't quite work or convince.

Not for the squeamish, or for those who like remotely believable female characters in their fiction. 

The Men Who Stare At Goats

This film has a great cast but a massive problem - it can't decide if it believes in this stuff or not.

The premise is that Ewen McGregor, an emotionally unstable journalist, has caught on to the idea that there's a New Age psychic division of the army that operate as "Non-Lethal Weapons" and try to resolve conflict by developing their hippie sides.

So...we have Clooney (check), Bridges (check), McGregor (check), Spacey (check)...and yet some kind of a mess. The film spends half the time sending up psychic phenomena, pretending the main protagonists are burned out PTSD hippies, and the other half trying to subtlety suggest that maybe they do have all the answers. 

Bets are hedged the whole way through the film, and that leaves you with a sense of detachment...have they got powers? Are they deluded hippie soldiers? Do I care? 

Watchable (I don't think these actors could avoid being watchable) . But not as funny as it thinks it is, or as clever as it thinks it is, or as satirical as it thinks it is. Or much of anything.

Meh.

Tyrannosaur

I watched this because I'd heard it was harrowing but a great film, and also because I really like Olivia Colman, who has recently started getting the attention she deserves as an actress who brings a warmth and likeability to all her roles. Once it arrived I then avoided watching it for a week or two. Mainly because of the harrowing part.

Peter Mullan plays Joseph. Joseph is a seriously angry man spiralling out of control after the death of his wife. In the aftermath of one of his outbursts he ends up in a charity shop run by Hannah (Colman), who handles the situation by praying for him. Joseph returns the favour by an abusive outburst which upsets Hannah given the severely abusive nature of her marriage. Joseph is remorseful, Hannah needs to matter to someone, and so develops a strange friendship between the two, plausible only because of their mutual isolation and vulnerability.

1) Olivia Colman is great in it.
2) It is harrowing.
3) Not recommended as a pleasant evening's viewing if you are bothered by animal abuse, random unprovoked violence, casual racism on its way to escalating to full-time committed racism, spousal abuse, emotional abuse, child neglect, rape.

Some people have said it's uplifting in the sense that there's a glimmer of hope in Joseph by the end. I think there's a tiny bit of truth in that...this film makes you dig deep to empathise, but empathise you can, though it does test you to the very limits. Joseph is under no illusions about who he is, which just about saved him for me as a lead character. Hannah's lot seems grotesquely unfair, yet it's hard to swallow the idea that the only person she can possibly turn to (or would possibly turn to) is Joseph. The story seems to be told from the point of view of the role she has in bringing some kind of redemption to Joseph - personally speaking, I wondered where the redemption was coming from for her. 

Ultimately there are no great lessons to be drawn from this movie, other than life's shit for a lot of people because men are taking out their anger on whoever they can. I'm not sorry I've seen it, but I can't see myself ever sitting down to watch it again.

The Town

Picked this one up unashamedly on the basis that it features Jon Hamm from Mad Men :) have to say, I don't think I'd ever have heard of it otherwise.

Now then, Ben Affleck...has a mixed reputation, shall we say, and the fact that he directs this as well as stars in it may be enough to put some people off. 

The film is set in Charlestown, Boston and the main premise is that Charlestown has a long tradition of Irish-American criminality. Affleck is a bank robber, and the film begins with a heist. So far, so low-budget Heat.

Things that get you interested:

a) The gang take the bank manager hostage and then release her. One of the gang is all for doing her in (witness and so forth) but Affleck instead takes it upon himself to "keep an eye on her"...with predictable romantic developments. The inevitable tension between Sweetheart Affleck and Criminal Affleck is no surprise, but despite this the scenes in question are cleverly handled and leave you wondering exactly how this is going to play out.

b) Pete Postlethwaite in his last-but-one screen role. He's the mastermind of the operations, but as you come to realise the hold he's had over the gang - and their fathers before them - he emerges as a truly sinister figure. Memorable last scene too - the guy could act.

c) Jon Hamm - plays an FBI agent, smartly enough to let you believe that he can always get there first, right to the final scenes.

More a worth-a-watch than a must-see, but not a bad evening's entertainment.

Confetti

I don't remember there being much fuss about this when it came out, but I was intrigued by the cast first off - Robert Webb, Olivia Colman, Jessica Stevenson, Martin Freeman, Stephen Mangan...how terrible could it possibly be?

The plot is simple enough - a wedding magazine sets a competition for the most interesting themed wedding, and the film follows the couples - the naturists, the obsessively competitive tennis pros and the tone-deaf musical fans.

Well worth a watch as long as you don't object to any of the following, in my opinion:

• Robert Webb spending most of his scenes with his gentleman's apparatus on full public display
• Olivia Colman spending almost as many of her scenes with her lady-regions on full public display
• A gay couple
• Lots of stuff about weddings & wedding politics
• Lots of stuff about how weddings and the "wedding industry" are all a bit daft
• Some cheesy romantic bits

It's quite funny - chuckle rather than spit out your tea - and rather sweet in parts. My favourite characters were the gay wedding planners who in many ways had the warmest relationship of all the couples portrayed. It won't change your life or have you wanting to watch it again and again to memorise the funny bits, but it's a pleasant way to spend an evening.

The Lives of Others

This one's in German. Subtitle haters beware.


It's set in the 80s. The main character is Wiesler, an interrogator in the East German Stasi - and a good one. He's clinical, he's efficient, and he sticks to the letter of the rulebook. 


Wiesler is given an assignment of running surveillance on a playwright. Officially the reason is that he may be subversive, but Wiesler can see through this -  the official that wants the surveillance is infatuated with the playwright's actress girlfriend. The more Wiesler listens, the more he finds his assignment challenged by a growing respect for the man he is supposed to be trying to destroy.


This movie is slow paced and very much character-driven, but the unfolding situation becomes at first intriguing and finally compelling. The sense of the quiet power and threat of the regime grows steadily; no violence is ever shown, just the dawning realisation that this is a state where an individual is given no choice other than to do exactly as they are told. The characters are complex - Wiesler is both the big man and the small man, Sieland (the actress) is being corrupted but always retains some integrity, Dreyman (the playwright) is talented and respected and yet his ignorance of the surveillance makes him vulnerable. This gives the film a crucial element of unpredictability - you are never sure whether the goodness in each character will be able to transcend or be destroyed. What struck me is how beautifully weighted the ending is - no emotional scenes, but a kind of quiet justice. 


If you have the patience, I think you'll find this one satisfying.

The Castle

I actually have no idea why Lovefilm sent me this. I know I must have asked for it at some point, but I can't remember...it's interesting getting a movie that you've heard nothing whatsoever about though.


This Australian comedy is all about the Kerrigan family. They live in a house just a short distance from an airport runway, but as far as they're concerned, life couldn't be better. However, when a decision is taken to expand the airport - onto their land - the family have to fight to hang onto their home.


There's a real warmth to this film, and the family's closeness carries it through. The Kerrigans aren't the sharpest tools in the box, but a lot of the humour and sweetness comes from their blissful lack of awareness of this, and their appreciation and pride in what they have. It's not the kind of film where you're desperate to find out what happens next - more a series of amusing conversations. It's got the same quotable quality as a movie like This Is Spinal Tap or Withnail & I, but without the outrageousness or out-and-out silliness of either film (which could make it more appealing or less essential depending on your P.O.V.). For me it wasn't a classic - entertaining, gentle, big-hearted viewing nonetheless.

Trust the Man

You might think that with David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup and Maggie Gyllenhaal in the cast, this would be worth a watch.


You'd be completely wrong. It's dire.


It's a romantic comedy, but as it's neither romantic nor at any single point in the entire thing remotely point funny, it fails completely. In this kind of movie the characters do need some kind of flaws, but when the flaws make them irritating, unlikeable, whiney and childish, it becomes impossible to care. 


Clean your oven tonight instead. 

American History X

This is one of those movies that appears high up on lists of great films, but I'd always been reluctant to watch it. I knew that a) it was about a neo-Nazi - not appealing, and b) it was really violent in parts. I can stomach a bit of celluloid violence, but movies (even those considered classics) that centre around violent, unsympathetic characters just ain't my cup of tea. Hello Goodfellas.


This is extremely violent in places, but it's deftly balanced with some truly moving, touching moments. There's no question that at times the main character Derek, played brilliantly by Edward Norton, is utterly abhorrent - yet it's so even handed that, just as you are not spared from seeing him at his worst, you feel yourself cheering for him when you see him at his best. The duality within the character exposes the confusion at the heart of the far right (neatly illustrated by the scene where partying skinheads wave the American flag in front of images of Hitler, a man who thousands of Americans lost their lives trying to stop). Furthermore, the movie shows how that confusion, combined with anger and fear, leads to violence and destruction - and how that process is not confined to any one racial group.


There are so many things to admire about the way this movie has been made, I particularly liked the light-touch storytelling. In one scene Derek rants about black-on-black violence and rioting as evidence of racial inferiority, words that resonate when he becomes the victim of particularly brutal white-on-white violence. So many aspects are interesting - the black and white filming of the flashbacks (when the main character's thinking is in exactly those terms), the believable step-by-step handling of the friendship with his prison workmate, the way someone can simultaneously be powerful and powerless. 


Ultimately this is not a film about black and white, but one about humanity and inhumanity, education and blind prejudice, moral character and moral weakness, love and hate. It's fascinating, it's moving. It shares a lot in common with Tsotsi, a redemption-story film that I love, but be warned - if you found that bleak, this makes it look like Disney.

Round-up agogo

I know, I know - it's been a while. But I've been busy, and - well, it'd be nice to hear from you reader types now and then, even if you violently disagree. Especially if you do, in fact. I love the smell of arguments in the morning.

So, a recap of the last few movies:
Every Day
I quite liked this. Not sure why, but I did. It might have been Eddie Izzard as the crazy boss, but somehow I don't think so. I love Eddie to bits, but watching him act is like watching your parents explain proudly their knowledge of some recent pop sensation because they've seen them on Fern. You don't need to know about this to be good at what you do! Stop trying so excruciatingly hard to do everything.

It is relentlessly depressing, dealing as it does with themes of what life actually turns out to be, even when superficially you've got the things you're supposed to have wanted to get. Maybe that's why I like it. The ideal job? You're dealing with assholes. The perfect family? Maybe suddenly your gay teenage son doesn't fit the script you'd written for yourself as well as you thought. And ageing parents? Who knew the horrors in store? The gorgeous partner that you've been convinced is all you'll ever want? meh...


Schadenfreude fans will like it. Also borderline depressives will find some affirmation. 


American Gangster
You know that Denzel Washington? He's great, isn't he? I mean, did you ever see a film with him where you didn't think he was good? No. That's because he's a damn good actor.

American Gangster really wants to be Heat. If there's been no Heat, maybe this wouldn't seem at all like a tired re-tread, and maybe a lot of people wouldn't have been put off.


I enjoyed it. I know, like a lot of these films, they've gone for the "authenticity" angle whilst massively lying through their teeth about the protagonists in this "true-life" story, but it's well done. If you like a long, juicy crime thriller, this is long and juicy. It's not original. It is polished. 


Taken
Also not original. Liam Neeson IS ISN'T James Bond in a film that rides the cliche wave like a hero and just about makes it through.

This is a film where you can see everything coming. Liam "Jack Bauer" Neeson plays a guy so committed to his mustn't-tell-anyone secret service job that he's lost touch with his teenage daughter. His teenage daughter is as whiney and spoilt as the whiney, spoilt daughter in 24. His ex is a cocky pain in the arse SO cocky that she may as well be wearing a t-shirt that says, "Before this film is through, I will have to humbly eat my words".


So Liam's kid gets "Taken" (hence the title) and being the kind of hard-ass he is, he goes after her. No hold barred. You realise early on that you're going to have to suspend any kind of disbelief (and he didn't get arrested for that because...?...and he survived that certain death encounter because...?) but it's fine. As long as you start going "Hurgh!" during the predictable-as-fuck car-chase instead of "What the? As If!!" you'll be OK.


Neeson is great and doesn't disappoint. Worth an evening if anything I've said about it doesn't grate on your every last nerve.


Jackass 3-D
 I know. i'm as surprised as you are.


My preconceptions about Jackass were that a) it involved people doing things that seemed blatantly stupid because you'd get hurt, and then subsequently getting hurt and b) that they particularly favoured blows to the manpacket. I therefore expected somewhat dull, mindless viewing.


I wasn't wrong, but I was impressed by the creativity by which blows to the manpacket were presented to the viewing public. I found I didn't mind at all watching people get mindlessly hurt as long as they fell down amusingly. Go figure, as they say across the pond.


A few musings.
1. I'm never going to like jokes that involve people who aren't a party to it beforehand. The ones in this were mild, not humiliating and quite imaginative but nevertheless I still find it much more uneasy than funny to watch.
2. I quickly got more interested in the Boy Dynamics than anything else. The heart of Jackass is that if you're prepared to do something massively unpleasant for the general amusement of all onlookers, you're In. Seeing how readily guys will partake in humiliating, scary and painful experiences as long as they think their mates will approve makes a whole lot more sense of things like, say, WW1. 
3. I got particularly interested in how the wussier members of the cast got treated.
 "Danger Ehren", for example, was clearly scared/put off at an number of points. The bully factor then kicked in. 
4. I'd love to know how many times, off-camera, people really kicked off. Quite a lot, I suspect. 


Watch it. But stop before the last stunt because, really, nobody needs that in their head.


Anita Shreve
I forget sometimes that I'm supposed to be doing books as well. 

I've recently read Strange Fits Of Passion and Eden Close and I'm really impressed. Both books have been sitting around in my must-get-to-that pile for years because, based on the cover, it seems there's very little going on in them. 


I'm kinda not wrong. In the cold light of day, when you think about what you've read, little happens - and the themes tend to be very uncomfortable, not experiences you'd initially want to share. What she makes up for in lack of action, though, is a very readble sense of tension, beautifully drawn characters that you can empathise with down to the last idle thought, and an incredibly atmospheric sense of place. If you read about something in her books, it's as real to you as a place you've visited. I've found myself itching to get back to the books just to lose myself in them again. That's the sign of a good writer for me. 

30 Days of Night
I've had this in the pile waiting to be watched for ages because, tbh, it says "Vampire" and "horror" in big letters on the cover.

I've always hated vampires in any horrors I've seen. Weak yet predatory - sex offenders, basically - all of the bad stuff and none of the qualities I like in a good villain.

Horror films don't really do it for me as a genre. I don't seek out repulsion as an experience. I have seen decent horror films but it's not the horror element that makes them good.


So, expectations low, I stuck this in the DVD player - and I was impressed. Atmosphere is a big thing for me and this film had it in spades. I felt like I understood the dark little Alaskan town before anything really happened. I felt like I was there - and right with the peole wanting to get out before the darkness set in.


It was well acted and understated enough to stay believeable and edgy, and it never felt predictable or cliched. It fell short of being a classic - not enough character focus for me - but if it remotely sounds like your cup of tea, give it a go.

Thank you and goodnight.






 
 

Doghouse

@Jake West

Bad break-up, mate?

Due Date

This is a movie about a stressed out individual who goes through a series of increasingly stressful situations, mainly created by an irritatingly stress-free character whose main function seems to be to cause the main character stress.

If you don't mind that premise, it's an OK film. Personally I didn't find it that funny - it has its moments, it's pretty well written - but it's essentially part of that "hilarious comedy" sub-genre with a road trip/race against time twist.

If it was a bit funnier, the fact that it's pretty silly at times and involves a spectacular character u-turn at around about the expected point in the running time without any real explanation, I maybe wouldn't have minded, but for me this is a film that wants to be a bit more meaningful than your average comedy. It doesn't hit the mark from this point of view at all. 

It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, I quite like Robert Downey Jr and he's pretty good. If you're still not sure whether to watch it or not, see whether you find the following funny...

The angry, frustrated character gets shirty with an unhelpful Western Union clerk and makes disparaging remarks about his claims of having served in the Gulf. The clerk reveals that he's in a wheelchair and proceeds to give Angry Guy a beating.

The King's Speech

So then. I'd been told how good this was, but I must admit I approached it with a certain amount of prejudice. British film...period drama...I was expecting something well-made and worthy, probably a bit slow-paced and dull in places though.

I was wrong. I enjoyed this from start to finish. In many ways it's a simple story, and the ending isn't going to be a surprise to anyone, but the journey is so enjoyable. The performance - all the performances - are just excellent.  The casting is perfect. The pace is exactly right. The script is a treat - not overdone, well-judged, natural in feel but surprisingly profound in places. The film is really moving, in quite unexpected ways. As the credits started to roll in the cinema, there was a moment when I thought the audience were going to applaud. I felt like applauding. 

I don't want to single any particular scene out, because I want you to go and see it for yourself. We'll talk after :)

Inception

Wow.

This is hugely visually impressive, but as a rule I'm not hugely visually impressed. I don't wonder how it was done or take a vast interest. I go:

"Not seen that before. Nice"

and then wait for it to get properly interesting. Properly interesting for me is a conceptual thing, and this kinda got there.

It reminded me a bit of first seeing The Matrix, and people who loved that will love this. I didn't love The Matrix. I found it interesting, but the bits that I found interesting were the concepts, and they got tangled and complicated and it felt like "never mind, you're on a moving walkway to the next set piece so just wait and then there'll be something cool to look at!" And cool it may well have been, but I respond much the same way as I do to stage magicians - "Yes that looks impressive, but I know it only looks impressive, and don't flatter yourself I'll be concerned with how you did it".

Inception does a better job of the same thing, for me. There are concepts relating not just to dreams but to the subconscious that everyone can relate to behind the premises of the film, and it's interesting the way that one character's psychological trauma impacts on the events of the film.

if there's a problem with it for me it's that i felt that it was too tangled - there's no way on first viewing you can decide whether the movie's following its own rules, which puts you straight on the matrix set piece moving walkway. You start to become seduced by the idea that it's solveable, that because you're thinking hard to keep up with the concepts that a point will come in the film where you get there ahead of the main characters and turn into the Poirot of cinema. If you watch this and start thinking this way, stop it immediately. You will feel robbed. It's a set piece film with the human touch, and a very, very good one. Just don't get caught up figuring it out.

Letters From Iwo Jima

I've had this a while and not watched it, because I knew it would be sad/heavy going. I got very drawn in though.

Firstly, it's beautifully, expertly made. It is sad, and I knew it would be, but it's taught me a lot and opened up something which I understood very little about. Particularly interesting is the way that the film evokes the Japanese sense of honour not just as something to aspire to, but something to attain at all costs. It's a hard thing to understand the seppuku ideal as a westerner, but it comes across in a very heartfelt and sensitive way exactly what it meant to the Japanese. The feeling of duty being all important is clear. The feeling of lack of individual choice also comes across really powerfully. The stories of the protagonist and the commander were put across extremely well, and both actors were superb. Eastwood picks his symbolism well too. The gun, the dog...


There was a lingering sense, though, of this being propaganda for an American audience who might not have started out feeling too compassionate. This is where the honourable Mr Eastwood comes slightly unstuck for me. The commander? He'd been in America, was sympathetic to America and just found himself in the Wrong Place At The Wrong Time - but we can like him, because he liked America! The main character guy - he was forced to fight, he only really cared about his wife and unborn child, and he only wanted to survive and make a good life for them - like an american born in the wrong place really! What's not to love? And of course the least American, most japanese Japanese constitute the bad guys of the film.


I'm picking holes. Essentially the film is about what being in a war and being faced with the choice of giving your own, personal, valued life to serve often dubious national ends does to human beings - that's done brilliantly. I'm always going to respect a movie that does such a good job of exploring this territory.

Snakes on a Plane

I've seen some cult movies in my time, and I've seen some "so-bad-it's-good" movies. I have to say, though, I've never seen such a cynical and calculated attempt to out-and-out make something actually fit into those categories.

I started with an open mind, I really did. I like Samuel L. Jackson, I like Juliana Margulies from ER, I like the opening titles. All was fine. Enter the snakes. Snake 1 bites hot girl's nipple. Snake 2 bites cocky guy's nob in the toilet. Snake 3 makes an overweight woman have a rude dream when it crawls up her dress. By snake 4 I'd stopped paying attention and instead was wondering which of my Year 8 lads they'd got in a script consultants. 

It didn't get worse, it just got more predictable. I think the writers thought that this playing into stereotypes would be part of the film's cult charm. I also think that the writers assumed everyone who watched the film would be an idiot.

Particularly special was the Playstation vs. X-box product placement line. That's when I knew that the filmmakers were thinking "Product placement = win. Appealling to teenage gamers = win! Also - this has got to be so ridiculously blatant that it makes the film so-bad-it's-good, right?= WIN!!!" 

Wrong. Sorry. I watched it until the end out of some odd sense of fairness I have to any film or book I start out on, but in truth towards the end of the film I was less interested in what was going on and more interested in why I have said odd sense of fairness.

In the spirit of which, I should say that by watching this and then talking about it for this long, I've already spent more of my time on it than I ever should have. Thank you and goodnight.

Gran Torino

Loved this one. (Contains spoilers, as they say. Read this after you've watched it. Oh, and watch it if you haven't. Do it!)

One of the great hooks in a movie for me is a miserable, anti-social git proving that they're completely in touch with their humanity and it's just the world around them that's astray. This had this quality in spades. It put me in mind of Leon, one of my all-time favourites.

Things I loved about it:
1) Eastwood's growl. Well-employed, if a little nasty :)
2)  The way the priest was portrayed. Perfectly balanced, in his intentions and his ineffectuality.
3) The street scene that he watches from his truck, then gets up and sorts out. What you like to imagine you'd be able to do in those circumstances.
4) The attitude and approach of the female lead (back to this later)
5)  The funny (and spot on) approach to manning-up Thao. I could do an A-level language lesson just on those scenes. In fact, I might :)
6) The beautifully judged weighing of tensions towards the end (Eastwood is a great director!)

The ending is powerful; there's a dark turn, but it's the one aspect of the film I was less than happy with. In many ways I liked what was done, but for me Thao's sister was as important as Thao, and I felt a narrowing as it ultimately became a role-model movie. I was left with the sense that in movie terms she'd been sacrificed to some masculine greater good, and that bothered me given how strong the character was.

I still love it though.

The Damned United

Loved this. Mainly because Michael Sheen is an incredibly gifted character actor - he's just so good as Brian Clough. Memorable lines, a memorable performance, and plenty of...well, it's not nostalgia if you're not old enough to remember, but an affectionate evocation of an entirely different era in football.

In reading about it afterwards, though, I was a bit concerned to find out how far the story had been fictionalised, and that a lot of the people portrayed in it were very against the film, and the novel that it was based on. I do have a bit of an issue with this. I could never have written it myself because I'd be so uncomfortable with the idea of making real living/recently deceased people into my little fiction puppets - do writers have that right? I will be pondering this.

In the film's defence, for me all involved come across well - especially Cloughie, for all his faults - just because of the quality of the performances (with the possible exception of Billy Bremner, and I think that's just because Stephen Graham reminds me of Fred West). You can even make the case that this is a nicer version of events than the real one. However, I think if it had been my dad, I'd have been pissed off too.

Now, I also thought Michael Sheen was great in The Queen, and I didn't have any moral objection to that, so I need to think about this one more...

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

I really should have read this years ago. I wish I could have talked to my Grandad about it. I remember that it made a powerful impression on him.

Firstly, it's beautifully written. The detail is so evocative. I'm always fascinated by historical novelists who can truly bring a period that they didn't live through themselves to life for a reader who is also from another time. The trenches in this novel feel real. More importantly, the characters feel real. They are emotionally complex, placed in extreme situations, and yet Faulks has exactly the right kind of light touch required to infuse them with a humanity that makes you ache for what they have to endure. For me this is what makes it so successful. They are not heroes, or stereotypes of any kind, in fact. They are just people, with a full and recognisable range of personality types, pushed in various ways to and beyond the limits of what humans ever expect to live through. Understanding this truly brings home the trauma of WW1, the full extent of the sacrifice, the true pity of a wasted generation of sons and husbands swallowed by the mud or - to no lesser extent in some cases -  by the cost of surviving.


At the same time, Faulks balances the destruction, mind-numbing banality and horror of war with a story about life at its most vital, which bookends and interweaves the war sections. By beginning with the story of Wraysford's affair before the war, we are reminded that he is a young man first, soldier second - again, undermining 2D generalisations of what the names on the monuments represent. Throughout the novel, the sense of potential rebirth, of some seed or shoot surviving is ever present. It's delicately done - always small things, never suggesting easy remedies, never undermining the vulnerability and fragility of the lives that were placed so casually before the mechanised slaughter - but ultimately we are left with a sense of healing and continuation that feels more honest and respectful than a straight war novel might have been.


I wonder what my Grandad would have said about it.