Did it rain last night? I’m guessing it did because our village looked like it had been flooded - there was shit everywhere (and not the usual horse shit that we’re used to).

It’s difficult writing here when I refuse to write about anything personal or serious. I don’t seem to do that much. That’s probably because I don’t do much and because, since August, I’ve got totally addicted to this game which is time sapping and life destroying. It’ll probably ruin my marraige too but meh, shit happens. I’m not going to extol the virtues of SWG because it’ll make me out to be a bigger geek and loser than I already feel like, but needless to say it occupies me and is social in a way that previous forays into online gaming never did. The major downside is that it’s a margin more addictive than cocaine.

It’s only a month until Tough Guy and my training has been all but non-existent. This year’s theme is Pirates, but I’m not that tempted to dress up for it. I only wear black after all! By the way, anyone who is at a loose end on the 31st July and wants to come and watch, let me know. (I somehow doubt there’ll be many take-ups on that offer but, hey, if you don’t ask…) I’m hoping to get down to Sevitz’s Braai the day before although my strict training regime (you know, the one I haven’t started yet) will mean I’ll be sober on the day. (Yeah, okay, whatever!) This will likely mean that, unlike the Christmas bash back in December, I’ll be shy, retiring and laconic. It also means I’m likely to bail at the last minute but you never know.

Life goes on.

Woah! Good film!

Actually, I don’t know why I’m surprised. Christopher Nolan has impressed me with his first three films (Following, Memento and his remake of Insomnia which, although not as good as the original, still worked well) but what surprises me is how, well, good Batman Begins is. I mean really good. And intelligent. And adult (erm… as far as a Batman film goes!)

Primarily I think it works because it does fill in the gaps that other Batman stories always missed or glossed over. How does he get to be Batman? I don’t mean about the killing of his parents, but what happened between then and him taking to the streets in a cape and a mask. The origins of Spiderman and Superman were always well founded but while we know what event caused Bruce Wayne to become Batman, we never saw how he got his skills and his toys because, let’s face it, he hasn’t got any powers to speak of.
(more…)

Apparently, shortly after Christian Bale was signed as the eponymous hero in Batman Begins, this scene was added to the script and actually shot but, unfortunately, never made it into the final cut.

(Well… it might have been! :P)

A brief intro: I actually watched this a couple of weeks ago and unlike my normal slackness in writing up reviews of films, I haven’t written anything about it yet because it’s taken this long to really get my head around it. And because I’m slack.

I find it hard to think about Revenge of the Sith in terms of being a standalone film. I can’t seem to detach what happens in it from everything that’s gone before which makes it difficult to say “this is better than the first two prequels” because although it generally lacks many of the annoying elements its predecessors boasted, it still had its fair share of apalling dialogue, terrible acting and also suffered from having nothing memorable about it. That’s probably my biggest complaint about Sith - nothing has stuck in my mind about it. Impressive opening space battle? Not quite as good as the space battle in Return of the Jedi. Anakin’s duel with Obi-Wan? Not a patch on the Duel of the Fates in Phantom Menace. So while it has less of the bad bits, it also seems to have less of the good bits.

The worse thing about Revenge of the Sith, however, is how lacklustre Anakin’s fall to the dark side was. For all it’s criticisms and weaknesses, the attempted seduction of Luke Skywalker by Vader and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi is far more effective than Anakin’s descent was in Sith.

And then there’s the inconsistencies between everything we learnt 25 years ago and what we learn in this film. But I might save that for Episode 2!

There’s a scene in Closer where Natalie Portman’s character, Alice, describes a photopgraphy exhibition she’s at:

It’s a lie. It’s a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully, and… all the glittering assholes who appreciate art say it’s beautiful ’cause that’s what they wanna see. But the people in the photos are sad, and alone… But the pictures make the world seem beautiful, so… the exhibition is reassuring which makes it a lie, and everyone loves a big fat lie.

That pretty much sums up Closer for me. It’s intriguing on one level but on another level it’s a pile of self indulgent, pretentious, over wrought bullshit that disguises itself as an insightful study of love, lust and relationships.

It might have been different if I’d actually have given a fuck about any of the characters but the only ones I probably could have cared about (i.e. the two female characters) weren’t given any screen time by themselves to flesh out their characters. This might have worked well on stage but, even though Patrick Marber adapted it from his own play, it didn’t make a good or interesting film. Many reviewers have said that this was one of the best films of 2004 but I can’t help thinking it’s a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

What a let down. Wesley Snipes seemed like he couldn’t care less, Kris Kristofferson was wasted, the story was tired and hackneyed and the editing… well what was happening with the editing?

Set design was nice though.

I disappointing third part to the Blade series (and I know I’m in the minority of people who quite enjoyed Blade 2) although I did like Ryan Reynold’s character. Nuff said.

• The total number of DVDs, videos, and films I own.
  Um, lots. Well over 200 DVDs (some of which are TV series, some of which are short film compilations, some of which are documentaries) , videos I haven’t looked at in ages - used to have 300+ but some are duplicated on DVD now (hell, I have 3 or 4 different versions of Star Wars) and loads more films copied from the television (2 or 3 boxes worth) some of which have been duplicated with originals since. So, er, the answer is lots. Number of films? Anything between 300 and 600 easily.
• The last film I bought.
  Not entirely sure. Recently bought “Clone Wars:Series 1″ but that’s not a film and can’t remember if I’ve bought anything since. I know that it’s not long since I got “12 Monkeys”, “Vertigo”, “Once Upon A Time In The West”, “THX 1138″ and “Ran” which I may well have bought on the same day. (Closing down sale at a cheaper than chips place…)
• The last film I watched.
  At the cinema, “Revenge of the Sith”. (review perhaps coming soon)
  On DVD, “Memento” (modern classic!)
  On TV, “Ice Cold in Alex” (they don’t make ‘em like the used ta!)
• My favourite five films of all time, ever.

You what? Five? I can’t do five! And any five I give you will have changed by tomorrow. They certainly won’t be in order. But alright, if you insist.

1. Blade Runner (’nuff said)
2. Star Wars (the original, pre special edition version. My fave is Empire but for reasons I can’t be bothered to go into here, I’m putting the original original. You may take it to mean the saga - or at least the original trilogy - if you like.)
3. Casablanca (so cool, so classic, so great)
4. erm….
5. err….

Seriously though, this is really hard. How can you make me choose between Fight Club and Se7en? Where do I rank Citizen Kane or The Seventh Seal? Oldboy is by far the best film I’ve seen this year? Can that go on? Pah! Take your favourite films and shove them where the monkey hides his nuts!*

• Tag three people and have them blog this.
  S.
  Briggy
  BF

Incidentally, while we’re on the subject of DVD collections, I’m going to add a couple of questions you can either answer on your own blog or in the comments here:
1. What’s the film that you own that you’ve never taken the wrapper off since you bought it? How long have you had it? (I’m not sure at the moment - but I think I had one for over a year)
2. What’s the most embarassing film in your collection? (For me, probably “Queen of the Damned” which I was given - yes, truly! - and it’s so awful that I couldn’t bring myself to even try and sell it on eBay!)

*I promise that I’ll try to give this some more thought…

You would not believe the trouble I had trying to get an A4 print of this image. I tried Photobox but they couldn’t handle it. I tried the kiosk service at Metro Imaging in Soho and they couldn’t handle it either. So I ended up going to their Clerkenwell branch and sitting down with someone who worked out that it was obviously being printed afterhaving a Photoshop profile applied to it. She stopped talking to me when it was obvious my face was a uncomprehending blank.

The final print I’ve got actually looks nothing like this image which is a good and bad thing. It’s far more blue and you can actually see some detail past the diver. It looks much more like you were actually there. However, there’s something a little surreal about the slightly neon glow in the image below which I like but that isn’t on the final print.

What do you think? (Feel free to say you can’t stand it - I can take it!)

(If you’re interested, this was taken in the wheelhouse of the SS Thistlegorm in the Red Sea)

This had me pissing* myself laughing.

*Metaphorically speaking of course. It would have been disgusting if I’d actually pissed myself. And more than a little embarassing.

You and your dog are sitting in a room. The TV is on but you only have two channels to choose from. On one is Big Brother and on the other, an old shit Bruce Willis film. What d’ya do? Come on hotshot - the clock’s ticking! What do you do?