Another year over and what have I done -
All my aspirations have shrivelled in the sun.
I’ve been crippled by guilt, blinded by science -
I’ve been waiting for tomorrow all of my life

I sat through Charlies Angels: Full Throttle the other day (on the train with a borrowed DVD) and all I can say is that it’s total and utter trash. Admittedly, it doesn’t try to be anything other than total and utter trash. In some ways it’s half of the film that the abysmal “Tank Girl” should have been all those years ago due to it’s absolute implausibility and comic-book mayhem. But it lacks the cojones to be a proper Tank Girl movie. (and the fags, beer, kangaroos and, unsuprisingly, tank!) I probably would recommend this if you were drunk, stoned and after a cheap thrill at watching Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore giggling and prancing their way through this. They, at least, looked like they had a good time making this extremely silly film.

I bought a set of bicycle lights the other day. On the back of the pack of one of the lights was the warning

Do not use flashing mode on public roads as this is a contravention of highway regulations

If it is illegal to have a flashing tail light on a bicycle why do manufacturers build in a flashing mode?

I also wondered this about cars. Apparently it is possible to limit the speed of a motor vehicle. So if the national speed limit in the UK is 70 miles an hour max (on motorways and dual carriage ways) why not limit the speed of all cars sold in the UK to the legal maximum?

And why are Starbucks allowed to sell coffee that is scaldingly hot? Apart from the fact that it makes the coffee taste crap (which happens when you put water that’s too hot onto freshly ground coffee. Any decent coffee should be made with boiled water that’s been left to stand for at least two minutes to cool), you end spending the day with a burnt mouth and are unable to taste anything, let alone be able to speak to voice your displeasure with the awful cup of coffee you had that morning. They also insist on serving their coffees in thin paper cups with a cardboard ring to hold the cup with rather than a second cup because it’s more “environmentally friendly” and less wasteful.

Hello? McFly? If you turn the heat of the water down then a) the cup will be hot enough to hold without the cardboard ring so you will be even more “environmentally friendly” and even less wasteful b) your customers will be be able to drink their coffee straight away rather than waiting for two hours for it to cool down to an agreeable temperature which won’t cause second degree scalding and c) not turning the thermostat up to 11 and keeping your water at a cooler (i.e. less than boiling point) temperature will, surprise, surprise, use less energy and be more enviromentally friendly and less wasteful!

Mind you, people who drink Starbucks coffee wouldn’t know a decent cup of the black stuff if it accosted them in the street, introduced itself, smacked them upside the head with a wild salmon caught in the river Teifi and then went back to their house to have intimate sexual relations with their pet dog.

The first whiskey to be distilled in Wales for more than 100 years will go on sale on March 1st this year. (That’s St David’s Day if you were wondering!) I shall be making sure I get a bottle to add to my ever increasing collection of whiskeys. One day I shall even start drinking the stuff.

Thanks to Huwge for the timely heads up.

Dawn asked the question “Are [people] born good and something changes or do they start out damaged in some way?” It’s for an assignment but I’m not sure what the subject is.

It’s an interesting question, one related to a lot of subjects I’ve tried to explore and curiously, only yesterday, I added a couple of books that deal with some aspects of this topic to my Amazon wishlist. The problem is that I just can’t get my head around the subject as it stands at the moment. Mainly because it would require a 10,000+ word essay to do it any justice! One of the main questions that I have and have written about before (but not here) is whether the concepts of good and evil are absolute or relative. Plato, for example, argued that there are certain absolute truths in the world that we may not yet know but that must exist. I would argue that the concepts are relative and that there are no absolute moral truths.

The hows and whys of that argument will have to wait until I have more coherent thoughts and a structured argument. At the moment, I would be too much at risk of following tangents such as “It it possible for someone to knowingly commit an ‘evil’ act?” To clarify this question, I’ll put forward the brief outline of my argument. I would argue that it is not possible for a person to carry out a purely ‘evil’ act. All actions have a well intentioned motive behind it, even if that motive is as simple and selfish as “I get a kick out of it!”

I can already feel myself being drawn into this and I have to resist the urge to dive straight in. The question I am considering right now and maybe the area I want to focus on is this:

Is the taking of another human life wrong?

This isn’t the same question as “When is it right to take another human life?”. I’m not interested in killing in war, captial punishment, self defence etc. although I’m sure that any answers would necessarily allude to these acts of taking life. For the purpose of this question, “taking another human life” can be read as pre-meditated murder.

And if the answer is “Yes, the pre-meditated murder of another human being is wrong”, then I ask “Why?”

UPDATE: I forgot to say thanks for Jazz for pointing out Dawn’s post. And no, Jazz, I’m not bating you (although I suspected you’d be the first to say something! ;-D ) and no I don’t have all the responses to your questions but I would like to have this debate at some stage. Maybe a “forum” is needed…?

The third film in the Matrix trilogy picks up from where the last one left off but the whole cliff-hanger we were left on ultimately didn�t seem to be relevant so let�s move forward. The machines are still attacking Zion and most of the action takes place there this time around.

As I briefly stated before, Revolutions is better than Reloaded but that doesn�t in itself make it a good film. It wouldn�t be a great film if it stood alone but as the third part of a series so effectively set up by the original, it�s suffers more. That�s not to say that there aren�t some good moments in it but some good effects and some good action scenes do not a good film make. I can� go into detail with this review because I don�t want to give spoilers away.

I believe there are several problems with this film and most of them stem from bad writing. Aside from the dialogue, which was truly awful in some scenes such as a five minute (may have been less but actually seemed longer) scene of two people talking was full of the cheesiest, sentimental crap I�ve heard in a long time. Once again the film contains a lot of pseudo philosophising but this time it seems that the Wachowski�s were really getting out of their depth. It felt rushed and ill thought out. They seemed to be expounding schoolboy philosophies based on a passing knowledge rather than having any real substance. And when it came to plot problems, a neat line of cryptic dialectic would patch it up and they�d move swiftly along.

I think the Wachowski�s dug themselves a hole they couldn�t get out of with Reloaded which is a shame. I sincerely believe that if they hadn�t tried to make both films back to back and had spent longer working on the script then they may have had better results rather than the hulking ponderous monstrosity they ended up with. As it was, it seemed rushed, uninspired and unoriginal. That being said, with this film they made more of an effort and the conclusion, although not entirely unexpected, was a bold step to make. Unfortunately it couldn�t redeem the film and I do believe that the leaden weight of both sequels will mar the success of the first film and in time that too will be considered flawed and, eventually, a disappointment and failure. I hope it doesn�t.

Pants. Better than part 2 but still pants.

As for this review, if you believe there will be more then there will be more but only you will know for sure.

Watched George Clooney’s directorial debut last night which as an adaption of Chuck Barris’ autobiography. Chuck Barris was a television producer in the 60’s who was responsible for creating “The Dating Game” (Blind Date to those in the UK) amongst others. But in his autobiography he claims to have also been working as a hitman for the CIA until the late 70’s.

The screenplay is written by Charlie Kaufman, the lunatic responsible for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, and as expected is quite odd (and quite quirky, to keep up the theme of the weekend). It is well written and well acted, with Sam Rockwell taking on the part of Barris, Drew Barrymore as his girlfriend and Clooney himself as Jim Bird, Barris’ CIA handler. I was also quite surprised for the most part at how well directed it was. Although he tends to play all characters the same, Clooney can’t be accused of sticking to a particular role as many of his contemporaries are and has definitely branched out to doing non-mainstream films. His direction refects that by not necessarily playing the game the way we would expect him too.

It’s not all good though. Despite being well written, I didn’t really feel involved and found myself not really caring about Barris or what he was up to. There didn’t seem to be any sense of conflict in the script. This could also be in part to having clips of interviews with Barris’ real life associates cut into the narrative which, although interesting, did tend to interrupt the story more than add to it. However, that being said, it’s still a cut above most films I’ve seen recently. All in all, I look forward to seeing more of Clooney in the director’s seat.

Been film festing again. I suggest you buy shares in Blockbuster!

Secretary
What a great film! This was something that I missed in the cinema as it didn’t really leave London. It’s fantastic. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway a young woman from a dysfunctional family who starts a new job as a secretary for a lawyer, played by James Spader. A relationship develops between them but unlike your average chick flick, this one is based on domination and submission and sadomasochism.

I really enjoyed this film. It’s well written, well acted and well directed and quite quirky. Definitely the flip side of romantic comedies and for once, one that I’d probably enjoy more than the wife. The only problem with it was that it left me feeling incredibly horny. Not that that’s much of a problem…!

The Royal Tenenbaums
Finally got around to seeing this very quirky (fast becoming the theme for this weekend) black comedy. I liked Tenenbaums but it does teeter precariously on the edge of being up it’s own arse. Fortunately there’s enough attention to detail which, combined with good performances, strong writing and good direction, saves it from being actually rather dull. It’s compelling viewing. (But what’s it about? Ed.) Gene Hackman is Royal Tenenbaum, the estranged patriarch of a dysfunctional and chronically eccentric family of child prodigies who calls the family back together to try to get to know them and make up for lost time.

Rabbit Proof Fence
I have a confession but you’re not allowed to tell anyone. I cried at this film. It’s a true story about three young, half-caste aboriginal girls who escape from a “special school” and walk over a 1000 miles home across the Austrailian outback. This is a beautifully shot film with superb performances from the three young leads (watch the documentary on the dvd about how they were chosen) and great supporting roles from Kenneth Branagh amongst others. It’s depressing learning about the things that one human can do to another and although this isn’t as horrific or poignant as Schindler’s List, it still tugs at your heart strings. Or maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.

The Last Great Wilderness
A low budget British film starring and co-written by Alistair MacKenzie of “Monarch of the Glen” fame. This is a strange little film which I was interested in because it had been sold as a sort of “Deliverance” meets “The Wicker Man”. I can understand that judgement but that’s not quite right. It also sounded suspicously like a script I’ve written the first draft off. Fortunately it’s not really anything like it. MacKenzie plays Charlie, a man setting out to exact revenge on the man who stole his wife. Along the way he meets Vincente who slept with someone elses wife. They get stranded in the wilds of Scotland in a house full of a load of fucked up people, including a sex addict, an agoraphobic and an ex priest.

This film had a lot of potential but I felt the script could have been more polished. It didn’t really seem to know what it wanted to be and ended up not being anything much really. The direction (by David MacKenzie, Alistair’s brother) was adequate but understated. I felt that it didn’t really make the most of the wonderful landscapes of the Scottish highlands available to them but this could have been down to the fact that they were shooting on DV. On the other hand, considering the quirky (it’s that word again) nature of the story, I feel they could have been bolder and more adventurous with the shots and direction. Not a bad film but certainly not a great one. Will end up being on late night Channel 4.

The master’s guide to Self Offence.