UK workers ‘fiddle £1bn expenses’: Amateurs.
Project: Live
Consultant: Tired
Stress levels: High
Hot Fuzz: Excellent
Coming home: Friday
Chances of being around on 10th March: High
TV
Well, I’ve still got a backlog of movies and programs to watch on the PVR, so I still haven’t watched the end of Season 1 of ‘ Torchwood‘. I’ve been mostly enjoying it, though it’s not really fantastic. But certainly watchable. What I have been enjoying is ‘ Threshold‘ on Sky Three since for some reason my reception improved. A team of geniuses attempts to unravel the mystery of an alien DNA/behaviour altering viral intelligence. Production values aren’t up there with some of the stuff coming out of the states, but it’s certainly interesting to watch. Getting Sky Three back also allowed me to watch an episode of ‘ Tru Calling‘. You’d think a pseudo-supernatural, time traveling investigation drama, starring Eliza “Faith in Buffy” Dushku whose character seems to only own low cut tops would appeal to me. But no, it’s fairly pants. I won’t bother watching any more.
Movies
I recently watched ‘ Over the Hedge‘ on DVD and found myself surprisingly enjoying it. A lot of recent animal themed animations like ‘ Madagascar‘ and such have been rather boring. But despite OtH’s standard “rogue finds redemption through the fellowship of his new-found friends” storyline (yes, I know it’s for kids) I actually found OtH laugh-out-loud funny in several places. And finally there was a role truly worthy of William Shatner’s overacting…
Graphic Novels
Not a lot recently, though I did re-read all of ‘Transmetropolitan’ a few weeks back, beginning to end. What an excellent series. But what I did buy recently was Frank “Sin City” Miller’s ‘300′, the tale of the Spartan’s holding back the massed army of the Persians. A totally excellent graphic novel that I would recommend to anyone, both in terms of art and story. The gallows humour doesn’t hurt it either. There is a movie due out in March and Chris “Cursed Empire” Louziou (sorry for the spelling) is running a playtest of a ‘300′ roleplaying game at Conception using the appropriately lethal ‘Cursed Empire’ rules.
“Real” Novels
I’m currently in the middle of two. I’m re-reading ‘The Sign of Four’ from my complete Sherlock Holmes book that I got for Christmas and also reading James Herbert’s ‘The Secret of Crickley Hall’. It’s a very old-fashioned ghost story so far. You know the drill… Haunted house, new residents, a terrible past… It’s all there. It’s enjoyable for all that, but I was hoping for more of an updated twist in the traditional haunted house scenario.
Music
Too much and too varied for me to individually list out, particularly now the Ipod speaker system is properly set up in the lounge.
And yes I did spell that right… On Sunday, post gaming, Penny and went to see Pursuit of Happyness. While at times perhaps a little too slow moving, even considering the subject matter, this tale based on a true story of a man who battles homelessness while struggling to become a stockbroker so he can provide for his family is a touching and uplifting story.
The film is entirely supported by Will Smith’s excellent acting. His portrayal as the lead character makes the whole thing believable. Of course, acting out his relationship with the character’s son wouldn’t have been too hard considering it was performed by his own son who manages to act out the role in quite an endearing way. Thanks the gods that Hollywood seems to be learning to avoid the annoying brat style kids in it’s movies somewhat these days.
All in all, worth watching for Will Smith’s performance but it’s not going to knock the socks off of fans of action thrillers.
I’ve thought long and hard about my ranking of the films I’ve seen in the cinema in 2006. Here’s the result, with capsule reviews:
6) Memoirs of Geisha
Way back in January I made the mistake of watching this. It was just about watchable, though somewhat irritating. Penny nearly walked out since she was comparing it to the book which she thought was excellent.
5) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
A good fun film that, while not as good as the first, was still enjoyable. It’s only due to the strength of the other films I saw in 2006 that this is second last. But at the end of the day, Jack Sparrow my be a comedy pirate, but it would have been nice if they’d have focussed less on the comedy and more on the pirate. I still intend to see the third in the cinema though.
4) Happy Feet
This was surprising as I mainly went to see this because Penny wanted to see it. It was however very good indeed, balancing comedy yet weighty concerns. Not as easily quotable as, say, Shrek and, with hindsight, it was often an animated ‘March of the Penguins’ with dancing but very enjoyable.
3) Pan’s Labyrinth
I wrestled with the ranking of this one and I know Penny will disgree; It was her favourite film of the year. It was beautiful, fantastical, awe-inspiring, terrible and touching. I’m really glad I got to see it on the big screen, but I still enjoyed the next two films more.
2) Casino Royale
It might have been a fatal error, but I re-read the book before watching the film. It ended up really enhancing my experience of the film because I could really see that it was in excellent hands. I truly excellent film, one of the great Bonds and an excellent reboot of a tired franchise. Bond Begins indeed.
And finally…
1) A Scanner Darkly
I really loved Linklater’s rotoscoped adaption of Phillip K. Dick’s tale of paranoia, drugs and loyalty. It’s definitely a film to lose yourself into, no matter how unpleasant that may feel, it doesn’t have a nice neat ending and is way too weird for ’shoving something on in the background’. Totally loved it.
Update: The Film Critics Movie of 2006 went to Pan’s Labyrinth, together with the prestigious Penny Award while the People’s Choice award for 2006 went to Pirates 2.
US rock star to record Bond theme
Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell is to write and record the theme tune to the new James Bond film, Casino Royale.
The theme for the 21st Bond film, in which Daniel Craig will debut as 007, is titled You Know My Name.
A film spokeswoman said Cornell’s music was “both soulful and tough” and “the perfect complement” to the film.
Casino Royale will receive its world premiere in London on 14 November. The film is released three days later in the UK and US.
US rocker Cornell was previously the singer with Seattle rock group Soundgarden.
tags: bond, audioslave, soundgarden
Bryce has already blogged the party of the weekend quite extensively and there’s not much I can add to it, but I’ll make a few comments.
Firstly, Pirates 2 was good fun. The first half was very much “Look at the comedy pirate and his crazy antics!” while the second half was some more serious pirating and a real rollercoaster ride. In short, it was good and I’m looking forward to the concluding part. Disney must be laughing all the way to the bank.
In comparison, Superman Returns didn’t do very well at all. The US takings for last weekend for the big blue boyscout was a mere $11 million compared to a piratastic $62 million. Woops.
The party itself was a blast; I enjoyed it muchly. It was good to get som many together, including people who had come quite a way that I hadn’t seen in ages.
I skipped the quiz mainly so I could spend some time catching up with Stu & Sam, and then skipped most of the karaoke, mainly so I could skip the karaoke. I seem to recall being shanghaied into one song where a machine accused me of being tone deaf. Hmm… I didn’t know I was supposed to hit the notes! Otherwise I would have tried and ended up with a really low score!
Sunday was major mong day as I nursed my hangover. I think I earned it though!
Trains seem to be quite a mess this week. On Monday we had ticket inspectors and while there were no lousy excuses to be heard (Last time I heard “But I’ve taken this train for weeks and never bought a ticket before!”) but I did see a very respectable looking gentleman legging it from fare enforcement officers down a platform!
Penny’s trains are a mess this week, what with the Farnborough Airshow being on and then on Friday/Saturday we have the train strike. I can just about get into London, but it’ll be impossible to get out. Two trains an hour from London on a Friday night? It’s not going to happen. I have no idea what I’ll do if I can’t work from home that day.
Last week was Penny’s birthday and so we did have a few plans for the weekend. Nothing exciting, it was purposefully low key and she was working Saturday morning, but we made a good day of it. A good lunch, then Penny picked a copy of
Kabuki and then we read in a pub for the whole afternoon. Very relaxing and very enjoyable.
Saturday night involved watching one of Penny’s birthday presents, namely the Kiera Knightley version of
Pride & Prejudice. Aparrently it was quite true to the book, but not as much as the BBC version. Colin Firth was a better Darcy but Kiera was a better Lizzie (though apparently she’s supposed to be quite plain, according o the book). The whole film came over as quite rushed and compressed as it had to fit as much in as possible, into a two hour slot. And as for the added US ending? It’s utter crap, as expected. Thankfully it’s an Extra, not tagged onto the end of the film like it was in the US.
Sunday was then an all-day trek. It was going to be longer and over a more distinct route, but various memory lapses meant we covered the stretch between Woking and Ash Vale via a few detours along the Basingstoke Canal. Woking, because it was en route for the first leg of the trek before we had to alter our plans, and Ash Vale because we wanted our evening sustenance to be
The Swan.
Plans for this week? Thursday and Friday I’m in Germany, and Saturday viewing property.
