Spider-man 3

We went to see Spider-man 3 the other weekend. Now, I wouldn’t be a cinema-going-Spider-man-person if it wasn’t for Himself, although I’ll happily watch it on DVD. He’ll not like reading this, I’m sure, but he’ll know what I mean: I like Spider-Man as much as the next person, but it wouldn’t be the first film I’d pay a fiver to see in the pictures if the decision were down to me. Anyway, I’m not sure I’ll be so quick to pay it for Spidey 4 when it comes around.

Spider-Man three was all manner of adventurous with its three baddies and Spider-Man himself going all eviiiiilllll in the middle of it, but it was a shame that it went on for an hour longer than I could be bothered, and that two of the baddies were mediocre at best. Peter was funny and cute when he was being bad, and Harry was funny and cute when he was being good, so that kept me happy for the most part but it stopped there. [In fact, if they make a film of just those two things, I'll happily throw down my fiver on opening night.] MJ was a one-trick-pony as usual, but I’m not a huge Dunst fan anyway. (It’s the eyes, people! Her eyes are dead – they don’t light up, they don’t smile, they don’t look sad, they don’t look angry – they just sit there in her head like they need an electric shock to make them express. She has vacuous eyes.) Even Aunt May and the flashback clips of Uncle Ben couldn’t get my emotions running, this time. It was a bit of a non-starter in that way.

Meh and bleh, all told. Shame. There’ll be no excitement in this house for Spider-Man 4.

Doctor Who (ep2) and Life on Mars

All in all, I didn’t dislike last week’s Doctor Who but it certainly didn’t make me jump for joy. I mean, you can’t beat a bit of Shakespeare (even if I could only see the actor’s character from Shameless every time he came on screen), but my enthusiasm pretty much ended there. I’ve concluded two things, thus far: first, I much prefer The Doctor when he’s running around killing things made of metal (formerly tinfoil) and utilising his sonic screwdriver every which way he can; and second, I’m not really warming to Martha, the new assistant, as I hoped I would. See, despite the purists’ protests, I really quite enjoyed the relationship that The Doctor had with Rose. They were very much in love – albeit in his awkward and unaccustomed way – and I miss watching that part of the show. It was funny and very engaging, even if we all knew that nothing was ever going to happen (as if The Doctor would be so crass!). He and Martha don’t have that sort of interaction (not that they would at this early stage, you might argue), and I can’t see it developing between them. (Nay, I would object if it did for it would surely imply that The Doctor is now going to fall in love with everyone who becomes his companion, which would just make an eejit of the whole thing.) I suppose what I mean is that I feel that it’s lost something for me. In short, I do find it edging on dull in parts.

I’ll keep watching of course but it’s missing something for me now, and I’m not terribly bothered whether yer woman Martha’s in it that much or not, and perhaps the less the better for now. What’s this nonsense, though?

I was much more exciting about this week’s finale of Life on Mars, I can tell ya! John Simm has taken his place as my second celebrity boyfriend (after The Doctor for my non-regulars)¹ and Gene Hunt has ascended to my favourite TV character of all time. I largely predicted what would happen in the last fifteen minutes, although not how events unfolded per se. There was a message in there somewhere, I’m sure, about following your heart and always being exactly who you are and want to be, but most of that was lost on me for I was jumping with excitement far too much. We all suspended our disbelief, I wager, when we discovered that jumping off very tall buildings doesn’t break your neck and kill you because, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. Sam Tyler’s a great big nonce and a fairy and all those other non-PC names he was called by Hunt in the last scene and that’s good enough for me. Fantastic!

I’m not sure I’ll tune in for the Mars sequel, although I might have to for a bit of Gene, but I would watch all of the existing programme again and again. That was a license fee well spent right there.

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¹How under God am I going to cope when they’re both in Doctor Who later on this series? I dare say I’m going to have to be hospitalised for a spell!

Doctor Who

I loved it. Oh, I really loved it! Doctor Who that is. It came back to our screens on Saturday night, inciting much excitement in me and Himself. I couldn’t possibly do the whole thing as much justice as prefectford has here, but I’m sure you’ll believe me when I tell you that I was verily pleased. See, I don’t really understand the whole thing so I’m easily satisfied. The Doctor and his companion (Martha) could get up to all sorts and I’d happily watch it and enjoy it. It’s very seldom that I’m able to pick holes in the plot or the ’science’ and even if I did, I wouldn’t care at all for it’s just darned good telly. But something on Saturday night is really bugging me.

The Doctor and Martha (a trainee medical doctor) hadn’t met at the start of the programme, so neither knew who the other was. The Doctor runs up to Martha on the street one morning, starts to take off his tie and says to her, ‘See you later’. This is their first meeting. Later that day, they come together again when The Doctor’s in hospital pretending to have some ailment or other. She mentions their earlier encounter, but he denies that it happened. We’re not sure why he denies it, but it doesn’t seem important.

As the day’s events unfold, The Doctor and Martha save everyone in the hospital, and quite possibly the whole world I dare say, from rhinoceroses and one of yer women from Dinnerladies. It was all very exciting and The Doctor was wearing my Converse. Afterwards, The Doctor returns Martha to Earth and to her family, but later asks her to come with him as his companion. He explains to her that he’s a time lord and that he can travel in time. She doesn’t believe him, understandably, so he proves it to her. He does this by hopping into the Tardis, presumably travelling back to that morning and running into her in the street ‘again’, before he comes back. He exits the Tardis fixing his tie, and this is all that’s needed to convince her of what he is.

How? I don’t get it. How would this convince her of anything? Himself has explained it to me four times now, but I just can’t get it.

See, here’s what I think. Just say I told one of you that you texted me at 2.00 in the morning, and you denied it because you couldn’t remember or whatnot. Then, later on, if you were trying to convince me that you’re a time traveller and hopped in your Tardis back to the moment I said you texted me, it wouldn’t persuade me either way because such an action wouldn’t change anything for me. I know that you texted me (and Martha knows that she saw The Doctor that morning), so you just seeming to go back in time to that moment doesn’t help me at all because you’re only confirming what I already know.

Does this make sense to anyone but me? It doesn’t add up. Himself is laughing at me for not being able to get it (and he’s just right, for I’m being an eejit), but nonetheless it’s bugging me a little and I felt like recording it.

Anyway, that aside, wonderful stuff. I could just eat up all the days until seven o’clock next Saturday! David Tennant’s my boyfriend, you know. I mean, he has been for a long time but we were just keeping it between us because of the publicity and stuff. We’re telling everyone now, though. He loves me very much. For reals!

Spider-man 2; Stranger than Fiction; The Illusionist

Two posts in one day? ‘God save us and bless us’, as me mammy would say!

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I’ve seen a lot of films recently, I think. I can’t actually remember what half of them were.

I do remember Spider-Man 2 though. Yes, I enjoyed it – it was good. Shut-up! You know who you are!

Then there was Stranger Than Fiction, which was very enjoyable although I have to confess that I wasn’t in the mood for it at all. Will Ferrell is very, very funny and plays an excellent straight man, and I think this is the first film I’ve seen with Maggie Gyllenhaal where I haven’t wanted to punch the screen. The premise is simple (I think): a tax man (or whatever his correct title would be), Ferrell, wakes up one morning to find that his life is being ‘narrated’ as if he were part of a novel. As it turns out, he is part of a novel and his life becomes something of a race to make sure that he’s not killed; in both the novel and one assumes, reality. The viewer develops an unexpected affection for the tax man, and it all gets rather emotional and intense towards the end (French and I were a little teary, I’m not ashamed to admit). I suppose this film’s all about personal change and growth, how we adapt ourselves unwittingly and often unselfishly for other people, and how happiness and fulfilment can come in very unpredictable forms. Recommendation: great Sunday afternoon viewing provided you’re not feeling too teary already.

Oh, and there was also The Illusionist starring the wonderful Ed Norton, who never fails to please. Nothing is what it seems, the tagline said, and right it was until half way through when Scottish figured out what was happening and then all was very much as it seemed. The illusionist son of a carpenter, Norton, falls in love with an aristocratic duchess, Biel, and she with him, before they’re forbidden to ever see each other again. They meet by chance later on in life, and rekindle their affair. Yes, love will conquer all or summinck, and a little bit of magic goes a very long way indeed. It’s certainly not Norton’s best work, and there were a few disappointing inconsistencies at the end, but I enjoyed my viewing for the most part. I’d quite like to see Rufus Sewell in a role where he’s not the horrible bad guy (even if he does play one very well) but sure it’s no matter. Recommendation: wait for the DVD. Better still, do a sneaky download.

I’ve still not seen Hot Fuzz. Disgraceful, I know.

Six Feet Under finale

I finally watched the finale of Six Feet Under. I’ve been putting it off for as long as I’ve had the DVD boxset for I didn’t want my time with the show to end, but I finally gave in. I’ve had a long love affair with Six Feet Under * and I was more upset to hear that HBO had decided to cancel it than when I heard the same news about The Sopranos and Oz (my two other favourites). HBO makes good television, there’s no denying it, and Six Feet Under was surely its shining star. I don’t even know where to begin with describing it, and I’m sure most of you are familiar with it already. I wager that it’s impossible for anyone to watch Six Feet Under without being affected by at least one storyline or character. I always identified most with Brenda, not because I think I’m particularly like her, but because I always loved how deeply honest she was no matter the consequences. She had that unenviable quality of complete self-destruction that became her undoing time and time again, yet she always embraced it because she knew that that was who she was. She was strong, brave and incredibly bright, yet unfailingly a slave to her ‘condition’. It was a contradiction I couldn’t ever quite fathom.

Anyway…

The finale. I’d heard great things about this episode so I was rather surprised when nothing happened for the longest time. No one seemed to be wrapping up any loose ends, and I certainly wasn’t experiencing the intense emotions that I’d been warned about. In fact, I watched it in three parts because I got a little bored with it twice. And then. Oh my life, and then! I’m not going to go into detail because I’m sure some of you haven’t seen it, but I can’t remember a time I’ve been so overwhelmed by watching something I knew, intellectually, was a made-up story. I sat on the floor in front of my TV like a child and I stared at the screen, and I cried and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And when it was over, I went back and I watched it again and I cried some more. And then I watched it a third time. I remember that M. texted me at some point in the middle of it all, but I was too hysterical to respond to him. It was ingenious television, and I should have seen such an ending coming knowing the show as I do. It was the absolute perfect fit, and undoubtedly the most appropriate way to end its run. What shocked me was its rawness, and its unexpectedness. It’s almost as if they purposely shot a series of mundane story lines for the episode so that viewers would be overwhelmed by the intensity of the last ten minutes. It worked. Oz ended with some sort of metaphorical notion of all the prisoners being evacuated and driving into the distance (to what fate?), and I’m sure that the Sopranos will end with Tony losing his life, but nothing could beat what they did with Six Feet Under. Amazing. Incredibly moving. Breathtaking. I really wouldn’t tell you lies about this. I wish I could see it all for the first time again; hysteria and all. In fact, I’d recommend you watch all five seasons, just so you can really appreciate that finale. Seriously!

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* Along the same lines, I still can’t bring myself to read Bukowski’s last book with Henry Chinaski because then Mr Chinaski will be gone from my life forever. I can’t be doing with that, for I’m rather in love with the chap; vile and all as he may be.

My four shows

I’ve started to watch way too much television. I’m choosing to blame the people I spend most of my time with (and a torrent-addicted housemate), but I probably have some culpability myself. I have five shows I watch most of the time.

Grey’s Anatomy is set in a hospital and features a cast of people I’ve never heard of before. The characters all sleep with each other (I think) in between saving lives and curing people of all their ills (I think). Every so often, also, their well-placed words of wisdom will turn someone’s life around in ways they never expected – they’re just all-round superstars. The lead character, Meredith Grey, is fiercely annoying and I would quite like to shoot her in the face. I actually hate Grey’s Anatomy, but I still like to watch it. Go figure!

Las Vegas is great craic and is one of my favourite shows at the moment (not least because it’s got the sexiest cast of characters I’ve seen in a long time). More importantly, however, it’s funny, clever and fast-paced. It’s all about security in a Las Vegas casino, I believe, but I really just watch it to look at this beautiful man. It’s certainly not edifying stuff.

Studio 60… stars your man from Friends, Chandler. The story centres on his character, Matt, and another chap, Danny, who are the main writers for a comedy show on some network or other. Studio 60 was created by the same guy who created the West Wing, so the dialogue and acting is snappy and intelligent (there’s a lot of that talking while walking carry-on, which I love). Even Chandler’s really rather good, although the woman he pretends he’s not in love with irritates me.

Heroes is about a group of people from all over the world who discover that they have superpowers (like being able to fly or travel through time), and who have to come together to save the world or something. Frankly, reader(s), I don’t understand a word of it so I can’t really say anymore about what’s going on. The housemate and I watch it wearing permanent frowns on our faces because it just doesn’t make any sense at all. Apparently it will in time, but right now, I just can’t get it. I can’t even remember what half of the characters are called. It’s still good stuff, though.

And… oh, that’s it! Only four! I’m not as far gone as I thought I was. Although, are we still counting Eastenders…?

(Oh, and if you want a recommendation from the above, I’d have to go with ‘Vegas’. It’s silly TV – my favourite kind – very often at its best. But do yourself a favour and try not to get sucked into any of them.)

A Scanner Darkly; Spider-Man; Superman Returns

I watched two films last weekend: one I’ve been dying to see for ages, and the second I swore I’d never see.

The first was A Scanner Darkly, which is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s book of the same name. What made this film stand out, for me, is the way it was put together. It was filmed as normal and then ‘animated over‘. I don’t understand what that means, of course, but the effect was quite remarkable. (The effect for me was that it was more visually engaging than a regular film and less abstract to watch than a lot of animation.) A Scanner Darkly also sports a rather famous cast, and it’s worth watching for Robert Downey Jr alone. Keanu Reeves was predictably wooden (thank the Gods they ‘animated over’ to disguise how awful he is if nothing else), Winona Ryder was a bland as I always find her, but Downey Jr made up for both of them by being a rather adorable lunatic. In any case, if conspiratorial, paranoid and often close-to-the-bone hedonism is your thing, then you should watch this film as soon as you can. You won’t regret it. If nothing else, you’ll be chuckling about Barris (Downey Jr) for days. Also, if you get a chance, read up about Philip K. Dick’s life. He was a fascinating, if very unhinged, guy.

The second was Spider-Man. I’ve never seen this film, mainly because I don’t really like this sort of thing (and I don’t spend enough time seeing the sort of thing I do like) but I was convinced to try it at the weekend. (I should add that I’ve generally managed to avoid that nondescript drink-of-water Tobey Maguire, and that other nondescript squeaker Kirsten Dunst, until now and I’ve been pretty happy about that, but I seem to have broken that run now.) But I watched it, and I didn’t sneer, and I have to admit here and now for all the world to see that I really liked it. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t want to turn it off either. Maguire and Dunst turned in acceptable performances, but aside from that, it was just a darned good action film with swinging around the place, and baddies, and silliness, and plenty of tension. I was pleased to see William Dafoe in the leading cast, even if his character was completely naff, and Aunt May was just wonderful. I can’t quite believe it myself (and don’t tell anyone, ok?) but I’m looking forward to seeing Spider-Man 2 now. Shhh!

Oh, and I must tell you how much Scottish and I laughed when we watched Superman Returns recently! Superman seems to have become a big camp mannequin in his time away, and Lois has turned into an even punier (and more annoying) version of herself. It was truly hilarious! Kevin Spacey, though, is nothing short of God-like. Seriously! You heard it here first…

February downloads

Grr to new albums this month! There are few, dear reader(s). Thus far, I’ve spotted only three, and I seem to have been able to download one of them yonks ago.

Firsty, there’s the Kaiser Chiefs‘ Yours Truly, Angry Mob, which I’m looking forward to but I’m concerned that it might suffer from Lame Second Album Syndrome (LSAS) – I confess that their 2005 release, Employment, is still a favourite of mine. I do like that Ricky Wilson, I have to say. If I was a boy, I would dress like him. And maybe have my hair like his too.

Speaking of LSAS, I’ve finally given the Bloc Party’s A Weekend in the City a good listen-to. I have to report that I don’t like it at all. Nothing stands out for me on it, and I was very bored by about song three (although I persevered). They seem to have changed their thing and I don’t like their new thing. See, Silent Alarm is another constant of mine, which makes their new album even more a disappointment. In their March issue (we’ll soon be getting them six months in advance, I tells ya!), Q gives A Weekend in the City only three stars and a [at best] mediocre review, and I think they’ve just about nailed it.

Oh, and Lucinda Williams is releasing her eighth album, West, which may just make up for the sorry lot of new albums for me to download this month. Although only if I get it for free, natch!

January downloads

Here follows a list of albums to download (for my own use, really):

The Good, The Bad and The Queen – Self-titled. I wasn’t very impressed with their previous three-song release – Herculean – but I’m generally a fan of Damon Albarn’s work. They’re worth a second shot.

Norah Jones – Not too Late. I’m not a huge fan of Jones, but downloading is freeness and therefore I’m in. She’s good to read to, I’ve found.

The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America. I’m never sure how to describe the Hold Steady apart from to note that they’re good and honest rock and roll. And I suppose that’s as good a reason as any to give their third album a good listen.

The View – Hats of to the Buskers. The last thing the Pod needs, frankly, is another Young Generic Indie Guitar Band, but I can’t resist the temptation (again, see freeness). I think I’ve heard two tracks from this crowd on Jo - I Love Everyone and Think Every Single Song in the World is Magic and Brilliant - Wiley’s Radio 1 show and I didn’t like either of them, but at least I’ll know for sure when I’ve listened to the album in full. The ‘Libertines-inspired’ comment in Q isn’t the best recommendation they could have, though, I’m sure.

That’s it for now, I think. It’s a slow month, I dare say.

– — – — –

I skivved off the office today. I really do have the best ‘job’ in the world. I worked at home, though. Honest, guv!

Television catchup

I caught up on some TV last night (that the housemate had kindly recorded for me).

First, there was the The Green Wing finale and special. I enjoyed it for the most part but it just went on forever. I normally prefer when they keep the story lines in the hospital so that all the characters can interact with each other, but in the special, they had several different story lines happening all over the place. Dr Statham was in Cornwall somewhere and he wasn’t nearly as funny as he used to be with his sidekick Boyce. Harriet et al staged some sort of coup in the office which was just dull, and even Guy wasn’t as hilariously arrogant and obnoxious as he usually is. I was delighted that it all ended happily, of course, but I think they could have reached a conclusion sooner and in a much funnier way. I’ll miss the old Green Wing though, it has to be said. And I’m very much crushing on this chap right now.

Then I watched This Life +10 which was wonderful. It, rather obviously, updated us on what the characters in The Life – Milly, Egg, Anna, Miles and Warren – have been doing in the ten years since they shared a house together. I won’t go into those details in case you haven’t watched it yet, but I will tell you that I was delighted to see that Miles is as arrogant, Anna as dysfunctional, Egg as lost, Milly as neurotic, and Warren as optimistic as ever. But they all seemed to be more vulnerable and less sure of themselves then they were ten years ago, so while they still had the same traits, they were less able to hide behind them as effectively as they once were. I also liked how it was filmed in the same casual way, with doors closing, papers rustling, people talking in the background etc. I really loved it.

This morning before I left the house, I watched the second half of an episode of Upstairs Downstairs (I love ITV3), which is a perfect way to spend a Sunday morning. The episode ended with Lord Bellamy dictating a message to Lady Bellamy which was to be sent to the ship she was sailing to America on, and it read:

‘April 1912, for the attention of Lady Bellamy, berth no. 41, HMS Titainic…’

ERK!!!!! Fantastic!