Countdown

And so. It is New Year’s Eve. Again. A time for new beginnings, right? So far today I have thought about how much I am not ready to go back to work just yet, and how fast this holiday has gone and how that is terribly unfair. And I’ve been to see I Am Legend, which is an excellent film, though possibly not one to put you in the mood for celebration. I found it quite sad actually. When I came outside I looked around and wondered (as I sometimes do) just how I would react if hordes of zombie/vampire beings came screaming at me down the middle of the road. I like to imagine I would be all kick ass and survive until other survivors found me and I could relax and be all safe and yay…but in reality I would scream and cry and panic and die straight off. Or pretend to be dead and hope they didn’t notice.

Anyway, New Year. I’m not overly bothered by this night. It’s always anticlimactic. I don’t think I’ve ever had a particularly fun New Year’s Eve. It’s just…there. I do have a tradition, however. That tradition is me, alone, in whatever place I am living at that time, watching TV, eating chocolate and crisps, and writing in my journal. I have very boring Eves documented since I was about 14. Sometimes I’m watching Star Trek, others Titanic. I make resolutions I never keep, only to make the same ones the next year. It’s not exciting, but it is what it is, and I never minded.
This year I am going out. Uh huh. My body is saying ‘No…stay inside where it is warm.’ But I am trying to ignore it. It’s tempting to do the old tradition I must admit, but I am going to be among other people, and you never know, I might even enjoy myself.

So Happy New Year to all. Hope you have a rocking evening!

Ho Ho Ho

I am back in London, my time at home was very relaxing and it’s a bit of a shame to be back in all the hustle and bustle, but while Christmas may be over for some, I had one gift awaiting me when I got back. And it is this:

Oh happy happy joy joy!!! The gift was the DS, I just got the game myself, and figured I’d better write this now or I would be lost to Brain Training forever. Isn’t it pretty? Now I need more games. What are good games? A game I used to love for my PC was Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. I like ones where you have to solve puzzles and stuff to move on (even if the main character for that was well annoying). Well, I say like. I get very frustrated when I can’t to it and had to download the cheats for that one when I got stuck. Will have a look online at what there is.

Moving on from DS talk, to my knitting. Here is a picture of my first attempt:

It’s a scarf. I would say ‘obviously’, but is it obvious? I don’t know. It’s not quite as pretty as the DS, and there are a couple of dropped stitches and threads I need to tidy, but I am enjoying doing it and I think I’m getting better. I’d like to be able to knit a jumper already but must have patience. Of course now my time is torn between the DS and this. My hands will be busy anyway.

Last night I watched While You Were Sleeping for about the 30th time, though I fell asleep before one of my favourite speeches:

Lucy: The truth was that I fell in love with you.
Ox: You fell in love with me?
Lucy: No, N-o, yes. All of you. I went from being all alone to being a fiancee, a daughter a granddaughter, a sister and a friend.

Luckily I woke up in time for my absolute favourite last line: “Peter once asked me when I fell in love with Jack. And I told him, “It was while you were sleeping.”

Aww. Now I’m afraid I’m going to go play my DS. It has been nice knowing you all.

It’s All About the Money

Oh guh.

So, there is, most likely, going to be a new trilogy (or an attempt at one) of the Terminator films. It will have John Connor in it but news is shaky at the moment and it may in fact focus on another, completely new character. Arnie may have a cameo but will not be the main Terminator. It follows on from Rise of the Machines into the post-apocalyptic world…and I already don’t care. T3 was an ok film, but it was not at all a good Terminator film. Why can’t they leave things well enough alone? And if they can’t, why oh why couldn’t James Cameron stop divorcing his wives and losing precious film rights in divorce settlements? Because I would watch a Cameron Terminator film in a heartbeat.

I was feeling slightly optimistic about the new film, seeing as it is set to star Christian Bale, who is a great actor and who generally doesn’t seem to sign on for shit stuff. And then the optimism was killed when I learned it was to be directed by McG. Of Charlie’s Angels ‘fame’. Hoo-frickin-rah.

Anyway, here’s a wiki link to some Terminator: Salvation info

I’ll go silently weep in the corner now.

(Of course, if it turns out to be fabulous, I will be eating my words. I’d actually prefer that to be honest.)

Enchanted

I went to see Enchanted yesterday, and not to be all overly girly or anything, but it was enchanting (see what I did there?). I’d wanted to see it when I first saw the trailer, but hadn’t expected it to be nearly as good as it was. I thought it would be cute and pass the time and be pretty forgettable. Wrong! It’s so lovely and so sweet and funny. I had a smile on my face all the way through, which is rare with films these days. If you’re looking for something to cheer you up then this is the film for you. It’s got comedy, and romance, and songs, and lots of silly references to Disney films, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

If you don’t know, it starts as a cartoon in which Giselle sits about waiting for her perfect kiss from a prince, and then meets said prince, unaware that his evil step-mother will do anything to stay queen. On her wedding day Giselle is banished to real world New York, in a HUGE wedding dress. And people are mean and she must find her true love and get back to her fairy tale world.

So what’s so good about it huh?

Small spoilers follow.

A Fangirl Obsesses

There seems to be a thing about making top lists for things, especially when it comes to TV shows and films. Said lists define you and your tastes and make it easy for other people to pin you down, figure you out. I am hopeless when it comes to these lists. There are far too many fantastic shows and films over the last…oh, I don’t know, how long have they been in existence?, for me to begin to pick favourites. That’s why it’s nice when someone does it for me, and then I can simply go, ‘Yeah, that’s spot on,’ or, more usually ‘Are these people nuts, do they not have any taste whatsoever?’ and walk away before I say something mean and remind myself that differences make the world go round and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

So here’s a list of something very close to my heart. EW.Com’s top 25 of the last 25 years I’m all about the Sci-Fi. I’m such a fangirl. How can you not love it? When done well, Sci-Fi rocks my world. It takes everything that’s great about human nature and magnifies it, putting us in situations we can only dream of and seeing what we do while we’re there. It shows the best and the worst of us, the good guys are better in SF (and often a little morally grey themselves), the bad guys more evil. I’ll admit, there’s some shoddy stuff around, but the good, man, the good is just awesome.

So I’m loving that this list has some of my favourites on there and isn’t just a homage to Star Wars. (Hey, I love Star Wars as much as the rest, but let’s have some other stuff in there once a while, shall we?) It has films I adore – Aliens (seriously, if I have to make a list of top films, that film is on it. Bizarrely it’s a film that reminds me of my childhood and I can watch it over and over and it never gets old), Total Recall (the effects might look a little worse for wear these days but watching Arnie pull a huge beaming device out of his nose is always worth it), Galaxy Quest (if ever I need a chuckle, that’s one of the top films I go for, ‘Don’t open that, is there air, you don’t know!).

And TV shows – Quantum Leap, a show I can still repeat the opening words to ‘Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator, and vanished.’ Brilliant! Lost, Battlestar Galactica (at number two no less, and I think it’s deserved. Season 2 of that show was truly kick ass), and of course, the one that is so very close to my heart, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, apparently there is a little less love for TNG than there used to be, which I just don’t get. It gave us the Borg! It gave us Picard, and an android who showed more humanity than many humans. Show it some love people.

I could go on and on about these films and these shows, and I probably will at some time (especially when/if (sob!) BSG finally comes back on air, but I’ll stop before this becomes pages and pages of ramble, and say go read the list. Does it do the genre justice?

Movies Movies Movies

Yesterday was my book club website’s Christmas party. Starting at 1.30 pm we watched 3 films, had food, then the bar opened. With yesterday’s weather being so awful it was again tempting to turn off my alarm clock and shove my head back under the covers, but I was good and got up. I’m happy to report that I can still get lost in London even with my A-Z. Well, I didn’t get lost so much as get off the bus at the wrong stop. Stupid numbering system in this city. Why does one side of the road go 1-101 and the other go 100-2? Makes NO SENSE. So I got off way down the road before I realised I was an idiot and tramped back through the rain. Oh well, I got there eventually. I was the first one there so talked to the organiser for a bit and we were given luke warm tea, but then we got proper hot tea and I settled into a Mastermind/Star Trek chair that spun all the way round and made me feel tempted to do an evil villain’s laugh. I didn’t. And then we watched the films, none of which I have ever seen, which seems strange given the amount of films I watch.

The first was Meet Me In St Louis which was actually quite nice, in a very girly, bright ‘we have just discovered technicolour and shall therefore dress all the women in hideous frocks’, shrieky, melodramatic way. Honestly, did people ever dress like that, ever? Mismatched colours and patterns that should never be worn together, and the frills, oh my. Anyway, there isn’t a lot of story here. A family is eagerly awaiting the World’s Fair, they like boys, they dance and sing. A LOT. There are misunderstandings. They are going to move to New York. They don’t. Oh yay, Merry Christmas! I also very badly needed subtitles for the younger two daughters, their high pitched voices were just impossible to hear. I missed a whole subplot about the little one being beaten up but not really by the boy Judy Garland fancied when really she split her lip…doing something else. Not a clue what went on there. Anyway, it was nice enough, but had I been watching it alone I may not have made it to the end.

Next up we had The Nightmare Before Christmas which I didn’t really like. I could easily have nodded off during that one. Really thin on story, albeit well made and technically brilliant, but just very meh.

Last was the ultimate Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Is it really? Are you sure? Cos this is one hell of a depressing film. I can see why Phoebe never got to the end of it on Friends. OK, so it has a nice ending, but all the crap that goes on before you get there…it’s too much. I think it’s really well done and for the time really excellent, a well told story and all that. But even though it has the nice ending and everyone is happy and wow he learns that his life has had meaning…he’s still going to wake up the next morning and be stuck in his same old life. He still has to go back to work at that bloody savings and loans. He never gets out of of Bedford Falls. I think I might have like the ending more had someone given him two tickets for a round the world trip so he could finally take his wife on a honeymoon and have an adventure. AND! Evil Mr Potter got away with everything! He stole the money and was just mean to everyone, and he didn’t get his comeuppance? What the hell kind of Christmas story is this? Nope, just too upsetting for my liking.

I also have to ask, what’s with the bizarre names for the youngest girls in these old films? Tootie and Zuzu? Huh? What? Were these really popular names back then that have (quite rightly) died out? Very strange. I have also had the damn song from St Louis in my head since yesterday. I only know two lines. Kind of driving me crazy.

After the films I was actually brave for once and made myself talk to people, and I had some very nice conversations. I left at about 11 pm though because I was just shattered. But I had a really lovely time. Hopefully we’ll do that sort of thing again.

And in other news, yet another person I went to university with is having a baby. So congratulations to everyone in the whole world who is having babies! It’s like an epidemic I swear, and yet none of them live remotely near me so I can’t even use them to get my baby fix. That’s just selfish that is.

August Rush

Yesterday I had to trek back to Debenhams to exchange some of the make up because I had been given the wrong shade (grr, I knew she wasn’t listening to me), and since that was so traumatic (hello, Oxford Street on a Saturday!) I treated myself to the cinema. Yes I went alone, no one feel sorry for me, it’s very liberating don’t you know. I decided to see August Rush even though I didn’t really know what it was about, other than a kid and music. It was ok, trying really hard to be a tear jerker, but I just couldn’t get there. I was jolted out of the film by too many things (ie, is Jonathan Rhys Meyers really singing?) It was sweet, but possibly more a film to watch of a Sunday afternoon when there’s nothing else on.

A fuller review with spoilers follows.

I AM BEOWULF!!!

Well no, I’m not Beowulf, but I went to see it last night and I must say, it was pretty good. I hadn’t seen any trailers for it and no advertisements except pictures so had no expectations going in. Plus, my previous knowledge of the Beowulf story consisted of it involving a man named Beowulf and a monster called Grendel. So at least I would be surprised. Also, if you are going to go see it, the IMAX in 3D is the way to go. I highly recommend it. There’s nothing like feeling like you’re about to be stabbed in the eye with a spear or covered in gory bits to get your heart racing.

OK, so let’s break it down. The CGI effects. It’s weird. Anthony Hopkins, Brendan Gleeson and Angelina Jolie look like they have been plucked from real life and plonked into a computer game. They look that lifelike, and like themselves. John Malkovich looked more cartoony for some reason, and although she looked good, Robin Wright Penn drove me crazy for half the movie trying to figure out who she was in real life (though she looked more like herself when they aged her). I think that was half the battle, getting your brain to ignore the digital trickery and focus on the story being told. Once I got past it I was ok. I was amused that Ray Winstone was nothing like he is in real life (because I suppose a portly, middle aged man would not have done Beowulf much justice), and looked more like Sean Bean. They had been very nice to him indeed though, Beowulf is buff. He also likes to fight in the nude (of course he does, who wouldn’t want to battle a huge slobbery monster in the nuddy?), so a game of ‘spot Beowulf’s wang’ could become popular. I did keep expecting him to shout ‘I ahm from London, innit!’ at any moment because of his accent, but I think Winstone did a good job.

As for the ‘acting’, as I said, once your brain gets used to the fact that these aren’t real people, even though they look like it, it gets more interesting. The John Malkovich character put me off a bit. He moved quite like a Thunderbird in some scenes and was very wooden in his delivery. I suppose one thing I noticed is that these ‘people’ were very dead behind the eyes, which is probably not surprising. Though I think this was all done well, and the makers pulled it off, I don’t think real actors have to worry about being replaced.

Grendel was very well done, in that he was one disgusting creature. I don’t know who designed him but they must have a pretty sick imagination. He’s all skin and bone and you can see through him and his jaw was horrible and he slobbered and screamed and ick. I’m not totally convinced this film should be a 12A. Some of it is quite scary and disturbing, and if it had been done ‘for real’, I think the certificate would be higher.

All in all, very enjoyable. I liked that Beowulf was a very flawed hero. I did start to care about the characters and what happened to them, and the battle at the end was very good. I was seriously tense, and wanted to shout at the screen (in a good way), which is probably the mark of a decent film.

And I’ll take Beowulf over that extended music video shite-fest that was 300 any day.

And is it just me, or is Beowulf a really cool name…

What the Dickens?

For my next book club in December I have to read A Christmas Carol. On the one hand I am quite happy to be reading a classic, and it’s nice to have a Christmas theme at this time of year, but on the other hand, it is Dickens, and I although I don’t think I’ve read any of his, I have read excerpts and didn’t find his language all that easy to get on with. The closest I’ve got to Dickens really is playing the Narrator in my junior school version of Oliver Twist (I rocked by the way). Plus, I am reading two other books at the moment that I’d like to finish before going on to that. I haven’t even bought it yet and have no idea how long it will take me to read.

So, do we think I could get away with just watching The Muppet Christmas Carol or Scrooged instead? No…?

I am going Ice Skating at the 02 arena on Sunday. This has lots of opportunity for disaster, as I am barely able to function on two feet, nevermind skates. But I love ice skating and haven’t been in ages, so even if I spend the whole time clutching the side and having legs as wonky as Bambi, I will have a grand old time. Unless I break my leg or something…I remember the first time I went skating, my mum said if I fell I had to make sure to keep my hand closed in case someone skated over it and chopped my fingers off. Talk about putting the fear of God into you. Thanks Mum. I wonder just how many finger amputations there have been in ice rinks across the globe?

At the moment I have Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love song in my head. Driving me quite mad, mainly because I just don’t quite get what she’s trying to say. It’s quite upbeat music-wise, and yet she’s talking about being cut open and bleeding. So, does she mean she’s fallen in love, has had her heart broken and is now ‘bleeding love’, “You cut me open and I keep bleeding’? Or, was she cut off from love before, “My heart’s crippled by the vein that I keep on closing”, has now found love and is so overcome that love is just pouring out of her, and this is a good thing? I just don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter at all, but when it’s going round and round in your head you start to wonder these things.

Somebody is coming to look at the flat today for the first time in months, wonder if anyone will ever put an offer in. Perhaps the asking price is too high?

It’s Friday. Woot! Tonight I am going to see Once at the cinema and it’s supposed to be really good. Tomorrow I am sleeping lots, double woot! And I must do my ironing (oh joy). And then skating on Sunday, so it’s shaping up to be a very nice weekend.

Life and Parkin

Is everyone fed up of my flat rambles yet?

Ruby got a call last night from an estate agent saying they would like to come round and do a viewing. This is not the estate agent I have been dealing with, I guess the landlord wants them out of the loop when it comes to the selling competition. It’s a landlady looking to buy all three flats in our building and allegedly it is likely she will buy. I am crossing all my fingers and toes that she does buy, that we get to stay, that she is lovely, that she doesn’t hike up the rent and that we can be left to live in peace. I’m tired of stressing about this.

On Monday night I went round to Max’s to wish him happy birthday and he was watching Hostel 2. This is not a film I had any interest in seeing myself as it’s the kind of horror that goes places I don’t really want my mind to go. I watched about 20 minutes, some of it with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears, and then he turned it off and said he would watch it later. Last night I had horrible Hostel-esque dreams with stabbings and weirdness and also, an Elizabeth Bathory type woman, which does make sense if you’ve seen the film. I think.

Before the horridness of dreams I rescued a snail from our recycling bin (how crazy am I if I spoke to it while setting it on the windowsill?) and made Parkin for work as we are having a good bye tea for Fiona on Thursday. She’s going on maternity leave so obviously needs feeing up with Parkin, scones and Victoria Sandwich cake before she goes. I rarely make Parkin, and even then only at certain times of the year. If I don’t I feel like my grandmother will somehow know and be very upset about it. It’s her recipe you see and she only ever made it at certain times of the year (it reminds me of Bonfire Night, but I guess I’m close enough). I guess it makes it more special that way too. It’s the first time I’ve made it with proper black treacle, so I’m a bit scared it might have too much kick to it. We’ll see. I love Parkin.

I am having a healthy snack of apple slices. Oooh, so unlike me.