I know I know, but I think you know why I don’t blog much, will try harder…
And for starters, what could be a more perfect subject than Natalie and my favourite director and a stunning set of posters for his new movie Black Swan. I just love all of these (click the image for the other three posters)
I went to Cyprus recently… great holiday, terrible Island, full of Brits and dust! Anyway, I only had one book that I was looking forward to reading on the entire holiday… I started reading it as we boarded the plane and damned well finished it as we came into land in Cyprus!
The book… I ain’t telling you the title you can work it out… was a really excellent story. Although it was set in the present day had a lot in common with Cormac McCarthy’s other books in that it felt like it was a time long gone by. I loved how the build up to the *really* obvious ending was handled with such balls (basically the finale in the book happened off camera, um, as it were. Thoroughly recommended.
And the obvious question… if you found several million dollars in a bag, would you keep it? Would you keep it if a psycho was trying to get it back? Would you keep it if a psycho and a bunch of drug dealers were trying to get it back? You would? Wow I love you… but you’re going to die.
p.s. I watched the film… it was good, but not even nearly as good as the book.
It seems to me that there is only two states of mind that most of us live in when it comes to health… normally “It won’t happen to me” and luckily rarely “Why me?”.
This film really makes you think of another option… “Oh boy please let it not be me”. Telling the true life story of a man in his 40’s who has a stroke and becomes totally paralysed and can only communicate by blinking one eye, it manages to break your heart at the same time as making you adore the guys capacity for being able to cope and make the best of his situation (yes I’m aware that sentence was too long). He clearly still has a sense of humour, loves to flirt, is still the same guy… but never during the film is there a hint that he is going to get better. In fact he rails against friends who talk of God and miracles being the answer. It had a great soundtrack and was beautifully shot, with a real sense of both motion, taunting the guy, and then being trapped behind his eyes. Oh and the scene with the guys Father, gut wrenching.
How does it end? Well, how can a film like this end apart from heart-breakingly. But it made me at least stop complaining about not having a Macbook Air and not being 20 any more. For about 10minutes. Watch it!
What a cool and very odd film! It’s the story of a man who is born with the perfect sense of smell… he can smell a sausage burning miles and miles away, which is probably handy for turning up unannounced to BBQ’s in the summer. More seriously though, he’s not quite right in the head and is trying to learn how to “keep smell” – i.e once someone is dead their unique sent is lost forever. Now, oddly his idea to solve this problem is to kill lots of young women and bottle their scent. Not *quite* my number one idea but it made a good film! The main character is great, he’s a young good looking guy but gives you a sense of bloody creepiness through the entire film in his decication to his goal. What’s most strange though is that it’s a “normal” film. Like, any typical period costume drama that you’d expect to see on the BBC, but at the same time it’s really an “indie” type of film as well with it’s strange story and very disturbing visuals. Because of this you never really feel like you know how the story is going to develop… which is good!
Anyway, it has some good ticks…
I might have to buy the book now
It’s true, it would have been pretty scary to be in the tunnels of the New York underground and see a flaming homeless guy running towards you. This was one of the lines from the excellent film Cloverfield. Such a great story that held a very fine balance between telling you too much about the story and not giving you enough detail. So many monster films never show you the damned monster! It was one of the few films where I actually watched the director’s commentary (not that it turned out to be very good). Bring on Cloverfield 2!
Recently I’ve also watched Notes on a Scandal which was also excellent, I don’t really have a lot to say about either of these films apart from ‘watch them’ do I?