Last night was pretty quiet. I watched the first couple of episodes from the Torchwood DVD set that I got yesterday. I’d seen them before when they first aired, of course, but it was fun.
I got into work at around twenty past nine this morning. It was another fairly quiet day at work, more or less the same as ever. There didn’t seem to be many people in the office at all today. I suppose it’s really the holiday season now. I left the office at around half past five and headed home.
I had a pretty quiet morning today, but in the afternoon I headed out to the city centre and bought the season one DVD box-set of Torchwood in the sales.
After waiting about half an hour for a bus, I went on up to the Cineworld cinema to meet my friend Malcolm, where we went to a Film Festival screening of the film The Kreutzer Sonata, directed by Bernard Rose and based on a novel by Leo Tolstoy, which was itself inspired by a Beethoven sonata (the Violin Sonata in A Major for piano and violin, Op. 47). In present day Los Angeles, wealthy Edgar (played by Danny Huston) marries a young pianist (Elisabeth Rohm) after an intense affair, however, as she is rehearsing a benefit performance of “The Kreutzer Sonata” with a young violinist (Matthew Yang King), Edgar becomes convinced she is having an affair and becomes consumed with obsessive jealousy. The film is shot on digital video with a non-linear structure. It was a good film but very, very dark and very explicit.
It’s the last day of the Film Festival today and the film was screening as part of the “Best of the Fest” day where they show the most popular films for the Festival. After the film Malcolm and I had a quick drink in the bar before going our seperate ways.
Last night I was watching the 1959 film Look Back in Anger, directed by Tony Richardson, and based on a play by John Osborne. It was one of countless social-realist, or “kitchen-sink”, dramas that came out of Britain in the late 1950s and early ’60s. The film tells the story of intelligent but disaffected Jimmy Porter (played by Richard Burton), who runs a sweet-stall in a market and plays trumpet at a jazz club at night. He spends most of his time endlessly complaining about everything and bullying everyone around him especially his long-suffering wife, Alison (Mary Ure), and her friend (Claire Bloom). The film has really dated quite badly, but it is still pretty good. It’s stage origins are quite evident, with characters given to spouting out long, poetic monologues and it also suffers from a deeply unpleasant main character. The play was adapted by Nigel Kneale, best known for the classic Quatermass science-fiction series.
I went along to my parent’s house today for lunch. We stopped off on the way, so I could get some groceries for the week. I had some sushi for my lunch and some strawberries and cream fro dessert, so that was really good. I really like sushi. Also my tickets for the Book Festival in August arrived, and everything seems to be in order.
This afternoon I went along to Cineworld with my mum to see a Film Fetsival screening of WALL.E, directed by Andrew Stanton, the latest film from the Pixar animation studios. The film is about the last robot left on Earth, who is single-handedly trying to clean up all the rubbish that has rendered the planet uninhabitable by humanity. The film was really great, very funny and really charming and sweet, with some truly spectacular computer animation. It was preceded by a hilarious short film called Presto about a magician’s rabbit who is determined to get a carrot. After the screening, one of the chief animators of WALL.E gave a short presentation about the development of the character and the animation. My mum and I had a quick drink after the show before I went home.
When I got home I listened to an episode of Fear on Four on the radio. It was about a couple who buy a house, at a very low price, and find a secret, hidden room containing a couple of empty boots and a press-cutting about a brutal murder that happened in the house, as well as something much nastier. I also watched the latest episode of Doctor Who, which was really good, featuring the Daleks and, for the first time in twenty years, their creator Davros.
Last night I set the video to record a couple of movies on TV called Look Back in Anger and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (which was based on a novel by Alan Sillitoe, who I’ll be seeing at the Book Festival in August). They must be doing a season on depressing British social realist films from the 1950s and 60s.
Work was the same as ever. There weren’t many people in at all, which is always the way on Fridays. I left work at four to head up to the Filmhouse cinema. I went to see another one of the Film Festival films, this one being Dreams With Sharp Teeth, directed by Erik Nelson. It was a documentary film about the controversial science-fiction author Harlan Ellison. The film mostly consisted of Ellison discussing his life and career, alongside archive footage of TV interviews he’d done, Ellison reading extracts of his work against various surreal, computer-generated backdrops and comments from famous admirers and friends including actor Robin Williams and author Neil Gaiman. The film is often extremely funny as Ellison discusses his various antics (such as mailing a dead gopher to a New York publishing house, and accidentally breaking the pelvis bone of a television executive on a model of the submarine from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea during a script conference). He also shares his out-spoken opinions on almost everything. It was preceded by a very short film called Out of Print about the joys of tracking down rare, hard to find cult books, records and movies, in the days before the internet.
Last night I was flicking through my new Ray Harryhausen book while half-watching repeats of comedy shows on the television.
I got into work at around nine o’clock again this morning, and at around ten to eleven I joined the crowd trooping along to a union meeting. The meeting was held in a sports centre almost right next to the office. The meeting was held in a basketball court, which meant sitting on hard narrow benches where you could barely move for fear of someone accidentally kicking you and I soon felt my feet going numb. Also it was draughty and lit by this horrible orange light, which reminded me of high-school exams (which were always held in the school basketball court and lit by the same orange light). The meeting itself was to do with the endless pay dispute that has been going on for years. It was hard to hear what was being said because the PA system was so bad. It was nothing really new, and I think most people just went along to get some time away from the office. Apparently they are talking about holding another strike, which nobody really wants because obviously you don’t get paid for the days you’re out on strike.
On my way home I got another carton of milk (which wasn’t leaking this time) and the new copy of Radio Times. My next Film Festival film is tomorrow and will be Dreams With Sharp Teeth, a documentary about the controversial science-fiction author Harlan Ellison.
Last night I was watching the first couple of episodes of an old Doctor Who story from the 1970s called “The Masque of Mandragora”, it was pretty good, but I had to video the last couple of episodes because it was pretty late at night when it started.
When I left home this morning I ran into an old friend named Vince, who happens to live in my building. I’ve known him since I was a kid because we were both really into science-fiction. I don’t see him much these days, but I sometimes run into him at the movies. I got into work at around nine. It was another fairly dull day. The pay dispute seems to be hotting up, as it does usually at least once or twice a year, and there is a Union meeting tomorrow morning.
After work I went along to the Cineworld cinema to see the latest Film Festival event, which wasn’t a film, but a talk by the special-effects artist Ray Harryhausen who worked on sixteen films including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years B.C. and Clash of the Titans. He worked mainly in designing and creating creatures in stop-motion animation, which basically involves making a model, taking a still frame shot, moving it a tiny bit and taking another shot, moving it a tiny bit more and taking another frame and so on so that when it’s all put together it looks like movement, the process would have to be done twenty-four times to make one second of animation. The show was really entertaining and Harryhausen (who will be 88 years old in a few days time) was interesting and engaging. The host was author Tony Dalton who collaborated with Harryhausen on some books. The show was illustrated with many clips from the films and also some of the original models that were used. Afterwards Harryhausen and Dalton were signing copies if their books, so I got one called Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life and got it signed. The book is a beautiful hardbacked book filled with behind the scenes photos, film stills and movie posters.
A lot of the films I could remember really well from watching them as a kid when they seemed to be on television all the time. they were really good, and the special effects are still impressive even today. There’s something about the physical model effects that the more modern digital animation just doesn’t seem to have.
I was up at half past seven this morning and had my breakfast of porridge and coffee. I got into work at about half past nine. The seemingly endless pay dispute is hotting up again so there was a lot of talk about that, as well as who is likely to die in the season finale of Doctor Who and whether anyone hadn’t heard of the Bee-Gees.
I left work at around half past five and headed up to the Cineworld cinema to see the Surprise Movie at the Film Festival. I was there about forty minutes early so I had time for a bottle of beer before the show. The Surprise Movie was a preview of a comedy film called The Rocker, directed by Paul Cattaneo. The movie opens in 1986 with the drummer in a heavy-metal band being fired just before the band make it famous. Twenty years later, the drummer (played by Rainn Wilson) is working a load of dull, ordinary jobs, while the band have gone on to become huge worldwide superstars. The drummer is still so bitter about this that he freaks out anytime he is reminded of them, which, on the day that the band release their latest album, causes him to lose his job and get thrown out by his girlfriend. So he winds up living with his sister and her family, where he discovers that his teenage nephew is in a band who, reluctantly, allow him to join them as a drummer. The movies also features Christina Applegate and Jeff Garlin (from Curb Your Enthusiasm), and a cameo from Pete Best, who was fired from The Beatles. I enjoyed it a lot. There’s not much really original in it, but I thought it was very funny.
Before the film started while people were still coming into the cinema I noticed they were playing the song “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer, which I have on my iPod, and I had actually been listening to at work. It’s a song that I really like a lot because it reminds me of a) Rachael Leigh Cook (it was like the theme for her film She’s All That) and b) the Summer of 1999, when the song was really big, and I was still at college (I really miss those days a lot because I miss that feeling like my whole life was ahead of me, and during that Summer I was getting interested in different things like writing poetry and so on also we went to New York City on holiday which was great fun).
On my way home I was going to get some take-out but the place was shutting up. I’m going to watch an Imagine… documentary about the author Haruki Murakami.
Today was a fairly quiet day at work. On my way home I bought a carton of milk which started leaking in my fridge, so I wasn’t too happy about that.
My next Film Festival movie is the Surprise Movie, which is tomorrow. It’s quite a fun idea where the film is kept secret until you’re actually there in the cinema on the day. I’ve been there before and there was really quite a buzz about it, before the movie started.
Last night I was watching a documentary show about the really low budget British “B” movies, some of which looked so bad they were really quite funny. The documentary was followed by a 1972 ‘horror’ film called Psychomania, directed by Don Sharp. The film is about a biker gang called ‘The Living Dead’ (who wear helmets painted like skulls). Their leader’s mother (played by Beryl Reid) is a frog-worshipping occultist who tells her son how to ‘come back’ after death, and so the son kills himself, and is buried sitting on his bike while his gang have a kind of hippy sing-along. However he comes back to life and persuades the rest of the gang to die and come back as undead zombies and go on a rampage (which seems to consist of tipping over traffic cones and riding around inside a supermarket). The film is so badly made, it’s actually really funny, complete with a cast of vaguely familiar TV faces in supporting roles, special effects that would shame a 1970s episode of Doctor Who and the most well-spoken biker gang in cinema. Although any film which features zombie bikers and ghost frogs can’t be completely devoid of interest.
After the film I saw this week’s episode of Doctor Who, which was really good. I am really looking forward to next weeks story.
I went along to my parent’s house for lunch, as usual for a Sunday. We had tacos which was nice. The new issue of Fortean Times had arrived in the mail during the week, so that was pretty interesting. I always like that magazine. I’ve had a subscription for thirteen years now. We went to a shopping mall in the afternoon, because my parents are going down to London during the week and wanted to get a birthday present for my brother’s girlfriend. I bought myself a book called My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith. It basically consists of just over a year’s worth of blog posts by Kevin Smith. We went to the food court and I had a glass of coke and a plain scone with butter nad jam. We could see out the window and watch a couple of tug boats in the harbour leading away a large cruise liner. It was kind of fun to see.
Today I went out to the supermarket get my food shopping for the week.
This afternoon I went out to the Cineworld cinema to see another Film Festival film. Today it was a film called Married Life, directed by Ira Sachs and based on a 1952 novel by John Bingham. The film is set in the USA in 1949 and tells the story of Harry (played by Chris Cooper) who is married to Pat (Patricia Clarkson). However he wants to leave her for his girlfriend, Kay (Rachel McAdams). Harry confides in his best friend Richard (Pierce Brosnan), who is also interested in Kay. Richard advises Harry not to hurt Pat’s feelings. However, as Richard attempts to win Kay’s affections behind Harry’s back, Harry decides the best way to avoid hurting Pat’s feelings is a nice quick murder. The film veers between relationship drama, film noir and dark comedy. It is always very entertaining, and very well-acted. The period design is well done.
My next Film Festival film is on Tuesday and it’s the Surprise Movie, so that should be interesting and the following day I’ll be seeing Ray Harryhausen. He’s going to be signing books, so I’m going to see if I can get one and get his autograph. I’ve got a few signed books now and hopefully I should be getting a few more soon with the book festival.
