Here I am, blogging on the train again. This time I’m on the way to my cousin Emma’s wedding, in Gt Misssenden (which is Aylesbury way – we just left Rickmansworth, where I believe PGL Head Office is, and are now at Chorleywood, home of Soul Survivor. LBC not far either). Anyway, the inspiration for this ramble is that we’re basically following the route of the Metropolitan line, so what you may say. Well, not only are we following the route – we’re using the tracks!!

I was sure that mainline trains and the tube use different gauges – but the metropolitan line is the same track as the circle, district etc, and Marylebone is a proper mainline station. I suppose it’s possible that either the circle etc. lines are different, or indeed that the Aylesbury line is different? Or maybe the power rails on the tube make it look smaller.

Was a good journey down. I started off in coach C (my reserved seat), which is right next to the smoking car, stank of smoke and was full of very loud young men & loud families. So I decided to upgrade on weekend first (only 10 quid) but actually found coach D was half-full, totally quiet, and not smokey! It’s also the quiet coach, so no phones, walkmans, beeps – bliss. I got all my work done, and had time to read the paper! Think I’ll try the same trick on the way home.

What to say about this film? Gripping it certainly is, and follows closely that special genre of disaster movies. The story, special FX, casting, and acting are great, and it manages to be a global drama and local story very well. Only once or twice is excessive artistic license taken – but more on that in a minute.
Make no mistake – this is a brutal film. Not in a graphic blood-and-guts type way, but more that, throughout the film there is constant wholesale slaughter! And it’s not just the nameless millions being topped – the film seems to introduce characters, spend some time with them, give a bit of back story, build some empathy, only to have them squashed under a bus, hit by a rooF, drowned, or frozen to death! Indeed, at one point in the film I began to seriously wonder if any of the main characters were going to be alive at the end of the film! Very unusual for this type of film – I normally find I know exactly who is and isn’t going to make it, much like the poor doomed ‘new-actor-playing-an-ensign-on-an-away-mission’ in Star Trek.
However, and it’s a pretty big however, this film can very close to being completely ruined but stupid ‘technical’ gaffes, and some poor directing/screen-writing. For me, the whole point of a film like this is escapism, and as soon as something happens to make you aware you’re watching a film the mood is lost. I know films like Scary Movie employ post-modern self-knowing irony, but this is not Scary Movie! I could swallow the pitch about The Storm, I choked a bit on The Instant Freeze Air Stream, but – come on guys – pay-phones which work underwater?? When the rest of the city has lost power for hours? Come to that, cellphones still working after all the power’s out? Worst of all, the New York contingent hole up in the Public Library, in a conference type room with a large open foreplace – fair enough. But then proceed to only burn books. Shame there’s not an almost endless supply of wood to burn, like chairs and study-desks, eh? And don’t bother gathering around the fire, trying to make a heat reflector from tables, etc to keep the heat in – l no, no, no – just spread yourself around the room on sofas.. careful not to get within 15 ft of the fire tho, it might warm you up. Oh yes, and no need to worry about the floor to ceiling single pane leaded windows – I’m sure there’s no benefit to stacking it full of books for insulation.. hell, no need to even bother drawing the curtains. Grrrrrr – gets my goat up – would have have added nothing to the budget to get that group make a serious attempt at survival.
Arguably worse than that is the shocking depiction of time. The bulk of the film apparantly takes place over a fortnight or so, yet (apart from occasional clues in the dialog), it feels more like a few hours. You shouldn’t have to feed in lines like ‘She’s only eaten crisps and chocolate for the lasst 3 days’ to indicate that 3 days have passed since the group where shown breaking into the vending machine about 10 minutes ago! It happened lots, and each time it was a shock (so you mean that arty shot of him walking on the snow was actually 2 days hiking then?) This is perhaps a harder issue to solve, but some advance ‘time about to pass’ warning would do – like ‘We’re just north of wherever – should be another 2 days to New York’. Or even ‘Ok, we’re walking from here – shouldn’t take more than a week’. Perhaps it’s just that most people look exactly the same throughout, despite being trapped for days without food or washing facilities, in sub-zero temperatures. Even their clothes are hardly soiled!
I don’t want to sound too harsh – I did enjoy it, but I think the film would have greatly benefited from a little more time thinking about how a good of kids would be affected by being stuck in their situation for a week, how you would really survive in those conditions, and how the passage of time could be made clearer.
Seen at Ster Century, Leeds

Must have beeen desperate – three entries.

Two nice suprises yesterday – firstly Blockbuster Video have got a new rental deal, whereby you can rent 3 older videos or DVDs for 7 days for 5 pounds. I guess it’s in response to operations like Lovefilm (indeed, I understand that Tesco is to do something similar). So anyway, got myself Memento, Enemy at the Gates, and Signs. Just watched Memento – very odd (but rather good) film. Didn’t dare watch Signs – might watch it on Sunday afternoon when it’s light!!

The second surprise was at some point in the recent past I signed up for Ben & Jerry’s Buddy Club. As “one of the first members” they also sent me a voucher for a free tub of ice-cream (consumed watching aforementioned film – New York Super Fudge Crunch), although there’s a whole story behind actually getting the thing from Asda. Perhaps another day.

There seems to be a bit of an Emmanuelle Beart renaiscance going on at the moment. Saw in Blockbusters that Nelly and Mr Arnaud is being re-released, and her new film Nathalie was being plugged in today’s Metro.

If you’ve only seen her in Mission Impossible then you may wonder what the big deal is – I think M.I. did justice to neither her acting ability or beauty, compared with, say, En Coeur en Hiver, or Manon des Sources. Nelly is a great film – might even watch it again – and I’m certainly going to keep an eye out for Nathalie (funnily enough also the name – with that spelling – of a girl I once fancied when I was young, free, and single).

Well having the lights re-wired at home, which has meant I’ve had to turn off my linux box. Having horrible withdrawal symptons about not being able to tinker with my website, so much so that I’m writing this on the train into my new(ish) Palm thingy. Will power her up tonight to regurgitate my aimless ramblings into the great electronic toiletbowl that is the web! (sorry for the imagery – had a kebab last night)

Just found out that the next Harry Potter book is going to be called Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (who is neither Harry nor Voldy, apparantly). It’s on J.K. Rowling’s website, so it probably is true! No ETA, however.

Also very excited because I got my letter of appointment to my new job today – as from tomorrow I’m going to be a Research Officer (I’m not allowed to call myself a Research Fellow, or “Doctor” come to that, until I’m formally awarded my PhD, on July 23rd) in the School of Computing.

And on a completely different note – been watching a series called Tru Calling (about to start series 2 on Sky 1, Tuesdays 9pm), which stars Elizu Dushku (aka Faith from Buffy) as Tru Davies, a girl who gets asked for help by dead people, and then relives the day that just passed. It’s actually better than that makes it sound – and we’ve really enjoyed watching it. No doubt it will appear on BBC 2 soon!

Well, finished Two Towers – got really into it by the end, and feel like I’ve been left hanging. Must visit video shop and get Return of the King.

My half-hearted attempts at losing a bit of weight continue – I’m currently spot on 80kg (12 stone 8 in old money), which is fine for my height and age, but just before I got married I was nearer 70kg (11 stone), and just felt fit and well and sleek – a weight I enjoyed being.
Actually it’s not so much about weight as having a bit of a tummy and flabby legs, which I don’t like! Still, lets see what happens after the summer.

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper FForde, is a very odd but brilliant book that takes you on something of a magical mystical tour to an alternate reality of modern England, where Dodos are not extinct, certain people have special talents (like being able to move through time, or enter into the text of a book), and in general the normal understanding of reality doesn’t hold much
sway. Oh yes, and the arts rule the world – French Impressionist riots, anyone?

Our heroine, Thursday Next, is a Literary Detective, spending her days chasing down fake and stolen manuscripts of books. Enter villian extraordinaire Acheron Hades (don’t say his name out loud!), who steals the original manuscript to Martin Chuzzlewit and threatens to kill said character! This plot foiled, he goes on to kidnap Jane Eyre, and holds her to ransom – can Thursday save the day?

This book is impossible to fit into a genre – I was aware on several occasions that literary jokes were passing me by, as I was not familiar with the texts, but this is not a high-brow book – the characters have names like “Page Tuner”!! And at times my brain was turned inside out trying to follow the story (this only gets worse in the next book), but it’s a hugely enjoyable romp, I found I just couldn’t put it down, and the idea of being able to enter books and interfere with the characters and plot is but genius!

Give it a try for some fairly light but very entertaining and totally surreal reading, and marvel in the world FFord has created.

Updated my to-see list again – dropped off King Arthur and The Terminal after considering that I’ve got more than enough films that I really want to see without adding ones that I’m not sure about!

I’ve also taken Two Towers off – not that we’ve watched it yet, but we have started (are about an hour in – circumstances insist that we watch it in various sittings). Should clock another hour tonight, which will put us around halfway through! Got the surround sound going for it too, which I just love, especially when a horse gallops past, or something like that.

Other news – little Ben is getting very good at sitting up now, and can almost do it unsupported. As soon as he can, we’ll be putting him in a high-chair to feed (solids), which will hopefully make the process easier, if no less messy! Soon enough he’ll be on finger foods too, which will be quite fun to watch. He’s still a bit wobbly, and tends to either subside sideways, or lunge forwards and end up landing on his face with his bum in the air (closely followed by load wails!)

Another one bites the dust – Final Fantasy this time, thanks to Channel 5. Don’t think I’ll bother doing a full review – would have been wowed 3 years ago when it came out, now – not so sure..