Who would I see regarding stolen government money?

I didn't expect much from Charade. Before I even played it I wasn't expecting much purely from the synopsis and the fact it was yet another Audrey Hepburn film set in Paris (she does not cut her hair in this film). Moreover it was an Audrey Hepburn and a Cary Grant film. However, the titles were pretty damn good, all swirly colours and whatnot. But let me tell you, Charade is actually pretty good. It has a trio of bad guys including man with a claw hand and a Texan.

Also this



I watched Doctor Zhivago as well. It was very pretty and very long.

what a coincidence that we are all better than everyone

Over the past four days I have watched 12 films. 13 if you count the fact I am currently watching From Dusk til Dawn on channel 4. I am declaring that an achievement. I have paid a fiver for 8 films (once of which I cannot own for it was on the big screen), 2 more films I have not decided if I want to keep yet. I now have 63% remaining in my sky+ planner. So here is my new list. Some are repeats either because they were too long to stare at this weekend or they are yet to be recorded. Yes, my life is terribly dull. This is what I do to stay sane.

These I need to watch before next weekend.
Zodiac
Doctor Zhivago
Dark Passage (which will be my third out of four Bogart and Bacall films) - I have only seen about 15 minutes because I have to go but oh god so good.
The Strawberry Blondes
Charade
Withnail & I

Because all of these will be recorded over Saturday and Sunday.
Breaking The Waves
Tell No One
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The Edukators
Passage to Marseille (which is billed as a 'supposed follow-up' to Casablanca so I suspect it will be bad)

A couple of real mean motor scooters. Ahh I love this film.

A love that would look and sound just like a movie

I have five films set to record over the weekend. Each film uses about 10% on average of the sky+ planner. I have 43% left at this moment in time. So I'm going to ruin my eyes in order to watch, burn and delete all that needs to be watched, burned and deleted. I got off to a terrible start as North by Northwest was too long to fit on my dvd. A whole morning wasted. As soon as I record this weekend's films I'll have to watch, burn and delete them too to make way for next week's films. A tiring process of cultural enlightenment. Anyway I'm bored so here's the list of current and futures. I'll update with reviews when I get through them.

Everything is Illuminated - gets much better as it goes on. Mood spoiled by Gogol Bordello reminding me of a dancing communist dressed as a hula girl.
Zodiac
A Time to Leave - it's an 18, French and the main character is gay but still I did not prepare myself for the sex scene. That aside it was rather good. Subtitles were tiny though.
28 Days Later - the film of continuous panning.
Sherrybaby - marks the first time I have ever disliked Maggie Gyllenhaal.
The Good German - very pretty, story was so-so, it lacked some of the ridiculous charm of the films it was trying to recapture but all in all I quite liked it. Clooney, much as I do like him, is no Bogart.
The Man Who Knew Too Much - there's something about Doris Day's face that meant I couldn't look at her for any length of time. It was really odd. Good film though but seriously, weird face.
The King - I've never seen a vengeance film so bright. Gael is love.
The Big Clock - ridiculous noir. I am happy.
Doctor Zhivago
Atlantis - I will always love that mechanic girl
Evil Dead 2 - was not in the room while this was burning, however I did manage to stick my head in at nearly every good one liner.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles 2/4 - love, love, love despite the fact Angel reminds me of a most irritating bastard I know.
Basil the Great Mouse Detective - Ratigan! O Ratigan! I love it almost as much as I loved it as a kid and I loved it so much the video wouldn't play anymore.
The Strawberry Blondes
Withnail & I

Eyes don't fail me now.

Also I came across this. Words cannot describe it. Ok maybe Drill Bra are words that will help in the describing.

My brain and tongue just met and they ain't friends just yet

Ok so I watched The Simpsons Movie (bad but I guess not terrible) and I watched The Wicker Man (which could have been called Nicholas Cage Punches Some Women) and I also watched Back to the Future (I forgot they swore quite so much, I was surprised and amused). But forget all them.

I recorded a film called Love Me if You Dare because it had Marion Cotillard in it and I now know who she is since I watched La Vie en Rose (and she's in Big Fish! I did not know this). It wasn't until the french title told me it was called Jeux d'enfants that I realised I had heard of this film before. Two kids start playing a game of dares that carries on as they grow up getting more and more dangerous is basically what Sky told me. Pah! It gave no indication about what the film was like. This was one of the most ridiculous, silly and ultimately pointless love stories I have watched in a while and I adored it. It was like if Amelie had a really mean streak and I do hate comparing every French film to Amelie but colour wise and silliness wise I'm going to do it anyway. Completely different message and the ending was almost ruined. It was so perfect and then there was another scene and I was like nooooooooooooooo but then it was ok. If I interpreted it right, then it was good.

So in conclusion I am very much in love with this movie. It may be that it's because he looks like a guy I fell in love with for awhile this year but I'd like to think it was more because the film was good.

I have an excellent idea, let's change the subject

Mixed bag of films yesterday. I finished watching Them. I guess if you have some intention of watching this film don't read anymore because I'm going to spoil it.


Them was actually pretty good as thrillers go and I'm not big on them really. The man gained my respect as he checked the bathtub by stabbing at the curtain with a big stick instead of slowly opening it. THIS IS WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD ALWAYS DO BECAUSE WHO KNOWS WHAT IS IN THERE. Holidays with me are fun. The woman gained my respect by being pretty resourceful and not a total wuss. She pushed one of the guys off a building after all and in the obligatory running through a wooden area she didn't fall down as much as one might expect. There was no annoying music to inform you of scary things. They loomed, you saw, you were a little bit worried. Most importantly the couple seemed genuinely afraid and you don't really know what it is chasing them until quite late on and when you do (they are just kids playing twisted pranks) it's still creepy. More so because they're human, real and children. Best bits were when she had her eye to the hole where the handle of the door used to be and one of them suddenly stabbed a metal rod through, almost blinding her. But it didn't. Hurrah.

I then watched Pat Garret and Billy the Kid. Starring Bob Dylan! And man did they ever want you to notice it was Bob Dylan. Ooh look cowboy stuff INTENSE CLOSE UP OF THIS AS YET UNNAMED AND SO MEANINGLESS CHAP. Highlights were kids swinging in a noose, anything where Billy the Kid was in it being all charming and killing people and Bob Dylan's hat. Low? I didn't need to see an old man being bathed delightedly by half-naked whores. Nor did I need to see him jammed in a bed with them all with such an old man grin. It was creepy.

Then I watched 21 grams which I'd had recorded for months. According to it Hitman is in cinemas soon! It was fantastic but then I'd seen Amores Perros and Babel so I expected it to be so. Charlotte Gainsbourg's voice lulls me to sleep though when she speaks English. Very odd.

This morning I watched 10 minutes of Picnic at Hanging Rock but was so utterly bored I deleted it and watched To Catch a Thief instead because who doesn't like Cary Grant and Grace Kelly being all charming in blinding technicolour? It was pretty unremarkable I guess. Some shots were great and it had its moments but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again.

I still have Tell No One, Zodiac and Everything is Illuminated recorded and about six or seven more waiting. I don't know if there's room for them all but I've done ok. I had to delete Stranger Than Fiction for the 3rd time because it was recording at the same time as something else which I didn't even know you could do. Apparently you can but you can't watch tv at the same time which my mum insisted she did so that went away. I can't really be bothered with it. I couldn't be bothered seeing it in the cinema despite being invited and I can't really be bothered watching it now. I'm not sure why.

LEMMINGS

I was going for French thriller day today. I had three recorded Lemming, Them and Tell No One. Oh my god was Lemming awful. Awful!

Wikipedia tells us that Lemming "deals with themes such as infidelity, suburban alienation, ghostly possession, and what to do when lemmings invade your home." Umm no. It deals with what happens when your boss' angry wife has a tantrum in your house, seduces your husband, blows her brains out in your spare room and then possesses you for a while so that you confuse your husband into thinking lemmings are everywhere! and fuck his boss. This is so your husband will go mad and murder his boss for being a cheating bastard and thus pacify the restless spirit of the wife. Then everything will go back to normal.

I have spoiled this movie for you now but who cares it was awful.

I watched 10 minutes of Tell No One in which a couple got naked and went for a swim and then the wife huffed, went off into the dark and screamed.

I watched twenty minutes of Them in which a mum and her whiny daughter were killed mysteriously in a car at night and a rather attractive teacher teased her writer husband and it was very cute until the music got intense and then my mum (who is now ill, much worse than I yay for sharing) pitifully moaned and I gave up.

SQUEAK.

LEMMINGS HAVE SEIZED CONTROL OF THIS BLOG POST

LEMMINGSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

rien de rien

Mondays are days off as far as unemployment days off can go. It's haircut day and letter sending day also. So happily drugged up on magical hedgehog pills I watched 3 films today. Mostly because I've set so many new films set to record and so many still unwatched. I'm out of room guys! I have at least two days to watch and/or burn onto disk them all!

So I watched Candy with Heath Ledger (who is dead, I forget, I remember, I am saddened, I forget) and the plot was your standard young people are in love and take drugs but I liked it. It had perfect moments and some real sweetness ruined by all the evil drugs. Julie said it was BORING.

Then I watched L'enfant which was similarly sweet but awful. I mean it's a film about a guy who decides to sell his baby, but it made me laugh sometimes just at the childishness of the guy. Julie said it DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH MUSIC, PFFT

Finally, I watched La Vie En Rose which was very pretty and a little sad but I felt kinda detached. It was nice to listen to and the actress (name forgotten, can't be arsed looking it up) was very good. It was ugly in a good way. Julie said THANK GOD THIS IS DONE and SEE THEY KNOW HOW TO USE MUSIC even though it was of course about a singer.

I made my mum watch Bande a Part a couple of days ago. It was supposed to be a cunning plan in which my dad would watch it, realise he likes Godard and buy films that I could then steal. He won't do it himself because he goes PFFT FRENCH FILMS but he owns La Dolce Vita and there is no way Fellini is less pretentious than Godard. It failed though because he didn't watch it. My mum was very much in awe in Anna Karina's eyes which are gigantic and utterly fantastic. I have to buy me more films. But ahh no time, no time. I have to watch some more fast.

In my head there's a city at night

Itunes used to let you watch trailers for free, those were good times. I used to stay up late, watching everything and anything while I idly flirted online with the boyfriend. Automatic cyber relationships, fun, fun, fun. Anyway when they stopped letting you do that and made you pay (pay!) to watch trailers I sort of stopped watching them and then every so often I get the urge. It's a miniature film. So I've been watching some. I'm going to share because I hit a momentary block in the writing due to being hungry and there being no food I can be bothered to eat.

Choke has been made into a film. I don't know if I knew this and forgot or never knew this at all. It has Kelly Macdonald in it and there's something about her I quite like.

The Last Mistress has already been out but I liked the poster and the trailer makes me laugh. There's something about French costume dramas, I've seen a few (not through choice) and everything is so seedy and maybe because I've only seen Asia Argento as some sort of conniving mistress but her face bothers me.

Disney's first Black Princess and the return to 2D animation. I do not like the firefly but I am not the target audience. It's set in New Orleans during the Jazz Age though, there's a lot of potential there. Plus Anika Noni Rose (the name of the actress playing the voice of the princess) is a great name. Makes me smile to say it.

Coen Brothers. It made me smile.

Benjamin Button directed by Fincher and based on Fitzgerald.

and

this just seemed odd.

Mostly it just gives me something to click later when I get bored and feel like watching some more trailers.

The Brothers Bloom

The trailer can be found online here and it's a bit trailery. In that it ain't great.

However! Mr Johnson's own words were that "it would be nice if the trailer looked a little like the movie" and "Every single thing in the movie that explodes or appears to explode (or appears like it might at some point appear to explode) is in the trailer. Plus anything where anyone falls down. They wanted to sell it as an action/comedy." So there you go. Be not disappointed by the fact it seems like Ocean's Eleven but instead of Brad Pitt they got a big nose.

A love that would look and sound just like a movie

I'm a closet romantic. I turn my nose up at any film these days involving couples that isn't to do with breakdowns or tragedies and I turn my nose up at couples in general which makes me a hypocrite considering how very cliché some of my relationships were. But I have a soft spot for classics and starlets and the special way eyes shine in black and white films. The Audrey Hepburn week on Sky a while back was just magic for me. Do you know how many of her films involve her going to Paris for some reason? It's a lot. It made me wish I could afford more dvds. Pierrot le Fou is stagnant at £8 everywhere I look and every time I remember I want it it's a bad week for buying things. Good thing is, my classes this year are all in the afternoon so I'll save on the having to eat and I can spend more money in Fopp. I always wished I could have been fluent in French. I tried and I studied and I practiced but somehow I went from being able to string paragraphs together with irritating ease to tripping over the present tense. I think possibly I was blessed with the ability to learn, pass exams, forget. More room for new things?

Anyway I was watching Sabrina because I made an omelette and there's a scene where she cracks eggs. In Paris. Ooh let's be annoying and put a youtube video in here. I've never done that before. It's not a great film but it was the first scene that made me pay attention and it's just so ridiculous in a way I only tolerate in films like these. I think that maybe I feel like falling in love. It's been a while and the last one proved so very disappointing when it turned out he was a bore. And the existence of his arse was doubtful. Really I think it's because my feet were cold and these socks have ribbons. Makes me girly. Anyway watch as Audrey Hepburn tries to kill herself! Hell, I'd gas myself too if Humphrey Bogart was going to carry me like that.

I'll comfort myself in the next life

Watchmen Trailer is online now.

I'm going to say it. I have my doubts about Zack Snyder. I have seen his films. Dawn of the Dead made me laugh but I don't think it was supposed to. And 300? Guys I'm saying it, don't bother arguing with me, it was pretty stupidly bad. If it just the battles it'd be fine, I loved that speed up, slow down, spear through somebody's face kind of thing. If you read Homer or any of those Classical guys the battles are pretty much that anyway. You get a long description about a guy and his family and his life and then SPLUNK arrow through the eye and out his brain! But come on, it was shiny and so WE ARE NOT GAY overly macho and then you throw in the unnecessary woman bit (I wanted her to fail, stupid whore), the unnecessary LOOK AT THE MANY POSITIONS US SPARTANS HAVE SEX IN BECAUSE WE ARE NOT GAY. It was as my dad remarked when we walked out "a fifteen year old boy's wet dream'. I saw it, I was entertained for the most part, I would not watch again.

So a man who has made two films, one a ridiculous zombie film, another a bunch of men in little pants screaming and now he's made what he says is a very faithful adaption of a very good comic. I imagine it'll be a good film so long as you're not precious about the source material. Or it will be ridiculous. Also Oxymandias looks terrible.

You know, with the season over I haven't really seen my dad much. At least before I had 90 minutes every week to talk shit with him. It means we start booking things together. We're seeing the Last Shadow Puppets and Chuck Palahniuk and then they've made a film about Lou Reed's Berlin and I'll probably take him to see that too even though he's seen the concert twice now. People wind me up a lot about football and I do like the sport although I have to be in the mood to watch it sometimes but it really is the easiest way I can connect with him. Laugh is here I am, bored waiting for Julie to get up, typing about my father and he calls with cryptic murmurings before declaring that I can ignore the call and hangs up. Thanks dad, you crazy old man.

Calippos are fantastic

Julie dragged me down to the supermarket. "If you wish to eat dinner tonight, come with me" were her words. "Could you buy some lentils" asked mum and thus this was the reason. My english is pretty bad at the moment so bear with me. I staggered down the road, bleary eyed and aching while Julie shoulder charged me and waved her hands before my eyes. "Are you hungover?" "Rehhh" was my response. I think I mumbled that I drank absinthe and she asked if I saw the green fairy like Moulin Rouge. I did not for I did not drink fairy liquid amounts. "What did you see then?" "The ceiling. The floor. My hair all fooof."

BORING.

Then she said we must buy ice lollies and we did and it was awesome.

So since this is really turning into a blog about the films I watch here are the films I watched.

I saw The Bride Wore Black which was very Frenchly funny and some images were completely stolen for Kill Bill. The best thing about it was it was such an old reel. There were the join jumps and crackles and squiggles and I love all that.

I saw A Film With Me in It and though I kind of feared it would be I'm Dylan Moran, Irish and alcoholic (not that that would be bad it's just I worried the whole film would be lost in this) but it was really good in an Irish depressing hilarious way.

I saw The Fall which was gorgeous.

I watched The Big Sleep which was damn near perfect. I freaking love this film and I'm sad I waited so long to watch it since it's on vhs and hassle.

I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The only response is what? I do not know. I think I liked it. Maybe. I liked staring at it and I liked listening but seriously what?

I think that's me. I'm making a small dent in my films to watch pile but I'm getting to the foreigns and my eyes are tired for glasses. Dinnertime now!

Gold>Knowledge

I spent weeks listening to Doctor Jones talk at length about Skara Brae.

Today I paid about a fiver to watch the much more famous Doctor Jones talk very very briefly about Skara Brae.

Can we not find a different site to talk about?

That's all I can be bothered to say about the film.

Oh holy shit Vanishing Point is amazing.

Reasons why you should watch it and if I burn it I will lend it to you:

the car

which maybe you remember from this

Plus the guy looks like some sort of Han Solo in a Dodge Challenger. Also check out his sideburns:

Not pictured is the really pointless scene with a naked girl who rides around on a motorcycle and gets high because I'm not looking that up on google. And the ending! It is a good ending.

Gonna watch Bullitt once my mum leaves the house. She does not care as much as I do about muscle cars.

I watched Sunshine today. It is very pretty. I like Rose Byrne. Cillian Murphy is good even though he is kinda odd looking. But there were problems.

Biggest problem was that they went the whole no big relationships to make it feel all claustrophobic and serious we are going to die way. In some respects I liked it. But I had no clue as to who half of the cast were. I had to go Cillian, Rose, that guy who's in something I don't know what and Michelle Yeoh and is that the captain oh no it's not I have no idea anymore so it is hard to care when they are in trouble. There was also a scene when flashes of photographs came up and I thought my eyes had broken but then I thought maybe it is fancy cinematography. I did care to some extent in general and the ending was moving but not in any way that stayed with me once the film finished. So Kirsty the third continues to have good taste in movies. Hurray for redheads.

I stayed up last night and watched Factotum, though I'll have to rewatch most of it because I was writing and you know that way when you get caught up doing something and you realise the tv's been on for hours and you barely noticed a damn thing. I've probably caused the death of a fair few polar bears that way. Anyway I remember the first half hour pretty well and the problem with it is the source material. It's Bukowski. Reading Bukowski isn't so much depressing as deadening. Nothing I've read of his has shocked me but I sort of figured everyone's a cunt and crazy to boot so I'm more surprised when people are nice. Desensitisation!

It's deadening though reading page after page of such a loser and watching him is just sad. There were good bits though like when he and this girl tried cars until they found one that was unlocked so they could steal cigarettes. Or he talks about how when he doubts his ability to write he reads other writers and feels better. I always feel worse when I do that. It's like look at all these terrible writers lining shelves of terrible bookshops and they're better than I am because they finished something and they had the guts to sell themselves and terrible people will buy them. It's the selling myself I'm concerned about which is not the best thing to think about going into a job interview. I can fake it though if I really try and by god I'm gonna try my ass off.

I started reading Women by Bukowski ages ago and then misplaced the book. I think it's under my bed, haven't checked. It's about when he's become successful and he goes on an awful lot of how he tried to be better at sex. Reading books by old men about how to satisfy young women is odd to say the least. I suppose you'd think it would be more disgusting but I always get this smug feeling. Haha I can satisfy women and you can't. Sucks to be you. Anyway I haven't read Women in months and months but there's this scene when he's staying in the female dorm of a college he was invited to do a reading at and he gets drunk one night and wanders up and down the halls knocking on every door shouting that he's this big time author and didn't anybody wanna fuck him. Nobody opens up and he goes back to bed and laughs and drinks some more. I dunno why but it's stuck in my head.

So I haven't really slept but it's not the spider's fault

Thursday night Julie had crazy sleep-spasms. She was all Rrrehh and flipping her arms and legs around and freaking me the hell out. She was just sleeping apparently. Friday I didn't eat enough because I couldn't be bothered. I get like that every so often. Like I eat too much one day and nothing the next. Doesn't balance out but I'm easily distracted and some days eating is such a chore. So the alcohol wasn't a good idea even though I didn't have much and again Julie was like all rrreh I am sleeping and I was not. I was too not-asleep to go find a new place to sleep since it's not like we lack beds. I was a bit zombied so I thought I'll watch some of the films I haven't got round to watching that I can just stare at that. That's a sensible plan!

Oh my god is The Beach a fucking terrible film. The only redeeming quality (apart from the reasonably attractive French girl I suppose) was this scene:


I also watched Clerks 2 after waiting fucking forever to see it since nobody would go see it with me when it came out and then two of my rubbish friends went with another crowd and whined about how shit it was. I always find the problem with a lot of Kevin Smith's stuff is while some of it is enjoyable I always feel like I'm just wasting time watching. Doesn't really matter though because I'll watch Rosario Dawson doing anything. I mean I watched Alexander though that was originally for Angelina Jolie but at least I expect a lot of her films to be awful. Clerks 2 was alright but really I could have stared into space for the same amount of time and I would feel just about the same.

I've got Sunshine recorded after another Kirsty who must be about the third I've known went on and on about how it was amazing. I sort of trust her judgement since she does Film Studies and we talk New Wave and Robert Rodriguez instead of listening in lectures. Plus she's a pretty redhead who loves owls.

Let's have another of these because it cracked me up. Oh Leonardo you have such an odd face. It is not attractive, it is odd.


I might be getting into Edinburgh Film Festival films for free! My list consists of Dylan Moran in A Film With Me In It and a romance in a porn store called Good Dick and a bunch of French New Wave films so I'm really hoping I can actually go. I've got a form for tickets to the opening night but it's Keira Knightley's new film and while she'll be there and I've heard it's not a bad film it's a big meh to me. Sienna Miller annoys me.

It's Audrey Hepburn week on Sky. I have watched so many films my eyes hurt. I got to utter the phrase Humphrey Bogart is speaking, why are you? which resulted in a lot of things thrown at me. I have learnt that My Fair Lady is just as bad as I supposed it to be and if you happen to fall in love with someone it will be fairly easy to find them again.

Also having shorn off five inches from the hem of a dress I can only imagine was purchased just in case somebody died I am now the owner of a little black dress. I'm quite in love with it.

I have no occasion to wear such a thing though.

L'amour ne dure pas toujours

Back when I was on livejournal often I used to browse this which led me to buy Lost in Translation

and Lady Vengeance

purely because they looked so goddamn beautiful, which they are.

I found it again the other day when I was bored and spied a film called Dans Paris. I know of this film because amazon is offering it as a deal with Chansons d'amour (my musical about threesomes which is now out on dvd and I have spent many an hour holding longingly but alas, it costs too much). So I thought I'd have a click, see what it looked like.

Checklist for a french film:
Attractive male with a big nose

Women in various states of undress

Quiet romantic whimsy that is cute but also decidedly odd

That fantastic muted grey of Paris that probably has social connotations that I never really listened to in my French film class


I have to stop finding foreign films I can't afford to buy. They are so rarely in stock or cheap.

I'll just sit here and bleed at you

Brothers Bloom has a date!

Highlight the black! It makes me smile every time.