The National Film Theatre is holding an Orson Welles retrospective this month and October. I’m very tempted to go to one of their showings of the 1998 restored version of Touch of Evil. (I still need to figure out how to order the DVD from America, as we should be getting a player finally, after the move.) Probably can’t afford it, tho’.
Read More »Orson at the NFT
By way of a moan about the government in general, you might be interested in the state of the pension system these days. My mother was 60 on August 13th (which was a Wednesday). Two weeks later, her pension still hadn’t been paid. She started making angry calls. No one had a good explanation for this, except mutterings about ‘backlog’ and things not being ‘processed yet.’
She did finally get sent a giro for the first two weeks of her pension, last week. It should have been paid into the bank, but they seemed to be having trouble with this concept. It was dated from August 18th. Here’s the fun bit: she phoned to inquire what this meant, and they told her the pensions are only paid on a ‘from Monday’ basis, so since her birthday was on a Wednesday, she loses five days of pension simply because it didn’t fall on a Monday! (How much like an evil ‘save every penny we can get away with’ government plot does this sound?)
Read More »The Wonderful System
Just had to say that Phone Booth is a fabulous film (we saw it Thursday night). Not holding a grudge against Joel Schumacher for the abomination of the last two Batman films, I was really impressed.
Read More »You Never Call Anymore
I did want to mention, re. the interminable house move situation: we’re looking at up to four weeks due to some incredibly annoying farting around… Read More »The Mythology of Moving
So I decided to re-read The Gunslinger, first volume in Stephen King’s Dark Tower epic. I have a reason, apart from the fifth volume being… Read More »The Good, The Bad…
On a lighter note, wasn’t the two-part drama Alibi, Monday and Tuesday night on ITV, really terrific? Original, witty, compelling and superbly acted. But then,… Read More »Foyled Again!
Remember a week ago I said the legal stuff on the house move ‘completes this Friday’ (i.e. last Friday)? Wrong! More pointless delays. It’ll be… Read More »More Delays
I just got a lot of packing done. I’d be in fairly good shape to move tomorrow, at a push, so I feel I’ve done something useful! I haven’t felt like writing much, tho’.
Brief comments on some recent films we’ve seen:
Panic Room… excellent stuff! Original story idea, stylish direction and Jodie Foster. Need I mention that Jodie is supremely cool? If I have little to say about this one, I guess it’s because it all works so well and beggars only mindless praise. See it if you haven’t already done so.
The legal nonsense for our house move completes this Friday. We then have two weeks to get it decorated and whatever before moving in officially.… Read More »I’m Outta Here… Almost
It’s been out a while, but we finally saw Road to Perdition the other night. In spite of my almost irrational loathing of Tom Hanks, I really wanted to see this one.
So, is it ‘The greatest gangster film since The Godfather‘? Nah. Not even close. It is very good, though. The direction, courtesy of Mr. Kate Winslett, is constantly aspiring to interesting things, and sometimes even succeeds. The style outweighs the content on a few occasions (a sure sign that nothing very interesting is happening), but thankfully, the effect is not overwhelming.
Read More »Road to Perdition (2002)
