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Pleasant Atmosphere

Today is a nice day. I’m not a big weather fan, but today it’s sunny without being dazzling and fairly warm without being unpleasantly hot. (If blinding sun and blistering heat is your thing, you may not agree with me.)

I had a brief errand to do this morning, and instead of my usual approach—to rush to my destination as fast as possible and hurry back—I took a longer route through our nearby park, pulled off my jacket and wandered around dreamily for a while. It was really nice. I didn’t even fret about skin cancer! (I’m very pale and get little sunlight…) There were a few people about, but the place seemed so peaceful and relaxing. I’ve forgotten what relaxing is in recent times, i.e. probably the last 20 years! Must do this again sometime; since our dog got ill (and later died), going through places like parks just hasn’t crossed my mind.
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Favourite Films

A new Monday feature: Top Tens. For the next few weeks, anyway. This week I’ll try to list my…

TOP TEN MOVIES

Only about half of these movies would always make my list, no matter what; the rest is prone to change daily. Listed in no particular order…

01. King Kong (1933) Sentimental choice, of course—the four-year-old me who first saw this was spellbound. Today? It still it has a marvellous sense of wonder.

Favourite Films
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Movies & Stuff

Movies. We have watched movies. Which was nice.

Thursday night, we finally got round to seeing From Hell. The original Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell graphic novel was one of the few recent comics I’d fancied reading, but I never got round to that either. I don’t know how faithful the movie is. But there are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.

Johnny Depp’s cod Michael Caine accent was perhaps questionable, but who cares? The Deppster is Godlike. *sigh* Acting-wise, I guess the invincible Robbie Coltrane stole the show. I love Robbie.
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The Academy Award for Tackiness Goes to…

The war trundles on. Did I say war? That should be invasion, right? Even a couple of journos are using the term lately.

Nothing to add, really, except—if you haven’t already seen it (it’s being linked to a lot), go here to read a blog by an Iraqi, right on the spot in Baghdad, seeing some of this stuff first-hand. Some people have doubted its veracity, but I’m willing to take it at face value. Anyway…

Don’t mention the war! I did once, but I think I got away with it.

I stayed up watching the Oscars last night. Hell, my sleeping patterns are screwed anyway (see time for this entry). Of course, it was a load of rubbish—business as usual, then. Even so, their giving an award to Roman Polanski was surprising and rather pleasing. Rather less pleasing was all the kudos given to Chicago, which strikes me as a frankly tacky pile of bilge. But what do I know.
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Another Year Ends

This entry will smack of tokenism, as it’ll likely be the last one of this year. Best wishes for the new one to those who care.

Since this has become more a book/film comment sort of blog lately (accident not design), I’ll mention a couple of purchases. I took advantage of WHSmith’s sale, picking up the videos of Jeepers Creepers and A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) for £4.49 each. A good deal for a couple of pretty successful 2001 films.
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Christmas Entertainment

No updates over Christmas period. I couldn’t be arsed. Actually, I have (yet again) been wondering what purpose this Web site serves at all, and I’m lost for answers. It is something to do when all else fails, yes. I enjoy fiddling with it sometimes. But it doesn’t really say much or do much. It’s just there. Hmmm.

Christmas was quite boring. The television was generally rubbish, so no surprises there. The Only Fools and Horses special was pretty good—somewhat better than last year’s weak effort, anyhow. I OD’d on the soaps a bit, and they were, uh, full of shocks… Jamie died in EastEnders (wow, big surprise), Ray was the stalker in Emmerdale (wow, even bigger surprise), and Richard didn’t kill anyone in Corry (actually, that was a surprise).

The Hound of the Baskervilles film (mentioned here) was fairly good. It wasn’t quite as faithful to the original as had been implied, but I did like it. Although, Richard E. Grant being in it (as Stapleton) made me realise what an absolutely perfect Sherlock Holmes he’d make. Richard Roxburgh’s Holmes was okay, but Grant could have been genuinely great. A missed opportunity.
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Computer Fakery

Since I was droning about Harry Potter earlier… today (er, yesterday), I read the appalling story/rumour that they might use cast-off footage of Richard Harris from the first two movies, combined with his stand-in and computer trickery, to generate an artificial ‘performance’ for the third movie!

I really, really hope this is only a rumour…
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Retail Therapy

Today, being out shopping (for food, not pleasure, alas), I passed a book store and I of course succumbed. Some people buy shoes; some people can’t pass a novelty shop without buying some little cuddly toy; but me, I guess it’s books. It used to be comics more than books, but books are better value for money these days, and comics don’t have many Jack Kirbys out there anymore. (*sigh* I might get nostalgic.)

It was a close one. This store had several copies of Stephen King’s Cycle of the Werewolf, with wonderful illustrations by Bernie Wrightson. I wanted this so much when I heard about it maybe 17 years ago, but amazingly, I have never seen it for sale anywhere. I didn’t even know it was still in print. Anyway, that’s earmarked for purchase v.v. soon. I passed it today.
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Christmas Approaches

I got pretty bummed out yesterday, but it was just over general stuff. Nothing major. Mom was in out-patients briefly, to have a couple of skin cancers removed… not serious, just an unfortunate side-effect of the drugs she takes as a transplant patient. (Kidney transplant, 1990.)

Today, we watched the 1956 Moby Dick movie on Channel 4. I generally don’t watch afternoon films, but I’d actually never seen this one. It was directed by John Huston, screenplay by Ray Bradbury. Anyhow, glad I finally saw it. Gregory Peck—who I’ve always had immense admiration for—was typically brilliant as Ahab. And it reminded me that I’d like to see To Kill a Mockingbird again sometime, as I hardly remember anything about it (I saw it a long time ago). Harper Lee’s original novel is excellent, and would probably be in my top ten list if I thought there was any sense in making in such things.
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