The Void

Void is an excellent word, I love its sheer depth of meaning and lack of emotion, I love how four letters can convey that sense of deep emptiness. It's one of those words that resonates with me, so that I don't like to use it too often, just in case I wear it out or something like that.

At the moment, large parts of my life feel like something of a void. I don't have a job, the hours in university are something of a joke, I get more writing done than anyone else but I tend to do it so quickly that I'm done before I've even realised I've started. So, what to I fill my time with?

DVDs, mostly. I don't like to watch movies on DVD, to be honest. I don't think I've actually watched a film on disc for months. TV series are where its at for me. Lost, Prison Break, Supernatural, Bones, How I Met Your Mother, Battlestar Galactica and the most important Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis consume vast amounts of my time, but sitting there and vegetating in front of a screen isn't always the best use of my time.

Marsh recommended that I need to find a hobby that isn't very creative, sinec I use my creative juices in pretty much every other hobby I have, and I seem to have several. I have a roleplay group, I write this blog and review movies on it, I spend a couple hours a day writing things that aren't even assignments, I used to paint many, many gaming miniatures, there are a few others. He suggested some kind of sport, so I didn't take him seriously.

Me? And sport? Yeah, right.

But still, without a job, without something to fill my empty weekends, I do tend to feel like there's a void hanging over me and there's not much I can do to break it. I'm kind of in a rut, because I don't really want to commit to anything big, since I'm moving away in July/August time. So what am I to do? Review films.

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.

I was skeptical about this movie when I first saw the trailers for it. I don't like the idea of stories that try and mess with Fate, for two main reasons. These are:

1) If Fate/Destiny did in fact exist, it would by its very nature have to be so complicated, so complex and intricate, that nobody would ever know it existed. Every decision we have made, we were fated to make, every movement, every breath, it's all been pre-planned. Many people don't like this idea because they say it crushes Free Will. At the same time, what they kind of don't understand is that the theology of the arguement is utterly, utterly pointless. If Fate/Destiny does exist in this fashion, then there's no way we'll ever know and therefore there's no rational reason to even think about it.

2) Nobody can write stories about Fate as well as I can. Sorry to sound arrogant, but I think I've got it down to a T in my work, so back off, major film companies, you can't mess with this.

So, the film.

Basically, it's a love story spread out over four years. That there is a pretty thinly spread story, I didn't really feel any chemistry between our characters, nor did I notice a great deal of acting. Coates once again pointed out the 'Al does not know this emotion, called Love' card, for I do dislike grand ideas like Fate and Destiny to be muddied with petty human emotions.

Secondly, I found the Bureau itself to be overly wishy-washy, the whole idea of the layers of plans and notebooks and special hats looks appealing at first, but gets kinda vague and unsatisfying as the film goes on. I found the whole film to be wishy-washy, vague and unsatisfying, especially when Terance Stamp (yes, he's good but not as good as he could have been) was denied a powerful line.

It's nowhere near the 'next Matrix or Inception' that we were touted and it's just a bit... well... Meh.

Next week: Winter's Bone