Monday 19 November 2012

Felt The Need

To write a blog post. I've been up for about 24 hours now, in order to reset my lousy sleeping pattern. I'm not all that tired yet so I should be good until about 10pm or so. What have I done with those hours? Worked for a few, me and my brother got take out and then watched movies, then we played Dungeons and Dragons for about six and a half hours, listened to some serious Linkin' Park and went to Tesco to buy Cherry Coke, copious amounts of pizza, crisps and some of those Southern Fried Chicken sticks I've taken a liking too. Then I spent the last eight hours on my sofa, in my pyjamas playing Xbox games. It's a monday.

I love being an adult sometimes.

ANNA KARENINA

For those of you expecting another cop-out costume drama from the inseperable team of Joe Wright and Keira Knightly... you're only half right. It's got all the trappings for being a stodgy look at pretty frocks and overpaid actors... but the theatrical motif that the film is presented in is head-scratchingly beautiful, the script is tight (as tight as a script adapted from one of the most sprawling Russian epics ever written can be) and the acting is pretty good all round.

I really wasn't expecting to like this film, it's not my normal cup of tea. I genuinely felt like it knew that it lacked originality in some areas, so it had to make up for it in others, which it managed to do with the whole 'we're in a theatre but not really' scene setting. I recommend it, but go into it knowing that it's a long old haul and you may need to take notes on who knows who and why are there two main storylines that only have the slightest bit of interaction... what's that? Tolstoy was an arse? Yep, sounds about right.

Good to see Ruth Wilson in work and Jude Law gives one of my favourite of his performances in this piece, and I don't say that lightly.

Next up: LAWLESS

Saturday 10 November 2012

He Ain't Heavy...

So my brother just moved out, he's been living with me for the best part of seven months. We swapped as to who got the bedroom and who got the living room a fw times, but mostly it was him upstairs and me downstairs. He works as a night porter for a hotel just outside of town, so that involves a great deal of sitting around, watching dvds, not doing much work and being paid more than I do for it. Damn him.

It's been good having him around, there's always someone to talk to about gaming, he does more housework than me, Kerry and Naomi combined and he brought his TV with him, which will be leaving soon. I didn't want to kick him out, really, but I'd already signed a pact with a panto actress and she's moving her stuff in right now. There is some hoovering going on upstairs... thought Jon said he'd hoovered before he left...

Anyway, means my house will be slightly less gamer tastic, but at least the money situation will improve, what with all the shelling out I've had to do on behalf of my two actual flatmates, they ain't seeing none of Amy's rent cash.

Haven't done much blogging lately, have I? Do wonder if I've lost a passion for it. Got films to review out the arse, but I'm not that fussed anymore. I'll struggle on through a few more, see how I feel. Next one I'm definately talking about that Hindu wedding, I suspect that'll be a long one. As for other stuff... yeah, got no news really, was gutted that I couldn't go up to Manchester for Will's birthday, but that's about it.

DREDD 3D

"I am! The Law!" was the line that Stallone used to sum up the character of Judge Dredd, the brutal, uncompromising, facist who shoots people in a dystopian mega-future. And while I still look back and enjoy Stallone's Judge Dredd movie, it was more really a Stallone film with flying bikes, rather than an actual Judge Dredd movie. I should probably say that while I sound like I'm defending the 2000AD comic strip that it's all based off, I've never actually read any of it.

However, the one thing that everyone knows about Judge Dredd is that he never takes his helmet off. Stallone took his off inside of five minutes and it stayed off. Now Urban? Karl Urban kept his on the entire film and it was AWEsome. The plot for this film is effectively simple. New drug being peddled by violent psychopaths. Dredd goes to arrest violent psychopaths. Violent psychopaths lock building, then try to kill Dredd. Dredd do the shooting thing. Lots of the shooting thing.

Alex Garland, the writer of this new and improved Dredd, hit it on the head when he said that the problem with Dredd is that the main character has character development in the same way that continents have drift. Technically it happens, but realistically we don't see it. Having a sidekick, in this case the psychic Anderson, allows for Dredd to be himself and Anderson to do all the developing and so on. It works, it really, really works. This is a great movie with some absolutely beautiful violence.

I highly recommend it, just for the action scenes if nothing else, but it's definately one to check out.

Next up: Anna Karenina