5 as opposed to 2

I live my life according to lists, schedules, charts, spreadsheets and statistics. Don't know why, it just seems to work for me. I have a writing schedule that means I don't have to wait around for 'the muse to strike', it's there waiting for me when I press play on the pre-designed writing playlist. I have a financial record that I use to chart how much money I spend according to day, week, month and 12-week periods. I have a dinner schedule, for what I have on each day. And I have a blog posting schedule.

This year, I want to post 54 blog entries. That's because I only really did 42 last year, and therefore doing 6 more than 48 will mean that I do an average of 48 a year, which is 4 a month, which is roughly 1 a week. Because I'm still kinda new to blogging (only a year and a bit), it's still a bit shaky. I'm sure next year I'll have set down on which days I want to have them done by and actually do them on time, instead of starting them at one point and then doing them weeks later.

54 posts means 10 months of 5 and 2 months of 2. I had thought that February was gonna be a month of 2 (since it's the shortest) but it turns out that it's a month of 5 and now I have to cram in three extra blog entries when I hadn't really planned on it.

How do I know which month is which? I'll tell you, it's how many films I saw that month. Now, I saw 5 in Jan easily, and I thought I was only gonna see 2 in Feb (if we're counting Pointless), but then my brother got me to go see Paul with him, so there we go. Now I have to see 2 other movies (or things I can review).

And neither of them will be the Sodding Fighter!!!

So yeah, I should probably try to establish a spreadsheet or record for my sleeping patterns and times, maybe that would enforce some kind of regularity upon them. Maybe if my sleeping habits knew they were being watched... ah, who am I kidding. I'm sitting writing this at 04:11am, my sleep pattern is screwed beyond belief. I just hope I can get some decent hours in during the first two weeks of March, because after that things are gonna get more stressful again. I just know it. Maybe I can find some way to quantify stress and put that on a spreadsheet as well...

RABBIT HOLE

So since I was suddenly thrust into seeing 5 movies this month, I saw Paul on the 25th, this on the 26th and Drive Angry on the 27th, which meant that all three seem to have blurred a little together for me, which is very, very weird, because they are all highly different movies.

This film, based on a play by the same writer, deals with the loss of a child by a married couple and how they deal with the grief of that devastating event. The performances are excellent, the mood is set just right and the whole film is just on the right edge of painful to watch.

The thing that really surprised me about it was that it was a film by John Cameron Mitchell. Now, I'm a fan of Mr. Mitchell ever since we were forced to watch his masterpiece HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH for class. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in Hedwig, which convinced me that this guy is a sheer genius. But seeing as how that was about a German Transexual Rockstar and his next film (SHORTBUS) was about a repressed woman experimenting in an orgy club... this film kind of seems like his cop-out in order to go mainstream and get more recognition.

But is that a bad thing? I mean, this was a great movie, it did everything just right and it landed Nicole Kidman and Aron Eckhart. Eckhart is probably one of the best working actors in Hollywood today, he always gives a great show, and Kidman hasn't really let us down since Batman Forever (but we don't like to talk about that one, do we).

The one thing that this movie really, really does well is that it doesn't make us feel sorry for them. This grieving couple, who have lost their little boy... we don't have to feel sorry for them, the film doesn't demand that. It simply show us what they had to do to feel better. I respect that, it doesn't force its messege down our throats.

All in all, it's definately worth a watch, but it is a bit depressing.

Next up: DRIVE ANGRY.

Single's Day

So today is Valentines Day, the day that everyone spends with their loved one and scoffs chocolate. Naturally, society being the way it is, this means that it's basically a one-way Christmas, where women expect men to fawn over them.

As I'm sure you can gather, I'm not a massive fan of this day in the year. I've spent the vast, vast, vast majority of my life single (apart from a few slip-ups), I tend not to associate too heavily with the other gender.

I'm kinda 'anti-relationship', which means I find it difficult to hang out with some of my friends when they are in relationships, which for some can be a great deal of the time. I've never really seen the upsides to them, but then that's mainly because I've never actually been with anyone I really, really, really liked. Or ever actually met anyone that I really, really, really liked. Maybe. I think.

Take two of my married friends, for example. They've got a new place, they've got a kid, they've got jobs. And they bitch at each other. And not just at each other, at people around them, people who don't want to be caught in the middle of it all, people who think that maybe it's not worth being their friends anymore because they don't really like seeing what this marriage is doing to them. They don't.

But that's just me. (Cue Dalek voice) *What is this emotion that you call laaarrrvve?* (End Dalek voice).

PAUL

So I initially saw the trailers for this movie and thought 'Is this a Pegg and Frost too far?' Should they simply get on with the third Cornetto movie and then be done with it? Because that's what we're all waiting for, so why don't they? But then I looked back at the various things that Pegg and Frost (as well as Wright and Hyne) have given us over the years.

Spaced.
Shaun of the Dead.
Hot Fuzz.

Yeah, they've earned my ticket to this movie (which incidently my brother paid for and I completely blanked paying him back, must do that). It may not be quite what I was after in terms of the next Pegg and Frost, but they've got my attention and they're not going to lose it anytime soon, unless this film turned out to be really, really bad.

And it wasn't. This film is a pretty solid 7 out of 10, as Joe described it. It's not quite as hilariously cutting as their previous movies have been, but it's got the whole ET-loving thing down, it manages to be just as respectful yet mocking as Shaun and Fuzz were to their respective genres (Zombies and Cop Movies respectively).

I think the one real downside was the voice of Seth Rogen. I mean, don't get me wrong, Seth's had a great career over the last few years, there's barely been a movie out that he hasn't been in, but I honestly didn't think we needed him for this one. His voice isn't his best feature and I don't think he really added anything to this movie that someone else couldn't have done just as easily, if not a bit better. That's pretty much my only complaint other than the happy-clappy ending, but I was expecting that anyway.

Best voice cameo in a while, though.

Next Up: RABBIT HOLE
(Because I've given up on seeing the frickin' Fighter)

Funny how that works

The eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that I just posted four entries at the same time, but they were all dated on the day they were actually written. That's a bit weird, right? I mean, why does this particular website work like that?

Don't know, but it means that in a few weeks, when everyone (who am I kidding, nobody reads this thing) has forgotten, it'll look like I didn't leave the blog for a month without posting an update, no matter how many I was tapping away at in the mean time.

Do I have anything else to discuss in the mean time? I don't know, everything seems to be going okay, I'm good on the writing front and I haven't recieved any post demanding money in the last few days. Heard from my brother, have been watching copius dvd's. I may have missed my class on wednesday, but then apparently I didn't actually miss much.

Yeah, everything seems okay, so you might as well just look on out for the film review. Oh wait, I haven't actually *seen* The Fighter yet. So I'm gonna talk about something that isn't a film. Ooooh, breaking the mould!

POINTLESS (filmed on 13/02/11)

So a while back, Coates says that we can get tickets to go see QI being filmed if we go see Pointless being filmed, since it's not as popular a show, I'm guessing. So we took a trip up to London, walked around South Bank for a bit, shot through the tube system, got lost in a MASSive White City Mall, then stood outside BBC Television Centre for an hour and a half until we got inside. Then we got to sit in the FRONT ROW. I was actually within licking distance of Alexander Armstrong.

And I loves me some Alexander Armstrong. I should have brought the script for Fantasy Incorporated with me, I could have thrust it on him with instructions to give it to Ben Miller. Or would that have been taking the piss?

Basically, I've never been to a filming before, I'd never seen a show being shot. Yeah, there's a lot of technical stuff going on all around you, yeah there's stopping and starting, yeah there's a compare who's trying to keep you interested. But all in all, the time flew by, the progress of the game was fascinating, it was actually really funny (especially when it turns out that nobody there likes Kevin Spacey!) and it was, all in all, a thoroughly pleasent way to spend an evening. We even got back to southampton for about 11pm.

It was interesting to see, and I'm going to have to check up all the episodes of Pointless on the iplayer for the next few days, since I think they'd actually got some footage of me, Coates and Macina in the front row cheering and whooping. I might actually be on TV. That's a scary thought for all you TV license payers, eh? So yeah, this makes a change from a film review, doesn't it? I think I'll do a few more of these every now and again. I'll definately do the QI one when we go see that!

Next up: The Fighter.
(He says for the 2nd time)

Writer's Block

Now, I've always believed that writer's block is something that happens to people that think they're writers, as opposed to people who are actually writers. That may sound overwhelmingly arrogant, but bear in mind that this is me talking here, and I am overwhelmingly arrogant.

I've never before suffered from writer's block. I write for a couple of hours every single day and even though I know most of it actually isn't that good, I'm still kinda happy with the way it turns out. I'm not that difficult to please, it turns out, which helps. But right now...

Basically, a little while ago one of my classmates told me about a BBC sitcom competition that closes mid-February. Now, as it's for untried writers and my friends are entering, I thought 'awesome, I'll get right on that'. And I did, I've had the idea for Barstaff knocking around in my head for a while now and I want to get it onto the page.

And it sucks.

I mean, seriously, I typed it up, did a second draft and we had a read through of it this afternoon. And yes... it sucks. It is not so good. I don't actually like it and it's not funny.

Now, that's not that easy to take. I feel really quite disappointed in myself, and that's not something I'm used to (although looking at myself, I probably should be).

To make matters worse, my classmates then read out their entry for the sitcom competition and it was sodding hilarious, simple and brilliant. It really blew mine away.

Which didn't help.

Ah, man up already.

Naturally, I shouldn't just take this and let it get me down, I should do something about it, go back to the drawing board and carry on. Problem is I don't think I've got it in me. I've never really considered myself to be a comedy writer, I was only really going for this in order to actually send something off to the Writer's Room. Is it worth it?

...

...

...

Yeah. It is. I'll redo it. I'll sit down and I'll make myself do it. Because that's just what I do. Writer's block is something that happens to people who think that they're writers, but aren't really. It isn't something that happens to me. And while that may sound overwhelmingly arrogant, just remember who you're talking to here. I'm the writer. Someday, someone else will realise that, because I knew it all along.

TRUE GRIT.

Right, this is a re-adaptation, in an odd way. Obviously, John Wayne was in a version of this film back in the 60's, but that doesn't make this movie a remake. This is an adaptation of the original novel and tries to stick even closer to it than the Wayne version did. If it did that or not, I don't know, since I haven't seen either the Wayne version or read the book. So I have to judge this film purely on its own merits.

Pretty good. Pretty damn good.

Surprisingly easy to follow for a Coen Brother's film, since so many of their offerings are jarring and confusing, with hints of true brilliance smothered beneath bizarre stories and twisting narratives. They are the masters of what they do, I'll give the Coen's that, but I'm just not sure that I always like what they do. They're definately an acquired taste.

So, True Grit. This is a classic story of a girl seeking revenge of her father's murder by an outlaw, and hiring a US Marshall to do it for her. They team up with a Texas Ranger and head out into the hostile Native territories in the north, in order to track the murderer and the gang he'd fallen in with down. That's it, a very simple and effective story.

The thing that makes this movie is the quality of the performance from Jeff Bridges. Jeff is never one to let us down, he always, always gives an awesome show, but this is probably one of his most memorable. He's gruff, he's rude, he's arrogant, he's drunk, he's so decidedly human that he makes other humans look like cardboard cut outs. The others... well... they all do their bits good, most especially Ed Corbin, who's cameo as Forester is simply joyous to watch. The dialogue is another star, the overly complicated and slightly out of place talk of the Old West is kind of pointless yet really interesting to listen to and muddle through.

I've always compared the dialogue of all westerns to 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford'. Now that wasn't a particularly enjoyable movie, but it certainly felt damn authentic, since the Old West American accents were so thick that they needed subtitles. Grit was almost there with that, Bridges certainly was, but the rest of the film was a little left behind and stagnant compared to him. Mattey, the main girl, seemed to lack any kind of actual development in her character, she kind or remained the same throughout, which was a little disappointing, I was expecting a bit more.

All in all, pretty good movie, but not all that memorable with the exception of Jeff Bridges, who was brilliant.

Next time: The Fighter (I think)