Stuff

Mood: disappointed

You can't expect much from a Bond film.  I mean the past few have been pretty mediocre, so I'm not sure why I thought this one would be any different.  I was just curious, I suppose, to see what Daniel Craig was like.  I have a sort of fondness for Bond films. When I watched them as a kid I was intrigued by the society Bond mixed with, the European locations and exotic car chases.  I still enjoy an action movie set in Europe with car chases, which is why I liked Bourne Identity.

Anyway, I was watching Casino Royale and thinking, well there's plenty of action, ignoring the fact that no-one could do all those stunts and still stand without a sweat.  Daniel Craig's Bond was very wooden though but I assumed he was supposed to appear that way.  I haven't seen him in anything else so can't comment on his acting ability.  What confused me was the constant reference to Bond only just being promoted to 007.  Naturally this is because it's one of the earlier films (and I don't remember seeing the original version), but Daniel Craig seemed a bit old to have only just become a double O agent.  It's my niggling demand for realism that always puts a dampener on some films.

Well OK, I was watching away and was considering giving this movie a 7 out of 10 and thinking it would end shortly, even though I thought the storyline was rather badly put together.  But it kept going.  What made me dislike the movie immediately after that was the torture scene.  Torture scenes are unnecessary.  Fine, it's probable that Bond would be tortured but realistic torture is not a feature of Bond films - give me back my fantasy Bond, thanks, however improbable, where he might be strung up over a pool of sharks and he gets away.  I don't like movies with torture scenes - unless I know that it's a feature of a (reality-based) movie and I can be prepared (eg Das Experiment).  I refuse to watch movies like Hostel, for example.  Totally unnecessary.  There's enough of that in the real world.  I don't want to see it in detail in a fictional movie, thanks.

So yeah, the torture scene immediately ruined the film and anything that came after that was just bluh.  And the ending - how pathetic and very very un-Bond-like.   6/10

Nope, I hated Craig as Bond.  I won't be watching any more of his Bonds, if he does any more.

Mood: disappointed, disgusted
Listening to: the hum of the laptop

I tried watching two movies last night.  The first "Life is Beautiful" - I couldn't get past the first half hour or so.  I was bored first of all, but mainly I couldn't stand the dubbing.  I hate dubbed movies.  The people who do the voiceovers, or whatever you call it, don't appear to be good actors.  They read the script hurriedly in some stupid high-pitched voice with an outrageous accent and it just ruins the whole movie.  Whether it's a comedy or not, it ends up being a joke.  So I tossed that one aside and tried

"The March of the Emperor(s)/Penguins" (the title changes according to the French or English version.  I watched the French version, having heard that Morgan Freeman's narration was rather patronising.  Well shit, the French version was probably more so.  Instead of narration they had male, female and baby penguin voices.  Fuck - what was this - a kids' movie?  And the music was absolutely awful.  When there wasn't some Bjork sound-alike singing some stupid English lyrics in a silly high-pitched voice, it was some really cheesy cliched sop.  I hated it.  Several times I wanted to turn the sound off but I also wanted to hear the sound of the penguins.  The actual footage was lovely, but I didn't learn anything new or see anything I hadn't already in a shorter, less patronising, proper documentary.

So, still on the lookout for a good movie that's not also overrated.

I think all those lyric sites just copy off each other.  I just wanted the lyrics to Robbie Williams' "No Regrets" and had a search.  Just about every site I looked at had exactly the same, including the grammatical or spelling errors or words run together.  Lazy fuckwits.  And every one of them had the word "enstranged".  There's no such fucking word!  It's fucking "estranged" not enstranged.  WTF?  Or did Robbie Williams invent the (totally superfluous when there's one already) word himself?  I fucking doubt it.  I don't have a copy of his album to check if the lyrics are written on the insert.  Retards.

I've come across a similar situation with other lyrics.  Many sites have exactly the same one, as if the fuckers consulted one site and just copied it, mistakes and all.  Total losers.  You're better off listening to the song and writing down what you hear, regardless of whether it means anything or whether the word actually exists or not because that's exactly what they've done.

Rant over for the day.

The time thing still isn't right.  With the box "Use current time" clicked, I've no idea when exactly the blog post will be published.  It certainly ISN'T current time.  So what time is it?  Never?  I have to make a random guess at some time, changing the time it appears for "current" to some time in the past and hope the post shows up.  It's f***ing annoying.

I've doggedly refused to put my blog elsewhere up until now, but I'm seriously considering it.  I've had enough of the spam blogs (splogs) and the annoyances about the blog post actually APPEARING.

I'll give them another week... After that I'm off to Wordpress.

I didn't write about a Japanese movie I watched - Shinobi.  It was pretty good.  It reminded me of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon because of the 'flying'.  I expected some good ninja fighting but it was more a fantasy - their powers were more like X-Men - one of them even killed by touching or kissing like whatserface - the kiwi chick.  Some members of the two different shinobi tribes reminded me of elves.  Phooey - can't find pics now and can't be bothered uploading them to photobucket anyway.

I watched Babel last night.  I actually bought it (it was on sale) just because I like Gael Garcia Bernal and heard it was a good movie.  I'll watch anything with him in it - mmm.  Good movie - longer than I expected.  The director really wrenches out emotions.  I watched the additional DVD about the making of it - I don't normally do that - in a 2-DVD set I'll usually only watch the film itself.  The director seems pretty damned tough - expecting his actors to work for hours and hours to exhaustion.  I didn't see one happy actor - except Gael (just love that smile of his).  But I've enjoyed the director's previous movies - Amores Perros (Gael again....) and 21 grams (I'm a fan of Sean Penn also).

I can't remember any other movies I've watched recently.  I re-watched Y Tu Mama Tambien (for obvious reasons).  Ones I've recently watched include Marie Antoinette (did I mention that one?).  Oh wait - I watched one called "For your consideration" about some actors that are rumoured to be nominated for Oscars.  I read reviews before watching it and they were all pretty disappointed.  So was I.  It could have been better - funnier, wittier, dunno.  It definitely lacked something.

I wanna see Eastern Promises - Viggo!

Yup - top three fave actors - Gael Garcia Bernal, Viggo Mortensen, and Sean Penn.

Cate Blanchett was in Babel - I often get mixed up between her and Gwyneth Paltrow.  Through most of Babel I thought it was Gwyneth - duh.  Good actress.  Brad Pitt is a better actor than most people give him credit for.  He was good in Snatch and Seven Years in Tibet - awful in Troy but that was probably the script and director (crap movie anyway).

Anyway, I'm rambling.  Ciao!