The Spy Who Loved Him

Below is my latest film review, Paul Verhoeven's Black Book. Enjoy!

I think I could probably count the number of foreign films I've seen out of my own choice on one hand. I am also not exactly the hugest fan of Paul Verhoeven. But there was so much hype surrounding this film that I just had to see it.

I'm glad I did. This film brings back to memory the classic war spy films of the 40s, 50s and 60s, where brave men and women risked their lives against the Nazis for freedom. But the fact that it is based on real events creates a very sinister atmosphere to it, none more so than during the final third of the film, where history once again shoves a bitter blow to the face of "peace lovers" by showing what happened to those poor men and women who fell in love with Nazi soldiers or sympathised with them.

There are some excellent performances here, but although he seems to have come back with a bang, I just can't stick Verhoeven. It is now obvious after more than 20 years of his films where his interests lie - blonde women and violence. Just look at Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, Denise Richards in Starship Troopers, even Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls - and now Carice van Houten. If this is the way in which Verhoeven is to become an auteur, I suppose you could argue that he is a sub-par Hitchcock, but then I shudder at the comparison.

It's a shame, because this is a great movie, with plenty of twists and good historical background. You genuinely feel for Rachel/Ellis as life keeps dealing her with bitter blows. In the same instance, however, it does leave quite a few questions open and there are some parts of the plot which are left unexplained. Ultimately, the theme is of violence once again - with the ending shot a rather pessimistic view of the rest of the 20th century.

7/10

The next film review will be of Perfume.

Laters.

Life's A Bitch

Abysmal.
Botched.
Catastrophe.
Disgusting.
Excrutiating.
Foolish.
Grating.
Horrible.
Ignorant.
Juddering.
Skin-crawling.
Lousy.
Moronic.
Nonsense.
Obsolete.
Pathetic.
Queasy.
Rubbish.
Stupid.
Typical.
Useless.
Vulgar.
Woeful.
Exhausting.
Yuck.
Zzzzzz.

Now, am I talking about the performance of the England Football team last night, or am I talking about the recent slip up by the government regarding the loss of two CDs containg the personal information of 25 million people? The power is in your hands: you choose!

Laters.

What's In A Name?

Neil Diamond, an artist whom I am not that familiar with, has admitted that his song "Sweet Caroline" was inspired by Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the daughter of the late President John F Kennedy. (Incidentally, wouldn't it have been brilliant if Schlossberg wasn't her married name, but her true surname? Then we would have had President Schlossberg!)

Ahem. Anyway, it made me start to think about other songs which could have been inspired by famous people - or C-listers as they are usually referred to now.

Erm...damn, I thought this was going to work, but I can't think of any. If there are readers out there (and that's a big "if") I need your help with this one! The weirder, stupider, more politically sharp satirised the better! I am, after all, a Struggling Writer and I do indeed struggle!

Laters.

"You Don't Get Me, I'm Part Of The Union..."

I'm not sure how I should respond to the strikes going on over in the US of A by my fellow Struggling Writers over the shores. Obviously, I'm all for them getting better pay, better screen credits, or whatever they can get out of these protests. But the film/television viewer in me is panicking so much right now.

Already several films in pre-production have been hit by these strikes. Admittedly the only one that bears me any sort of interest would be Angels And Demons, the Ron Howard directed and Tom Hanks starring prequel to The DaVinci Code, which coincidentally I haven't actually watched yet but will probably do so at some point. But the number of films is slowly increasing, and I can't help feeling that some films that I'm really looking forward to will soon be affected.

Unfortunately I have fallen out of love with Ugly Betty, having missed so many episodes of the second series that joining it now would be pretty pointless. But I'm still looking forward to the next series of Desperate Housewives, and knowing that this series has also been affected by the strikes...well, it just breaks my hearts.

All in all, I'm totally behind the strikers, but I just hope that it's resolved quickly.

Laters.

I See Dead People

There's been a lot of fuss recently about the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen. First of all we saw his mummified face for the first time in decades. Now we have a huge exhibition of his treasures taking place at the O2 Arena which people have been queuing in droves to get tickets for. The same happened with the Terracotta Army earlier this year. I just have one question: why?

A couple of Saturdays ago I was in Stratford-Upon-Avon with a few friends doing a research project for a presentation we must do next week. This is where, in case you didn't know, William Shakespeare was born and was buried. Although I couldn't go into the birthplace, namely because of it being rather expensive, one of my friends and I went and did the next best thing, which was to go to the local church and see his grave.

It cost us 50p each at student process. We walked slowly up to the long velvet rope which lay as a barrier in front of the altar. There, second from the left, we saw the cold stone slap which underneath lay the remains of arguably the greatest writer ever.

And...that's it.

We weren't exactly expecting any kind of epiphany, but the fact is we didn't even get a hint of one! Oh look, a grave stone in a church. How exciting. What a flipping waste of money more like. I could have stayed outside the church and looked at all the other gravestones in the churchyard and not paid a thing! But because Shakespeare is considered so fantastic, so amazing, that you just have to go inside the church (which, coincidentally, is named on the sign as Shakespeare's Church) to see what all the fuss is about.

It is, point blank, a huge tourist trap. The only decent thing in Stratford is the RSC theatre, which is offering tickets at £5 for 16-25 year olds. Who wants to queue up for ages and spend vast quantities of money to see dead people' stuff (or dead people) when you can pay a fifth of the price and see something that actually meant something to them: a play, for example.

What? Me, a Struggling Writer, actually recommending a play? Never!

Laters.

Food Glorious Food

As avid readers (if any) of my blog will be aware, I am a big fan of food. I have very little that I will not eat, though I am sure that I haven't exactly eaten everything that there is to be eaten which, if you were being really strict about it, would probably contain items such as kangaroo's anuses and human beings.

I am also a huge fan of chocolate. In fact I would be bold enough to say that chocolate is the third mot important thing in my life, after God and my family. Last night, whilst walking back from a friend's house, I could not help but quickly dive into the University's open washing room to buy a Dairy Milk from the vending machine. It cost me 60p, which I'm sure is a bit more expensive than in a local shop.

Food can be expensive, but food can also be dirt cheap. I find that buying my vegetables and fruit loose costs me less money than buying them in bagged form. I try to get the cheapest mince and bread. I am often found diving into the cheese section and spending at least five minutes looking through every small block of cheddar to find which one is the cheapest. My record for this little activity so far has been 91p.

But there's expensive and then there's silly money. In today's Times (and I seem to be quoting a lot from this particular paper recently) I read a small article which went like this:

"A white 750g (26oz) Italian Alba truffle that sold for a record £102,000 at a charity auction will be served at a private dinner in Hong Kong on Sunday."

Now I'm not an idiot; I know that truffles, particularly rare ones, are expensive. And there's nothing wrong obviously with the money going to charity. But perhaps there's something in this anyway. The fact that someone would pay such a vast amount of money for a piece of food makes my wallet weep.

Last night I had Pasta Bolognaise (hope that's spealt right!) with mince costing 76p, pasta which in a huge bag cost £1, chopped tomatoes 15p, tomato puree 30p, plus onion, garlic, carrots and mushrooms which together would only probably have cost a pound. That 's £3.21p all together, and I was stuffed afterwards. So you can take your rare truffle and your private dinner. Everyone is welcome to mine for Bolognaise. Though not tonight, as I have to go shopping.

Laters.

Tut, Tut, It Looks Like Rain

After a rather length cell group meeting last night I got into my house and collapsed on my sofa. With only the energy left to cook a garlic bread for dinner I wanted to stay there for the rest of the evening. Alas, this was not to be.

I can only describe it as being like when you haven't turned a kitchen tap off properly and so a thin stream of water still emerges from the faucet. That was what the water was like which ran from a small hole in our kitchen ceiling. I may have mentioned our leak here before on this blog, possibly as a Monday Moan. It has evidently got worse.

Panicking, I ran upstairs and told my housemate who was in the shower to get out asap and switch the water off. After a swift examination of the bathroom we found our culprit, a thin crack between two small bathroom tiles, big enough to let in a lot of water that runs over the side of our awkwardly shaped bath when using the shower.

I suppose it was rather ironic that the Bible passage we had been looking at during cell was from Philippians and contained the verse:

"Do everything without complaining or arguing" (Philippians 2:14).

Almost immediately God tested me with this - not sure if I passed really, as this blog entry probably counts as a complaint!

*****

I couldn't help noticing this rather unusual news item in today's Times:

"A man in southern India married a female dog in an attempt to atone for stoning two other dogs to death. P. Selvakumar married the former stray, named Selvi, in a Hindu ceremony at a temple in the state of Tamil Nadu."

I know that a dog is supposed to be man's best friend, but that's just plain ridiculous!

Laters.

Thursday's Child Is A Right Whinger

So due to the fact that I was so busy on Monday and could not therefore add an entry to this week's Monday Moan, it seems that fate has given me plenty to talk about today so as to make up for it. So I present to you all now for the first time (and hopefully the last): The Thursday Tantrum!

Though maybe that's a little extreme to call it a tantrum? Maybe it should be The Thursday Ticking Off? Or The Thursday Troubles? Thing is, the day has just piled one thing after the other in an attempt to get a mention on my blog. At least, that's my theory. After all, I have the Monday Moan, Film Tuesday and Music Wednesday - but nothing so far for the other days of the week.

Anyway, it is money really that has caused the woes of today. First the gas runs out and we realise that we need a better way of paying it, half of us not being around half the time anyway. Then my accommodation fees refuse to subtract themselves from my bank account into the depths of the University's vault. So I have to write a big fat cheque and fill in another form - don't you just love paperwork?

It is also raining - joy upon all joys - and there are some unfortunate idiots in the library now who are making rather a loud noise.

I am very tired.

I have Alpha tonight.

I also have been informed that I need to get up at 6 in the morning on Saturday to go to Stratford-Upon-Avon for group presentation work.

Help. Me.

Laters

"Oh, I'm Sorry, Did I Break Your Concentration?"

As promised, here is my review for Pulp Fiction. Enjoy!

Given the opportunity to get this on a cheap DVD, I decided to seize the day as it were and find out what all the fuss was about. Having only seen one Tarantino film - Kill Bill: Part One, which I suppose actually means I'd only seen half a Taraniton film - and having enjoyed it a lot, plus having read and heard all the hype surrounding Pulp Fiction, my expectations were higher than I would say they usually are before watching a film.

For the majority of it, Pulp Fiction does exactly what I've been led to believe it does: confuses you and thrills you, as well as making you chuckle, albeit a little guiltily, at several points. The story itself - not told in a linear style - can at times be frustratingly annoying in its light-pretentious way of saying, "Ooh, look at me, I'm non-linear, I'm going to muck about with your heads". It is also full of coincidences, especially the story which revolves around Bruce Willis's character. This particular strand goes off into extremely weird territory. I suppose parts of it could happen, but you'd have to be very, very unlucky for it to actually be the case.

The cast are pretty much impeccable. Despite the very good performance of John Travolta, the film's early scenes really belong to Samuel L Jackson, whose rehearsed Biblical scripture sounds at first rather absurd before becoming incredibly chilling. There are nice turns from Uma Thurman and Ving Rhames before the film is once again saved by Jackson. Harvey Keitel is also bwa-ha-ha funny, thankfully good enough to overshadow the rather poor performance of Tarantino himself.

One thing that does rock in this film is the soundtrack, from the opening familiar theme which suddenly changes halfway through into a completely different piece of music, to the final end guitar strains. The stand-out piece must be the Chuck Barry song which Travolta and Thurman dance the twist rather badly to. This is a moment so surreal that you're not sure whether to laugh or just scratch your head and ponder the meaning of life.

On the whole, Pulp Fiction deserves most of the plaudits it has gained, and it is (or was) original enough to justify winning the Palme D'Or at Cannes 1995. But it is not a really great film. I have a feeling that we're still waiting for Tarantino to make one of those. Unless he already has, and I just haven't watched it yet.

7/10

The next review will be of Paul Verhoven's latest film, Black Book.

Laters.

Busy Busy Busy

So busy in fact that I cannot do much other than quickly type this and update this week's passage.

Laters.

The Law Of Sodom

Okay, so the television is fine. The Digital Box for the television works perfectly - we have lots and lots of channels, some of which we didn't have last year, most of which we did and is nice to see them back again - as I said yesterday.

But as for our supposed Internet - they've only gone and sent us Broadband instead of Wireless Broadband. Ho hum. Perhaps I was too hasty in writing what I did yesterday.

Today has certainly been challenging. In our Lunch Talks we have been holding during Missions Week here at Winchester University, the topic for today was about sex. It is perhaps the toughest topic we have talked about all week so far, but I think the panel who were asked to take part did incredibly well. Some difficult questions were raised and I honestly don't know how I would have done in their shoes. It was however nice that two of my friends from my English classes could come along, and it certainly raised a lot of interesting ideas for them.

Alpha tonight and then the best way to end Missions Week - the cocktail party!

Laters.