In The Cinema Everyone Can Hear You Scream

Apparently the next big thing in the world of cinema is going to be 4D. A speculative truth (at best) that various cinema moguls would like to convince us of.

Essentially 4D is a fully immersive, interactive experience where your cinema seat is made to shake and veer during car chases, you get pummelled with air during onscreen whirlwinds, you get hosed down during rainstorms or deep sea dives and you get blasted with the odour of stale alcohol and garlic when the leading man / lady moves in close for a tongue sarnie.

To be honest, there’s nothing new about this gimmicky approach to movie watching – most kids’ entertainment / holiday resorts have some sort of 4D cinema these days where we willingly pay an exorbitant fee to allow our kids to be waterboarded whilst watching The Smurfs because it stops them whinging on about wanting an ice cream for all of 20 minutes. But family holiday resorts is where 4D should stay in my opinion.

There is nothing cinematically immersive about having your seat shaken so hard you end up wearing the popcorn of the person sitting next to you or hearing the neurotics in the front row squeal every time a hidden air cylinder blows a couple of bars of pressurized cold air up their trouser leg. If anything this totally removes you from the film; it shatters the pleasurable suspension of belief that you have lapsed into in order to enjoy the movie and places you undeniably back into a darkened room with a bunch of people who will immediately become your sworn enemy should the fire alarm suddenly go off and you find your way to the exit blocked.

Books don’t need 4D effects. I didn’t need the smell of wet dog to assail me when reading The Famous Five or to hear the jiggling of female flesh when reading Game Of Thrones. And I imagine I would not need to have my hands manacled and tied behind my back to get the full effect of 50 Shades Of Grey. Though you might need to do that and threaten the lives of my children in order to get me to read it in the first place. Such artificial devices would break the spell that reading a book – submitting yourself to an imaginary world – weaves. It is the same with cinema. The only senses that need to be catered for are sound and vision. You can never fully recreate the entire gamut of physical sensation that the characters onscreen are being subjected to as part of the plot – so offering the audience piecemeal approximate sensations is not going to add anything to the movie at all. If anything it will detract.

And to be honest if you really need your seat to be shaken for you during a moment of cinematic jeopardy in order to feel the correct emotional response then you plainly have major empathy problems and cinema is not for you anyway.

Indeed, anything that involves being around lots of people or dealing with any kind of quantifiable human experience is not for you - you’d be much better off getting your kicks in a vacuum where nobody at all will be able to hear you scream and I can watch the end of the effing film in peace.

47 Groanin’

Traditionally on this blog film reviews go down like Nick Griffin on Robert Mugabe, i.e. very awkwardly. The comments tend to dry up rather quickly as people take the excuse “I haven’t seen that film / don’t plan to see that film so I can’t leave a comment anyway so I won’t even bother to read the blog at all. Job done”.

However, I’m bloody minded enough not to care and arrogant enough to think that the power of my writing can overcome any wilful lethargy in my readership. But to show I’m not totally uncaring to your plight I will keep this short.

47 Ronin.

I had high hopes for this. I saw it trailered at the cinema – it looked rather good – but life circumnavigated my attempts to see it on the big screen. So I bought a copy on Blu-Ray for my wife and I to enjoy at our leisure.

We watched it over the weekend.

And now I want to kill Keanu Reeves.

Because having seen his performance I have been left in the emotional state of permanent WTF?

WTF was he doing in that film? Just WTF? And I mean that conceptually, metaphorically and professionally. What. Was. He. Doing. [Big question mark.]

The original story is based on an 18th Century Japanese legend. 47 Samurai avenge their murdered Lord knowing that their own code of ethics will ultimately demand their own deaths via seppuku. There’s a poignancy and sad beauty to this along with scope for lots of action and martial arts choreography. In cinematic terms the story should be a sure-fire winner.

And the supporting cast – mostly Japanese / Asian – were excellent. No big names (by Western standards – but really, what do we know?) but still they impressed me. They gave it their all. Pathos and sensitivity at war in a culture where emotion is not meant to be overly shown. I’d argue that their performances were poised and subtle and damned impressive.

And then there was Keanu. Shoehorned into the story as a “half breed” with special magical powers.

Really?

I’m betting there’s no sign of his character at all in the original legend. He was just inserted because the producers decided they needed a big name to sell the film to the box office. So we get this bolted-on element to the story. An add-on that the plot doesn’t really require and, as a result, is totally imbalanced by. Keanu is like a bogoff deal that you want to refuse. No really. I don’t want the extra bit. I don’t want the freebie. Please, please keep it.

Now, if I was Keanu I‘d be thinking: I’m extraneous to this story; I’m superfluous to the requirements of the emotional arc, therefore, I’d better pull my finger out and act like I’ve never acted before and earn my right to be on the screen.

But I am not Keanu. Keanu is Keanu.

And that is the problem. Because Keanu is Keanu all the way through the film. Sullen. Unresponsive. Flat. Incongruous.

He talks in the same gruff monotone whether he’s been being beaten (a criminally too short scene), offering comfort to a dying comrade or exchanging romantic pleasantries with his love interest. He talks like the Hollywood voiceover man from the 60s and 70s. The one who invites you to come see the next Warner Brother’s [or whatever] spectacular in that voice that makes it sound morally imperative that you come to the cinema right now and have your life changed by the experience. You know the type of voice I mean. Now imagine that voice reciting a fragile poem by e.e.cummings and utterly ruining it, utterly disembowelling it with the barbarism of its relentlessly galloping speech rhythm. Now you have Keanu telling his lady love that he will search for her through a thousand worlds, through 10 thousand lifetimes. He spits the poetry out like a half chewed hamburger. In his mouth it becomes pure American gristle and the gentle lotus flower breeze of the Japanese love-story curls up and dies in the blast from his meaty breath.

And he has but one facial expression. The bearded grimace. That is it. All the way through the film. He grimaces. From behind his inexplicably dirty looking beard.

Death: grrr! Sadness: grrr! Fighting: grrr! Male bonding: grrr! Standing still and not talking: grrr!

And then, at the end, he becomes an honorary Samurai and gets to kill himself – along with the other Samurai – with full, painfully tragic honour.

In that single moment Bushido becomes bullshit and the entire point of the film is utterly destroyed.

Because, in my view, Keanu has no honour. Keanu is not a Samurai.

Not by a long chalk.

But he has more chance of becoming a Samurai than becoming an actor.

In fact he has more chance of becoming Japanese.

Rat In Me Kitchen (And Me Bathroom)

It started with rhythmic scratching.

Something sharp being clawed against wood and brickwork.

I was the only person to notice it at first and was hard placed to positively identify where it was coming from. Somewhere around the back of the kitchen cupboards possibly. I even attributed it to next door at one point (they’re students; I wouldn’t put it passed them to hollow out a cavity in the brickwork on their side of the house so that they could curl up into a ball and listen to their Radiohead albums in peace without the cruel world impinging upon their listening experience).

But then the scratching seemed to hone in and centre on the part of the wall that disguises a run of pipework from upstairs. When I say disguises I mean the pipe is quite obviously boxed in and as a consequence we have a bizarre buttress effect in the kitchen that goes all the way up to the bathroom and from there up into the loft.

For some reason, possibly because I was watching Spring Watch at the time, I thought it might be a trapped bird.

But trapped birds tend not to live very long and the scratching continued.

And then got higher. And higher. Until we could now hear it plainly in the bathroom. Something right behind the tiles, scratching at the grouting from the inside.

The cats got spooked. And then got interested. And now they watch that little patch of buttressed plaster and tile like it’s the telly. They’re just waiting for whatever it is to pop its head out of the splintered plaster like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. To be honest, even if it was actually Jack Nicholson my money would be on the cats.

I am, however, 99% sure it is a rat.

And relieved. I think Jack Nicholson might be a worse pest to deal with.

My biggest fear is that the little blighter is attempting to gain entry to the loft. This would be bad news because we keep various family heirlooms and the boxes from my Lego collection up there. Did I say my collection? I meant, of course, my kid’s. Plenty of scope for rat mayhem.

I’m pretty sure all is secure but I haven’t yet ventured up there. But the time is nearing.

If you don’t hear from me for a while you’ll know it’s because “daddy’s home”.

Just One Cornetto

Before I proceed with my review of The World's End can I just say how gutted I was?

Absolutely gutted. Unbelievably gutted.

I seem to recall something similar happening with Wright-Pegg-Frost's last cinematic outing.

Picture the scene: opening night on screen 1 at out local Apollo (i.e. the big screen) and, including the wife and I, there were only about 15 people in the audience.

Now, some of you - those not initiated into the world's of "Spaced", "Shaun Of The Dead", "Hot Fuzz" or "Paul" - may think that is an eloquent and succinct film review.

But you would be wrong.

Because numbers can and do lie (just speak to any politician).

I know the weather is crazy at the moment. I know it's too hot and sticky to contemplate sitting in a cinema with crap air-con for a couple of hours to watch a film which doesn't feature some American beefcake hero-thug saving the world by destroying it single-handed and getting his end away with an attractively buoyant supporting (and well supported) actress. But even so. Come on, guys! These are our boys! Our boys doing good.

I'm gutted on behalf of The World's End team because I thought the movie was superb. It was the most polished, accomplished and adept film the trio of Wright-Pegg-Frost have produced to date. Sure it's a slow burner; time is spent building the premise, time is spent establishing relationships but as soon as the weird shit hits the fan the film takes off like a cornetto powered rocket.

For all the trademark humour that we expect from this team I was impressed with the amount of pathos the story has; how real the relationships and interactions between the character were. They genuinely caught something about our culture that we can all identify with and relate to.

Pegg's Gary King is truly comic-tragic character. Not just the school loudmouth who never grew up; he's a scared little boy who is unable to let himself grow up - and this is the source of most of the film's humour and pathos. We can all relate to not wanting to let go of the past; with deifying good times in our teens so much so that the rest of our lives seem empty and unbearable by comparison but Gary King takes it to self destructive extremes.

Frost adds depth to the personality interplay as Gary's former best mate, Andrew Knightley, who seethes with unexpressed disappointment at Gary's inability to grow up. The true scope and nature of that disappointment is revealed later in the film and spins nicely against the glib banter that constantly sparks between the two up to that point. But it is Gary's backstory, that isn't revealed until the very end of the film, that suddenly places all of his desperate need to cocoon and relive his teenage years into poignant sharp focus.

Without wanting to spoil the ending too much there is a fantastic moment when a superior alien intelligence is basically seen off by a couple of lairy-mouthed drunks. Somehow that very rang very true to me. I think if alien life did one day descend on planet earth some drunk with a bottle of Diamond White would probably dropkick it back into its flying saucer and tell it to fuck off back to Pluto. This would be both our first and last alien contact.

The World's End is a brilliant film and a fitting finale to the Cornetto Trilogy. Don't be one of those idiots who shrugged at "Paul" when it had its cinematic release but then caught it on DVD month's later and finally raved about it. Go and see The World's End now, rave about it now and support Team UK now.

The world could end tomorrow. Life is too short to wait for DVDs.

LOL. ROFL. AFK. ETC.

Language is the preserve of everybody and yet I often find myself falling into the trap my elders made before me: denigrating and sneering at the language of teenagers.

Teen-speak is an oddly fluid, cyclical, ever-changing, totally unpredictable thing. Now I recognize that all language is that to a point but teen-speak seems to evolve in ways that are counterintuitive to the way most changes occur to a language.

Teen-speak does not evolve through any obvious source of necessity – unless you count the necessity to be as different and “individual” as possible. Different in this case invariably mean different from all the grown-ups that teenagers secretly wish they were and individual in the sense that you fit in with your peers who are all speaking exactly the same lingo as you so that you feel part of a group or a gang or, that most wonderful of entities, a movement.

When I was a kid we had our own set of cool words.  “Cool” was one of them having made a post-modern ironic resurgence from the 60’s. I also recall “gnarly” was doing the rounds thanks to Bill & Ted and “no way / way” was popular thanks to Wayne’s World. We also had words like “eppy” for someone who was flipping out in today’s vernacular; “pleb”, “dickwad” and my own personal favourite “buttock-brain”. Of course, most of our special words were insults and a host of them survive today and have merely been added to by later generations. All were inspired by movies and TV, without a doubt.

Now “cool” is one of those strange epithets that has accrued a meaning beyond that of the original one. I’m sure it was as annoying to the older generation as “sick” now is to me. Lord knows I had enough trouble reconciling myself with “wicked” without having to take on board that “sick” now means “cool” which ultimately means something good and desirable.

I’ve noticed, however, that the internet and computing is now having a direct influence on the language of our young people.

My eldest boy, whilst chatting (read that as SHOUTING) with his mates via head-mic on X-Box Live continually refers to annoying players as “hackers”. It annoys the hell out of me because the activity of these people invariably does not involve them penetrating the mainframe of Skynet and bringing about the end of humanity and the rise of the machines.

And don’t even get me started on “LOL”. My boy says it constantly. And not even in an ironic sense either. I could cope with it if he said “LOL” drily in a situation or at a joke that was meant to be funny but plainly wasn’t. A “humour fail” (see, I can still get teen-speak) situation would be appropriate for someone to deadpan and say “LOL” as if they were speaking to an idiot who’d recited the same joke 50 times in the hope of cracking your reserve and finally making you laugh. Instead, “LOL” genuinely seems to stand in for actually laughing at something that is genuinely amusing. Albeit the kind of something that the rest of us would just crack a wry smile at or nod at bemusedly. It is in fact the kind of situation that does not require one ever to laugh out loud but just to feel amusement in a small quiet way. “LOL” now acts as a stand-in for a normal low-level humour response. What actually happens is that the use of the word “LOL” (is it actually a word?) strips the humour away completely from the situation whilst at the same time acknowledging that the speaker did actually get the joke. What is that? Ironic irony?

I’m just waiting for the inevitable development when the audience at a comedy gig no longer laughs out loud but merely utters “ROLF” under their breath every time their favourite comedian delivers a killer punch-line.

That will be the moment that teen-speak finally kills irony and humour and all intelligence forever.

You probably think there is no way that this could ever happen.

Well, I’m here to tell you:

Way.

Dirty Poles

In an ideal world this post would be about my misadventures in a lap dancing club.

Instead it is about a misadventure with a broken washing machine. Misadventure. That makes it sound like the final verdict is a cop out from an inconclusive police investigation when in fact the verdict is far from inconclusive. It was, ladies and gentlemen, theft pure and simple.

Yes, the washing machine - condemned to death due to a clapped out motor - had been left in my front garden in full view of the street. Yes, my intention was to offload it onto the first rag and bone man that blew his trumpet my way. Yes, I had no intention of making any money from the transaction. I affirm all of the above.

But I put it to you that, lying in situ on my front lawn as it was, and all other intentions aside, that washing machine was still my property and legally mine. To remove it without my permission was theft plain and simple.

So. The local rag and bone man finally appears on his appointed day and I dash outside to hail him over. He grinds his flatbed truck to a halt, leaps out with the look of a martyr doing me a favour and finds me scratching my head at the huge washing machine shaped hole that has suddenly appeared in the reality that surrounds us.

It was literally there the last time I looked and now suddenly it wasn't.

Some bugger had half-inched it in the night. Probably while Karen and I had taken the car off the drive and gone into town to see Star Trek.

Unbelievable. Do these people offer a refuse collection service as well?

I had to apologize for wasting Mr Rag & Bone Man's time. He gave a pained shrug like he was used to this sort of thing and uttered the words, "probably them dirty Poles" before driving off in a squeal of copper piping and freshly fenced drain covers.

Great. Theft and casual, lazy racism all in one day.

To be honest, it's possible he wasn't slagging off all Poles in one foul breath but merely slighting the rival gang of Polish rag and bone men who also ply their trade along our street and, as he sees it, steal his business.

As it was I know for a fact that the washing machine was taken late in the evening when no rag and bone man would even think about stirring from the pub no matter how much free "any any old iron" was waiting to be had. Somebody else had nicked it, ethnic extraction as yet unknown.

And I am mightily pissed off about it but I find all avenues of recompense currently closed to me. The thing was broken and I wanted rid of it. So what does it matter?

It matters because whoever took it had made huge assumptions about the situation. That washing machine could have been specifically promised to someone. That machine could have been in full working order and only outside temporarily while we overhauled the kitchen. That washing machine could have been a novelty dog house.

They didn't ask to find out. They just took it. If they'd knocked on my door and asked me if they could take it I would probably have said yes and good riddance to it. But they didn't even pay me that smallest of respects.

It is the arrogant assumption that they had the right to take it without any kind of legal impediment that really grates with me.

An Englishman's castle is no longer sacred.

These days, unless you can nail it down, the natives are likely to steal the moat.

The Running Ham

What is it about Hollywood and running?

Why do movie advertisers think that we will be more likely to go and see a film if the poster features a freeze framed shot of the leading actor / actress in mid sprint?

I get the theory. The promise of action and dynamism. The attraction of a lithe, well-honed human body pushed to full exertion, pitched against the elements, stripped away from all mechanic help and motorized aid to pit itself against [insert generic forces of darkness here]. See our leading lady’s muscles tauten and flex as she runs gun in hand down the blazing sidewalk. Marvel as our leading man’s 6-pack ripples impressively as he runs a 4 minute mile to hurl himself over the bonnet of his assailant’s car and artfully wound himself – just a little – above his right eye so that the blood runs down and even more delineates his finely chiselled features.

Even better if there’s wind and rain. Running through the raw elements is always a winner. Or a spray of bullets. We love it when they run through a peppershot storm of lead and come out the other side totally unscathed.

Man. Running. I’ve got to go and see a film with running in it right now!

Except, I don’t. Not really.

Because running on a movie poster always looks a little bit stupid. And a whole lot contrived.

Let’s be honest, when a human being runs they don’t, as a rule, look cool. I know anthropologists make the case that human beings are designed to run (it’s all about our buns apparently) and certain individuals like Usain Bolt certainly manage to look magnificent when they run… but, by and large, the rule for the rest of us is: when we run we look like we really don’t want to be doing it and medically we really, really shouldn’t even have attempted to do it.

And that’s when seen at actual normal running life speed.

If you take a freeze frame of the average Joe (or Joanne) taken at full pelt, well, we just look like we are in pain. Like we are a huge chain of human sausage meat linked by a bizarrely jointed chain of hernias. Like our flesh is attached to our skeletons with cheap chewing gum and one more heavy footfall is going to see the whole lot slide off our bones with a wet ripping noise and ooze off down the nearest drain.

Depending on how much excess weight you are carrying you may even find your nipples have individually swung to different sides of your body. I’m not talking left and right, here, I am talking front and back.

We do not look pretty when we run.

Which is why movie posters have to lie about it.

But there is an art to this lying. If it is done badly, for all our leading man and leading lady may still look buff and muscle perfect, they will inevitably look ridiculous.

Take the movie image for Breaking Dawn Part 2. It’s all over the place at the moment. It features Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner running heroically towards the camera.

At least, that was the brief.

They look like they are jogging desultorily. That kind of half-assed shambolic, scurry-run that people do when they half-heartedly run for a bus which is already pulling away and they know won’t stop. The run that is the start of a run but kind of runs out of momentum after the first stride. I’m going to run, I’m going to run, I’m going to… oh I can’t be bothered. They look like they were told to literally run exactly one step toward the photographer and then stop. Don’t move a muscle. Hold it right there. Make-up touch them up and sort out their hair. Hold it. Hold it. Pressing the shutter release button now. Click. And relax. Thanks guys that’s really nailed it. So much better than speedwalking.

Take a look at this image when you get the chance. They have created something quite unique. A “vacuous run”. A “non-committal sprint”. The kind of run you’d undertake when the person you hate most in the world is lying before you, being kicked by everyone they’ve ever hurt and betrayed and they’re calling you for help. Yeah. I’m coming. I’m getting there. I’m just going to take a very long time doing it.

This image doesn’t say dynamism. It doesn’t say action.

It says I refuse to look as sloppy and out of shape as every other human being on this planet does when they run anywhere very fast.

It says I can’t even act convincingly like I’m running despite moving my limbs like I am actually running and being paid a massive fortune to do it.

This, Hollywood movie poster makers, does not sell the movie to me. Not at all.

But it does make me want to run.

Just not to the cinema or the DVD vendor…

Before the starting pistol is even fired, somebody just lost the race.

Hand Prints

Not for the first time in the comparatively short history of this blog my reasons for writing have yet again been called into question by a third party.

Why do I write? What need does it satisfy? What good does it do? Who the hell do I think cares enough, is interested enough to even want to read it all in the first place?

Needless to say such questions weren't posed in an emotionless psycho-scientific vacuum but were given a hefty wallop of negative spin that created a curve-ball with enough thrust to smash through even my superdense cranium.

Well if you've got this far I guess you've just answered the fourth question.

As for the others I'm pleased to report that it didn't take much brain searching to come up with a few answers.

The way I see it (and that statement alone is the fundamental starting point for any blog, letter, email, newspaper column, book, film or play) blogging of itself it a pretty pointless activity. It's not going to stop world poverty, end human trafficking or child abuse or even get The X Factor axed from our television screens. It's not really within its narrow remit.

But what it could do is flag up to the powers-that-be that enough people want these issues sorted out with enough urgency and passion that the powers-that-be actually plough some energy and money into sorting them.

Yeah. That's a naive argument but I live in hope.

In all honesty I personally see blogging in its entirety the world over as a wonderful ever-expanding social-history document. Kind of like the Bayeux Tapestry but this time mostly about mundane stuff and one where everybody gets to voice their opinion - not just the winners. Taken as a whole it represents lots of truths (some of them conflicting) about human nature, human society and how we all, as a species, interact - not just on a local scale but also globally because the great thing about the online community is that geography as an obstacle is completely and utterly removed.

In fact there was an experiment a year or so ago where everybody (not just regular blog writers) was invited to submit a blog post on the same day so that a group of curators somewhere could have a digital snapshot of what the 20th century world was doing on 25th July 2010 (or whenever it was - I just made that date up so that the sentence would feel like it was going somewhere). Blogging in general is like that. Our descendents 300 years from now will look back at all this online verbiage and feel that they know us a lot more intimately that we can currently say we know the population of Restoration Britain, or the Elizabethans or Stone Age Man.

Which brings me onto a neat conceit.

Whenever anyone asks me why I blog (and no, it isn't just about my ego) I always think of the hand prints our ancient ancestors left on the walls of caves all those millennia ago.

Why did they bother? What need did it satisfy? What good did it do them? Who the hell did they think would ever be interested enough to look at them and care about them?

I mean those hand prints by themselves don't tell us very much at all apart from the date they were made (like most blog posts in fact) and what colour paint they had available. They don't in themselves tell us what these people ate, what they wore, how they spoke or what kind of relationships and hierarchy their society was composed of.

Apart from the aesthetics and the wonderment of how old they are those hand prints don't add to the total sum of human knowledge a great deal at all. They were made by simple folk, in a nascent civilization with nothing very big or world shattering to say at all.

And yet they are invaluable. They are important.

Those hand prints say quite simply but nevertheless very fundamentally, "I was human. I was here."

And actually, on a cosmic scale, that is quite world shattering.

For me, blogging is a bit like that.

I am human and I am here.

And quite honestly if you don't like the shape my hand makes against the wall feel free to drag yourself onto the next cave. There's some "horsies" in that one.

The Hobbit

I haven’t read any of the critic’s reviews. This isn’t an especial stance that I’ve taken just for Peter Jackson’s latest outing to Middle Earth; I’ve just never been bothered enough with some “expert’s” opinion to take it as gospel in place of my own. If I want to see a film I’ll go and see it and make my own mind up.

Which isn’t to say I’ve been unaware of some of the more miserly reviews regarding The Hobbit.

Overlong. Too bloated. Not enough story. Christ, some even slag off Peter Jackson’s decision to film it in 48 frames a minute – a complaint I find unfathomable in this world of HD TV and Blu-Ray crystal clear clarity.

Peter Jackson himself isn’t chasing an Oscar in this film. He’s said so in interview.

So you’d think maybe he didn’t try hard enough then, didn’t give the film his all.

That would be a misconception.

The Hobbit is Peter Jackson’s gift, if you like, to all those of us who fell in love with his cinematic version of Middle Earth in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. It is a luxurious, indulgent, joyous return to that world. It pulls us in and wraps us up warm and invites us to stay for as long as we like.

Yes the film is long. 3 hours and 2 more films to come. But it is not overlong. I could have stayed for far longer. I’m one of those fans of LOTR who choose the extended versions over the cinematic releases every time anyway. Hell, if Pete J has an extended version of The Hobbit up his sleeve then I’m all for it. Bring it on.

Too bloated? No. It is rich. It is full. But it is not heavy on the stomach. It has a gloriously British cast who each in their own way hold the screen and support each other without vying for attention. Peter Jackson has a deft touch. It is great to see Ken Stott and James Nesbitt on the big screen... even if Nesbitt does look like a weird cross between a Cossack and a dwarf.

Best of all though is Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. Brooding, dark and yet somehow deservingly sympathetic. It took me until the very end of the film before I could place him. The eyes, the voice, I knew them but where from? Gisbourne in the BBC’s Robin Hood and more recently as Lucas North in Spooks. He fills Thorin’s boots effortlessly and is possibly the most attractive Dwarf in the world (if you like your Dwarves to have singing voices like Barry White).

Weirdly it is very easy to overlook Martin Freeman’s role in the film. Not because it is inconsequential – as Bilbo it would hardly be that – but because there is just an expectation that he is naturally going to be good. And he is. He blends into Ian Holm’s portrayal and manages to make it his own all at the same time and rather selfishly we take his faultless performance entirely for granted. But then that mirrors Bilbo’s beguiling humility in the story.

The best scene by far is the riddle scene between Bilbo and Gollum. It is pitch perfect. I cannot fault it. It is the lynch pin of all the films so it damn well had to be. The actors step up to the plate and hit a home run. Spot on.

There are so many other notables in the film – Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee, Sylvester McCoy, Kate Blanchett – I could easily make this post 3 hours long in itself and spoil the entire film for you.

But that isn’t my intention.

My intention is to get you to the cinema to enjoy it for yourself.

After all, I’m just another non-expert critic. Don’t take my word for it.

Go and make your own mind up.

Rattletrap

What I know about cars can be restricted to three spheres of knowledge:

1) How many wheels a car has.
2) What colour a particular car happens to be (provided I can see it, of course – I don’t do telepathy or foretelling).
3) What the purpose of the airbag and the seatbelt is.

Other than that, talk of engine size, fuel mix and torque ratios means absolutely nothing to me (oh Vienna). And I am not, in truth, interested in finding out. A car is a car is a car.

But today my wife and I have bought a new car. A new second. A Peugeot 206.

Our last car was a Peugeot 106 so I am assuming from this that our new car is 100% bigger and 100% faster but I might be wrong about this.

Our old car has served us well. It was 7 years old when we bought it and has lasted another 7 to this present moment in time. It has taken us to Wales and back numerous times. It has taken us to Legoland Windsor no less than 5 times. It brought Tom from the hospital to our home when he was a mere few days old.

It has taken me to work when I didn’t want to go. Picked me up in the rain when passing. Taken rubbish to the dump. Taken us to the cinema, shopping, friend’s houses and, all in all, assisted us in various errands.

But our recent holiday has killed it.

Barely half an hour into the outward journey the trim on the right side fell off. On the second day the hand-brake snapped and we had to call out the AA. On Friday 10th, in the depth of Cheddar Gorge, the exhaust – much loosened by a malicious branch a few days earlier – virtually fell off. We had to get it stapled back on by a kindly Cheddar mechanic (no cheesy jokes please) and avail ourselves of a Kwik-Fit fitter in Stroud on our homeward journey to get a new exhaust fitted.

A galling expense when the plan had always been to trade the old girl in for a new one in September anyway (or rather, sell her for scrap – but we never said that out loud lest we hurt her feelings).

So. We decided to listen to the omens. To obey them. September may be a month too far. The old girl might well expire before we get a chance to put a bullet through her crust.

And so in a whirlwind of activity that saw us purchase the current copy of Autotrader and thumb tenderly through its Top Gear-esque innards we had a new prospective car lined up in a matter of days.

We went. We saw. We test drove. We liked.

Today we paid up and drove home our new wheels leaving our old girl on the forecourt awaiting her last journey (to the knackers’ yard). We have opened every compartment, pulled up every seat. We have reclaimed lost Pokémon cards and bits of Lego that have probably not seen the light of day since Christmas 2006. The bits of crisp and mouldy tuna sandwiches will be our gifts to the scrap dealer and our fragrant offering to the god of cars.

I pray he takes our old girl to his bosom and gives her long and straight celestial roads to travel during her journey through the afterlife.

I don’t know much about cars...

...but I know we loved and appreciated our old 106 very much.

Goodbye, girl.

Easy Rider

I like to think of myself as a cultured, educated kind of guy. I know my Munch from my Munchies; my Socrates from my sock drawer. I can string a few words together and sound vaguely articulate.

But this is all a lie.

I am at heart a popularist. A pop person. A middle of the road, representational, non-abstract, can-you-see-what-it-is-yet, the-medium-is-not-the-message, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin kind of guy. I like paintings to look like something real. Music to have a tune. Lyrics to tell a story. And movies...

I like movies, even if they do nothing else, to just entertain.

And this gets me into trouble. Because my frustration threshold with movies is pretty high. I can take a whole heap of cheesy dialogue and improbable plot devices and still have a great time at the cinema. Because, at the end of day, I just want to be shown a good time.

The movie doesn’t have to be intelligent. The experience doesn’t have to be meaningful. The story doesn’t have to be worthy. In fact I’d much rather it wasn’t.

If movies were women I’d be up for a one night stand with the town bike.

I don’t want a relationship; something that will stay with me forever; something that will change me. I don’t want a trophy girl, or a rich girl or a high maintenance girl. Quick, cheap and nasty is fine. Behind the pub, up against the bins, no small talk. In and out, both our bells ring, ding-a-ding-ding. Never going to see you again... not unless you’re out on DVD for a reasonable price anyway.

That’s entertainment.

Which isn’t to say I don’t get pulled into worthy movies. To classics. Of course I do. I enjoy a steak as much as the next man. All I’m saying is, most of the time, when I go out to the movies, I’m happy with a hamburger.

It means I can forgive films like Immortals, Sherlock Holmes and Clash Of The Titans. I’m aware that other bloggers can’t. Bloggers with more taste and higher standards than me.

I’m a movie scumbag and I admit it.

I look at film posters for movies like Black Swan and Salmon Fishing In The Yemen and I can feel my guts cramp in boredom. I’m sure these are great movies. Well written. Pieces of incredible movie art. They’d enlighten me. Cause me to question my own linear, one-track existence.

But they make me want to shit bullets.

I want pizzazz. I want spectacle. I want escapism.

I don’t want misery and the dreariness of the human condition thrust into my face while I thrust handfuls of Mars Planets into my face.

I ain’t looking for nothing but a good time. I’m just an easy rider, baby. I’m out for a laugh and nothing more. Don’t get all heavy on me.

And if that makes me shallow and superficial, well, I can stay at home and self harm to Joy Division records with the best of them. I have as many depths and facets as everybody else. I really do.

I just leave them behind me when I climb into a cinema seat.

So I’m just saying... if you read this blog and you’re expecting choice movies reviews that are considered and sophisticated and erudite you’re going to be (or, more likely, have been) massively disappointed.

As long as a movie can stick it’s tongue down my ear and frottage me up, I’m perfectly happy.

So you Culture Show fans might want to get your movie reviews somewhere else...

Now shut up please – the Pearl & Dean presentation is about to begin.

Credit Where Credit’s Due

I came to the Millennium trilogy unfashionably late. People at work had raved about it. My wife had raved about it. I found their raving off-putting. I am naturally rave averse.

But the wife sneaked under my rabbit proof fence of assumed taste and invested in the DVDs of all 3 movies – the original Swedish ones starring the magnificent Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. I was hooked. And further gratified when Karen bought me the books for my birthday last year.

And so it was that I came to add myself belatedly to the Stieg Larsson fan club. I can now see that my resistance was childish and ultimately self defeating. Sometimes when people rave about things it is for a very good reason: they are worth raving about.

Holding the Swedish films in such high esteem, then, it was with nervous apprehension that Karen and I went to see the new English speaking remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara last Friday. Would it live up the original? The cast was excellent but that’s not always a guarantee of a great film. Would they botch the whole thing and have Larsson turning in his eco-grave?

Larsson can rest easy. It was a superb adaption – in many ways superior than the original. More of the story is covered. Admittedly parts are compressed or various elements brought together into a single composite, but on the whole it was all there. The settings were excellent – weirdly this version seems to capture my idea of Sweden so much more than the original. Sometimes it takes a foreigner's eyes to see how things really are, I guess.

There were naturally a few bug bears: the Millennium magazine offices and team are a lot more plush and populated than those of the books. Sometimes newspaper headline appeared in English (the ones we needed to understand) and others in Swedish. I would rather there was consistency here. But these are small complaints against the backdrop of an excellent film.

It is an intelligent and sensitive adaption. It pays much homage to the original and yet remains truer to the book than the first film. In a lot of ways it reminded me of the True Grit remake in this respect. The cast are excellent. I can’t really fault anyone. Does Rooney Mara match up to Noomi Rapace? It’s a close run thing. Rooney was stunning and carries the film seemingly without effort. For me Noomi will always edge it – “edge” being the operative word; Rooney wasn’t quite edgy enough – but Karen thought that Rooney’s rendition of Salander was much more closer to Larsson’s original literary creation. So there you go: each to his or her own. Either way – whichever film you choose to see – Larsson’s metaphor and symbol for the abused woman getting her own back on male dominated authority is magnificently represented and portrayed.

Daniel Craig gives good service as Blomkvist. Laid back, intelligent, approachable and yet also a little cold. That old Swedish charm. His relationship with Salander is somehow more fully realized in this version than in the Swedish. Robin Wright is excellent as Erica Berger and, for me, encapsulated Larsson’s character perfectly. Just as I’d imagined her in fact. Joely Richardson didn’t quite work for me as Harriet Vanger but appears only twice in the film: I can let it go. Everybody else steps up the plate and delivers faultless performances.

My only complaint – and it’s possibly a petty one – is that the opening credits are wholly, monstrously inappropriate. Music by Trent Reznor, slick CGI animation that is overblown and overly sexualized in a way that does the film and Larsson’s story a huge disservice. It was like a rock video or the opening to a James Bond film. I actually thought we’d ended up at the wrong screen it was that bad. Imagine Downton Abbey with an anthem by Lady Ga-Ga. Or Wallander with The B52’s providing the incidental music. It was that incongruous. Reznor you’re an arse. Did you even read the book? Or did you just look at the title and think “girl with a dragon tattoo? Yeah! Let’s rawk!”?

Go see this film. It’s set the bar high for the rest of the year. Just make sure you buy your popcorn while the opening credits are rolling through...



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And Don't Call Me Sherlie...

Three good reasons to go and see Sherlock Holmes 2 A Game of Shadows:

1) It's better than the first one even though that one was, in my opinion, brilliant.
2) It's fun, it's full and it's fast moving.
3) Noomi Rapace.

And not necessarily in that order.

Now I'm well aware that Guy Ritchie's take on the Sherlock Holmes legend has resulted in apoplexy in some and epiphany in others. There are just as many people trying to raise Sir Arthur C. Doyle from the dead to exact a terrible spectral revenge on Mr Ritchie as there are rubbing themselves off with fake deerstalkers in bristling Watson-esque ecstacy. I don't own a deerstalker myself but I will own my own opinion and say that A Game of Shadows is absolutly superb.

The plot of the first film - for all it was excellently executed and a wonderful cinema specatcle - was, all things considered, absurd. Magic, voodoo and hoo-ha. For many they had to suspend their belief a little bit too far. Not so with A Game Of Shadows. The intrigue here is good old politics, war and greed. Europe is on the verge of the first World War. The countdown to the world's darkest hour (no, not The X Factor) has begun. The machine of war is oiling itself up and getting ready to roar. And there are those afoot who are already positioning themselves to own both the bullets and the bandages. Those with vision, for all it is dark, realize the outcome is going to be war and profiteering on an industrial scale...

Cue neat segue to Jared Harris as Professor James Moriarty. He is an excellent addition to the cast. He seethes with intellectual malice and a gingery beard of the purest evil. Holmes has indeed met his match. Downey Jr and Law reprise their roles as Holmes and Watson with a glee that postively spills over onto the screen. There is real chemistry there and weirdly it feels right that Watson ends up spending his honeymoon with Holmes rather than his wife, getting shot at by a load of belligerent Germans. Bravest role of the film goes to Stephen Fry as Holmes's brother, Mycroft, and who bears his nipples, his paunch and his polished vowels with unabashed abandon in a scene of astonishing nudity. After that seeing Downey Jr's Holmes in a bonnet and lipstick is nothing to be concerned about at all.

The biggest pull of the film for me though was Noomi Rapace. Her previous incarnation as Lisbeth Salander has made her famous in Europe among Stieg Larsson's many devout followers (though probably less so state-side). And I have to say it was odd going to see her in Sherlock Holmes and passing a poster in the cinema foyer for the remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and finding her not on it. How would she cope with a role as comparatively lightweight as a gypsy girl in Sherlock Holmes? I thought she was mesmerizing. She held the screen so brightly she almost set light to it. I wished Ritchie had made more of her to be honest. The steampunk priestess of piercings had transformed herself into a knife throwing, tarot reading Cadbury's Flake girl (minus the Cadbury's Flake) and, with apologies to Watson's wife, held her own against the big boys and saw off any other challenger. No double entendre intended. Though possibly one wished for.

I'm not going to spoil the ending for you but I thought it was a good move by Ritchie. It plays around with the original Sherlock finale but leaves any sequels open to throw off the shackles of the old and venture completely into pasture new.

Or does it?

I mean, after all, those gingery beards are legendarily hard to get rid off...

Cue echoey Victorian laughter...

Immortals

There are times when you spurn the healthy option. When edifying foods with a high nutritional content are just not what you crave. Instead you want the hamburger. And you want it with cheese. Lots of cheese. You want it cheap and a little bit throwaway. You want it fun rather than worthy.

And so it was, in such a peculiar hunger, that Karen and I went to see Immortals on Saturday night. From the trailers we’d kind of sussed what kind of film it was going to be. Pure escapism. Not at all serious. Just beefcake, epic battles and spectacular effects. The only question was: would it be as excruciatingly wooden as the Clash Of The Titans remake or would it manage to recreate the magic of watching an old Ray Harryhausen movie on the telly when you were a kid?

I’m pleased to say it was more of the latter than the former. It’s not a classic. No one is going to get an Oscar. But neither was it tiresome and stilted. It was ridiculous, of course, but then it is impossible to portray Greek myths on the screen without them appearing ridiculous. As soon as you put muscular men and impossibly pneumatic women in skimpy gold costumes and flimsy togas – no matter how much they may appear to embody Zeus and Athena – they inevitably appear camp and like something from a Carry On movie. Couple that with the production people who gave us the 6-pack rich 300 and you have gratuitous violence as well as gratuitous musculature. If you’re a fan of fab abs and skulls being pulped with big golden hammers you’re going to love Immortals.

If Ray Harryhausen had had access to modern technology this is the kind of film I’m sure he would have made. Once you surrender to the Doug McClure-esque absurdity of the storyline it really does feel like being a kid again. Don’t fight it. Roll with it. This isn’t Shakespeare (or even the person who claimed to be Shakespeare). It’s a hamburger with cheese. It’s naughty but nice. It’ll put a couple of inches on your thighs but so what? It’s coming up to Christmas. You’ll have to diet in the New Year anyway.

Mickey Rourke gives good value as King Hyperion though given his bulk you’d imagine he would have been better placed to play Zeus. His performance is very physical. I think he is quoted as saying he didn’t get “all method” about it. I don’t blame him; there really was no need, though I can’t help but feel wistful about his surprisingly subtle performance all those years ago in Angelheart.

Zeus is played by the surprisingly svelte Luke Evans who looks bizarrely like Action Man, the one with the eagle eyes and grippy fingers but nevertheless convinces the viewer that he is indeed the father of the gods. Henry Cavill, fresh out of The Tudors, seems to have spent a few months down the gym and an equal amount of time on a sunbed but throws himself into the part of Theseus with gusto – which is odd given the luckless life Theseus seems to lead. Mother murdered before his eyes, he gets beaten up, finds a magic bow, gets his end way just once, loses the magic bow and then dies killing the bad guy. In between, of course, he does dispatch a great number of masked warriors with superlative spear work. One can’t help but think he is compensating for lack of opportunities elsewhere.

All in all this is great entertainment provided you don’t take it at all seriously. Director Tarsem Singh gives everything a slightly Indian tint which actually marries quite well with the original Greek blueprint though I was waiting for a Bollywood-style song and dance routine about halfway through.

Mickey Rourke does Bollywood. Now there’s a film I’d love to see.

Sorting The Wheat From The Chaff

If ever proof were needed that Time is not constant you only have to take a holiday.

Two weeks the wife and I have had off from work.

Two weeks.

Now if Time were passing as it usually does when I am not on holiday then by rights we'd only be up to Tuesday of the first week. But no. Here we are at the Saturday of the last weekend. How the hell did that happen?

I guess the old maxim is true - the one about having fun and all that. Though I'd be hard pressed to tell you just exactly what it is we did do to fill the last two weeks. A shortage of coin meant that a proper holiday was out so we did lots of home days and lots of away days. Little villages in the Cotswolds, visiting friends in Gloucestershire, meals out, pootles around the park, or even just lazing in our own garden, etc. We've both filled the time and luxuriated in it.

And as a consequence Time has speeded up and whizzed by like it can't wait to get away from us.

Next week sees the end of the holiday. Next week sees the return of the alternative.

Note to self: edit self expression and emotional content here.

But one thing this holiday has taught me is that, no matter what speed setting Time seems to be running on, a happy and fulfilling life is inevitably based around spending time with the people who matter to you and not the people who don't; listening to opinions and advice from those whose opinion matters and not listening to the same from those whose opinions should be binned and, most most important of all, daring to stop dreaming and daring to start planning.

Because no matter how fast Time is running, it's running in my favour now.

Des Schtroumpf

+++ WARNING +++ (EXCESSIVELY) MINORITY INTEREST POST +++

Yes we took the kids to see The Smurfs movie.

Yes I have a Smurf collection.

Coupled with my Lego obsession it possibly makes me the saddest person on the planet but given that it is my birthday today (42, thank you for asking) I believe I have immunity from derision for today at least.

I would like to point out that I am not jumping on the Smurf bandwagon here. I didn't think to myself, oooh, there's a Smurf movie coming out, let's invest in some merchandise which might be worth a bob or two on Antique's Roadshow in a year or two. My collection predates the Smurf movie by a number of years. In fact, when taking my first ever Smurf into consideration (given to me by a boyhood friend whose name forever escapes me - ungrateful, I know, but it was just a frigging Smurf for Heaven's sake; it wasn't like he asked me to marry him. Hmm. Note to self: I wonder if you can actually buy a 'Frigging Smurf'?) my collection is actually a good 30 odd years old.

I'm not sure where my fascination with Smurfs truly lies. I have vague recollections of seeing some of the cartoons as a kid. But even then I knew they were never really cool. But that was me all over. Not cool. Not ever. When other geeks my age were into 2000AD I was into The Smurfs and Peanuts (and, indeed, boast a decent collection of Charles M. Schultz's works).

I guess there is something soft, warm and comforting about the works of both Peyo (creator of The Smurfs) and Charles M. Schulz that appealed to me as a kid. I was always a wimp. More Walter The Softie than Dennis The Menace.

So did the Smurf movie rekindle warm feelings of childhood?

Not quite. It was sweet and schmaltzy but I've suffered far worst. The animation was cool. The kids loved it and found it funny. And Hank Azaria - he of the incredible cartoon voice - plays an absolute blinder as Gargamel... even if he does frequently slip into Moe from The Simpsons from time to time.

Whoa. Just re-read that last sentence and it plainly came out very wrong.

Will it rejuvenate the Smurf craze for the modern generation? I think not. I think The Smurfs have a limited appeal. They leave a lot of people cold. They leave a lot of people sneering, let's be honest. But they obviously tick a box of some kind for me so I will continue to collect.

I suspect there is a part of me desperately trying to hold onto to some sliver of childhood innocence that I never really possessed in the first place.

But so what?

It's my birthday today and we're taking the kids to see Cars 2 3D this afternoon. I'm regressing. I'm revisiting / reliving my childhood. There is something liberating about it. The time to be a grown-up will resinstate itself again all too soon, I suspect.

And before you ask, yes, I did get a Lego set for my birthday. I'm a happy boy.

My thanks to all of you who have sent birthday wishes on Facebook et al. You've made me feel Smurfing special.

Ears, Nose And Throat

So I’m still pouring Olive Oil and bicarbonate of soda down my lugholes.

My hearing hasn’t particularly improved despite the distressing amounts of brown goo and hardened matter that I have removed in perfectly fossilized replicas of my meatus acusticus externus – hmm? Wasn’t that a song by Ian Dury? In fact, despite my daily endeavours things seem to have slightly worsened in the old hearing department.

On the bright side though the skin of my inner ear is beautifully soft and fragrant. Anyone wishing to dip an olive into my ear – or even an entire salad – do feel free.

I have noticed though that as my hearing dysfunction continues there are sundry knock-on effects. These knock-on effects just highlight to me the sheer interconnectedness of all my internal tubes. The back of my nose and throat feel constantly irritated and thick with mucus. The sound of my own voice sounds deafening to my own ears and like I am speaking underwater. Unlike the popular myth that Deaf people speak louder I have found the opposite to be true; I am speaking so softly that my wife is saying, “what?” to me more than I’m saying it to her.

However, I am hopeful that all this auricular irrigation is having some kind of positive effect (even if it is occurring in slow increments) as I have noticed that, over the last few days, my sense of smell has noticeably improved. I am suddenly noticing ambient smells that have previously past me by. Some of these are even pleasant. The smell of cooking. The smell of household cleaning agents. The smell of Voldermort blackening and curling up around the edges like old newspaper in a bonfire.

Some of these will no doubt give you a clue as to some of the weekend’s activities.

Some smells, however, are less than pleasant.

In particular the smell of mothballs that emanated from the six and a half foot giant who plonked himself down next to me in the cinema over the weekend while I feasted my eyes on Hermione, Harry and Hogwarts.

I didn’t think people still used mothballs but plainly I was wrong. The smell was overpowering. The guy reeked of it. No sooner had I lost myself in Gringotts than my very own Hagrid would shift an armpit and release the moth-killing mustiness of what must have been decades and decades of mothballs lying dormant in a drawer somewhere.

“Why? Why have you come out like this?” Was the question that constantly ran through my mind as I angled my good ear to the speakers. “You’re youngish – no older than middle aged – and you are accompanied by a woman of relatively attractive persuasion. Why are you mothballing your jumpers?”

Hold on, a minute. Jumpers in July?

Sigh. I guess that’s the clue, isn’t it?

This guy obviously lives with an elderly mother or perhaps even his granny.

She still gives him homemade wool knits for Christmas and packs him off to work with a cheese and pickle sandwich and a scotch egg every day. Bet he takes a spoonful of cod liver oil every night too when he’s dressed in his jimjams.

He’s a good boy.

He’ll no doubt go far.

Just sadly not far enough.

What did you say, Harry? Smelly armus? You’re not far wrong, mate. You’re not far wrong.

Hallowed Ground

+++ SPOILER WARNING +++

The Harry Potter franchise has its detractors. Those who scorn the books, those who scorn the films. It doesn't 'speak' to everyone. No story ever can.

But I don't think the influence that the Harry Potter stories have had on such a wide demographic - and for so long - can ever be denied.

I am not one of the detractors. I loved the books though freely admit the first two are overly simplistic. The films I have always loved unreservedly. I don't know why but they evoke the mood of a Christmas holiday in my house. Something special and comforting. Rowling has done what all writer's dream of doing (even if they don't admit to it): creating a world that the reader wishes to lose themselves in completely.

It's been a long journey to get to this finale. Over a decade. It hardly seems possible. For me the films have maintained a consistently high standard all the way through and though many felt The Deathly Hallows Part 1 was a let-down I was not disappointed. It was faithful to the book and served its purpose well - to whet the appetite for this: the mother of all showdowns.

The Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a huge film. All the planets are in line. It is a cataclysmic event. All loose ends must be tied up or tied off. There are deaths a plenty. This is the war that has been brewing around the edge of the Harry Potter world since the first story.

There has been much talk in the press and the media about the significance of death in the Harry Potter stories. Rowling herself has been quoted as saying that Death is on every second page of the books, always there, waiting, driving, steering.

I suspect this is part of the appeal of the Harry Potter world. Like all fairytales it has a hidden subtext, it deals with subjects that children - God, even adults - find difficult to deal with and puts them into a context that makes them slightly more palatable; that at once removes them and draws them intimately near at the same time.

Death, when ideal, should be seen as an old friend. Not necessarily an enemy...

And so to the film.

Gripes, if any gripes I have, are few and far between and tiny. I wish more had been made of Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Julie Walters (Molly Weasley). They are damn fine actors and it is a shame to see them reduced to cameos. But they are not the main protagonists so I can understand why the editor's scissors treated them so harshly. Rickman's Snape has been voted the best Harry Potter character in some survey or other this week. Now that his story is fully told you can appreciate why. Rickman's performance has been brilliant, moving and subtle throughout all the films, yes, even despite his Boarding School teacher sternness. His tragedy has been written on his face from day one. His death and 'redemption' are emotively handled. As is Harry's realization of what he really is and what he must do. These are big issues for a children's story to be dealing with but they are handled with aplomb.

I wish the dual between Molly Weasley and Bellatrix had lasted longer - a small complaint really. It was a long time coming and so, so right. But again... time contraints no doubt played their part.

On the whole the film stays true to the book though there are a few omissions - Harry making peace with Creature; the revelation that Harry's sacrifice effectively does for everyone at Hogwarts what Lily Potter's sacrifice had originally done for Harry: render them all untouchable to Voldermort; Neville Longbottom's partial strangulation with the Sorting Hat... but these, I guess, can be left out. They don't create huge gaping elipses that punch holes in the plot. Other bits are added: the battle with Voldermort's snake, Nagini; Harry's final dual with Voldermort is elongated and run through the length of Hogwarts and yet the final denouement takes place in isolation, away from the eyes of onlookers (in the books it is in full view of everyone).

But none of this spoils the film. It is a visual and emotional spectacle. It has been many years since I have watched a film at the cinema and witnessed spontaneous cheering and applause from the audience. You can guess which bits prompted this: Ron and Hermione's kiss and Neville hacking off the head of Nagini at just the right moment.

The film is one long build up to an almighty, world changing crescendo.

In the peace that falls afterwards one feels sated, satisfied but also oddly bereft. It has been a long journey. An enjoyable journey. And now that it is over one feels sad and a piquant sense of loss.

A whole world has ended happily ever after.

One must say goodbye to an old friend.

HP Heaven

I’ve heard and read a lot of mixed reviews about the latest Harry Potter film. Overlong. Shouldn’t have been divided into 2. Too complicated. Over-plotted. No character development. Etc.

So it was with some trepidation that Karen and I went to see The Deathly Hallows Part 1 on Wednesday night. Trepidation because, actually, we love the Harry Potter films. All of them. And I say that with a note of defiance in my voice to those who would denigrate them. But that doesn’t mean I am going to take kindly to spending near enough £20 on a shite film.

Thankfully I spent £20 on an excellent film.

I loved it. Having read the books I can say that for me, The Deathly Hallows Part 1 was spot on. Exactly as I’d imagined it.

Overlong? No. Not at all. I would have been happy to sit through another hour.

Shouldn’t have been divided into 2? No. To make one film – even one that stretched to 3 maybe 3 and a half hours – would have meant curtailing and abridging the story horribly, pointlessly and dishonestly. It would have cheated the audience.

Too complicated? I’ve read the book so knew what was going on – so I can’t judge. But my wife, who has not read the books, found this one easier to follow than its predecessor, The Half Blood Prince.

Over plotted? Nope. Everything that was there was necessary. If anything they missed a few things out – but nothing of any importance. For example, in the book, Mr Weasley lays into Harry’s foster parents for their coldness and cruelty towards him but Dudley, their spoilt brat of a son, makes his peace with Harry and wishes him well. Given the moral overtones of the story it would have been nice to have had this scene kept in but I can see it would not have served to progress the story along so it was probably right to leave it out. There were a few other minor omissions like this but hell, you can’t fit a whole book into a film.

No character development? Hmm. This is Harry Potter guys, come on! The entire series has been about him growing up and getting to this point! Finally Harry, Hermione and Ron are standing up on their own. There is no help from Dumbledore – well, no direct help. This is Harry facing his enemies without protection – only his own skill, nerve and courage. This is him becoming a man. And for what it’s worth I thought this was a surprisingly adult film. Surprisingly scary too. And very dark... and set to get darker still. The body count is rising. The stakes are getting higher.

It was always going to be difficult to draw the first half of a story to a close and do it in a manner that is cinematically satisfying – but they managed it. The conclusion leaves you feeling cranked up and ready for the last rush of the rollercoaster to the unavoidable termination.

I loved this film. I’d be happy to go again to see it. I can’t wait for Part 2.

To be honest, if you’re not a Harry Potter fan there is no point you going to see this film and expecting to like it. If you haven’t liked the others or you’ve picked fault with them, save your money and go and see Tron. But for those of you that are Harry Potter fans I found nothing in this film that would disappoint or let you down. It serves both us and the story well.

If Part 2 maintains this standard it will be a fitting end indeed.

Birk & Nagra

The screaming you heard over the weekend wasn’t the climax of a witch’s sabbat but the sound of my wife wrestling money out of my wallet to take us to see Burke And Hare at the local cinema...

I love going to the cinema but when times are tight it is usually the first luxury to fall by the wayside.

So was it money well spent?

On the whole I’d say yes. The film is a comedy in the Ealing vein but is also gritty and a mite grim. Difficult for it to be otherwise given the subject matter – dead bodies, corpses, anatomical science and murder (to be said with both r’s rolling furiously like in an episode of Taggart) – and the historical ending of the story leaves little room for it to mutate into a chick flick: William Burke was roundly hanged, dissected and his skeleton put on view for all to see in the Edinburgh University Museum. Apparently it is still there.

But comedy it was and by God it was a who’s who of British comedians. Practically everyone was there with the notable exceptions of Ricky Gervais and Jim Davidson. So there’s 2 reasons at least to go and see it. Almost the entire cast of Spaced appears in the film and there was even Ronnie Corbett to boot though Karen and I both think the tiny little chap is recovering from a stroke given his slightly slurred delivery of his lines... but then again he was playing a Scotsman so the slurring could have been entirely deliberate.

As for the all important eye candy... well, there’s little to appeal to the ladies. Much as I like Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis they are hardly a pair of Adonis’s (Adoni?) and having them waddle around dressed in the cast-offs from Oliver Twist is hardly going to boost their sex appeal. For the lads there was Isla Fisher who I’m sure debuted on our screens in Home & Away. What can I say? She’s pretty enough but does nothing for me. So little in fact Burke and Hare could have carted me off to the butcher’s slab and I wouldn’t have noticed. Possibly it’s a testament to how much I adored Spaced but Jessica Hynes did far more for me. Even though she spent much of the film spilling her impressive bosom into a bowl of porridge and cheap ale. I guess that says a lot about what floats my boat.

Hynes also has the best laugh-out-loud scene in the film – as she and her on-screen husband, Serkis, are rogering each other with a fury that would possibly cause a tsunami off the coast of Skye they come up with their master plan – to move away from murder and into funeral parlours (the reason being people bring their dead bodies to you rather you having to engineer them yourself: genius). To be honest if I was going at Jessica Hynes like a threshing machine on moonshine the last thing I’d be thinking about would be funeral parlours ...but if I were to have Andy Serkis’s rubber lips flapping over me like Mr Ed reciting the alphabet then thinking about funeral parlours might be a very welcome diversion.

Anyway, my opinion aside, the film was not well patronaged when Karen and I went to see it and much as I’d like to see the film get a wider audience for patriotic reasons I can see that its appeal is limited. I don’t think the humour or the accents will travel well. Which is a shame.

And as for the title of this post: Birk & Nagra are a well established firm of chemists in Leamington Spa and, because my mind works like that, they are all I can think of when I see the names Burke and Hare. Any other association between the 2 is purely coincidental. Ahem.