Dan is back in my real life

London is wonderful at the moment as Dan is looking at me from a lot of tube stations and that brings back really good memories. Not only from this wonderful film, but also from my time in New York where I saw it.

And honestly – wouldn’t you fall in love with the cute eyes of Steve Carell (though they are not as cute as you know who’s – don’t get any wrong ideas here) on this poster? I’ll say it one more time – go see this film. It’s the film you have been looking for (in vain) over the Christmas time, a true feel good movie. And I just know, that from the 11th of January (release date in the UK) I will see it an obsessive amount of times. Just so you are prepared. To be surprised.

The last couple of days have been mental.
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It’s Enchanting

Times Square, New York  - drawing with light
Times Square, New York – drawing with light

I have had a lot of silly ideas throughout the years but having people send me cards on the “Love Actually” theme is definitely one of the best ones ever. When I came home yesterday I found two more cards and they both brought a big smile to my face.

I present you:
Love Actually
and
Love Christmas Actually

I love them! They are so cool! And Enchanting! They both have Bill on them!

It’s great to see how creative people have been. And just to let you know how powerful those cards are, one of them did not even have a stamp on it (I won’t mention any names … :-) but Royal Mail did not care, they probably Love Love Actually Actually so they delivered it anyway.

Today I will start writing on the cards that I will send in return and I will post them as soon as possible. I hope they won’t be too delayed.

Enchanted was rather fun. Patrick Demsey is lovely and Amy Adams who plays the princess is perfect in her role. Great to see New York as the location for this film, and the mix of animation and real life acting was original, even though I think they could have joked around with that a bit more. It’s a feel good family Christmassy movie.

I just read that Patrick Demsey was in About a Boy too. I have seen that film several times (it’s the only film in which Hugh Grant proves he can act), but I never recognized him in it.

I have to get back to rewriting my feature script too, I received my tutor’s notes on it yesterday. The story line is fine but I need to make the two main characters talk less and do more. Having them not kiss before the very end is a tough challenge too!

Stardust and a close encounter

Charlie Cox and Claire Danes in Stardust
Charlie Cox and Claire Danes in Stardust

I saw Stardust some weekends ago. Overhyped maybe, but I loved it. It’s a fairy tale with humour. Don’t let big names like Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert de Niro put you off, there are enough Brits in it to make it worth seeing, and honestly Robert de Niro is playing a role I haven’t seen him play before (and he is a pirate, and we love pirates over here as you may have noticed). Ricky Gervais (who I still think is one of the funniest Brits around) is in it too, and despite being dressed up it just feels like he is playing either Andy Millman from Extras or David Brent from the Office. That doesn’t matter at all because he does that so well.

Other delights in this film: Nathaniel Parker (Inspector Lynley), the voice of Ian McKellen, Peter O’Toole, and new British cutie-pie of the year: Charlie Cox (hurrah for a daring casting director, brave enough to cast a relatively unknown actor, who happened to be pitch perfect for the role). The script has some beautiful British quirkiness as well. So yes, go see it.

I wrote the above some weekends ago but never got around to posting it, my editor didn’t find it interesting enough. I think he probably didn’t like the “cutie-pie” bit, he’s a bit sensitive sometimes, but I love him anyway.

Today I walked home from work. It was dark, it was rainy, it was late, I was tired and I passed the S&M cafe, and I thought – well why not. So I stepped in for another bangers and mash.

Trust me you really want to read the rest of this post…

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Love+Rock: Change the world

Love+Rock: If I could change the world
(Her legs seem to be growing, she is unconsciously turning into a lanky girl. Nothing wrong with lanky people though, on the contrary)

Blame Bill for reading Eric. And Eric for singing this song.

I saw And when did you last see your father with Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent this weekend. This is one of those movies where not that much happens but it gets to you anyway. Jim Broadbent is playing Colin’s dad, he gets terminally ill and the film is about the last period of his life. About looking back and talking about things that have been left unspoken for a lifetime.

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Once (8.5/10) – review

Once

If you think that music is not that powerful a medium think again. I saw Once tonight, at last.

Of course I am a tragic romantic to begin with, I had no real idea what the story was about, but I already cried during the second song. There is so much beautiful beautiful music in this film, the story is nearly secondary to it. It’s about meeting someone at the right time on your path through life.

Hear and see Falling Slowly on youtube, buy some tickets for you and your (boy/girl/whatever) friend and watch the film in the cinema, the music alone will make you enjoy the film.

What I also find interesting about this film is that it has been shot in 17 days for a budget of about £75.000. That is impressive. Yes there is shaky camera work. And yes the acting is not always as sharp as we are used to. Nevertheless, I think it’s a great little film worth seeing.

Something that really amazed me while watching this film was the fact that the woman sitting in front of me was filming the film with her handheld video camera. This film is part of the Raindance Film Festival and I don’t know how stupid she thought they were in the cinema, but she got stopped filming during the film. And there was a rather large welcoming comittee waiting for her at the end of the film. How stupid can you be?

Back to music, Anton Corbijn’s Control (rave reviews all over here in the UK) is lined up for this weekend as well and thanks to Bill reading his autobiography: I am now pushed into an Eric Clapton revival too. This weekend will be filled with 2 songs. The above mentioned Falling Slowly and Eric Clapton’s If I could change the world.

I would be the sunlight in your universe
You would think my love was really something good
Baby if I could
Change the world

Oh baby, if I could.

Lady Chatterley – review (9/10)

Lady Chatterley

I don’t know if I love this version of Lady Chatterley this much because it is about true love but it might have something to do with it. The music alone made me cry several times, and the nature shots were very nicely integrated into the story. Yep there are several scenes of a sexual nature but nothing shocking, I found them tender and true. And there is full nakedness too, which I thought beautiful as the story is about finding yourself and about discovering love. I particularly loved the scene where the two main characters (Lady Chatterley and her lover) are running around naked in the pouring rain, it is beautifully liberating.

I didn’t know the book before I saw this film, and I know the story is set in England (the book is written by D.H. Lawrence), but the fact that this film is a French version of the story didn’t really bother me. I had no problems with the game keeper (Jean-Louis Coullo’ch) either, I could understand why she fell for him. (some reviewers have said that he wasn’t hunky enough, well he was for me).

I was very happy that this version of the film, although being French, chose to end the story in such a way that tragic romantics like myself did not have to leave the cinema completely heart broken.

Recommended? I certainly think so!

The Bore Ultimatum

What is going on? Why do both the Times and the Guardian rate this (hopefully) last film in the trilogy that well? I was utterly bored! I gave it a fair chance, but I admit, having read nearly all Ludlum books, that these three were not among my favourite ones. Neither is the film.

What’s the film about? It’s about Matt Damon running around being chased by baddies. That’s about it, and that for about 2 hours long.

What annoys me the most about the whole Bourne franchise is Matt Damon himself. Here is what he has to say about Bond, James, Bond:

“Bond is an imperialist and a misogynist who kills people and laughs about it and drinks Martinis and cracks jokes.” By contrast, he added, “Bourne is a serial monogamist whose girlfriend is dead and he does nothing but think about her … he doesn’t have the support of gadgets and feels guilty about what he’s done.” (Guardian). Here is more on Bond vs. Bourne.

I only have one thing to say: it was probably a desperate attempt from Matt Damon. I mean who can compete with Daniel Craig in a Bond movie that has a lot more character development than the Bore Ultimatum, and Casino Royale was also a hell of a lot more interesting to watch. Not to say that Daniel Craig has more charisma in his left small toe nail than Matt Damon as a whole, Matt Damon has no charisma at all on screen. Sorry for the rant. The Bourne Ultimatum (6/10)

I am currently preparing for a 4 hour train trip to Carlisle somewhere in a more northern part of the UK. My iPod is charged, my silksounding Bill books are waiting for a re-read, and it is also stuffed with music that is going to make my train journey great. My script is in my bag as well, you never know when inspiration strikes you.

We are going to shoot some film on a depot where they transport nuclear waste. That will light up my day. It might light up me as well. In several ways. Not that my day needed lighting up more, it was turned into a very bright one already very very early in the morning. I haven’t slept much because of it, and maybe I will tell you why at some point. Or not. It all depends. On if dire chance and fateful cockup will have it.

Pies, animals and Sparkle

Films I have seen recently:

Evan Almighty
[rating:1/5]
Yes it is as bad as you think it is. Morgan Freeman deserves so much better than this. And another example of the fact that stupid scripts do in fact get made into block busters. It’s a ripoff from Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey which I thought was quite funny.

Waitress
[rating:3.5/5]
Lots of pies, and one of the better recent rom-com’s, but just not as good as I hoped. The sad story here is that the first time writer/director of this film, Adrienne Shelly got murdered while working on this film. She was only 40 years old.

The Hoax
[rating:3/5]
A casting error? Richard Gere, I like him, but he doesn’t fit in this film. I was not engaged in the character at all. The story was kind of interesting, but not the best film I have seen.

Transformers
[rating:3/5]

The sound effects are awesome and so are the cars turning into big robots scenes. The story is far out, but it’s entertaining, for the most of it.

Films I really look forward to:

Sparkle
by Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger and
They made Lawless Heart – do I need say more? If you can write a line line “I once faked a broken heart but I ran out of energy” and have that performed by a farmer (played by Bill Nighy) – that’s when my heart starts jumping. That farmer was called Dan by the way. Ring any bells?

It hurts a bit to know that they had casted Bill Nighy for the role now played by Bob Hoskins (I think – and not bad either) or Anthony Head who is in it as well, and another reason to go and watch it. But problems with funding messed up the production plans, and Bill had to move on to other projects. Still a film I really look forward to and I am going to a Q&A session with the makers of this film next weekend.

Lady Chatterley
Wow, the music in the trailer makes me feel like falling in love. Very powerful, I hope the story is as good.

Eagle Vs. Shark
Love the poster.Saw the trailer – looking fantastically quirky! I love quirky.

Hallam Foe
I saw Billy Elliot again yesterday and I cried like a baby again. I love to see Jamie Bell in this new film.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – review (7.5/10)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Today at the box office:

“Hello”
“Hello, what can I help you with?”
“A ticket for Pirates please.”
“Pirates no longer runs in our cinema.”
“What? You got to be joking.”
“I am not.”
“You can’t just take Pirates off the program, I wasn’t finished with it.”
“Aha, well …”
There is a movie review in there, somewhere »

How life has subtly changed

2 weeks ago OLE meant :
Object Linking and Embedding
That’s a boring programmers term, forget about it it’s boring.

From today on it means:

Overhead Line Equipment : Overhead lines or overhead wires are used to transmit electrical energy to trams, trolleybuses or trains at a distance from the energy supply point.

That’s a boring railway term, but it’s just to illustrate that the railway can compete with the IT world when it comes to the number of abbrevations. In that aspect, not much has changed. In other aspects things certainly have. A lot. Which is good.

More notes:

Imagine Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard in the same film, together with Patrick Wilson, Carice van Houten (she’s Dutch!) and Tom Cruise.
Doesn’t that sound (apart from the Cruiser) too good to be true? It is not : Valkyrie is set to be released somewhere in 2008.

And talking about films, apart from Not here to be loved, here is another French film you absolutely have to see: Tell No One. It’s a fantastic thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the first second, and it’s also a story about love. Ah, love – a dreadful bond … (for hose having seen Pirates).
The fact that François Cluzet is utterly charming, handsome and French and has something that reminds me of lot of Ken Stott makes it an even greater pleasure to watch. Catch it if you can.