Another Night In

Yesterday evening I watched a television movie called Daphne about the life of novelist Daphne du Maurier (today marks the centenary of her birth so there has been a lot of stuff about her on TV and the radio). I've never read any of her books, but I've seen the films of Rebecca, The Birds and Don't Look Now that were based on her work, and the films were very good. The TV movie wasn't bad either. After that I watched a film called The Firm, which has absolutely nothing to do with the John Grisham novel of the same name or the Tom Cruise movie that was based on it. This film was actually a British TV movie from the 1980s, directed by Alan Clarke, and stars Gary Oldman as a seemingly respectable estate agent and devoted family man, but in his spare time he is the violent leader of a brutal gang (or "firm") of soccer hooligans, who spend most of their time drinking and fighting with rival gangs. They do it for no other reason than that they enjoy violence. It's a disturbing, and extremely violent, film, which has a kind of documentary style look about it.

I went to my parent's house today for my lunch (which today was roast chicken, with stuffing, boiled potatoes and peas). The new issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived during the week and this month the main features were on the new Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez film Grindhouse, and the kind of films that inspired it, and a preview of this year's Cannes Film Festival which is celebrating it's 60th anniversary this year. We checked my home telephone, which is still not working, and it definitely seems to be a problem with the line and not my telephone. It means I'll probably have to get someone in to fix it at some point.