Touching From a Distance

Today was rather busy. I headed out into Princes Street and bought The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom, which is the next book under discussion at the Book Group. It was in a three for two offer, so I also got The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Kingdom Come by J. G. Ballard. It was really good actually, because the other two books were ones that I would certainly have wanted to get anyway, especially the Ballard book, because I really like J. G. Ballard's work. I also got some postcards. On the way home I bought my groceries for the week.

When I got in I had a quick Southern Chicken flavoured Pot Noodle for my lunch before heading out again. I went out to the Cineworld cinema and saw Halloween, directed by Rob Zombie. It's a remake of the famous 1978 John Carpenter film. In the film, ten year old Michael Myers kills most of his family on Halloween, but seventeen years later he makes a violent escape from the institution he had been incarcerated in. His psychiatrist (played by Malcolm McDowell) believes he has headed home to finish what he started. The original film was notable for the restraint it showed with it's depiction of violence. The remake dispenses with any restraint. The scenes of Michael Myers as a child made a brief prologie to the original, whereas this spends almost the entire first half of the film on the young Myers. Malcolm McDowell piles on the ham in the role that Donald Pleasance had in the original. It's not too bad, but fans of the original will probably be disappointed.

When the film finished I made a bee-line for the box office and got a ticket for the film Control, directed by Anton Corbjin. The film tells the true-life story of Ian Curtis, lead singer and lyricist for the band Joy Division. The film opens in 1973 in Macclesfield, England, where a teenage Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) finds escape from his dull life on a housing estate by listening to David Bowie records. A couple of years later he has married his girlfriend Deborah (Samatha Morton) and works at the local Jobcentre. He also join local band Warsaw as a vocalist. Shortly afterwards Warsaw are renamed Joy Division and started to have some success, while Curtis has a baby daughter. However, Curtis is suffering from very badly-treated epilepsy, which coupled with his guilt over falling in love with a young Belgian fan, starts to tear his world apart. This was the debut from Anton Corbjin who made his name as a photographer and also directed the stunning video for Joy Division's "Atmosphere". It's a very bleak film, although stunningly photographed in black-and-white. The music is brilliant, and the fans will probably enjoy it.

When I got out and was waiting at the bus stop, I switched my mobile phone on again, and was bombarded by about six simultaneous, and increasingly desperate messages, from Joe, Jackie and Alan. It turned out Joe wanted a night out, and so I met Joe and three of his friends at the Rush bar, while Alan and Jackie and one of Alan's friends were at Frankensteins. I didn't know any of Joe's friends, and the place was very loud and they were all very drunk. Also Jackie was annoyed that Joe wasn't with her. I sent her and Alan a couple of messages on Joe's behalf but my phone ran out of money. In the end I only stayed for about an hour, and had one beer, before deciding to head home. I think I have probably had more than enough nights out for one week.