More Movies

On Monday evening I watched a few episodes of The Twilight Zone, one, called "The Dummy", was about a ventriloquist who becomes convinced his dummy is actually alive. The storyline is nothing new but it was a very inventive episode with bizarre camera angles and a startling twist. Another episode, "Young Man's Fancy", was written by Richard Matheson who wrote I Am Legend, and concerns a couple of newly-weds, however the husband's mother won't leave them alone, even though she'd been dead for a year.

Yesterday at work there was a seminar on personal safety, they didn't say anything new, but it was a nice break from the office. After work I went along to the cinema to meet my mum. The film we saw was No Country for Old Men, written and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, and based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy. The film is set in 1980 in Texas, near the border with Mexico, and concerns a welder, Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin), who discovers the bloody aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, along with a bag full of money. Llewellyn, of course, helps himself to the money, and soon finds himself pursued by the psychotic killer Chagua (Javier Bardem), as well as the world-weary local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones). The film is well-made and suspenseful, it is also at times very darkly funny. The performances as well are first-rate.

When I got home I watched a documentary on television called True Stories: Derek about the life and work of British artist and film-maker Derek Jarman. The documentary was followed by Derek Jarman's final film Blue, made while he was dying of AIDS. The only thing you see throught the entire film is a bright blue screen, while the soundtrack is a collage of music, sound effects and voice-overs by Jarman and friends, talking about his life and work, as well as a detailed description of the effects of the disease on Jarman and the treatments he was undergoing. It's not really an easy film to sit through, but it is worth it. On the blank blue your imagination kind of conjures up images, a little like one of those Magic Eye paintings. I found the film alternately moving, funny, dull, infuriating and hypnotic. The colour was chosen, because Jarman was going blind and all he could see was a constant blue glow.

I managed to get to my creative writing class tonight which was good. I stopped off for a coffee afterwards, rather than wait half an hour for a bus in the freezing cold.