Revenge of the Fallen

Last night I read the graphic novel of The Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman. It wasn't one continuous story, instead it was four self-contained short stories. In the first one a failed novelist keeps a muse captive in order to steal her inspiration, the second story gives a cat's eye view of the relationship between humans and their feline friends, the third story involves the first performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream for a bizarre supernatural audience (this story won the 1991 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction) and the fourth story involves a forgotten superhero who yearns for death. It was short but absolutely brilliant.

Today I went out and did some grocery shopping. In the afternoon I went along to the cinema and saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, directed by Michael Bay. It's the sequel to the 2007 film Transformers based on the popular 1980s series of toy robots. In this film the evil robot Decepticons, headed by Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving) are helping a powerful ancient robot, while the heroic robot Autobots, headed by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) team up with the American military to try and stop them. Along for the ride are teenagers Shia LaBouef and Megan Fox. The movie is almost like a two and a half hour trailer. The problem really is that the non-stop action becomes quite wearying after awhile, add to the fact that the robots look so similar it's sometimes hard to tell which one is which. Even the movie's star, Megan Fox, described the film as "incomprehensible".

After the movie I had a bottle of Budweiser beer and a packet of plain crisps, and then I went back in to the cinema to see Moon, directed by Duncan Jones. The story revolves around an astronaut (played by Sam Rockwell) who has been alone on the Moon working a three year contract with only a computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company. Now coming to the end of his time on the Moon he is naturally looking forward to returning to Earth and his family, until he starts to experience headaches and strange hallucinations. This movie is a serious piece of science-fiction in the vein of movies such as Silent Running and Solaris. It's a spellbinding story and very well-acted by Sam Rockwell. Also the near future in which the movie is set in looks realistically grubby and lived-in. Very good movie.