From Up on Poppy Hill

Last night I watched From Up on Poppy Hill, directed by Goro Miyazaki. It's an animated Japanese film, based on a 1980s manga, set in Yokohama in 1963 about a teenager who helps run the boarding house where she lives, who gets involved in a campaign to save the school's ramshackle clubhouse and falls for an aspiring journalist. It's a really sweet, nostalgic film. I reviewed it here: http://permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/from-up-on-poppy-hill.html 

The Blu-ray of When Marnie Was There arrived in the mail. it's the latest and possibly last ever Studio Ghibli film. I saw an episode of Supernatural, a 1970s British show about a weird club where prospective members have to tell a true story of supernatural horror which, if it fails to scare all of the club's members, means death for the would-be member. 

I went to the movies and saw Hell or High Water, directed by David Mackenzie. It's a kind of neo-western crime thriller about two brothers who commit a string of bank robberies through Texas, while being pursued by a pair of laconic Texas Rangers. it's exciting, dark and genuinely funny, with Jeff Bridges at his best. I reviewed it here: http://permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/hell-or-high-water.html

I went to Nandos this evening with my parents. I had olives and garlic bread to start, then butterfly pir-piri chicken with piri-piri fries and coleslaw and a slice of chocolate cake.

The Fireman

I finished reading The Fireman by Joe Hill. It's a novel about a world plagued by an infectious disease nicknamed "Dragonscale" that manifests itself as intricate, tattoo-like designs on the hosts skin, which might be nice, except that sooner or later it causes the host to ignite and burn to death. Soon civilization collapses, with survivors either infected or terrified of infection. Cheery, school nurse Harper is infected, and is also pregnant. Realising that the baby may be born uninfected, she is determined to survive until it is born. As she avoids roaming bands of vigilantes murdering those infected, her only hope of survival is The Fireman, who has learned the secret of harnessing and controlling Dragonscale. It's a long book, 752 pages, but very good and very powerful.

I went out and got a couple of Blu-rays: Our Little Sister and Ivan's Childhood (which finally completes the Andrei Tarkovsky collection that I started in 2003). Unfortunately the store is closing down at the end of the month for relocation. I asked, but they don't know where they're going yet.

Turning Point

It was another quiet evening last night. I watched an episode of the fourth season ofGame of Thrones. I'm way behind on that show, because I don't have the network that broadcasts it and so I collect it when it come out on Blu-ray. I read a bit more of End of Watch and played some Uncharted 4 on my PlayStation 4.

It was a really busy day at work, and kind of sucked. There were a couple of meetings, one that took over an hour, about all kinds of changes that they are bringing out, that in addition to the regular work. I didn't have a time for a break today at all. I was listening to a lot of Mary Chapin Carpenter to cheer myself up. I also listened to The Comicsbound Podcast which is a pretty new podcast about all aspects of comics. It's fun, and pretty interesting. 

Back home I saw that the book Turning Point: 1997-2008 by Hayao Miyazaki arrived in the mail. I listened to Bizarre States, which this week was about Pokemon Go, a giant telescope being built in China, and the story of the song Gloomy Sunday, the so-called "Hungarian Suicide Song". I am currently listening to this week's episode of Ron's Amazing Stories, which is a podcast that bills itself as "Stories to Take You Away From Today", which presents vintage stories and radio plays often on a weekly theme. This week's theme is the Bermuda Triangle. 

2012

Last night I was watching Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tim Burton, on Blu-Ray DVD. The film stars Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd who sets up as a barber in London's Fleet Street sometime during the 19th Century, and is in the habit of cutting his customer's throats, and then dropping the corpses through a trap door to the pie shop below him, where his friend Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) uses them to make her meat pies. The film is an adaptation of the 1979 Stephen Sondheim musical. The character of Sweeney Todd is quite a famous figure who originated in the 19th Century "Penny Dreadful" magazines. I normally don't like musicals but this one I liked a lot. The film is very stylishly made with some fun music.

Today my mouth was still pretty sore. I'm still taking painkillers. I was feeling kind of depressed and so, to cheer myself up, I went along to the movies. I had originally intended to go and see the movie Jennifer's Body, a kind of horror-comedy film, but due to the bus taking nearly an hour to get to the cinema, I missed it. Instead I saw 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich. It's based on the idea that the ancient Mayan calendar calculates the end of time to occur on 21 December 2012. In the movie the Earth starts to suffer from massive displacment of the crust. This causes massive tidal waves, earthquakes and volcanoes all over the Earth's surface. An unsuccessful science-fiction writer and divorced father of two (played by John Cusack), and a top US Government scientific advisor (Chiwetal Ejiofor) are among those struggling to find some kind of safety as the world falls apart. It's kind of predictable and over long but it is fun, with some really great special effects and spme pretty exciting action sequences.

Ashes of Time

I managed to write another two thousand words of my NaNoWriMo story yesterday. Last night I watched the latest episode of True Blood, which was really good. I also watched the movie Ashes of Time Redux, directed by Wong Kar-Wai. The movie was first released in 1994, but the director released a re-edited (or "redux") version last year. The film is set in medieval China and concerns a cynical swordsman (played by Leslie Cheung) who sets himself up as a hired killer after his wife leaves him to marry his brother. He is hired by a man (Brigitte Lin) to kill his sister's boyfriend, who happens to be the swordsman's best friend, on the grounds that he deserted her. However the sister (Lin again) wants to hire him to kill her brother on the grounds that he is too possessive of her. He also ends up helping two other younger swordsmen in their seperate battles against the same group of bandits. It's a really beautiful looking film which, unusually for a martial arts movie, focusses mainly on emotion and philosophy rather than action (the fight scenes are depicted almost as fast-moving blurs of sound and colour). Apparently it was a huge flop on it's first relelase and was barely released.

Today my mouth is still quite sore, and I'm still needing painkillers. Also I am absolutely sick to death of eating soup (apparently I need a "soft diet" for a week after the procedure). I did manage to go out today though and I got the movies There Will be Blood and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on Blu-Ray DVD.

Season of Mists

Yesterday I read the graphic novel The Sandman: Season of Mists written by Neil Gaiman. The story revolved around Morpheus, Lord of Dreams, who thousands of years ago condemned a woman to Hell after she rejected him. Convinced by the rest of his immortal family, The Endless, that this was wrong, Morpheus travels to Hell to rescue her. However, Lucifer has not forgotten how Morpheus humiliated him in the past and is preparing his revenge. It was a really good story.

Last night I was watching The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan, in which Batman (played by Christian Bale) has to fight against master criminal The Joker (Heath Ledger). It is a really good and complex superhero movie, with plenty of spectacular action, and brilliant performances, especially from Ledger. I remember watching it at the cinema when it was out last year.After the movie I went on to the computer and was up until about half past four in the morning writing. I've pretty much finished the story, but I want to rewrite the last part because, after I've thought about it, I'm not really happy about it.

Today was another really bright and sunny day. I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday and we had a barbecue. Which was hamburgers, sausages, chicken legs and salad followed by strawberries dipped in melted chocolate and beer. It was really nice. We always like having barbecues but the weather is very rarely nice enough to allow us to have them. We didn't have any at all last year. It was also nice enough to just sit out in the garden.

When I got back I listened to the final episode of Voices From the Grave, which this week told the story of a parson who takes over a new parish in a small English village and promptly bans a violent annual fighting game, much to the horror of the villagers. The decision also enrages evil ancient forces which demand a blood sacrifice. It was a pretty good one. That has been a good series actually.

Transformers

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching the 2007 film of Transformers on Blu-Ray DVD. The story revolves around a teenager (played Shia LaBouef) who buys a beaten-up old car in order to impress the girl of his dreams (played by Megan Fox). However it turns out that the car is, in fact, a shape-changing giant robot from outer space. It turns out that this robot is part of a group of good robots called the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), who are wageing an endless war with a group of evil robots called the Decepticons, led by Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving), who are fighting over a powerful object known as the "All Spark", which has apparently landed on Earth thousands of years previously. The film is based on the popular 1980s toys which also launched a TV cartoon series and an animated movie in 1986. The 2007 film is actually good, with the robots looking genuinely spectacular, although almost completely different to the original designs which provoked a storm of protest from fans. The script is witty with plenty of fun digs at the previous series. I thought it was fun. I loved Transformers when I was younger. I used to collect the toys and the comic books for years.

Today has been fairly quiet. I went out to the city centre to look at DVDs, games and books, but I ended up not buying anything. On my way home I stopped off to get my groceries (and microwave meals) for the rest of the week.