Inferno

Last night I was watching the 1980 movie Inferno, directed by Dario Argento. It's a sequel to his 1977 film Suspiria and was intended as the middle part of a trilogy. In this film a young poet (played by Irene Miracle) living in New York City becomes convinced that the old house that she is living in is the home of one of the Mater Tenebrarum (the Mother of Darkness) the youngest and cruelest of a trio of powerful supernatural creatures known as the "Three Mothers". She sends a letter to her brother (Leigh McCloskey), a music student studying in Rome, but by the time he arrives in New York she has vanished. Like it's predecessor, this is a very strange, dream-like film, full of weird camera angles, lurid coloured lighting, and very loud music. Along with elaborately choreographed and stylised violence. It's kind of designed almost as a fairy-tale for adults. The story doesn't really make a lot of sense, it's all about the mood that the images and sounds create. I liked it, I thought it was pretty scary. I really like the Dario Argento movies, mostly. It's reviewed over at Permanently Weird. I had the day off work today, but didn't go out anywhere. I was watching some of the documentaries on the Inferno DVD and thinking about my Script Frenzy screenplay, which I honestly believe will never make a movie because it would be way to elaborate and expensive to get made.

Mother's Day

I did write some more of my Script Frenzy script last night, which means I'm now on page eight of it. The general rule of thumb for screenplays is the one page of a script equals one minute of screentime. The rest of the evening was pretty quiet. I spent most of the time watching TV and reading. This morning my Dad came round and took me to the Omni Centre shopping centre. We had coffee and a muffin at Starbucks and then went out to look at our own stuff. I got a DVD of the Dario Argento movie Inferno and a book called Ricky Gervais Presents... The World According to Karl Pilkington. Of course it was Mother's Day today. Mom was really happy with her present (a book called Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde) and her card. I'd also brought along some olives for my parents. The latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived in the mail during the week. Among the articles this month was a feature about director Wim Wenders, an article about New Russian Cinema and a feature about the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo. My mum had ordered Dad to make the lunch today, which was salmon, roast potatoes and peas. I thought it was nice, but Mum didn't seem to happy with it for some reason. I got home at around five, also I have tomorrow off work, so that should be good!

Dead Parrots

Last night I was watching episodes of Spaced, The IT Crowd and Red Dwarf, which used to be one of my favourite shows when I was about twelve, and is still very funny.

I also watched an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus on DVD. This episode featured the famous "Dead Parrot" sketch in which an increasingly exasperated customer (played by John Cleese) tries to persuade the owner of a pet store (Michael Palin) that his just-bought parrot is dead, despite the owner's excuses and diversions. It eventually culminates in a long rant from the customer: "The parrot is dead. It is deceased. It is a late parrot. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. It has kicked the bucket. It has snuffed it. It has pulled down the curtains, shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies. This is an EX-PARROT!" Apparently it was based on a real incident that happened to Michael Palin when he took his car to be repaired, and the mechanic kept making excuses and denying there was anything wrong. When Palin pointed out that the engine was completely busted, the mechanic pointed out that the car was a very pretty colour. Palin allowed that it was but also stated that the colour didn't really matter much if the thing wouldn't move. It must be one of the most famous comedy sketches of all time.

I tried to do some drawing last night, but it turned out really badly.

I was back at work today, for the start of another week and it was pretty much another fairly dull and average day.

Alien Blancmanges

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching repeats of comedy shows on TV, and reading some of my books.

This morning I watched an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus on DVD. This episode featured giant, intelligent alien blancmanges from the Andromeda galaxy turning the entire population of England into Scotsmen, in the belief that Scotland is the worst tennis playing nation in the world, so that the blancmanges can win at Wimbledon. They are eventually defeated when an elderly couple eat them.

I went along to my parent's house for lunch as usual. This week we had minced beef, carrots, mashed potato, spring onions and cheese baked together and some peas, with profiteroles for dessert. It was a nice lunch.

Monty Python

Last night I was watching a few episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus. If you've never seen it, it's a sketch comedy series that started in 1969 and finished in 1974 and was written and performed by John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam (who also did the bizarre animation sequences that became a trademark of the show). Sketch shows tend to be very uneven, and in my opinion a sketch show that makes me laugh about fifty per cent of the time is doing pretty well, but with the Monty Python episodes I found about sixty percent of the show funny. When you see the full episodes, as opposed to edited highlights, you get to see how well the sketches work together, also a lot of the less well-known sketches are really funny as well. I really enjoy Monty Python comedy in general, although I know that a lot of people really don't find them funny at all.

Today was my first day of my week off work, and I didn't really do much of anything. I spent the day on the computer, trying to do some writing but not really succeeding much. Although it is a nice feeling that I have got pretty much the whole week to do more or less whatever I want.

Pancakes

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watchng some TV and reading. I fell asleep on my couch while watchng the movie All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, which for what I saw was an okay horror movie, but for some reason I wasjust feeling really tired.

Today my Dad came to collect me and take me over to my parent's house. The new issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived, which this month had a big feature article about the latest Woody Allen movie. I'm often surprised about how prolific Woody Allen is, considering that he releases at least one film a year. For lunch we had some sausage cassarole and some pancakes (diue to it being Pancake Day on Tuesday). I really like pancakes but I very rarely have them, so it was really nice.

After lunch I had a walk to a supermarket with my Mum and I got a DVD set of the complete Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series, which was in the sales. That should be really interesting to watch. Monty Python seems to be one of those shows where you don't often get to see the full episodes, more isolated clips and edited compilations.

A Long Week

Last night was pretty quiet again. I was watching another episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which was pretty good. This was the final episode of the first season.

Today was another pretty average day at work. It's felt like kind of a long week this week. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get in really early so I can leave early. Hopefully I'll be able to have time to go up to the comic-book store.

The Creeper

Last night I watched an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "The Creeper", which was about a blue-collar New York neighbourhood which is plagued by a serial killer, called The Creeper, who targets women who are home alone while their husbands work nights. The story focuses on a woman left alone who spends a nightmarish evening dealing with her unsympathetic husband, sadistic ex-boyfriend, strange janitor and the completely evil woman next door, along with her own increasing paranoia about The Creeper. Despite containing no violence at all it was probably the scariest thing I have ever seen on TV, with a memorable shock ending. It had that feeling that the best episodes of The Twilight Zone had that anything could happen at any time.

It was another pretty quiet day at work. I got in at nine and left at half past five. Back home I had a microwave spaghetti and meatballs ready meal.

The Hidden Thing

Last night I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World on DVD. I saw the movie last year when it was first out, and I really liked it a lot. The movie was directed by Edgar Wright and based on a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Set in Toronto, the film tells the story of 22 year old Scott Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) who plays in a garage band and is dating 17 year old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). However,he immediantely becomes infatuated with mysterious American delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), but in order to date her he must defeat her seven evil exes. The movie is really stylised with endless references to comic books and video games and so on. I think it's a great movie, with an awesome soundtrack. It's actually one of my favourite movies.

After the movie I watched an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "The Hidden Thing", about a man who struggles to remember key details after he witnesses his girlfirend being killed by a hit and run driver.

I was up at five o'clock this morning and in work for seven. The place was absolutely snowed under at work, so it was a really busy day. There was a baguette run though and I had a panini with roast beef, brie, jalapeno peppers and English mustard on it. I left work at three.

The Belfry

Last night I was watching an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "The Belfry". It was about a man who is in love with the local teacher and kills the man she is engaged to marry. When this fails to win her affections he goes on the run, but hides in the belfry of the local school, which also doubles as the local church, so he can spy on the woman.

I started writing a new story last night about a group of people who go to a new kind of virtual reality video game, only to esperience some strange after effects. This year I'm going to try to write more and read more, as well as watch more movies.

It was another average day at work. On the way home I bought some milk and the latest issue of Empire magazine, and also a steak pie supper for dinner.

When I got home the DVD of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World had arrived in the mail. So I'll probably be watching that tomorrow.

The Sea Devils

Last night I was watching a six part Doctor Who story from 1972 called "The Sea Devils" which starred Jon Pertwee as the third Doctor and involved intelligent undersea reptiles who used to be the dominant species on Earth but went into hibernation millions of years ago to avoid a cataclysm that never came and then wake up to find humanity the dominant species on Earth and start to sabotage shipping in order to reclaim the Earth. It was quite a good story. One of the more action oriented ones.

I had been drinking quite a bit of cider during the evening, but wasn't in any way drunk. However when I woke up this morning I had kind of an annoying headache. I decided to stay in today, and watched some TV. At the moment I'm watching the Ralph Bakshi directed 1978 animated version of Lord of the Rings, based on the J.R.R. Tolkien novel (Tolkien was born on this day in 1892, by the way). The animation isn't great, but there are some interesting effects. It uses a lot of a technique called rotoscoping where a scene is shot in live action and then painted over to animate it. Also the film only covers half the story. They originally intended to make two films but the second was never made.

Tomorrow is the final day of the vacation so I'll probably go out and do something then.

There is sad news that the actor Pete Postlethwaite died of cancer yesterday at the age of 64.

Thaw

Last night was pretty quiet, and I spent most of the time watching TV and playing Heavy Rain on the PlayStation 3.

Today I went out and bought a bunch of comic books. Afterwards I went over to Burger King and had the Big King meal, which was pretty good and headed home.

I've also ordered the DVD of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

The Tripods

Last night I wrote some more of my script and watched another episode of Blake's 7 on DVD. The episode that I was watching was one which I got on video back in 1994, and I could remember absolutely nothing about it. It's really weird how memory works, because there some TV shows that I've not seen since the 80s and yet I still have very vivid memories of them. I remember this show from the mid eighties called The Tripods which was about aliens in giant machines which controlled people's minds with these weird glowing machines implanted into their skulls. I just remember thinking the Tripod machines themselves were really cool and, when I was a kid, the mind control machines really freaked me out.

It was another really dull and quiet day at work, but one good thing is that I have managed to get tomorrow and Monday off on annual week. Yay! Four day weekend! :)

Factory People

It was a really quiet evening yesterday. I write a bit of my script and watched an episode of Blake's 7 on DVD. It is a really good show and usually pretty well-written, even if the production values and sepcial effects have really not aged well.

It was a really average day at work, and fairly dull (which I guess goes without saying). Right now I'm watching a TV documentary called Factory People about the group of people who used to hang around Andy Warhol and his studio, the Factory. It is pretty interesting, and gives a good insight into what life was like in a more than slightly strange group. Interestingly enough Warhol always seemed to me to be less interesting himself than the stuff that he had going on around him.

Two in the Wave

Last night I started reading the book The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. it's a collection of short stories. In the first one, "The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday's Women" an unemployed man finds his dull morning routine disrupted by a series of increasingly explicit telephone calls from an unknown woman, and later, while looking for his missing cat, meets a strange girl in the garden of a deserted house. The story is actually the first thirty or so pages of Murakami's novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. In the second story, "The Second Bakery Attack", a young couple who are suffering from late-night hunger pangs decide to hold up a McDonalds.

I was up early this morning, for the weekend, to book tickets for the Edinburgh Book Festival in August. I've got tickets booked to see the actor Simon Callow, comedian and author Will Self, and actor Andrew Sachs (all of whom my Mum wants to see so I got two tickets). I also got tickets for my parents to see Frederick Forsyth. Later on in the morning I went up to get my groceries.

This afternoon I went up to the Filmhouse cinema to see Two in the Wave, directed by Emmanuel Laurent. The film is a documentary about legendary French film directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. The two both worked as film critics for the same magazines, and collaborated on each other's film projects, both becoming leading lights of the French New Wave movement. However in the seventies there was a bitter falling out between the two of them and they stopped talking. It was a pretty good documentary and very interesting. This is the final film that I'm seeing for this year's Film Festival. I also got the movie Vampyr on DVD while I was there. I've been really interested in seeing this movie for years.

Back home I saw the season finale of Doctor Who which I thought was really good.

She's All That

Last night I was watching the 1999 movie She's All That, directed by Robert Iscove, on TV. The movie tells the story of a high school senior, Zach (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.), who is the most popular guy in his high school and is dating the most popular girl (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe), until she dumps him for a reality TV star. Zach makes a bet with his friends that he can turn even the most unlikely girl into the prom queen, and his friends nominate Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook), an intelligent and artistic, but unfashionable, student. Of course, there's no prizes for guessing how it ends. It's not a great movie by any means but it's fun and it has Rachael Leigh Cook, who is the best thing about it, so I have seen the movie quite a few times now. I'd forgotten that Anna Paquin (from True Blood and the X-Men movies) was in it.

I was watching an episode of Blake's 7 afterwards on DVD. In this episode the ship arrives at a remote planet where two of the crew attempt to steal a vital computer component while the rest of them have to contend with a derelict 600 year old spacehip that is filled with a deadly virus. It was a good episode although it really struck me when I was watvhing it how much Paul Darrow (who plays the cynical Avon in the show) resembled an early Beatles era George Harrison. Apparently polo necks and the moptop cut will come back in a big way in a few hundred years time.

I was writing some more of my TV show script. I am motivated with it, because I don't want to be a complete loser for my whole life and time is passing. I'm aiming to get it made for HBO.

It was another very quiet day in the office. It was probably one of the hottest days of the year so far, if not the hottest. It was amazingly hot, but I hadn't realised that when I left this morning and so I was wearing my thick winter jacket, which is like a fleece inside a waterproof anorak, because I thought it was going to be either cold or wet. I walked home and I had to carry the jacket instead of wear it, because it was just too hot for it.

TV Show

Last night I wrote some more of my script. I am planning to write it at the rate of an episode a week. At the moment I've got what I think is a good opening sequence and a title for the show. I really hope that it works out. As time has gone on I have become more and more determined to be successful.

After that I was watching an episode of Blake's 7 on DVD, which was pretty good.

It was another really quiet day at work today.

Oh, To Be a Blobel!

Last night I was reading a few more short stories by Philip K. Dick. The first one was called "The Days of Perky Pat" and is set in the Los Angeles of the future after Earth has been devestated by nuclear war and the few survivors (or "flukers" as they call themselves)live in protective bunkers living off packages of food and equipment dropped off by "careboys" on Mars. The survivors spend pretty much their entire time playing an elaborate game using a Barbie-type doll called Perky Pat which serves to help the time pass and indulge in an idealised vision of their old lives.
The second story was called "Oh, To Be a Blobel!" which is set eleven years after a war between Earth and an alien race known as the Blobels (which are basically like giant amoebas) and tells the story of a one-time Earth spy who during the war was surgically disguised as a Blobel and now, although he has apparently regained his human form, he keeps reverting to the Blobel form at least once a day, and whenever he is under stress.
The third story was "We Can Remember It For You, Wholesale", which told the story of Douglas Quail a small, meek clerk whose one main ambition in life is to visit Mars. He decides to visit a company called Rekal Incorporated, which specialises in implanting false memories, and buys himself a package which will make him believe he has visited Mars as a secret agent. However when the technicians implant the fake memories they are shocked when they uncover a set of previously erased memories and learn that Quail's dreams about Mars were not just dreams. This story was loosely adapted as the 1990 film Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was originally planned to be adapted by David Cronenberg in the 1980s who wrote a script that was very closely based on the story but the producers told him: "This is wrong, you're making the Philip K. Dick version". To which Cronenberg replied: "Well, isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?" And the producers said: "Oh, no. We want to make Raiders of the Lost Ark go to Mars!" I really thought it was a pity they changed the twist ending to the story.

Today I went out and got a Father's Day card for my Dad and the book The Sigma Protocol by Robert Ludlum as a Father's Day present. For myself I got Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk and "Yipee Ki-Yay, Moviegoer!" Writings on Bruce Willis, Badass Cinema and Other Important Topics by Vern. Vern is an on-line film critic who writes for the famous Ain't It Cool News.com website and the book is a selection of reviews and essays about movies and so on. I also got season two of Blake's 7 on DVD so that should be really good.

Shadows

Last night I saw the 1959 film Shadows, directed by John Cassavetes. The film concerns three African-American siblings: Ben (Ben Carruthers), Leila (Leila Goldoni) and Hugh (Hugh Hurd) who live in New York City. Hugh is a talented jazz musician who is constantly frustrated by the fact that he has to earn money playing show tunes in sleazy bars and introducing strippers, Ben wants to be a cool, hipster writer but spends most of his time drinking and hanging out with his friends, while Leila is involved in a troubled inter-racial relationship. The film is one of the most influential films of the American independent cinema. Cassavetes started out as an actor, and is probably best known as Mia Farrow's husband in Rosemary's Baby. He wanted to play real characters dealing with real situations and was unhappy with what was on offer in Hollywood movies. However, Cassavetes realised that if no-one else was making the movies he wanted to be involved in then he would have to do it himself. Cassavetes ran an acting school and company who he used as actors for his film, which he raised the $40,000 budget for partly by issuing appeals to the public for donations on national radio. Shadows was made first in 1957 and was completely improvised by the cast, but was apparently so bad that few people sat through the whole thing, and so Cassavetes remade it in 1959 with the same cast and using a lot of footage from the original, but it was technically more proficient and was largely scripted (depsite a title at the end claiming the film was an improvisation). The film has a very loose plot and it is funny, interesting and spontaneous. The soundtrack features famous jazz musician Charles Mingus.

It was another very ordinary and dull day at work. When I got home I microwaved some lamb rogan josh for dinner and listened to a reading of "The Haunted Doll's House" by M.R. James in which a man buys a valuable antique doll's house at a surprisingly low price. Late that night however, he discovers that the doll's house has a disturbing and gruesome secret.

Blade Runner

Last night I was watching the 1982 movie Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott and based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. The film is set in Los Angeles in the year 2019, where most of the human race have moved away to "Off-World" colonies, where they are given their own android slave (known as "replicants"). The most advanced of these replicants is the "Nexus-6" model which are virtually identical to humans aside from their lack of emotions, however it is believed that in time they would develop their own emotional responses, and to safeguard against this each replicant is given a built-in lifespan of only four years. Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) is a "blade runner", a cop who specialises in killing ("retiring") escaped replicants, and is given the job of tracking down a group of escaped Nexus-6 replicants, led by the charismatic but violent Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), but soon finds himself having increasing doubts about who is human and who isn't. The film is one of the most influential science-fiction films ever made, with it's spectacular sets and production design virtually transforming the look of science-fiction throughout for the past thirty years. The film exists in about seven different versions. The one that I saw was the 2007 "Final Cut".

I was also reading a few of the Philip K. Dick short stories. The ones I read were "The Father-Thing" (about a boy who discovers that his father has been replaced by a vicious alien duplicate), "Foster, You're Dead!" (in which a boy worries about his family's refusal to buy a nuclear fallout shelter - which was a really big issue in the 1950s when the story was written) and "Human Is" (in which a cruel and selfish husband returns home from a trip to space as an alien duplicate, and his wife decides she prefers the alien).

It was the start of another week at work and it went fairly quietly as usual. The Film Festival starts next week so that should be a pretty busy time.

I've been listening to a radio show recently called My Teenage Diary in which comedians select entries from their teenage diaries. It is pretty interesting. As I wrote a few days ago, I read my old diaries a lot and sometimes they are really interesting. Although I was really boring as a teenager when the most exciting thing that happened was watching episodes of The Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap. I'm not any more interesting today, of course. I never really went wild and did crazy things when I was young, and I always regret that. I always think I missed out.