The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Last night I watched a four part Doctor Who story from 1983 called "Mawdryn Undead". It stars Peter Davidson as the Fifth Doctor, with an English schoolboy, Turlough (Mark Strickson), who is in fact an alien controlled by the evil Black Guardian (Valentine Dyall, radio horror host "The Man in Black"), and a luxury spacecraft full of immortal but deteriorating aliens desperate to die. It was quite good.

I went out to the stationary store and got a sketchpad, drawing pens, and three notebooks. Then I went along to the Filmhouse cinema and saw The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, directed by Isao Takahata. Based on a Japanese folk tale, it's an animated film about a bamboo cutter who discovers a miniature girl in a glowing bamboo shoot. The bamboo cutter and his wife raise the girl as their own, however the girl grows and learns at an astonishing rate. It's a beautiful film, and one of my favorites. The climax is hugely emotional. I reviewed it here: http://permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-tale-of-princess-kaguya.html

Magazines and DVDs

Today was really long and really tiring. After work I picked up my groceries for the coming week and picked up the latest issues of SFX and Empire magazines. 

I got the DVD box set of Doctor Who: The Black Guardian Trilogy which has three four part stories from the 1980s. 

I watched another episode of Stranger Things on Netflix. I'm really starting to get into that show.

Easter Decorations

Last night was pretty quiet. I stayed in and watched TV and read some of my books. Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch. We had spicy chicken fajitas for lunch, and in the afternoon I went out with my Mum and we got a small branch, which we do every year, because my Mum likes to decorate them for Easter. I'm listening to a radio play version of Torchwood (a spin-off from Doctor Who about a group in Cardiff fighting off alien threats) in this episode they are investigating a group in India who are using alien technology to live forever in "one perfect day" (140 years ago). It bears a passing similarity to an issue of The Sandman comic. It's pretty good though, and works well on te radio. It's the second episode of The Walking Dead on TV tonight, so I'll be watching that.

Awfully Good TV

Last night I was watching a show called Awfully Good TV, it was kind of a comedy show about TV shows which are "so bad that they become good". Some of the clips were really funny, but some of them were kind of unfair such as the ones laughing at the special effects in old episodes of Doctor Who and Star Trek. Of course special effects are far better now than they were in the 1960s and 70s, so it's a pretty unfair criticism.

I was back at work today and it was a pretty dull day, as it usually is. I guess it's back to reality now. At least it's a short week though.

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.

Birthday and Christmas 2010

On Thursday it was my 32nd birthday. I went along to my parent's house and in the evening we had a Chinese meal. For my birthday I got the graphic novel Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, the graphic novel Local by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, the novel Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, the DVDs of Inception and Alfred Hitchcock Presents season two.

I stayed with my parents over the Christmas period. On Christmas Eve we didn't really do much at all. We did the traditional Christmas thing of watching Carols From Kings which is like an annual carol service from King's College Cambridge, which my Mum loves. We watch it every year. Later on I was watching the Peep Show night. A whole evening of programming devoted to the show.

On Christmas Day the heating stopped working, which was difficult because the temperature was below freezing. We had to get small heaters out to keep the place fairly warm. I got a graphic novel called The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr. Punch by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, a book called Live & Work in Canada by Frances Lemon, a DVD of An Idiot Abroad, the game Gods of War III for the PlayStation 3, a 2011 paper diary, an issue of SFX magazine and some chocolate and candy. My parents seemed to be happy with their presents. Their neighbours came through in the late morning and had a drink. They were there for about an hour. We had the traditional Christmas dinner of turkey, rolled up bacon, cocktail sausages, peas with onions, brussels srpouts, roast poatoes and stuffing. It was really good. Later on we watched the Christmas Doctor Who special.

I went back home today after lunch.

I really hope that everyone had a great Christmas!

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.

The People vs. George Lucas

Last night I was watching the 1948 movie The Naked City, directed by Jules Dassin. The film is set in New York City and deals with the police investigation into the murder of a young woman. The movie's notable now mainly for it's semi-documentary style. It's a pretty good example of the 1940s film noir style. The movie was the basis for a popular TV series, The Naked City, which ran from 1958 until 1963.

Today I went up and posted a couple of postcards to a friend in North Carolina and a letter to a friend in New York. On my way back I went and got my groceries for the week.

This afternoon I went up to the Filmhouse cinema to see The People vs. George Lucas, directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, as part of the Film Festival. The movie is a documentary about the complex relationship between Star Wars fans and Star Wars creator George Lucas, especially in regards to the 1997 Special Editions and the prequel trilogy. The movie consists of talking-head interviews with fans and people who have worked with Lucas, including director Francis Ford Coppola and author Neil Gaiman. It also contains numerous clips from amateur fan films, some of which were really good. It came as no surprise that pretty much everyone hated Jar-Jar Binks in the prequels. The movie was really funny and very entertaining. After the movie the producer and the director came up and did a question and answer session with the audience.

I grew up with Star Wars. I was born in 1978 and a lot of my earliest memories centre around the movies. I collected the toys and games and comics and I saw all the movies, including the Ewok ones, and the cartoon spin-offs and played the video games. One of my earleist memories was going to the cinema to see Return of the Jedi when I was four or five and being really caught up in it. I went to see The Phantom Menace on the day it opened in 1999 and I actually liked it, although I thought Jar-Jar Binks was annoying and I don't know why they made Natalie Portman look like some kind of space clown, but it was a fun movie. The thing is that Star Wars is George Lucas' thing. It's his world and they are his characters and, to be fair, it's up to him, not the fans, what he does with it. The thing is that the prequels could have been the greatest films ever made and people would still have hated them, because what they wanted was the experience they had when they were kids and they first saw the Star Wars movies, but that is impossible to recreate, and unfair to expect. I suppose it's like the first time you fall in love really. Subsequently it might be better or it might be worse, but that initial feeling will forever be impossible to recapture.

When I got home I watched the first of the two part season finale to Doctor Who, which was pretty good.

The Variable Man

Last night was fairly quiet. I watched a couple of episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show which were really funny, and saw a show called Top of the Pops 2: Country Jukebox which was an hour of country music which I really liked.

I went along to my parent's house today, instead of the usual Sunday, because they are both busy tomorrow. It was good, we managed to get some groceries for the week. We had some sushi for lunch and in the afternoon sat in the garden, because the weather was so good. I read a Philip K. Dick story from 1953 called "The Variable Man" which was set in the future where Earth is at war with aliens but, due to the fact that humans are using computers to predict the statistical likelihood of victory before they attack, there have been no shots fired. However, when the scientists develop a new type of advanced bomb which tips the statistics in favour of humanity. However a new element is added when a time travel experiment accidentally brings forward a man from the early 20th century which adds an unforeseen variable into the equation and rendering the machines unable to calculate the statistics.

This evening I saw a really good episode of Doctor Who in which the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy (Karen Gillan) encounter an invisible alien stalking Vincent Van Gogh (Tony Curran). I really like Van Gogh and I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and saw the "Starry Night" exhibition while it was there.

I was re-reading some of my old diaries and journals last night, including one from 1993 which kind of felt strange to read. I was 14 in 1993 and, to be honest, despite the fact that I got to work instead of school, not much has really changed.

Weird Movie

Last night I was watching the latest episode of Doctor Who, which was really good. I think the latest season has been really good so far.

I watched a French movie from 1995 called The City of Lost Children, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. The film is set in an un-named coastal town which is plagued by a sinister cult the members of which are equipped with one electronic eye, a theives' guild made up of orphans and run by a brutal pair of identical twin sisters who share a psychic link, and a circus ringmaster who owns trained fleas which inject people with mind-control serum. The town's children are being kidnapped and taken to a delapidated oil rig set in a sea full of mines in which the mad scientist Krank (played by Daniel Emilfork) tries to steal their dreams while dealing with his henchmen: five dim-witted clones (all played by Dominique Pinon) and a conscience-striken, argumentative disembodied brain that floats in a tank. When the younger brother of circus strongman, One (Ron Perlman), is kidnapped he has to search through the town's bizarre and dangerous underworld to find him. It is a really striking and deeply surreal movie that manages to be both funny and often scary. The special effects and design are really striking.

I went to my parent's house for lunch, as usual for a Sunday. It was a nice afternoon.

Of course, yesterday there was the sad news that Dennis Hopper died at the age of 74.

Barbecue

Last night I was watching the latest episode of Doctor Who on TV, which I thought was pretty good, and I also watched the first couple of episodes of the second season of True Blood on DVD. So far, it looks like it will be a really good series.

Today was really hot and sunny again today. I went along to my parent's house for lunch as usual. For a change, it was warm enough to have a barbecue and we had hamburgers, sausages and chicken legs with some salad, although we had to go in for a bit when it started to rain briefly but very heavily just before we were about to have dessert. I really like barbecues, but we very rarely get a chance to have many, due to the usual bad weather.

The new issue of Fortean Times had arrived during the week, the main story was about a theatre which is supposedly haunted by a donut throwing poltergeist. When I got home I listened to an episode of Doctor Who on the radio. They have a series of Doctor Who episodes specifically made for the radio, and a lot of them are really good.

Nineteen Seventy-Seven

Last week I finished reading the book Nineteen Seventy-Seven by David Peace, the second part of the "Red Riding" series. The book is set against the background of the brutal Yorkshire Ripper killings and tells the stories of a corrupt and violent cop and a journalist who is rapidly falling apart. Both of them become dangerously involved with the murders when they start to suspect that there is more than one killer on the loose. The book is tense, mesmerising and powerful, but it is extremely disturbing, bleak and violent. The whole series has been really good but the unrelenting misery can be a bit much at times.

Last night I listened to the first part of a Doctor Who story on the radio, which was really pretty good and I also watched a show called Worried About the Boy about the rise to fame of pop star Boy George, which was pretty interesting. I was never a fan, but I usually enjoy watching music biographies.

It was the start of another ordinary week at work.

1974

I was watching the latest episode of Doctor Who yesterday evening, and it was a pretty good one this week, where the Doctor has to fight vampires in 14th Century Venice. It really does seem like vampires are everywhere in books, TV and movies these days.

I also finished reading the book Nineteen Seventy-four by David Peace. The book is a crime thriller set in Yorkshire, England during December 1974, and tells the story of Edward Dunford, crime correspondent for the local newspaper. When a missing girl is found brutally murdered, Dunford immediately connects it to a series of similar crimes several years before and, hoping this will be the case that makes his career, he sets out to investigate it, however he soon finds himself drawn into a nightmarish world of police and official corruption and violence. The book is the first of the four volume "Red Riding" series. The book is good, but very bleak and depressing. My Mum came from Yorkshire and we often used to go down there to visit my Gran, so I could recognise a lot of the places that were in the book.

I went along to my parent's house today, for my lunch. We had salmon, boiled potatoes and peas for lunch, so it was really nice.

Torn Curtain

I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who last night which was a really good episode and featured the return of the weird living Weeping Angel statues.

Last night I was watching the 2002 film Three, which consists of three short horror films by three different directors from three different countries. First up from South Korea is "Memories", directed by Kim Ji-Woon, in which a man visits a psychiatrist to recover his memories of the day his wife disappeared, while his wife wanders around a city with no memory of where she is and how she got there. Seperatley, they both start to remember what happened. Secondly from Thailand is "The Wheel", directed by Nonzee Nimibutr, in which a thetre troupe steal some traditional Thai puppets, only to find that the puppets are protected by a deadly curse. Finally from Hong Kong is "Going Home", in which a cop, searching for his missing son, is kidnapped and imprisoned by his neighbour. Like all anthology films it is kind of hit and miss but mostly it works pretty well. In Western territories the film was released after it's sequel Three... Extremes and so it was sold there as Three... Extremes 2.

My parents are away at a wedding this weekend and so I didn't go to their house for lunch today, and just decided to stay in at home. I watched the 1966 film Torn Curtain, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The movie stars Paul Newman and Julie Andrews as a world famous American nuclear scientist and his fiancee who apparantly defect to Communist East Germany to work on an experiemntal weapon. The movie is not very highly rated by Hitchcock fans, but it does have it's moments in particular a long, wordless sequence where Newman and a German woman have huge difficulty in killing a spy. Hitchock wanted the sequence to show how physically difficult it can be to actually kill someone. Apparently, Hitchcock had Newman and Andrews forced on him by the studio and was not happy about it, especially Newman's "Method" acting. For one scene Newman asked Hitchcock what his character's motivation was for the scene and Hitchock snapped "your motivation is your salary."

The Children of Hurin

Last night was another really quiet evening. I did watch the latest episode of Doctor Who, which I thought was really good, in which the Doctor (played by Matt Smith) encounters his oldest enemies, the Daleks, in Second World War London.

I finished reading the book The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is set in Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth about 6,500 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, where the world is terrorised by the evil Dark Lord Morgoth, who takes revenge on the warrior Hurin, the only man who ever dared defy Morgoth to his face, by placing a curse on Hurin's wife and children that they will be plagued by disaster and misfortune for the rest of their lives. Most of the book focuses on Hurin's son Turin as he wanders from place to place, bringing tragedy and misfortune wherever he goes as he tries to venge himself on Morgoth and find a way to break the curse. It's a pretty dark book and quite brutal, but it is really good and worth checking out. Tolkien worked on it for years, but never managed to finish it before his death in 1973 and, like all of Tolkien's posthumously published works, it was edited by his son Christopher.

I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday, and had my lunch there. We had minced beef and carrot, topped with mashed potato and baked cheese with spring onion on the top, and peas. It was a nice lunch.

The Golden Army

Last night I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who on TV. It was a really good one this week and I think that the new Doctor and the new companion are both really starting to come into their own now.

Later on I watched a movie called Hellboy II: The Golden Army, directed by Guillermo Del Toro and based on a comic by Mike Mignola. The movie is basically about Hellboy (played by Ron Perlman) a large, cigar-chomping demon with a giant stone hand trying to defeat a rogue elf who wants to re-animate the robotic "Golden Army" and break an ancient truce between humans and supernatural creatures. I've not seen the first film but this one was a lot of fun, with plenty of action and humour and full of really impressive special effects.

I also watched a documentary called Not Quite Hollywood, which was about low-budget films in Australia, mostly sex comedies, horror films and action movies, which were dubbed "Ozploitation". A lot of them actually looked really good. The movie featured loads of clips from the films and interviews with the film-makers and actors, and also contributions from fans of the genre, such as an enthusiastic Quentin Tarantino.

Today I went along to my parent's house where the latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived (this month it was featuring a special on Italian cinema) and also the game Dante's Inferno for the PlayStation 3 which I ordered on Monday. For lunch we had roast chicken, stuffing, peas, roast potatoes, chicken gravy and a can of beer. After lunch I had a walk with my Mum to a supermarket where I bought the game Heavy Rain for the PlayStation 3. When we got back it was actually nice enough to sit out in the garden for a change. It was really warm and sunny.

Wind Chill

Last night I was listening to a radio show called Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, written by Terrance Dicks and read by Tom Baker. It's basically a reading of a novelisation of a Doctor Who TV story, in which the Doctor has to discover what is responsible for a series of impossible break-ins and killings. The title of the story has a subtle clue as to what is responsible.

Later on I was watching a 2007 movie called Wind Chill, directed by Gregory Jacobs, on TV. The film stars Emily Blunt as a college student who accepts a ride home for Christmas (which is a six hour drive) from another student (Ashton Holmes) who she has never met. As the drive progresses, she quickly realises that he has not been telling her the truth, and things go from bad to worse when they crash in the snow and soon find themselves contending not only with a wrecked car, no food and sub-zero temperatures, but also with a series of menacing ghosts. It started off slowly, but it was a pretty good show.

Today I got my groceries for the week and was intending to go out to see Clash of the Titans but I got a message from my friend Joe, and went out to hang out with him instead. I had a couple of drinks and then headed home.

Walking the Dogs

Last night I went out with my parents, my brother's girlfriend, her brother and his girlfriend. We went to a restaurant called the Smokestack and I had a calamari starter and then a six ounce burger with fries and salad, along with two pints of Grolsch beer. It was a nice evening. When I got back I watched the extra features on the Twin Peaks DVD set and later on I saw the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who, which featured the debut of Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor. It was a really good show, and I do think that Matt Smith will make a very good Doctor.

This morning my parents came round and picked me up and we went to a park where my brother's girlfriend, her brother and his girlfriend met us with their dogs. My brother and his girlfriend have a four month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy called Hamish, and her brother and his girlfriend have a one year old Labrador / Springer Spaniel mix called Rueben. Hamish was absolutely adorable, he is really tiny and he was just running around investigating anything that caught his fancy, making friends with people and playing with the other dogs. He's a very friendly dog, and was just bounding around all over the place. Rueben was only interested in chasing after and fetching his tennis balls, and really did not care about anything else except chasing after the balls.

When we got back to my parent's house we had some sausage casserole which was nice. I got home at about half past five. Happy Easter!

The Two Doctors

Last night I was watching a Doctor Who story from 1985 called "The Two Doctors". In this story, the second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton) arrives on a research station in space where illegal experiments are taking place into time travel, alongside genetic experiments in augmenting the intelligence of vicious humanoid aliens, dedicated primarily to eating anything in sight (including humans). However it turns out to be a trap and the Doctor is kidnapped. Disturbed by strange headaches, the sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) arrives on the station to find the station in ruins and most of the crew dead. He soon discovers that his old enemies, the Sontarans, have kidnapped his earlier self and so follows them to a palatial villa in Spain where they are conducting a series of bizarre experments. It was a pretty good story. There used to be a few stories made featuring multiple Doctors until there too many actors cast to make them feasible (the next season sees of the show sees the debut of the eleventh Doctor).

Today was really quiet.

Resurrection of the Daleks

Last night I was watching a Doctor Who from 1984 called "Resurrection of the Daleks". In the story the fifth Doctor (played by Peter Davison) and his companions are caught in a "Time Corridor" and drawn to 20th Century Earth where the Daleks are planning their latest attempt to take over the Earth by replacing political and military leaders with robot duplicates, while in the future, a Dalek strike force are trying to break their creator, Davros (Terry Molloy), out of a prison ship in the hope that he can develop an antdote to a lethal virus that is attacking them. It's a good story, but surprisingly violent for Doctor Who, it has got quite a high body count. I do remember seeing at least a bit of it when it was first broadcast in 1984, which would have made me about five. I just really remember the scene where a Dalek explodes to reveal kind of smouldering green porridge inside it.

Today, I was off work so I went out and got a haircut and posted a letter.