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.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

Today it was another average and fairly long day at work. I left shortly after five and I was pretty much the only one left in the office.

After work I went along to the Filmhouse cinema to meet up with my Mum and to see My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, directed by Werner Herzog, at the Film Festival. The film was produced by David Lynch, and set mostly in San Diego, where a young man, Brad (played by Michael Shannon), has just murdered his mother (Grace Zabriskie) with a samurai sword at a neighbour's house. After the murder, he holes himself up in his house with a shotgun and two hostages. A homicide detective (Willem Dafoe) attempts to unravel the man's motives for his crime with the aid of Brad's fiancee (Chloe Sevigny) and friend (Udo Kier). Their stories, shown in fashback detail Brad's increasingly bizarre existance since his lfe was changed during a traumatic visit to Peru a year earlier. Apparently based on a true story, the movie has many touches of both Herzog and Lynch. It has plenty of strange humour, such as Brad describing his pet flamingoes as "eagles in drag" and strong performances and a memorable soundtrack. Occasionally it meanders a bit but the movie retains a strange power. According to Herzog the intent of the film was to make a horror movie without any explicit blood and gore but with a "strong mounting sense of dread". One interesting thing about the movie, which may have been due to Lynch's influence, is the amount of coffee that the characters drink, and they make a big deal of it. The main charcter even has his "special coffee cup".

After the movie we went along to Pizza Express to meet my Dad. I had doughballs and garlic butter to start, and then a Four Seasons pizza, basically it's a pizza devided into quarters witha different topping on each quarter: cheese, mushrooms, pepperoni and anchovies with olives. It was really nice.

Back home I finished reading the book "Yippee Ki-Yay Moviegoer!" Writings on Bruce Willis, Badass Cinema and Other Important Topics by Vern. Vern, no second name given, writes movie reviews for the Ain't It Cool News website, and the book, as the title suggests, is a collection of reviews and essays on films. They mostly concentrate on action movies but there is a wide range of movies covered. The reviews are mostly well-written, witty and intelligent, although one thing that I did notice is that there was a lot of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, presumably partly due to the fact that they were taken from websites.

HIGH School

It was another really dull day at work. A lot of people left early to watch the World Cup England match.

After work I went along to the Cineworld cinema to see another movie at the Film Festival. This evening it was a film called HIGH School, directed by John Stalberg. The movie is a comedy in which Henry (played by Matt Bush) is about to be named class valedictorian at his high school, and is all set to go to MIT, until his stoner friend Travis (Sean Marquette) persuades him to smoke dope for the first time. On that same day the school's pricipal (Michael Chilkis) announces that the entire student body will be tested for drugs. Horrified at the prospect of ruining Henry's academic future, he and Travis decide that somehow they have to get the entire school stoned. The movie is mostly really funny. It's really a very traditional stoner comedy. It features a hilarious performance from Adrien Brody as a deranged drug dealer. If you like teen comedies or Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob films, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

After the film the director was on stage to answer questions from the audience which was really fun. I really like that aspect to the Festivals where you get to see the film-makers in person.

Mr. Nice

It was another really dull day at work, and not a particularly good one. It was one of those days where I just couldn't wait to get away.

When I left work I went up to the Cineworld cinema to see my next Film Festival movie which was Mr. Nice, directed by Bernard Rose and based on the autobiographical book by Howard Marks. The film opens with Marks (played by Rhys Ifans) taking his first experiemnts with drugs in the early 1960s at Oxford University and follows his eventful life as he becomes a notorious marijuana smuggler and sometime spy. The movie was often very funny and packed with incident, although due to the nature of it being a biographical film, there wasn't really a proper storyline just a succession of incidents. It was very stylishly made and unusually, instead of using captions to denote the passage of time from the early 1960s until the mid 1990s, the look of the movie changes to mirror the look of movies that were being made at the time the action is set. I've never read the book, although I have heard that it's very good. I'll have to check it out now I've seen the film.

At the screening were the actors Rhys Ifans and David Thewlis along with the director, Bernard Rose (who directed Candyman among many others), and also Howard Marks himself, who has become a real cult figure following the huge success of the book and often goes on speaking tours and which made for the unusual experience of watching a film biography of someone and knowing that the film's subject is there in person. The four did an entertaining question and answer session with the audience afterwards. Thewlis mentioned that he was genuinely worried that the person he played, a violent killer, was still on the loose and was unlikely to be particularly thrilled with the movie. Apparently Thewlis had been warned that he "might receive death threats... but not to take them seriously".

Film Festival Week

Today was the start of another week at work, and of course it was pretty much the same as usual. I've got Film Festival movies pretty much every evening this week except for this evening and Thursday evening.

It means I probably won't be able to do much to my TV show script this week, but I'll keep on doing bits to it when I can and maybe work on the outlines of later episodes in the series.

The Runaways

This morning my Dad came to collect me and we went to the Gyle shopping centre. I had a scone and a mocha in the coffee section and then we split up to look at our own things. I got a book called The Hell of It All by Charlie Brooker, which is a collection of TV reviews. Charlie Brooker is a TV reviewer and general commentator and does various TV shows where he discusses TV, video games and the news and he hosts a comedy panel shows, and has written a couple of other books. I think he's really clever and funny. I also got a CD called American Anthems which is a collection of American rock anthems from the 1980s mostly. I happen to like that kind of music.

Then we went over to my parent's house. The latest issue of Fortean Times had arrived, which this month featured an article on the possibility of a giant serpent living in Sweden and an article exploring the background to the Peid Piper of Hamelin myth. The new issue of Sight and Sound also arrived, featuring this month a centenary tribute to director Akira Kurosawa. In the afternoon my Mum and I went out for a bit of a walk.

In the evening I went up to the Cineworld cinema to see the movie The Runaways, directed by Floria Sigismondi. The movie is set in the mid 1970s and tells the story of the all-girl rock band The Runaways, focusing mainly on lead singer Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning) and guitarist Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). The movie is pretty much a typical rock movie biography, but it's a lot of fun with a great soundtrack, and a cool, punky seventies feel to it. It also features great performances from Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. Personally I really like Joan Jett, her version of "Crimson and Clover" is one of my favourite songs, but the movie only really deals with the early part of her career.

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.

Empire and Inception

Last night I was reading a short story by Philip K. Dick called "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" in which an interplanetary law enforcement agency arrive on Earth in order to apprehend the people responsible for a devestating nuclear war, only to find that Earth's Government has stayed in power by fighting an endless campaign against an invented enemy. According to Dick, the story came about from his idea that at least half of the famous people in history never existed.

I finished writing a science-fiction story called "Shutdown" and started writing another one called "Hell Night".

It was another very average day at work. My friend Chris in the office lent me a CD of The Very Best of John Lee Hooker. On my way home a sudden gust of wind blew my hat off my head, but I managed to get it before it went very far. I bought the latest issue of Empire magazine. The main story this month was about the movie Inception and there was also a big article about the career of Alfred Hitchcock. When I got home I saw that my Film Festival tickets had arrived, so that is really good.

I had some microwave jambalaya for my dinner, which was really nice. While I was eating I listened to a reading of "A School Story" by M.R. James on the radio, in which two men are discussing traditions of ghost stories in schools and one of them relates a story from his own school days in which a Latin teacher with a dark past is hounded by a vengeful ghost.

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.

Film Festival Booked

Last night I was watching an episode of the second season of True Blood on DVD. I've got two episodes left to see of the season, which has been really great.

I had the day off today in order to book my tickets for the Film Festival. I managed to get tickets for The Runaways a film about the early career of Joan Jett starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, HIGH School a comedy about stoners in high school, Mr. Nice a British film about a famous real-life drug dealer, Two in the Wave a documentary about the friendship between legendary French directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffat, The People vs. George Lucas a documentary about fans of the Star Wars films and how they feel about George Lucas after all the "special edition" re-releases and the prequels, and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? a film telling the true story of a murderer directed by Werner Herzog and produced by David Lynch. So that should be a good selection. I might get more later, but I managed to get the ones that I really wanted to see. The website I got the tickets from was really slow and for the first ten minutes showed all the tickets as being sold out, which resulted in me unleashing a barrage of bad language at the computer. It was only a glitch though and in the end it was all fine.

The rest of the afternoon has been quiet. I went out to the corner store briefly to get milk, sugar and chocolate bars. I also read a short Philip K. Dick story called "Imposter" in which a man is surprised to be accused of being an alien robot duplicate with an armed nuclear bomb in his chest. It was pretty good.

Second Variety

Last night I read a story called "Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick. The story was written in 1952 and is set in an undefined future six years after Earth has been devestated by nuclear war which has wiped out most of the population except for a few isolated survivors and several pockets of soldiers still fighting the war. However, the American side have developed a new weapon which is winning the war: automatically produced, self-maintaining robots called "claws" which exist for one purpose only - to kill anything that moves. However as one soldier makes the dangerous journey across Claw infested wasteland to negotiate peace with the enemy he discovers that, left alone, the Claws have been consistently developing and upgrading themselves to the extent that there are new varieties which have achieved intelligence and look exactly like humans, but with the same Claw drives to destroy any living thing. The problem is to distinguish between the humans and the killer robots. Philip K. Dick regarded the story as marking the emergence of his "Grand Theme" which is: "Who is human and who only appears (masquerading) as human?" the story is pretty good blending it's philosophy with a pretty action packed storyline. The 1996 Canadian film Screamers was a loose adaptation of the story.

It was another quiet day at work today, although it was very busy due to a lot of work coming in after a bank holiday yesterday. I'm off work tomorrow of course so I can book my tickets for the Film Festival. I have a pretty good idea of what I would like to see, so I just hope that I can get them all!

The Defenders

Last night I was watching another episode of the second season of True Blood on DVD and read a couple of short stories by Philip K. Dick. In the first story: "The Defenders" humanity has retreated underground after a devestating atomic war leaving the rest of the war to be fought by robots however, eight years later, the humans discover the robots have developed their own ideas on how to stop the war and on who their real enemies are. The second story, "Roog", presents a dog's eye view of strange visitors in a suburban neighbourhood.

It was another quiet and uneventful day at work. The Film Festival programme was officially launched today but the site was so popular that it just kept freezing up. However, I did manage to have a look at the brochure, and I'll decide what to see by Thursday.

The Haunting of Hill House

Last night I watched another episode of the second season of True Blood on DVD. I'm a little over half way through it and I have been really enjoying this season so far.

I also finished reading the book The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. The book tells the story of a group of three people: the neurotic Eleanor, artistic Theodora and wealthy playboy Luke who are brought to the supposedly haunted mansion of Hill House by a doctor who is trying to investigate the supernatural. While they are there they experience a variety of bizarre events. The book is very well-written and intriguing, the supernatural elements are of a very ambiguous and very subtle nature. In fact the book is more about the psychology of the characters rather than supernatural horror. It was filmed twice as The Haunting in 1963 and 1999. The 1963 version is a mastepriece of horror cinema but the 1999 version is, to be honest, garbage.

I was at work today and it was another very quiet and ordinary day. I have decided to take Thursday off, and the reason for that is because on Thursday the tickets for the Film Festival go on sale, and the popular events sell out very quickly, in fact I've learned form bitter experience that if you do want anything you have to book up as quickly as possible. The programme is officially announced tomorrow. The weather was really good today and so I left work after six hours and went home.

Back home I read a short story called "Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick, in which humans who are travelling home from Mars bring aboard their spaceship a Martian pig-like creature called a Wub which, despite it being intelligent, peaceful and able to communicate with them, the humans are intent on killing and eating. However they learn that, when necessary, the Wub has a unique method of self-defence. It was a pretty good story.

The Maiden Heist

Last night I was watching the 2000 film Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky, and based on the 1978 novel by Hubert Selby Jr. The story revolves around four people in Brooklyn, New York. Harry Goldfarb (played by Jared Leto), his girlfriend Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly) and his friend Tyrone Love (Marlon Wayans) are heroin addicts, who dream about making the one big drug deal that will set them up for life, while Marion's ambition is to be a top fashion designer. Harry's mother, Sarah (Ellen Burstyn) spends her time watching TV, especially a kind of infomercial-game show. One day she gets a call inviting her to be a contestant on TV. Sarah fixes on losing weight so she can fit into her favourite red dress and look good on TV. She goes to a doctor who prescribes her diet pills, to which she becomes increasingly addicted. Before long each of the characters find the dreams that sustain them, becoming increasingly sour and warped as they fall into their own personal addictions and demons. It is an unrelentingly bleak film, and very stylish. It is very faithful to the original novel.

Today I was up pretty sharply in order to get out and meet my Dad. We had to go up to the building society in order to do some banking business. Then we went out for breakfast at Cafe Rouge. I had sausage, bacon, poached egg, mushrooms, tomato and toast, with a cappuccino. Then we had a look around the shops before going our seperate ways. I went along to a jewellers to get my watchstrap fixed. It broke sometime last week, and I had to repair it with sticky tape. It worked for a few days. The strap took half an hour to fix and so I spent the time browsing in one of the book-shops. I didn't buy anything, becasue I'm trying to save money for moving to Canada, so that was kind of annoying, because there was a lot of stuff there that I really wanted.

This evening I went out to the Cineworld cinema to see The Maiden Heist, directed by Peter Hewitt. The movie is set in Boston and revolves around Roger Barlow (played by Christopher Walken) who works as a security guard in an art museum. He spends most of his time staring at his favourite painting, called "The Lonely Maiden". Roger is shocked when he discovers that "The Lonely Maiden" is one of a number of the museum's collection that is being sent to Denmark. Then he discovers two other museum security guards, Charlie (Morgan Freeman) and George (William H. Macy) are both equally obsessed by other artworks, which are also being sent away. The three decide to plot an audacious scheme to steal their three paintings, so that they can keep them. It's a very likeable, gentle comedy, and it is consistently funny. That is the last film that I have booked for this year at the Film Festival (it is the last day of the Film Festival tomorrow).

Of course there is a lot about Michael Jackson on TV tonight. I was never a fan, but of course I remember when his music was everywhere, and he was very talented. I really liked that song "Thriller" (which did have one of the coolest music videos and Vincent Price) and "Man in the Mirror".

Roger Corman

Last night I was looking at more places for jobs and accomodation in Canada, and I watched the latest episode of The Wire, which was a really good one.

Today was another really quiet and dull day at work. The biggest event in the office at the moment is that they may be getting more people moved around the departments, again.

After work I headed up to the Cineworld cinema to see the next event that I had booked at the Film Festival, which was a discussion with the legendary director, writer and producer Roger Corman. Corman has produced over three hundred films and himself directed around fifty. At his peak he apparently made seven films in one year (he said that he had periods where he was filming one movie, casting the next and editing another all in the same day). He started his career in the 1950s and specialised in low-budget horror, science-fiction, gangster, biker and teen movies with his biggest successes being a cycle of movies based on Edgar Allan Poe stories and poems with Vincent Price. He also gave directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Rob Howard and James Cameron their big breaks, as well as actors such Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro. The event started late and over-ran by nearly half an hour but it was interesting and enjoyable, and Corman was full of great stories. It was hosted by Sight and Sound magazine, and we all got free copies of the magazine when we came in, which was nice (even though I'd already got this month's - I have a subscription).

On my way home I got a fish supper for my dinner.

Demo

Last night was pretty quiet. I was looking at web-sites for jobs in Canada. Later in the evening I saw the first episode of the third season of The Wire.

Today I was back at work. It was another quiet and dull day. Chris lent me a graphic novel called Demo by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan. It's basically a series of twelve one-off stories centering around the lives of disaffected young people, most of them with some kind of supernatural power.

My next Film Festival thing is tomorrow when I'll be going up to see Roger Corman, the legendary "B" movie director.

Book Festival

I had the day off work today but was still up pretty early to book my tickets for the Book Festival. For myself, I have got tickets for Neil Gaiman (who is going to be talking with crime novelist Ian Rankin about graphic novels) and David Simon (creator of the TV show The Wire and author of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets). For myself and my Mum I have booked tickets for Arthur Smith, Will Self and Margaret Atwood (who is giving a specially written performance of music, songs and stories). For myself, Mum and Dad I have got tickets for comedian, actor and writer Frank Skinner and for my Mum I got a ticket to see Sarah Vine and Tania Kindersley. I was on-line and booking them at half past nine this morning and by eleven they were already starting to sell out. The Margaret Atwood event was sold out early and so was Neil Gaiman. Also this was the first day of booking, so I'm glad I got everything. I also had to write a cheque for a large credit card bill (I had to renew my home insurance) so it was a very expensive day when I'm trying to save for Canada! But it happens. I'll have to economise for the next month or so.

This evening I went to the Cineworld cinema to see my next Film Festival event, which was a talk and question and answer session with director Darren Aronofsky (director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and most recently The Wrestler). It was very interesting, although Aronofsky refused to answer any questions about the well-publicised rumours of his involvement in the re-make of RoboCop. Then again, the original RoboCop is a classic. There was a lot said about low-budget film-making which was very interesting. Next month I'll probably try and write another novel or another movie to keep myself occupied without spending too much.

The third season of The Wire is on TV tonight.

Adventureland

Last night I watched a documentary about the history of brain surgery, which was very interesting - if gruesome. Then I saw a documentary in which two people tried to spend a couple of weeks living on the food that was popular the 1980s a lot of which I could remember pretty well. One thing that kind of made me laugh was how shocked they were by microwave ready meals, which are pretty much my staple diet today. After that I saw some of the 1983 movie Risky Business, directed by Paul Brickman. The story revolves around a mild-mannered high school student (played by Tom Cruise) whose parents are away for the weekend while he prepares for a crucial interview for acceptance to Princeton University. However he ends up meeting and falling for a beautiful prostitute (Rebecca DeMornay) and ends up with a novel money-making scheme. The movie is very funny and entertaining.

I got up pretty early today, my Dad came round and we went along to the Gyle shopping centre. We had a coffee and scone for our breakfast and then we went and had a look around. I bought a notebook and some pens. Then we went back to my parent's house and my parents and myself went along to Pizza Express for Father's Day. We had olives to start and I had a Diavolo pizza (a pizza with tomato, cheese, jalapeno peppers, spicy beef and pepperoni), it's really nice and very hot and spicy. For dessert I had a Chocolate Glory (which is ice-cream with chopped up chocolate fudge cake and chocolate sauce). It was a really nice meal. Back at my parents house, we kind of sat around for a couple of hours and I read some of the book that I had brought with me which was The Russia House by John le Carre (I'm trying to save money for Canada and so instead of buying new books I'm making an effort to read all the ones I've bought previously and never got round to reading).

In the evening I headed over to the Cineworld cinema to see the first film that I had booked for this year's Film Festival, which is now in it's sixty-third year. The film I went to see was Adventureland, directed by Greg Mottola. The movie is set in 1987 and concerns a high school graduate, James (played by Jesse Eisenburg) who, in order to raise money for college, takes a summer job at a run-down amusement park called Adventureland where he encounters various odd-balls and eccentrics and falls for co-worker Emily (Kristen Stewart) and befriends the married maintenance man Connel (Ryan Reynolds), who is secrelty having an affair with Emily. The movie is very funny in places, but it's also really moving at times as well. The star of the movie, Jesse Eisenburg was there to introduce the movie and answer questions afterwards.

Tomorrow I'm off work and I'm going to try get the tickets for the Book Festival. There's going to be a lot because I'll have to buy the tickets for my parents as well. As it stands I want to see Neil Gaiman and David Simon. Mum and myself want to see Margaret Atwood, Arthur Smith and Will Self. Mum wants to see Sarah Vine and Mum, Dand and myself all want to see Frank Skinner. I just really hope I actually remember all that!


"The line between actually very serious and actually very funny is actually very thin."
- The Russia House by John le Carre.

If....

Last night I was watching the 1968 film If...., directed by Lindsay Anderson, on TV. The film is set in College House, a boy's boarding school in England, where the students are kept in line by rigid tradition and ritual and violent punishments meted out by the staff and the sadistic prefects. The story revolves around three unruly seniors, led by the charismatic Mick Travis (played by Malcolm McDowell), who refuse to conform and plot a violent revenge against the school. The movie is frequenty very funny and often quite disturbing, and is often regarded as one of the best British films ever made. It blends realistic passages with surreal fantasy sequences. One of the most obvious elements is the constant switching back and forth between colour and black and white, which of course critics and academics have put many interpretations and meaning on over the years, although the fact was that according to Anderson, they ran out of colour film while they were shooting and, not having the money for any more, had to finish shooting the movie on cheaper black and white film. The intention of the movie was to show the conflict between tradition and modernity in Britain during the 1960s. It was followed by two semi-sequels: O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital.

This morning I went out and got a card fom my Dad for Father's Day tomorrow. I was also looking for books about Canada. There were a few that looked good, so I'll have a think and maybe get one of them later. I'm trying to save money at the moment, so I didn't get anything at all. On my way back home I got my groceries for the week.

Tomorrow we're taking Dad out for lunch at Pizza Express for Father's Day and in the evening I'm going to the premiere of Adventureland, my first film at the Film Festival.

Film Festival Bookings

Last night I stayed up pretty late writing on my story and listening to a Paula Cole CD. She seemed to be quite popular for awhile in the late 1990s (she did the theme song to Dawson's Creek) but I've not heard much from her since.

Today I went on to the internet and booked my tickets for the Film Festival. I've booked to see the films Adventureland (described in the brochure as a hilarious '80s set comedy about a high school dropout who works in an amusement park) and The Maiden Heist (which stars Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken and William H. Macy as museum caretakers who decide to steal their favourite works of art) and I'm also going to be going to the audience talks with filmmakers Darren Aronofsky and Roger Corman. I still have to go up and collect my tickets, but their all booked up, and I can go and get them when I want. The Film Festival itself takes place in June.

This afternoon I went out to get some money from the bank, and buy some milk, a tuna sandwich and the latest copy of Radio Times. Tonight I should be going out to hang out with my friend Joe for a while.

At the moment I'm watching the original 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is about an alien who comes to Earth with his powerful robot, and threatens to destroy the Earth unless humanity stops using nuclear weapons (the aliens are frightened that with humanity's rapidly advancing spaceflight technology and nuclear weapons they could pose a threat to other planets). It is a good film and is widely regarded as one of the classic science-fiction films.