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.

Bicycle Thieves

This evening I watched the movie Bicycle Thieves, directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was released in 1948, and it's about a man struggling for work, who gets a job putting up posters. However, on his first day at work, his valued bicycle, which he needs to do the job, is stolen, triggering a desperate search, with his eight year old son in tow, through the alleys, backstreets, markets and tenements of post-war Rome to find his stolen property. It's a very good movie and very powerful. I reviewed it here:http://www.permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/bicycle-thieves.html

Book of Shadows

After work I went and got my groceries for the coming week. I also watched the movie Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, directed by Joe Berlinger. Everyone seemed to hate it, but I quite liked it. It's not great, but it is entertaining and there are some really good moments. I reviewed it here: http://www.permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/book-of-shadows-blair-witch-2.html

Blair Witch

After work I went to the comic book store and got Civil War II issue 5, Seven to Eternity issue 1, Batman issue 7, The Hellblazer issue 1, Cyborg issue 1, Trinity issue 1 and Aliens: Life and Death issue 1.

I went to the movies afterwards and saw Blair Witch, which involves the brother of Heather from the first film, heading back into the woods in search of his sister, after seeing an online video which hints that she may be alive. It's not very good. It's basically the original but bigger with less subtlety. I wrote a review here:http://www.permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/blair-witch.html

Blair Witch Project

After work I picked up a copy of SFX magazine, which was celebrating the return ofRed Dwarf.

I also watched The Blair Witch Project, which I remember seeing on it's first release in 1999. It's lost a lot of it's impact since then, with so many found footage horror movies around. I reviewed it here: http://www.permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-blair-witch-project.html

The Soft Skin

I went out today to meet up with my dad. we went to Cafe Andaluz and I had an egg and bacon roll which was nice. 

Today I watched the 1964 movie The Soft Skin, directed by Francois Truffaut. It was a huge flop when it was first released, but it is really good. It's about a famous, married academic who has an affair with a younger airline stewardess. It all ends very badly. I wrote a review here: http://www.permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-soft-skin.html

Sicario

It was a pretty long day at work.

When I got back I watched the movie Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve, which is an exciting crime thriller starring Emily Blunt as an FBI agent assigned to a shady task force assigned with bringing down a Mexican drug cartel. It also stars Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin. 

I have a review blog now where I write about movies I watch and books I read. You can check it out here: http://www.permanentlyweird.blogspot.com

Scream 4

Last night I was watching a TV show called Awfully Good Ads which was about TV commercials that are so bad that they are funny. Some of them were really terrible. I fell asleep on my couch again. On Fridays I get up much earlier than usual, and I tend to stay up quite late so I often end up pretty much crashing out. Today I went out to see Scream 4, directed by Wes Craven. The movie opens on the tenth anniversary of the murders from the first film, when two teenagers recieve taunting phone calls and are then brutally stabbed to death by a "Ghostface" killer. The following day, Sidney Prescott (played by Neve Campbell) returns to town to promote a book and becomes involved in the murders. It wasn't a bad movie at all. I was kind of doubtful about it because it was coming out eleven years after the last Scream movie, but it was fun. I loved the Scream movies and I used to watch them all the time. The movie is reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

Comics Reviewed

Last night was pretty quiet. I was reading some more of my new comic-books (which are reviewed over at Permanently Weird) and watching TV. I got into work for shortly after seven. There was a baguette run today and I had a panini with roast beef, crispy bacon, brie, mozarella, jalapeno peppers, onion and English mustard. I left work shortly after one and went into the city centre. I got a birthday card for my brother along with a couple of scented candles for home, and then I went along and bought a book called The Rough Guide to the Universe by John Scalzi for my brother's birthday present. On my way home I stopped for some groceries for the next week.

The Seventh Seal

Last night I watched the 1957 Swedish film The Seventh Seal, directed by Ingmar Bergman, on TV. The film is set in medieval Sweden ravaged by the Black Death (bubonic plague) and concerns a knight, Antonius Block (played by Max von Sydow), and his cynical squire (Gunnar Bjornstrand) who have just returned home from the Crusades. On the shore Block meets Death (Bength Ekerot) who tells him that his time is up. However Block, who has become disillusioned following his experiences and is tormented by religious doubts, does not want to die until he has found some kind of meaning to life and so he challenges Death to a game of Chess while he searches for answers to his questions. It's a very powerful film and one of the classics of world cinema. It's reviewed over at Permanently Weird. Today I got in to work at around half past eight and was there for six hours. There was a baguette run today and I had a panini with roast beef, cajun chicken, brie, savoury cheese, jalapeno peppers, English mustard and onion. After work I went up to the comic book store and got issues of Spawn, Batman and Robin, Northlanders, Fables Are Forever, Hellboy, The Unwritten, Red Robin, Daken: Dark Wolverine, Batman: Arkham and The Li'l Depressed Boy (which is a really good series, very similar to the Scott Pilgrim comics). I got home at around four.

A Day's Reading

Last night I reviewed the comic-books that I bought on Wednesday on Permanently Weird. I also started reading the Swamp Thing graphic novels which I got yesterday. The series was originally about a scientist named Alec Holland who was working in a remote Lousiana swamp on a serum to promote crop growth. However his lab is sabotaged and blown up with Alex inside it. Fatally injured and covered in the serum, Alec falls into the swamp and emerges as this giant half human half plant creature - the Swamp Thing. However Alan Moore rewrote the origin as having Alex actually killed by the explosion and the plants in the swamp, reacting to the serum, absorbed Alec's conciousness from his decomposing body and, not realising that he is dead, the conciousness reforms the plants into a mobile humanoid body. He kind of has an existential crisis, when he realises that he is actually a walking tree who thought he was a man. He also discovers he is an ancient elemental spirit from a mystical plant dimension. It is a good series actually, and when it really gets going it is very powerful, with some really striking horror elements. I decided to stay in today. The weather is nice, but not as warm as it was yesterday.

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.

Source Code

Last night I started writing the script for Script Frenzy. I got about three and a half pages written. It's a kind of horror, cyberpunk science-fiction script, based on a story idea I've had for years. Later on I watched the 1998 movie Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, directed by Steve Miner. It's the sixth sequel to the original Halloween film, and takes up the story of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) twenty years after the original, where she has a 17 year old son (Josh Hartnett) and is now working as a headteacher at a prestigious boarding school. While the rest of the school are off on a camping trip over Halloween, her son and three of his friends decide to take advantage of having the deserted school to themselves. Obviously before long, Laurie's murderous, invulnerable brother, Michael Myers (Chris Durand) to indulge his favourite hobby of slicing up teenagers, and anyone else he comes across, with large kitchen knives. It's actually a lot better than most of the others in the series. It owes a lot to the Scream series (Scream writer Kevin Williamson performed an uncredited rewrite on this film and acts as executive producer), with the same blend of shocks, jokes and movie references. Today I went out to the movies and saw Source Code, directed by Duncan Jones. The movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a US soldier who wakes up on a train with no memory of how he got there. He also doesn't know the woman sitting opposite him (Michelle Monaghan), but she knows him even though she seems to think he is someone else entirely. When he looks in the mirror he sees someone else's reflection staring back at him. Eight minutes after he wakes up, the train is destroyed in a bomb explosion. The soldier wakes up again to discover he is part of an experiment called "Source Code", which allows the participant to relive the last eight minutes of someone else's life. The train was destroyed that morning, and he has to keep going back through those last eight minutes in order to find the bomb and discover the bomber on the crowded train, before the same bomber detonates a nuclear device in downtown Chicago. It was a good movie with a really complex, intriguing plot and some great action and twists. Both of the movies are reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

Super-Noodles

Last night was really quiet. I spent most of the time reading my new comic-books. I must have been really tired because I did fall asleep on my couch again. It was a really dull day at work, but it was kind of nice that the sun was still out at six when I left. My friend Chris gave me a lift back, because he was going in my direction, which was really nice of him. I got some microwave super-noodles, which I haven't had since I was a child, but when I was about 13 or 14 we used to have them at least once a week. They tasted exactly the same as I remember. The new annual leave year starts today. I have forty five days I can take off this year. I've decided to take Monday off, so it should be a nice long weekend. I've posted a review of the comic-books that I read last night over at Permanently Weird.

Reading

Last night was pretty quiet. I mostly stayed in reading and watching the TV. It was a fairly quiet day at work, although there was a baguette run. I got a panini with roast beef, cajun chicken, English mustard, jalapeno peppers, brie and savoury cheese. I left work at around four and went up to the comic-book store. I got Kick-Ass 2 issue 2, The Suicide Forest issue 4, Detective Comics issue 875, American Vampire issue 13, Scalped issue 47, Daredevil Reborn issue 3, X23 issue 8 and Spawn: The Architects of Fear. There will be a Permanently Weird comic-book post coming up soon!

Akira

Last night I finished reading the sixth and final volume of Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story tells the story of a teenage biker gang member who finds himself developing devestating psychic powers in the futuristic world of Neo-Tokyo. As he begins to get lethally out of control, he becomes the target of both the military and violent anti-government fighters, as well as his one time best friend. However, it comes apparent that there is an even greater force in Neo-Tokyo: A mysterious super-being codenamed "Akira" who is being cryogenically stored in a top-secret subterranean stronghold and whose power is just beginning to awaken. It's basically one story told over a total of six volumes and 2,182 pages. The art-work is stunning and mostly it is a very well-written and entertaining comic. It was turned into an animated film in 1988. The books are reviewed over at Permanently Weird. It was another fairly quiet and uneventful day at work. I was really glad to get home again! It's really cold right now as well. I'm kind of looking forward to having a relaxing evening.

(500) Days of Summer

Last night I was watching a TV movie called Christopher and His Kind which starred Matt Smith (the current Doctor in Doctor Who) as novelist Christopher Isherwood and it was about Isherwood's experiences as a gay Englishman in 1930s Berlin, as the Nazis come to power. It was quite an interesting show. I've never read any of Isherwood's books but I still thought it was good.

Today I decided to stay in. I watched a movie this afternoon called (500) Days of Summer, directed by Marc Webb. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a greetings card designer, who meets and falls in love with a co-worker (Zooey Deschanel). The movie is told in a non-linear style, moving back and forth in time during the five hundred days of their relationship from the joy and exuberance of the early days if the relationship to the bitterness and heartbreak of the end. It was a good film actually. It's reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

As I've said before I'm not a huge fan of romance movies usually, and I know nothing about relationships as I've never really been in one and realistically have little to no chance of ever being in one.

A Tired Post

Last night was quiet. I spent most of the evening reading my nw comic books.

For anyone who is interested I posted reviews of some of the comics on Permanently Weird. Today was another quiet day at work.

I am going to try and get up early again tomorrow morning and leave work early. I'll have to go and get a Mother's Day card and present. It's not until a week on Sunday, but I don't like to leave it too late.

Ricky Gervais Show

Last night I was watching an episode of The Ricky Gervais Show. Basically Ricky Gervais and his friends Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington did an internet podcast which have now been turned into an animated series. It pretty much consists of Karl Pilkington saying various ridiculous things while Gervais laughs at him. In this one they were talking about whether seals evolved from crossbreeding fish and dogs. I also watched a double bill of The Big Bang Theory.

There was a baguette run at work today and I got a white bread panini with roast beef, onions, jalapeno peppers, brie, savoury cheese, English mustard and sliced egg. I took a half day from work today and went up to the comic book store. I got Hellblazer issue 277, Batman: Streets of Gotham issue 21, Batman: The Dark Knight issue 2, Batman Incorporated issue 4, The New York Five issue 3, Fables issue 103, Spawn issue 205, Ultimate Spider-Man issue 156, Silver Surfer issue 2, Dracula: The Company of Monsters issue 8, Neonomicon issue 4 and Hellraiser issue 1. The Hellraiser comic was co-written by Clive Barker and marks the first time he has been directly involved with the franchise since the first Hellraiser movie in 1987.

I went for a drink afterwards. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading weekly comic book reviews on my Permanently Weird site? Let me know if it's something you'd be interested in reading about.

Les Diaboliques

Last night I was watching the movie Kick Ass, directed by Matthew Vaughn, on TV. It's based on a comic-book by Mark Miller and John Romita, Jr. and tells the story of a New York City teenaged comic-book fan (played by Aaron Johnson) who, despite having no powers and no training, decides to become a superhero named "Kick-Ass". Despite the abysmal failure of his initial attempt he soon becomes an internet celebrity and attracts the attention of vengeful ex-cop turned superhero "Big Daddy" (Nicolas Cage) and his murderous 11 year old daughter "Hit Girl" (Chloe Grace Moretz). It is a really entertaining movie with plenty of humour and action.

Today I got some more of the Akira graphic novels by Katshiro Otomo delivered in the mail. Mostly I had a really quiet morning watching TV. In the afternoon I went out to the Filmhouse cinema to see the 1955 movie Les Diaboliques, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, with the Horror Group. The movie is based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, who also wrote the novel that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo. The film deals with the brutal and cruel headmaster of a second-rate boy's boarding school (Paul Meurisse) who is married to a fragile young teacher, Christina (Vera Clouzot), who has a weak heart, while openly carrying on an affair with another teacher, Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret). Tiring of his ill treatment of them both, Christina and Nicole decide to murder the headteacher. However, after the murder, the body goes missing and a succession of strange and disturbing events begin to occur. It is a really good suspense film, and features a memorable twist. Apparently it was one of the influences for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and Robert Bloch (who wrote the original novel Psycho) named it as his favourite horror film. After the movie we went out and had a couple of drinks. The movie is reviewed over at Permanently Weird.