When Marnie Was There

I stayed in today, mainly because I had a cold. The new issues of Fortean Times andSight and Sound arrived in the mail.

I half watched a movie called Killer: A Journal of Murder which stars James Woods as a serial killer in prison, who strikes up a strange friendship with a guard who encourages him to write his autobiography.

I also saw When Marnie Was There, an animated Japanese film about a girl who is sent to the country for her health, who becomes fascinated by a mysterious girl who lives in a run-down mansion. It's a good movie. I reviewed it here:http://permanentlyweird.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/when-marnie-was-there.html

Cafe Society

Last night I watched the movie The Usual Suspects, directed by Bryan Singer. The movie is told in flashback as con-man "Verbal" Kint (played by Kevin Spacey) recounts the events leading up to a horrific gun battle at the Los Angeles docks which led to 27 dead. Events that began six weeks earlier when Verbal and four other crooks (played by Benicio del Toro, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak and Gabriel Byrne) are brought together in a police line-up. The film has one of the most famous end twists in cinema history. The movie won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (for Kevin Spacey) and Best Original Screenplay.

The new issue of Sight and Sound arrived in the mail, as did a new hat that I had ordered.

I went to the movies this afternoon and saw Cafe Society, directed by Woody Allen. It stars Jesse Eisenburg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carrell and Blake Lively, and is set in the 1930s and tells the story of a young man from New York who goes to Hollywood to work for his uncle, who is a big-time Hollywood agent, and where he falls for a girl who is already involved with a married man. It's not very funny, but it is one of the better Woody Allen films, it's certainly his best looking film, the whole thing is beautifully shot.

Suicide Squad

Last night was pretty quiet. I did some reading and some writing.

The new issue of Sight and Sound magazine came in the mail this morning, it had a feature about actress Isabelle Huppert, a piece about the early career of Ingrid Bergman and an interview with Pedro Almodovar.

I went out this afternoon and saw the movie Suicide Squad. It's set in the DC Comics Universe, where, following the events of Batman vs. Superman the US Government decide to form a taskforce of the most powerful "metahuman" (superpowered) criminals in order to combat any future alien or supervillain threat. It's had really bad reviews from almost everywhere, but I quite enjoyed it. It's kind of a mess and tries to be several different things at once, but it had some great moments and was never boring.

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!

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.

Radio and Movies

Last night was fairly quiet. I was listening to the first episode of a new series of The Man in Black on the radio which was presenting the story of a student helpline operator who finds herself plagued by a mysterious and persistent caller who seems to have a connection with traumatic events from her past. It was pretty good. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. I watched some of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and National Lampoon's Vacation.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch, which was nice. The missing issue of Sight and Sound had arrived so that was good.

Missing Issue

Last night was pretty quiet. I still had a really bad cold and pretty much slept for most of the time.

This morning I was feeling a bit better, although the cold still hasn't gone away. My Dad called around for me this morning and we went along to the Gyle shopping centre. We had some coffee and I had a cheese scone and a mocha coffee, then split up to look around on our own. I got a couple of books: Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

After that we went to my parent's house where the latest issues of Fortean Times and Sight and Sound. Actually the previous issue of Sight and Sound never came so I've e-mailed them to get them to send another copy.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Last night I was watching Russell Brand: Scandalous on TV. Basically it was a recording of a stand-up comedy show which he had performed in London last year and he was discussing the various scandals that he had been involved in during the previous year or so. Russell Brand's comedy is not to everyone's tastes but I think a lot of it is pretty clever and often very funny.

After that I watched the 1984 movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, directed by Leonard Nimoy. The film, as the title suggests, is the third one to be spun-off from the popular science-fiction TV series Star Trek (1966-1969). In this film Mr. Spock (played by director Nimoy) has died and his body has been shot into space and landed on a planet which was just used as a test subject for the experimental Genesis Device, which creates life on dead planets. Meanwhile the badly damaged Starship Enterprise is heading back to Earth for repairs. On arrival Kirk (William Shatner) discovers that before Spock died he performed a "mind-meld" on Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) merging his mind with McCoys and that if McCoy and Spock's body are brought back to Spock's home planet, Vulcan, then there may be a way to save him. However, the Genesis Planet is completely forbidden and the Enterprise is being decomissioned, and to make matters worse, a group of Klingons are heading towards the Genesis Planet in order to steal it's secrets. The movie was pretty good, although non-Star Trek fans might find it overly confusing, also if you've not seen any of the movies before its not the best one to start of with. In fact the second, third and fourth Star Trek films are best seen in sequence because they all follow directly on from each other. Fans will probably like it though, and the special effects are really good.

I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday today, and saw that the latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived. The main feature this week was the films of "Old, Weird Britain" about some of the old rituals and rhythms of life in Britain which occasionally cropped up in movies in the 1960s and 70s, and also one of the last in-depth interviews with legendary actor and director Dennis Hopper. My parents both wanted to watch the Wimbledon tennis matches but I just tried to tune it out and read my book.

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 House of the Devil

Last night I ordered a movie from the On Demand TV service called The House of the Devil, a 2009 horror film directed by Ti West. The movie references and homages the horror films of the 1980s, and is set in 1980s America, telling the story of a student (played by Jocelin Donahue) who is really short of money and so takes a babysitting job at a remote house next to a graveyard and owned by a creepy old couple (played by Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov) on the night of a rare total lunar eclipse. The couple reveal that they don't have any children and want the student to look after an elderly relative. However before long she discovers some dark and gruesome secrets in the house. It's actually a fun and suspenseful movie which benefits a lot from it's slow pace but has plenty of gory set-pieces.

This morning I went along with my Dad to the Ocean Terminal shopping centre and I had some coffee and a muffin at Costa Coffee before we split up to look around. I bought some books in the centre which were Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division by Deborah Curtis, which is a biography of Ian Curtis, lead singer in the band Joy Divison, written by his wife, 1974 by David Peace and 1977 by David Peace, which are the first two novels in the "Red Riding Quartet" of crime novels, and a horror novel called The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce.

After the shopping we went to my parent's house where the latest issues of Fortean Times and Sight and Sound had arrived. The lead story in Fortean Times was about scientists who had been trying to discover whether the human soul had physical form and whether it could be photographed or weighed. The lead story in Sight and Sound was about the depiction of corrupt cops in cinema, the film career of pulp novelist Jim Thompson and a poll of film critics to find the best film books of all time.

My Mum had planned a barbecue for today but the weather was too cold and so we had to abandon it, but we had some barbecue chicken, peas and diced potato with garlic butter. After lunch Mum and I walked along to Sainsburys where I got a couple of DVDs, of the movies The City of Lost Children, which is a very good but very weird French fantasy, science-fiction, horror film that I've seen a few times before and Hansel and Gretel, which is a horror movie take on the classic story from South Korea.

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.

Suspiria

Last night I was watching the 1977 film Suspiria, directed by Dario Argento. The movie tells the story of a young American woman who goes to a ballet school in Germany, where she quickly learns that gruesome and bizarre events are underway. Like many Argento films the storyline is almost non-existant, and pretty much just serves as a thread on which Argento hangs his trademark elaborate and gruesomely violent set-pieces. The movie has a really distinctive look, full of strange overbright colours and scenes flooded in red, green and blue light. It also has a memorable shrieking score by Italian rock band Goblin.

This morning I went along to the Ocean Terminal shopping centre with Dad. We started off at Costa Coffee for a coffee and a muffin and then had a look around the mall. After that we went back to my parent's house. The latest issues of Sight and Sound and Fortean Times had arrived during the week. The travel agent telephoned to confirm some details about my holiday, and I listened to the third and final part of the radio adaptation of The Honourable Schoolboy.

Monty Python

Last night I watched a documentary called Monty Python - (Almost) the Truth: The BBC Lawyers Cut. It was about the history of the "Monty Python" comedy troupe, set up to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series. A lot of people go on about the six members really hating each other, when from what I've heard and read, they really got on pretty well. There were arguements about what sketches were or were not included in the series, Terry Jones apparently used to get frustrated about the technical limitations of the TV show, and John Cleese left at the end of the third season to do other things, but it just seemed to be what you would expect from a group of talented witers and performers who all had their own ideas. It was funny though. I'm quite a big Monty Python fan so I knew most of it already. I remember I was eleven when I first saw the show and I really didn't find it funny at all. I didn't get the humour and the animation sequences just completely freaked me out, but when I saw it again four years later I thought it was hilarious. I used to have the video game for the Amstrad as well. That was the funniest video game I have ever played. You had to go through this "Name the Cheese" mini-game to get to the main one, and then you played this character going around this world styled around the TV animation scenes searching for the four pieces of your brain, which had run off and split up. Along the way you had to eat cheese and defeat killer Keep Left signs and attacking dead parrots by shooting fish at them. Also when you least expected it, the Spanish Inquisition would show up to torture you with comfy chairs and soft cushions.

I watched the end of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which was very good and surprisingly faithful to a very difficult book for a TV adaptation. It's the kind of show that probably wouldn't be made these days, because it is so sedately paced, so you need to give it time and patience to work.My parents had returned from holiday on Friday and so this morning my Dad came round and we went along to the Ocean Terminal shopping mall, where we had a muffin and coffee at Starbucks before going back to my parent's house. My Dad had to go away early because he had some Golf coaching to do. The latest issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived. There was a really interesting article in it about the recent wave of vampire movies. It actually gave me afew ideas for this year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). There was also an interesting article in one of the Sunday newspapers about Stanley Kubrick's unmade film about the life of Napolean, which he had managed to fill 88 boxes with thousands of pages of script, notes, designs and photographs for the film. Kubrick himself joked it was "the greatest film he never made." For lunch we had some sushi to start and then chicken and mashed potatoes in white wine sauce, followed by marshmallows in chocolate fondue.

After lunch, my Mum and I went out to town to look through the shops. I got some new posters and a graphic novel called The Sandman - Volume Seven: Brief Lives written by Neil Gaiman. Which means that I now have seven of the twelve main volumes in The Sandman graphic novel series.

I got home at around quarter past five and spent about an hour and a half putting up the new posters.

Taking a Walk

Last night I was watching the first four episodes of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on DVD. The story, based on the novel by John le Carre, involves retired secret agent George Smiley (played by Alec Guinness) who is brought back to uncover the identity of a top level double agent who has infiltrated "the Circus" (the British Secret Service). The story is very intricate and complex, but there isn't really much action in it, the story unfolding at a slow and sedate place.

I went along to my parent's house for lunch, as usual, today. The latest issues of Sight and Sound and Fortean Times arrived today. For lunch we had roast chicken, diced roast potatoes with garlic butter and peas, with apple pie and cream for dessert. After lunch my Mum and I went along to the train station in order for Mum to get a timetable. Then we went to Starbucks for a mocha coffee and a chocolate muffin.

A Game of You

Last night I was reading the graphic novel of The Sandman: A Game of You written by Neil Gaiman. The story concerned a woman who used to dream about an elaborate Narnia-style fantasy world, however she has not dreamed about it for several years, until her dreamworld starts to invade her real life. It was another really good story, very well written with some really impressive artwork.

This morning I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday. The latest issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived. This month's feature article was called "The Wild Bunch" which features profiles of fifty movie directors who "make films that are uncategorisable, in which cinematic language, taste and even reality itself are bent to their will". There was also a competition to win fifty movies on DVD from twenty-six of the directors profiled in the feature (that would be £800 worth of DVDs).

After lunch we all went along to Princes Street Gardens to listen to the free outdoor jazz concert that they have every year. It was pretty good.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

Yesterday evening I listened to an episode of The Price of Fear on the radio. It's a series of one off half-hour horror plays for the radio from the 1970s hosted by Vincent Price. This week's story was called "The Family Album" and concerned a mild-mannered commuter whose wife is having an affair with his best friend. The wife and her boyfriend consider the commuter to be a timid joke, but he is secretly planning a macabre revenge.

Later on I watched an Arena documentary about the life and work of the famous poet T. S. Eliot, which was very interesting. After the show I must have fallen asleep on the sofa for awhile. When I woke up I saw a 1965 film on TV called Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, directed by Freddie Francis. The movie is made up of five different stories linked by a framing story, and it starts when five strangers (incuding Christopher Lee and a young Donald Sutherland) meet an elderly tarot card reader (played by Peter Cushing) on a train. The tarot card reader claims that he will tell each of the five how they will die and proceeds to tell each of them a series of stories involving werewolves, man-eating plants, voodoo curses, disembodied living hands and vampires. It was the first of a series of such films that were made in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Mostly it's neither scary nor gruesome although it is still fun.

This morning my Dad came to pick me up fairly early and take me over to my parent's house. The reason for that is because he is playing in the final of his golf club championships this afternoon. The latest issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived during the week. This month's main features including a report on the Cannes Film Festival, interviews with Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch and an article about the career of experimental film-maker Kenneth Anger. My Mum and I went along to Pizza Express where I had dough balls and garlic butter to start and a Four Seasons pizza (that's one where each quarter of the pizza has a differnet topping: one is plain cheese and tomato, another has anchovies and capers, a third has pepperoni and the fourth has mushrooms). It was really good. When I got back I watched a couple of episodes of Peep Show on DVD.

Time Enough At Last

Yesterday evening I was listenign to an episode of the radio version of The Twilight Zone. This week's story was an adaptation of the famous episode about a bank clerk who's main love in life is reading, but never has enough time to do it. Until that is, a neutron bomb explodes wiping out all the people except for the clerk, who had locked himself in the bank's vault to get some reading done on his lunch hour. Emerging into the empty city he discovers he has all the time in the world to do as much reading as he wants. However, fate has a nasty shock in store for him. It is a really good episode with one of the best of the Twilight Zone twist endings. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. I did some more work on my story. I read the second volume of The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, which was really good. I am definitely going to get some of the others in the series when I get the chance. I've only read the first two collected volumes (there are eleven in total) but it is shaping up so far to be one of the best, if not the best, comic book series I have ever read. Later on I switched on a horror film called Shrooms but I fell asleep about half an hour into it. I'll watch it again and see if I can stay awake through the whole thing.

I went to my parent's house for lunch as usual for a Sunday. The latest issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived for me during the week. It was a pretty good edition of the magazine this month, with the main feature being a preview of this year's Cannes Film Festival. Our lunch was tacos, minced beef, salad, mushrooms, salsa sauce and mayonnaise. I always like our Sunday lunches because it's really the only time I usually get some good food!

The Scariest Movie

I managed to get to sixteen pages on the Script Frenzy script yesterday. Last night was fairly quiet, I watched an episode of The Wire that I taped from TV on Friday night. Later on I watched the second and last part of The 100 Greatest Scary Moments. They rated The Shining as the scariest film of all time, with it's scariest moment being the famous sequence where Jack Nicholson smashes down the door with his axe and shouts out "Here's Johnny!" The second scariest film of all time according to the poll was The Exorcist.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch as usual. The latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived with the main feature this month concerning the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the French New Wave movement.

We went along to Pizza Express for lunch. I had a some fried dough balls with garlic butter and Four Seasons Pizza (which had tomato, cheese, mushrooms, anchovies, capers and olives) along with a bottle of Peroni Nastro beer. That was really nice.

Eternal Sunshine

Last night I was watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The movie tells the story of Joel (played by Jim Carrey) who falls for a woman named Clementine (Kate Winslet). However, the relationship falls apart and Clementine hires a company to erase all her memories of Joel. When he finds out, Joel goes to the same company to get them to erase all his memories of Clementine. However, during the procedure he discovers that alongside all the bad memories that are being taken away, so too are all the good memories, and so he finds himself burying back through his memories in an attempt to stop the procedure. It's one of my favourite movies and I saw it a couple of times in the cinema and I have it on DVD.

After the movie I listened to a radio adaptation of An Inspector Calls, based on a stage play by J.B. Priestley. The story revolves around a wealthy family, whose lives are disrupted when an Inspector arrives to interview them about a woman's suicide. It was pretty good.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch, as usual. The new issue of Sight and Sound had arrived. The main feature this month was about Stanley Kubrick.

Dead Ringers

Last night I was listening to an old episode of the comedy series Dead Ringers on the radio. It's a sketch show where comedians do impressions of celebrities and people in the news, and is often very funny. The episode I was listening to was first broadcast in 2000, so it was out of date but still funny.

I decided what DVD to order for the Sight and Sound subscription renewal offer. I've gone for the Orson Welles film F for Fake, which is kind of an off-beat documentary about fakes, forgeries and illusions, but (given the subject matter) the film mixes reality and fiction. I've seen it before and it is a pretty good film. So that's all mailed off now.

Work was pretty much the same as usual, and was pretty repetitive. I was e-mailing my friend Joe during the afternoon, mostly we were talking about video games. I got home at around half past five and had a microwaved spaghetti bolognese meal.