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alexsarllAnother Britpop OD at Nuisance on Friday, then on Saturday a pre-Solstice trip to the Heath to catch Sunday's sunrise - an experience captured in alarming stop-motion form here, minus only the encounter with a group of louts who were apparently accompanied by Effie from Skins, and who asked us if we were a hen party, or on heroin. Interesting point on which to be uncertain, I felt. A wonderful time, equal parts mystical and ludicrous (and nicely counterpointed by catching the post-Solstice sunset from Greenwich Park's hill yesterday). The only problem was that after, when we wanted breakfast, it was Sunday so none of the cafes were open. We ended up in McDonalds, with which I don't have as much of a problem as some - except it wasn't doing fries. Or vegeburgers. Or milkshakes. And if a McDonalds doesn't do fries, vegeburgers or milkshakes, then what exactly is the point of it?
After that all-nighter, Sunday was inevitably a bit of a write-off. Read the paper and some C-list superhero comics from the library, ate, and finally watched Gone Baby Gone. Initially I thought that like so many much-praised films it was going to be a middlebrow let-down, because the opening montage-with-voiceover is a bit trite, a bit pat, a bit Hollywood - which is especially frustrating when the DVD includes an extended alternative with no such problem, at the cost of only a few extra minutes. But even before I knew this, I was soon won over. Casey Affleck really does make a very good Everyman lead, because he looks like someone you know - you don't know who, but someone. Michelle Monaghan, as his partner in both senses, combines a little of Liv Tyler and something of Zooey Deschamel without being as distractingly luminous as either. The rest of the cast is dotted with people who - like the writer of the book on which it's based - have done time on The Wire (and seeing Omar as a cop is especially startling). And the story works both as a nicely ambiguous thriller, and a meditation on society's obsession with child abduction cases, and indeed with children in general. I think Ben Affleck's move behind the camera may have been a very smart one.
Needless to say, I am still reeling from 'The Pandorica Opens'. Speaking as someone who watched Tom Baker's classic The Talons of Weng-Chiang the day before, I can still quite happily say that 'Pandorica' was top-notch Doctor Who. Something which may or may not hold true once we've seen how it's resolved, of course - but if Who has taught us anything, it's the importance of hope. Part of me is wondering whether Amy was a trap all along ("doesn't it worry you that your life doesn't make sense?") - but if so, whose? 'Curse of Fatal Death' style, I suspect the post-Pandorica Doctor - the one we saw with his jacket on talking to Amy in the forest in the bottle on the starship in the maze - may have gone back further than the Alliance, set his trap before they set theirs. And that older Doctor, with so much time to plan and think, who comes out - that's going to be River's Doctor, isn't it?
I had problems flicker through my mind while I was watching, but unlike a Rusty episode where they loom larger afterwards, these ones go away with a little thought. How dense was the Doctor being not to realise what "the most dangerous thing in the galaxy" was? Well, we've seen already that this incarnation has massive gaps when it comes to self-awareness, most dangerously at the climax of 'The Beast Below'. What were sensible races like the Earth Reptiles and Draconians, or space cops the Judoon, doing allied with Daleks and Cybermen? No more nonsensical than the UK and USA allying with Stalin.
And didn't River Song as Cleopatra look like Kate Bush?
After that all-nighter, Sunday was inevitably a bit of a write-off. Read the paper and some C-list superhero comics from the library, ate, and finally watched Gone Baby Gone. Initially I thought that like so many much-praised films it was going to be a middlebrow let-down, because the opening montage-with-voiceover is a bit trite, a bit pat, a bit Hollywood - which is especially frustrating when the DVD includes an extended alternative with no such problem, at the cost of only a few extra minutes. But even before I knew this, I was soon won over. Casey Affleck really does make a very good Everyman lead, because he looks like someone you know - you don't know who, but someone. Michelle Monaghan, as his partner in both senses, combines a little of Liv Tyler and something of Zooey Deschamel without being as distractingly luminous as either. The rest of the cast is dotted with people who - like the writer of the book on which it's based - have done time on The Wire (and seeing Omar as a cop is especially startling). And the story works both as a nicely ambiguous thriller, and a meditation on society's obsession with child abduction cases, and indeed with children in general. I think Ben Affleck's move behind the camera may have been a very smart one.
Needless to say, I am still reeling from 'The Pandorica Opens'. Speaking as someone who watched Tom Baker's classic The Talons of Weng-Chiang the day before, I can still quite happily say that 'Pandorica' was top-notch Doctor Who. Something which may or may not hold true once we've seen how it's resolved, of course - but if Who has taught us anything, it's the importance of hope. Part of me is wondering whether Amy was a trap all along ("doesn't it worry you that your life doesn't make sense?") - but if so, whose? 'Curse of Fatal Death' style, I suspect the post-Pandorica Doctor - the one we saw with his jacket on talking to Amy in the forest in the bottle on the starship in the maze - may have gone back further than the Alliance, set his trap before they set theirs. And that older Doctor, with so much time to plan and think, who comes out - that's going to be River's Doctor, isn't it?
I had problems flicker through my mind while I was watching, but unlike a Rusty episode where they loom larger afterwards, these ones go away with a little thought. How dense was the Doctor being not to realise what "the most dangerous thing in the galaxy" was? Well, we've seen already that this incarnation has massive gaps when it comes to self-awareness, most dangerously at the climax of 'The Beast Below'. What were sensible races like the Earth Reptiles and Draconians, or space cops the Judoon, doing allied with Daleks and Cybermen? No more nonsensical than the UK and USA allying with Stalin.
And didn't River Song as Cleopatra look like Kate Bush?
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Date: 2010-06-22 05:08 pm (UTC)IODWN, I have given up on Genesis of the Daleks as it was dull, am watching Talons of Weng-Chiang, much better.