Saturday, January 30, 2016

Baise Moi

For a long time now I've wanted to watch this film and finally this week I had a chance so I took it. It is the story of two unemployed French women who live life on the edge - not holding down a proper job and forced to make a living by sex or begging. One of them is brutally raped and the other witnesses her boyfriend shot dead in the street outside his hotel. Things go out of control when one of the women accidentally kills her brother, she then robs his café till and takes his car. The two women happen to meet when they find the same train station shut. They then use the money and car to go on a spending and murder spree. They meet a variety of people on their journey and usually the meetings end in killing.
I watched a documentary afterwards. I thought it was an interesting film. There were some sex scenes in the film and I understand that they were not simulated but were in fact real. It feels odd to watch a film intended for mainstream cinemas with real sex scenes, the actresses had made porno movies before they were cast in this film. It is a subversive film in some ways, it was directed by two women (one of whom wrote the book on which it is based). It was banned in France for the combination of sex and violence. It is an extreme film, so is not for the squeamish but at the same time the violence is no more than something like Scarface. I think it is the combination with sex and that the actresses seem to enjoy the sex.


Rabid by David Cronenberg

Just two weeks ago I blogged about buying the film Shivers from a charity shop and watching it. Today, I saw Rabid in a charity shop and bought it. I used to have Rabid on VHS and while similar to Shivers in tone I think it is a slightly better made film. The themes and notions are similar to Shivers but I think the story is a little more developed and the effects benefit from a bigger budget. I feel very lucky to have found these two great films so close to each other.


Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Relaxation

More years ago than I can remember, my daughter seems to remember it though, I think I bought my wife a foot massager. Now, my memory has completely gone about this - I don't remember anything. I just know that the foot massager has been in the bottom of the wardrobe for some time but is now coming out a few times a week to enjoy some time in the sun (so to speak). I started using it to set the trend and now my wife is using it as well.
Well, I dug it out on Sunday (after doing some tidying recently) and looked it up on the company website. I then saw that there was a seat cover back massager on sale. So I love having a good back massage and so I decided to go ahead and order one as it was on sale and comes with a two year guarantee. It was £44 instead of £64 so not a bad discount at all. I will let you know how it all goes.



The Matrix

I watched The Matrix on Sunday evening with my son who has not seen it before. The pacing in that film is so good, there is not a dull moment. It really is a giant in the world of sci-fi cyberpunk films. I love how innovative it was when it was first released and it still stands up as a strong film even today. I looked for it on DVD in our cupboards however couldn't find it, so we ended up watching it from a UMD of it I had for the Sony PSP - I have a cool cable that links it to the television so we watched it at reasonably good quality, not bad for a small device to power such a larger screen. Great film, always take the Red pill!


Sunday, January 17, 2016

Interstellar

Having bought the Blu-ray of this film a while ago, I thought last night was the time to see this film. It felt very long. I thought the main character was very annoying and he detracted from my enjoyment. It was a film that tried to do too many things for me. I didn't see enough sci-fi in it for my liking. Far too much time was taken up at the start with Coop on Earth. Then a load of physics was thrown in our face. Then there was a sole survivor scientist who they tried to save but who went mad. So, it felt a little bit clichéd in places and at other times felt slow. It also got too serious with itself. There were elements of other sci-fi films but none were that well taken up. The music was pretty good though, it certainly increased the drama to a higher level than the acting did.

Jurassic World

Over the Christmas and New Year period we watched Jurassic World. I was disappointed with it. There were few interesting moments in the film. It certainly was nowhere near as memorable as Jurassic Park. It features a return to a dinosaur theme park. However, this time I wasn't concerned by the plight of the theme park guests. It just didn't make me want to see the humans live, I wanted the dinosaurs to conquer them.


The Day of the Dead

I have watched George A Romero's film Day of the Dead this week. It's the third in his series after Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. The movie is set in an underground mine where a set of scientists and military personnel are isolated and trying to find the answer. The chief scientist is trying to find a way to domesticate the dead. He has a zombie called Bob who represents his most successful subject to date. The situation is bad as there is a lot of internal tension in the group and this eventually boils over into unimaginable horror. It's an amazing film in terms of the level of gore it provides.


Shivers

I've been a fan of David Cronenberg for a long time. I don't like all his movies to the same degree though but some of the films he made in the 1970s and 1980s are in my all time favourites list. Shivers was a film I hadn't seen before. I associate the films Shivers, The Brood, Rabid and Scanners together. All strangely fascinating in their own way. Shivers is the simpler film in many ways. I like the way that not very much is explained in this film. The budget is noticeably small but I like that in a way. I think it made its funding back many times over!
The story is about the spread of a parasitic bug that incites its host to become sexually voracious. The parasite looks like a turd. An odd choice but there you go. There are some great set pieces in the film and some memorable acting. There are also some very lame effects and lame acting too, sadly.


Sunday, January 03, 2016

Jagermeister

This week I tried a new liqueur, I bought a pack from Tesco of this drink that included two miniatures and two shot glasses. I asked how much it would be and when the lady on the tills said £2.50 I thought it was cheap enough to try it out. It was obviously a knock down price to get rid of stock bought in just for Christmas. The shot glasses alone will come in useful.
I put the drink and the glasses into the freezer. I didn't really know what to expect. It smelled quite strong, of a sort of aniseed or menthol flavour. That is pretty much what it tasted like. It wasn't completely unpleasant but wasn't as nice as I thought it might be. It had a similarity with cough syrup, being fairly sweet and dark ruby in colour. As it is sold in green glass you don't see what colour it is. I haven't drunk the other bottle, I might save that for another day. A friend of mine said he has enjoyed a drop of it on the ski slopes and I imagine that it would be nice and warming in those circumstances. Or perhaps when hunting deer in the frozen Norwegian tundra!



Sadly, the holidays are over

January usually bites in some ways, the first of the bites is the back to work one. I don't go back tomorrow as many do, however I will return on Tuesday and by then I will be feeling quite uncomfortable knowing that most of the people I work with have already returned and got a start on me. C'est la vie I think the expression goes.
I don't really feel like I've done very much this holiday. We have entertained people at home it seems more than usual this year. So, a lot of the time we have been preparing for people to come around. I've done some alcohol drinking and a lot of eating. I thought I would have catched up on more TV than I actually have.