Let’s Fold Scarves

The answer is, “You do, Lola”.

Kinky Boots

I was seduced by Chiwetel Ejiofor in this because for a long time he blinded me to how poor this film actually was. Why can’t the girlfriend/boyfriend/partner/spouse ever be supportive? How are we supposed to believe that this couple never talked to each other about major financial decisions? I’m not a writer but surely there is a better way of introducing tension than having our hero behave utterly abysmally towards the key to his and his factory’s success?

It started on a high with Simon dancing on the promenade and with two beautiful shots: the train whisking Charlie away and Lola’s red boots reflected in Charlie’s face as he lies on the pavement. The fact that this shot wasn’t repeated in the climax says it all.

The rest of the film was watchable but stupid. The final scenes in Milan were too contrived and the exuberance of the girls’ performance couldn’t quite overcome that. I thought Joe Edgerton looked like Albert Finney and Ejiofor was just absolutely fabulous.

Hellboy

I have a disappointing almost next to nothing to say about this – the “most underrated comic book adaptation” or, indeed the “best comic book adaptation” – which feels peculiar. It failed to engage me perhaps because the actors (with the exception of Ron Perlman and David Hyde Pierce’s voice) were bland and uninteresting and the story was, erm, the story was, sorry, I’ve forgotten it already. Finally, cgi fights are most of the time uninteresting: I watch the trailer for The Incredible Hulk and as the two cgi creations leap towards each other, I start snoring.

The Man Who Wasn’t There

Around about three quarters through this film I realised that when it ended I was guaranteed to think sfw? I was right. Dull, dull, dull and having Scarlett Johansson offer Ed a blow job when she had shown no signs of sexual precociousness pissed me off no end. The Coen brothers peaked a long time ago.

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Good God, that’s a lot of shake

Smashed (Drew Z. Greenberg)

We find out immediately that Willow is in a bad place when she complains to Amy-rat that Tara left her “for no good reason”. That makes it clear that she is in no state to change her behaviour particularly when the next thing she does is de-rat Amy. And that was stupidly and lazily easy: Amy should not have been a rat for so long. No wonder that later, when she has had time to think, she gets vengeful.

(Bloody hell the Mac advertising was unsubtle.) I can hardly bear to watch Willow’s behaviour in the denial scene. People do behave badly but it’s so horrible to watch.

The conversation about Willow in the Magic Box reminds me of this entertaining tangled synthesis. I love conversations that are either about something else or two things at the same time (not in real life mind because that sort of thing is seen whizzing miles over my head) and Buffy’s horror at the “seductive” word is very funny: “but we can’t assume that everybody’s getting seduced, you know, sometimes…” [they are]

My least favourite five minutes of BtVS consist of Willow and Amy being unspeakable in the Bronze and Buffy and Spike smashing up a house (and, OMG, you can hear the zip! – somehow that makes it all even ickier). It pains me to see Buffy enter this (literally) destructive and rather vile relationship.

Sooo, if I don’t like Willow and I don’t like Buffy and Spike’s relationship then I don’t like the show? Hell no, it’s still BtVS, it’s still as funny as ever, it’s still as fabulously acted as ever (for example, SMG on the phone to Spike is hilarious), it is still as involving as ever and Amber Benson is still in it – from now I was a credit hawk – ironically I almost missed the credit sequence when I rushed upstairs for a wee – Andy paused it for me because he was delighted and he didn’t know (but I did…).

They really slapped the make up on Amber in the lot of shake scene and in her brown/beige clothes she was borderline orange. However, hold the front page, but I genuinely like Willow’s outfit at the Bronze. The vest is particularly nice. Finally on the shallow notes, does Spike wear that chain all the time? It’s not nice.

I have said before and will say it again: Elizabeth Anne Allen is great, notably in her line delivery; as in one of the best delivered exchanges on BtVS :

“How’ve you been?”
“Rat. You?”
“Dead.”
“Oh.”

My problem with the Trio isn’t the actors who are super in their roles or their banter (which is geekily entertaining) it’s just that the concept is, as Anya says, “lame”.

Which brings me to Anya who is Anya great in this episode, the one who is forthright, honest and right. I wish she was always as well written.

Spike thinks he’s fixed and the first thing he does is try to kill someone. A real hero. I’m afraid I didn’t spot any attempt to wind himself up for the kill – he was just monologuing.

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“a total feminist blogosphere cliche”

(via The F Word Blog)

Liking Sarah Haskins may be a cliché but there are fine reasons: she is observant, endearing and funny.

More: weddings, yogurt and suffrage.

“I’m a form of punctuation that signifies an aside.”

“Say more stuff I generically relate to.”

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Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

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My Wordle

Posted in BtVS, Buffy Season 6, Images | 3 Comments »

“The Wedding List” live

Kate Bush, Phil Collins, Pete Townshend, Midge Ure and…

At 3.29 you can see why she is bit more covered up at the Secret Policeman’s Third Ball…

From the Prince’s Trust Rock Gala (1982)

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“Running Up That Hill” live

Awesome - well Kate is - the drumming is metronomic and the bassist has such 80s hair. Thanks a lot David!

From The Secret Policeman’s Third Ball (1987).

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Doctors must love that they finally have an answer for “I don’t know what’s wrong”

Mad Men “Ladies Room”

Another good episode although the series doesn’t seem as subtle as I expected it to be: gay Sal still grates and January Jones is being asked to wear her unhappiness like a badge.

I’m a little surprised that on the cusp of the sixties that a woman would be expected to get over the death of her mother in a mere three months though apparently this is what Betty ought to have done.

Don’s purchase of a watch for Betty seemed the height of crassness but that’s par for the course at Sterling Cooper. I’m interested that ad men are being portrayed as boorish oafs who say out loud and often how little they know or care about women (and indeed anything else) in an industry that is supposed to understand how people tick in an effort to sell them something.

I’m not keen on Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes’ name in Vertigo (1958)) - she hasn’t interested me yet.

I can’t wait for Peggy to tell Joan where to shove it. I assume that will happen in the future - it had better! I like Peggy a lot more in this episode - except for the inexplicable Pete fixation - she is now more clearly our character to root for.

Andy and I wondered if Paul (based entirely on the Twilight Zone reference) was going to be the only nice man in the office but he turned out to be a “nice guy(R)” instead.

I thought this moment was hilarious:

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You were expecting me to be a man. My father was, too.

Observations on Mad Men “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”

I am practically unspoiled regarding Mad Men and so I thought I would blog my random thoughts regarding each episode as we watch them.

The first episode was promising though I do have a major problem straightaway in that it is going to have to be about more than advertising to maintain my interest past the first few episodes. The problem with Studio 60 was that it was about a sketch show and after three interminable episodes I just could not bring myself to care about the characters agonising over its weekly production (although it was Dave Mason’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” at the end of the third episode that really sealed the deal).

It looked authentic although there perhaps wasn’t the right amount of fug that so much smoking would have produced and certainly the stripper looked like her body was all hers.

The closeted gay man was rather laughably overdone: it was so obvious as soon as he produced the drawing of his neighbour. The other executives seemed more realistic and except for a bit of toning down of the overt sexism they could be modern characters.

I hope that Joan (Christina Kendricks) is actually a Saffron like character - subverting from within rather than genuinely believing it all.

I assumed that Peggy was going to be the character we were naturally going to root for. The nice girl who was not going to succumb to the societal norms of the time. Instead she did take creepy Pete into her room after being rejected by Don.

I liked Rachel - mainly because she was the most modern woman in the programme - which brings me to the accusations of misogyny and sexism I do know that Mad Men has been accused of. My first reaction is that I don’t think the sexism (misogyny is far too strong a word) and the other isms have been presented in a Life on Mars way which, far too often for me, felt like it relished being as sexist and racist as it could. I think, so far, Mad Men, is trying to show how it was in many workplaces.

Don is intriguing: he already seems well-rounded and I want to know how his relations with the women in his life proceed. I guessed very belatedly that he was married.

Vincent Kartheiser as Pete looks so young and also a bit like Christopher Walken and I hope we are never supposed to like him.

I think Rachel’s line about hard it is to be a man may be the most significant line of the series.

I felt a bit uncomfortable watching it because it was so sexist and that made me fiddle with my toes a lot.

As a first episode/pilot, I liked it more than Damages or Heroes or Studio 60 or Ugly Betty or Battlestar Galactica so I am hopeful for the next few programmes. However, I loved the first episode of Pushing Daisies and I eventually gave that up.

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Baking for Adam’s party

Baking, originally uploaded by moley75.

Simple things make nice things: butter, sugar, flour, oats, lemon and syrup. All organic and/or Fairtrade (except the syrup which is Tate & Lyle and even they are moving over to Fairtrade).

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