The Adventures, Mishaps and Musings of Me

Just saw the sixth Harry Potter film.  Verdict:  Absoloutly excellent.  It strongly challenges (and I believe wins) for being the best film out of the six adaptations thus far.  Of course, my Mum had to be embarassing and scream loudly as the corpses rose from the water during the Horcrux cave scene, but that's Mums for you, can't take them anywhere...

On the film, thankfully, Hermionie has stopped performing eyebrow gymnastics instead of acting, and Tom Felton really stepped up to the darker role of Draco, rather then simply being comic relief, and on screen sold everything Malfoy was going through.  The only weak link in the cast this time was Ginny who, with Harry, had all the on screen chemistry of a table leg.    

It's worth noting that the finale of the film is much smaller then in the book.  There is no auror battle, rather the death eaters come, kill Dumbledore (oops spoiler) and leave.  However, this decision forces the audience to focus on the drama, rather then a firework action show and works to heighten the sense of tragedy - there were definite sniffings in the audience.

My only complaints are that the film, like the fith, is a continuation and there seems to be no strong beginning or end.  A flaw that the seventh film part I is no doubt going to suffer even more.  On the beginning, I could have done without the "American disaster film collapsing bridge" scene (or rather spectacle) and have Snape's unbreakable vow moved to the very beginning to set the tone instead.  Also, during the film, although there were multiple oppurtunities, there was no attempt to set up the existence of the relationship between Snape and Lilly, something that needs to be done in order to make the conclusion of the seventh film credible.

However, unavoidable gripes aside, it is the best Potter movie so far.

Last night, was the weekly apperitivo-movie night tradition!  A tradition that, although we do it almost every week, we have only successfully managed to make it to the cinema five times in total.  There are a complete managiary of diffrent reasons for this but, to generalise, we are either too drunk, too late, too lost, or a combination of the three, to make it from the bar to the cinema on time.  The cocktail and buffet part of the evening (due to the nature of said Milanese cocktails being able to put one in a rather legless state before you can say "inebrieted") tends to rudely dominate the cinema part of the evening into non existence.  However, last night accounted for the sixth fully successful apperetivo-movie night!  "The Wrestler" being on the menu instead of White Russians and Angelo Azzuros.  

After the miracle of making it on time, though not particulaly sober (No, I couldn't work out where to go to buy popcorn) we sat down to watch the movie that the trailer implied was like Rocky, except more man tears.  Said expectations were completely mistaken (apart from the man tears) and blown apart by the film.  It was raw, it was painful and it was so, so, so bleak.

( Staple Guns and Artistic Merit Continued... )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Last night, I went out, first, to a Sushi bar to show off my mad chop stick skills once again.  Although, this is my third time at a Sushi bar, I believe it is the first time I've ever tried Wasabi sauce.  Nothing could have prepared me for the dynamite force of a little green blob.  It tastes very much like English mustard, only twenty times stronger.  I shall now treat little green blobs with the reverence they deserve.

Afterwards, we went to a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show!!  Again, nothing could have prepared me for the indescribable spectacle (and, yes, I have got it on video at home) of seeing Rocky Horror at a theatre showing.  Insane.  And weird.  And utterly, utterly amazing.  Just know that when everyone around you is wearing fishnet tights and platform shoes, you can't help but feel somewhat suspect for wearing trousers.  Almost like turning up to the Sunday morning church service wearing a hijab.

And to give you a little taster, here are the things necessary to bring with you to a showing of RHPS:

1. 1 Newspaper
2.  1 Latex Glove
3.  1 Elasticated Party Hat.
4.  1 Scrap of Bandage.
5.  Playing Cards
6.  Rice.
7.  Confetti.
8.  Ability to dance the Time Warp.
9.  Knowledge of Rocky Horror lyrics.

Don't question why you need to bring this assortment of strange items - it all becomes clear in the heat of the mayhem!  Unless you're my Chinease or Eastern European friends who were all completely confounded by the movie (and the fans) - they put the it down as a strange Western fascination :P

...

ASSHOLE!

I had a bloody fantastic time at Rolling Stone last night, except for one thing.  My favourite black jacket was stolen!  Seriously, I must have been tempting fate with talking to fadagaski  about Milan's thief issues And what's even more annoying is that it had my detailed map of Milan in it, which has been my bible for the past two months.  RIP map *sniff* I will miss you.  I'll never forget all the times we shared together; planning nights out at the back of lectures; trying to figure out how the hell to get home at 3:00am in the morning in the middle of the street - you shall be dearly missed.

Luckily, I didn't have any valuables in the jacket, and I knew my way home without a map (After a Long Island Iced Tea and an Angelo Azzuro that's quite impressive :P).  But still, walking home at 5:00am in the morning, in November, wearing just a shirt wasn't much fun.  I bought hot breakfast (toasted brie and ham baguette thingy - yummy) and was able to hop on a bus to take me most of the way.  (One thing that is great about Milan is the cheap, always on time network of public transportation). 

The loss of my jacket and map aside, it was a great night - first night at Rolling Stone since my mid term exams - woot!

Friday night, I went to the cinema to see, of all things,  "Mamma Mia!"  For those of you who have seen this crazy, corny to the power of ten movie, imagine seeing it dubbed rather badly in Italian with the songs remaining in the original English, with Italian sub titles.  Little to say, it was priceless!  It wasn't my kind of movie at all (being more into dark, twisted films) yet I thoroughly enjoyed it and laughed heartily all the way through (the fact that I couldn't follow what was being said most of the time made no difference - if anything it probably enhanced the experience!).  All the Italians loved it, the whole cinema clapped along to the last two songs and then applauded at the end. 

...

It would have been a fantastic weekend, if not for losing my flippin' jacket!!!!!

I think I'll go express my annoyance in the real world now.

Ah, Halloween.  I had a maths exam in the morning which supplied the “absolute shitless terror” part of Halloween nicely. Taylor’s formula > Psychopathic brain eating zombies, every time.

Then in the evening I watched Saw for the first time and, I have to say, after hearing so much about Saw as a relentless blood n guts piece of torture porn, I was pleasantly (should a post about Saw really contain the word “pleasant” in a non ironic way?) surprised with the actual film.

It had concepts!  And ideas!  And OMG themes!  For anyone who hasn’t seen it, let me outline the opening premise:  Two guys (a youth and a surgeon) wake up in a run down bathroom, both of them chained by the foot to opposite walls, both of them with no idea how they got there.  The youth is told (by way of tape recorded message) that he has until a certain time to escape and the surgeon is told that he has to kill the youth otherwise his wife and kid will be murdered…   

Slowly the film unveils who these two men are and how they are connected in a series of flash backs inter cut with the rusty bathroom situation, with many hints, twists and turns along the way.  I would actually call the film clever – it kept me guessing all the way along! 

And as for the gore?  On a horror film level, it was pretty limited.  Seriously, the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Shining were bloodier then Saw.  But, that’s the thing, I really wouldn’t class Saw as a horror movie because it wasn’t a “scary” film, unpleasant at points, but not terror inducing. I would class it more as a thriller.  A gory thriller, but a thriller nonetheless.

I suppose the bottom line is that, as the first in the franchise, Saw 1 had story, depth and any “torture porn” was incidental.  Above all, it was just really great, interesting film making.  It is the sequels (such is the way of all movie franchises) that became just a dumb gore fest.

Whose looking forward to thirty years time when we have “Saw: The Inevitable Remake"?

Went to see the third Mummy film (something dragon something kingdom) last night.  Bloody awful film.

Before I get stuck into my rant, let's get one thing clear: I speaketh to you as a huge fan of the first two Mummy films.  They were great action-adventure movies which I totally enjoyed when I first watched them aged 11 and still totally enjoy now.  With that said, onto the rant.

The problems with Mummy 3 (as I shall now refer to it) are many fold.  Firstly, there is no Rachel Weiss - a key element to the first two movies.   But, instead of writing her character out, they try to replace her with a woman who cannot act nor do a Englsih accent.  Actually, her horrific accent turned out to be a good thing as it distracted you away from the horror of her performance.

Secondly, there is the character of the son (who has grown up to be a carbon copy of the father, except more of a prick) who, like his mother, also cannot act to save his life and was thoroughly irratating every time he came on screen and tried to "out macho" Brendan Frasier.  The weird thing was that, unlike the mother's charachter who annoyed me less as the film went on, with every apperance of the son the hatred bubbled and deepened!

Perhaps, these two casting flaws could be over come, if the film had a sharp script and original story... Alas, it was not to be.  The dialogue was laughably bad (did Rachel Weiss turn it down after reading a draft of the script one wonders?).  And when I say "laughably bad" I mean prequel to "The Scilence of the Lambs" bad.  Yes, that bad.  And no, John Hannah, should not be allowed to yell "spank my arse" in the middle of an action sequence.

Lastly and most importantly, the story was just run-of-the-mill whatevery.  A mummy is regenerated, who wants to take over the world, Brendan Frasier must stop it.  It's just a rehash of the previous two movies, with everything good and interesting removed from it.  The only difference being the fact that we're in China - honestly, when will Hollywood learn that there is more to Asia then just China? - and we have to sit through one dull martial arts sequence, which thoroughly wasted the talents of Jet Li (who has to play a thoroughly 2D villian with no personality whatsoever).

All in all - this movie should never have been made (espicially without RW) as it had absoloutly nothing new to bring to the table even with a change of scenary.  A thoroughly bland movie that no one should go and see.  Phew, glad I've got that one of my chest...