The Current Outlook

And after a very long hiatus, here I am. I am deciding to blog again. Well, at least until something else happens to distract me. My Flickr output is on my own page. Much of my new stuff is now there to look at and read. I only mention this as an opening post because… well, why not?

I went to see the film Brief Encounter last night. I must say that I quite enjoyed seeing it again. The one sticking point for me was that they couldn’t actually show the film properly! The film, being a pre-1950s affair, was shot at an aspect ratio of 1.37:1. Most modern cinema screens can only handle widescreen films so a good quarter of the frame was missing from the screen. This did make compositions look rather awkward at times. Apart from that it was interesting enough. There is quite a bit of local relevance to the film as the station they used was actually in Carnforth. I have been to that station and you can look at a few of my shots here.

Quite a few things have happened in my life since I last edited this page. I have visited several different countries (those being Portugal, Spain and Gibraltar and soon, Malta too) and have taken many shots. Here’s my thoughts on these countries:

Portugal: We holidayed in Tavira, a small town in the Algarve. A nice enough place but there wasn’t really a lot to do there. After a day or so walking around the town we got bored. The food was OK (nothing at all special, really) and the beer was reasonably cheap. A large Super Bock cost about €2.00 (£1.40) at most of the places we stopped at. I visited Faro and quite liked it there. We drove through some of the smaller towns like Olhão en route. I must say that out of all the places that I saw while I was in Iberia, Faro would be the one place I’d like to go back to.

Spain: For some people (mainly British and German expats) a life in the Costa del Sol is a dream. A nice place in the sun? But why? I’m sorry to speak ill of a place but the majority of the south coast of Spain is a terrible hole with little to recommend it. There are mediocre Spanish restaurants, terrible ‘English’ restaurants (if there was one thing that had me wanting to go home and have a pint of mild in my local it wasn’t the Spanish but the British!) and all the rest. And there is one thing that I cannot understand about the Spanish and it is chorizo. Who on Earth thought it up? I’ve had some pretty appalling sausages in my time but Jesus Christ, that takes the flipping biscuit. The hotel we stopped at near Estepona was very nice though. All in all, I’m glad to say I’ve been to the Costa del Sol so I can pontificate about what it’s like to people who ask about it (which at last count was a grand total of 0). It’s like the touristy parts of Lanzarote but… worse. Methinks if I ever went to Benidorm or somewhere like that I’d implode in a molten fury. Or something like that. An easier way would be to just not go in the first place.

Gibraltar: Gibraltar was nice but that’s probably because it plays up to my pro-British sensibilities. It is Britain with a Mediterranean twist. Granted, there isn’t very much to do there. You go over the border, get on the bus at Winston Churchill Avenue (you know they’re proud of their British status when they have street names like that at their border!) and go the short distance into town. Main Street and el mono (the monkeys) are really the only two games in town. Main Street is OK if you want things like cheap cigarettes, aftershahve and spirits but for many other things the Gibraltarians go over the border into Spain to shop. The Rock tour is interesting and takes about 90 minutes to complete. The guide takes you around the Rock and shows you what there is to see. It’s unhurried so you have plenty of time to look at stuff. The taxi driver fills you in on the political situation on the Rock (Spain wants its greedy mitts on it, the Gibraltarians will never surrender to Spanish rule against their wishes, the British government vacillates). I would have liked to hear a bit about the Chief Minister and how government works there. Gibraltar is Britain’s smallest remaining overseas territory. I suspect it’s a bit like a town council and a country all into one. Anyway, we had a meal at The Angry Friar and rang home, then we left. Gibraltar seems to go quiet once most of the tourists leave as there seems little to do downtown. It seems that quite a few Gibraltarians go over the border to La Línea de la Concepción to enjoy a meal and a night out. Granted, we went on a day when most of the shops happened to be shut but it was an interesting place to go and to which I’d like to return someday.

Life goes on, even if this just sinks into all the other mud that the Internet has to offer. In truth, I’m only really posting on this old thing again because, well, I’m bored. Can you tell? I must start reading the old blogs that I used to read.

Currently I’m listening to The Lost Continent, a Bill Bryson book about his journeys through small-town America. It’s quite diverting.

Maybe in the next few days I shall come back here and relate some more of my life. Or, maybe I won’t. Watch this space, as they say.

Just seen Pierrepoint at the local independent cinema, which is a biopic about Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s most prolific hangman.

The movie follows Pierrepoint (Timothy Spall) from the time he enrols on the UK’s Official Executioner list until he resigned in 1956. Pierrepoint is a private man, who keeps his work business to himself until his job as the UK’s executioner of Nazi war criminals after World War II puts him in the public eye. He became a minor celebrity for executing the Nazi vermin at the Nuremburg Trials. With his earnings from these jobs, he and wife Annie (Juliet Stevenson) decide to open a pub that turns out to be quite profitable, thanks in part to Pierrepoint’s notoriety as a hangman. As Britain entered the postwar period, public opinion was increasingly turning against the use of the death penalty and, shortly after hanging Ruth Ellis in 1955, Albert Pierrepoint decides to resign as Official Executioner. The last executions happened in Britain in 1964 and capital punishment was effectively abolished a year later (1973 in the case of Northern Ireland).

Pierrepoint isn’t a bad film at all - it’s actually quite good, although it’s very dark stuff. Timothy Spall is excellent as Albert Pierrepoint and the other cast members support the film well. I think that Pierrepoint would have ended up as Sunday night ITV1 fodder were it not for the simple fact that it got lucky.

Anyway, to keep it short and sweet: Pierrepoint is a good drama about the life and times of Albert Pierrepoint, the UK’s most prolific executioner. It’s probably not for everyone but if this sort of thing interests you I heartily recommend it.

Mrs. Henderson Presents is about Laura Henderson (Judi Dench), a rather eccentric upper-class English lady who opens up a theatre in London after her husband’s death. She manages to persuade would-be middle-class gentleman Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to run the place despite the fact that they seem to be arguing much of the time. Their first idea of a non-stop revue is a success for a while but theatres all over London copy it and they find themselves in deep financial difficulty. Mrs. Henderson has another idea - why not put nudes in the show? The only real problem is the Lord Chamberlain (British ministerial position which acted as the de-facto theatrical censor until Harold Wilson’s Labour government scrapped that power in the late 1960s) but Laura happens to be friends with him and the thing turns out to be a massive success during World War II.

The words ‘dreary’ and ‘tired’ come to mind when I think of this particular movie. Mrs. Henderson Presents would have been far better than it turned out if it was written, acted and directed properly. The entire piece feels rather half-hearted, overwrought and somewhat mawkish - there’s ‘nothing there’, just the stench of total lack of passion on pretty much everyone’s part. Nothing much happens in the entire film: it’s not particularly funny (I only laughed once or twice) but it’s not very involving dramatically either.

You’d be far better off saving your money and your time and go see something else instead of this drab affair.

I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the cinema tonight. I thought it was a good adaptation of a great story.

I was worried about the amount of Christian religious stuff in it seeing as a lot of Christian churches over the pond are encouraging people to go and see the film, but I needn’t have worried. My advice is this: if you know the story of Jesus and the Bible you’ll be able to spot the allegory. However, it’s not too obvious and it doesn’t feel preachy.

The acting was excellent from every member of the cast. The battles are very-well executed indeed and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is genuinely enchanting. The story is told excellently and the movie never outstays its welcome. Recommended.

Just finished watching the film Der Untergang (or Downfall) on More4. The film is about the last days of the life of Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) from his 56th birthday until his suicide and the surrender of Nazi Germany shortly thereafter, mostly seen from the viewpoint of Hitler’s secretary, Traudl Junge.

As the Red Army advances through Berlin in the spring of 1945, Adolf Hitler and his remaining military and secretarial staff shelter in his large Führerbunker complex in the centre of the city. His mood swings between completely unjustified optimism that his forces will still break through and rage against the incompetence and betrayal of his military commanders. Reality does finally start to break through and the Führer and the others in the bunker start to make their final personal preparations for the inevitable.

Der Untergang is a riveting piece of cinema, even though we obviously know the ending already. The film is rather slow but never really drags - even though the film was almost three hours long with ad breaks. Bruno Ganz is truly breathtaking as Hitler - he looks so much like him, especially later on, you’d really think it was Der Führer himself. The rest of the cast pull in superb performances too.

For those of you who have Freeview, More4 are showing Der Untergang again on 10 December 2005 at 21:25 and 20 December 2005 at 21:00.

I highly recommend seeing the film if you haven’t already done so. Good stuff.

Just a quick post to say that the relatively new digital channel ITV4 is showing a Hill and Spencer film tomorrow evening: They Call Me Trinity.

A slightly re-edited entry from DigiGuide:

FILM: They Call Me Trinity
Channel: ITV4
Date: Sunday 4th December 2005
Time: 23:00 to 01:20 (including a five-minute introduction and short analysis of the film by Alex Cox)
Duration: 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Light-hearted western in which two brothers protect a group of Mormon farmers from an unscrupulous landowner who wants them out of the way so he can graze cattle.
Director: Enzo Barboni
Starring: Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, Luciano Rossi
(Including Entertainment News Update at 12.00, 1970, PG, 3 Star)

I wouldn’t normally post heads-up like this but I’ve got a huge soft spot for Hill/Spencer films and they don’t get aired on British TV that often so when they do appear it’s always welcome.

It’s a shame the duo never really got the attention they deserved in the UK as their films are a lot of fun if you’re in the mood for some no-brain comedy.

The sequel, Trinity Is Still My Name, is also worth a look. Both films are available on a fairly decent UK DVD double-bill from Noveaux Pictures. With a bit of luck ITV4 may show it and other Hill/Spencer films in the future.

Watched this last night. I thought it was decent enough but not magnificent. A nice piece of clean fun, that’s all. One of the best things about it is that it’s not too toned down for the American marke; it’s still recognisably British. Oh, and Peter ‘Phoenix Nights‘ Kay is in it. Not too bad at all - short and sweet and doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Just watched this. It’s a Korean gangster film. It’s basically about a gangster who has loyally served his boss for seven years, doing exactly as asked, keeping all his emotions at bay. One day he lets his own emotions and feelings slip and the consequences that result from this.

A Bittersweet Life is wonderful to look at: very cool indeed. It’s a bit like a John Woo/Chow Yun-Fat film in some ways, with a bit of romance and more crime chucked in. The end result is a sublime experience. I thoroughly recommend it. A Bittersweet Life reminds me why I like South Korean films so much.

Clim (Laure Raoust) falls in love with a young black man, Bébé (Alexandre Ogou). She soon falls pregnant. Unfortunately a racist policeman frames Bébé for the rape of an immigrant woman. He is arrested to await trial. Her mother goes to see the woman in Sarajevo to try and convience her that it was not her daughter’s boyfriend that did the act.

I watched this a few night’s ago on BBC FOUR. Not bad, but not brilliant but certainly very watchable.

A young man by the name of Han Sung-hyun (Lee Jung-Jae), moves into his new house by the sea in 1998. Just before the beginning of the new Millennium the same house has a new person living there, a beautiful young woman Kim Eun-ju (Jeon Ji-Hyun) becomes the new owner. The house is known as Il Mare. After moving our Kim Eun-ju sends a Christmas card to whoever owns the house. However, no-one has actually moved in and the card mysteriously appears in that same letter box two years earlier. Han sends her a letter back saying it must be a mistake. She begins to think he’s having her on. They gradually begin sending letters back and forth through time, building up a relationship and eventually arrange to meet.

Il Mare isn’t a bad film at all - it’s seen by many Korean film fans as a minor classic, though I wouldn’t go that far. It’s certainly enjoyable but seems overlong even if the film is only 95 minutes long. The performances are good and sensitive - the pre-My Sassy Girl Jeon Ji-Hyun in particular.