Well, yes, here we are again I suppose. It's true, I have been neglecting this blog somewhat. The reason? Well, I suppose when I started this thing, the idea was to chronicle the movies that I watched and to add in some other stuff too. Lately though, well, I've kinda stopped watching movies and thus, this blog has lost it's core structure. I still watch movies here and there of course, but I haven't deliberately been setting out to watch things.

Why is this exactly? To an extent, I felt like it was a bit of a chore at times. I wasn't getting the most out of the movies. Perhaps I wasn't in the right mindset? I was movie-d out I guess. So that's my excuse for fewer blogs, but I can assure you that the blogs will pick up again soon. Oh, I suppose the other thing is that my writing focus has been directed elsewhere. I have been focused on this zombie film project, but to a greater extent I have been writing a lot more short humour pieces for this other project I'm working on.

This week? Lots of work, I'm afraid. Soccer on Monday. Thursday I ventured out into the rain and met up with Kaiser, Lachlan and Caitlin at the Astor to watch 'Kill Bill 1' and 'Kill Bill 2'. I'd seen these films before, but not together on the big screen. You know what? I don't think they're very good, really. I feel that Tarantino's recent films have been a little too affected by that Tarantino-esque sensibility lately. It's as though he's been told a little too often how great he is and so the films have become a bit self-conscious. It's as though he's almost saying "Hey, you thought that was good, check THIS out!" That doesn't make them bad films, they're distinct, unique, interesting films all of them. But they just feel messy to me and the visual side of things tends to be a lot better than the writing. I do believe that Tarantino writes really great individual scenes in these films but altogether they don't feel all that cohesive. I'm not a big fan of the way he divides these films into chapters either. Interestingly, a lot of the stuff he was being lauded for in 'Inglourious Basterds' - structure, the mixing up of languages - it's all already prevalent in the 'Kill Bill' films. I don't know, I just felt that scenes tended to go on a little too long, dialogue was drawn out and nowhere near as punchy as in his earlier films. And at the end of the day, the storyline to 'Kill Bill' is pretty boring. If I was asked to choose which film is better, volume 1 or 2, I would probably argue that 2 is superior, though chiefly due to the presence of Michael Madsen, who gives the film a lot of character. But that's really just a personal preference.

Well, it has been some time. I've been exhausted, I think.

Big weekend. Chris and Amelia's wedding on Saturday. It was a nice wedding. Long day when you combine the wedding, the in-between afternoon tea bit and the reception so I was pretty tired by the end of it. Nice though.

Sunday I went into the city with Michelle and met up with Lorry, Anna, Pete and Duy. We watched 'The Wiz' at ACMI.

'The Wiz' (1978) directed by Sidney Lumet

Wow, I really did not like this film. It was basically a re-make of 'The Wizard of Oz' but pretty shithouse. The songs weren't memorable, it was overlong, Diana Ross wasn't likeable at all in the main role, she was a bit too screechy. The design of the film looked cheap and hasn't dated well. A lot of it is quite creepy and yeah, it was a struggle to get through. There seemed to be a song for every moment in the film - irritating. Lorry started groaning every time a character would start to sing, it was indeed very groan-worthy.

'Daybreakers' (2009) directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig

A really cool, original take on the vampire film. The story felt fresh and interesting and not all that predictable. Although it was cheesy in parts and the cinematographer seemed to love using the slo-mo effect, it was highly entertaining throughout. I really enjoyed it.

Sometimes I drink too much coffee and I feel anxious.

Big, huge, epic weekend. Saturday, Chris's bucks party. It involved a lot of paintball and eating all that I could (which wasn't much). Paintball hurts! But not as much as I thought it would. Still, now I'm covered in bruises. It was a boiling hot day and wearing all the protective gear and the camo stuff, I was sweating right from the start. The games were pretty fun, although it took me a little while to get into it. I found that I really enjoyed finding a good spot and then sniping people. Once I worked out the trajectory of the paintball, the wind and weather patterns and other variables, I was well into it. Exhausting though.

Sunday I was feeling rather wrecked. That didn't stop me from heading over to Lachlan's place where we began writing this feature film. I reckon it went really well. I've never really co-written something before, but it seemed to make things easier, it's a lot of discussion basically. So yeah, we worked out the overall framework of the story, some of the key scenes and characters. Should be good.

'Sydney White' (2007) directed by Joe Nussbaum

A pretty mindless Amanda Bynes teen comedy, sort of a modern day re-telling of 'Snow White', but not really. I enjoyed it, even though it was pretty rubbish. It was fun to just watch the different shades of orange that Amanda Bynes turned from scene to scene.