2010

First post of the new year. So, Happy New Year.

My new year was good, a fairly quiet night at my place with a few people over. A barbecue and a variety of alcoholic drinks.

I'm heading back to work tomorrow after two weeks off. It'll be good to get some structure back in my life. The last few weeks have been good but fairly uneventful. Can't really remember what I've done, although I went out for dinner the other night for tapas at Basque which was nice. I've been watching a lot of DVDs. Finished 'The Shield' season 7. That was great, a good ending to the show. 'The Shield' is a seriously good show, check it out, it's very cheap at JB HiFi at the moment. Also watched the first season of 'Breaking Bad'. It's a short season, but that show is unreal. I really liked it. I also re-watched all of 'The Office' (UK). I had forgotten how brilliant that show is. It's not just funny, but also very moving because you really invest in the characters. Just wow. I'm also slowly getting through 'Deadwood' and '30 Rock' season 3. Plus, this great show which some kind soul has uploaded all of on Youtube. It's called 'Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe'. Now this is my kind of show. It's basically a show that analyses and critiques TV and it's sarcastic, sharp, savage and very funny. It sometimes reminds me of 'The Angry Nintendo Nerd', a series of video game reviews that I used to watch on Youtube which were similarly sharp and hilarious.

'Fantastic Mr. Fox' (2009) directed by Wes Anderson

I'm a big Wes Anderson fan and I was really looking forward to seeing this. It's great fun and it looks amazing, the animation is very cool and it's stylistically got that obvious Wes Anderson touch. Lots of symmetry and balance, a tightly defined colour palette and trademark camera zooms. The script is offbeat and funny, and the characters are interesting. This film doesn't really make any bold statements or anything, but it's compelling nonetheless. One thing that surprised me was how many young children were in the cinema when I watched this. I suppose the fact that the film is based on a Roald Dahl book and it is an animation suggests that it's a children's film but I didn't think the script itself was geared towards kids. It's very much a Wes Anderson/Noah Baumbach script, dealing chiefly with dysfunctional relationships and family issues. There aren't really any concessions made for kids here (apart from the deliberate lack of swearing). In fact, the film could probably very easily have been a live action film, if you ignored the fact that the characters were written as animals. If this were the case, it definitely would have been an adult film. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the tone feels more adult, I imagine a lot of the charm of the film would have gone over the heads of young children. Anyway, it's cool, go see it.