26.point.1

Alcohol is bad

// December 7th, 2007 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

And i’m maybe never drinking again. Last night was the Christmas Party and to say I’m still drunk is definately true. Drunk, in work, and contemplating sleep under my desk.

31 and dreaming

// December 6th, 2007 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

Back when I was 6 or 7 I went through a period of having 2 recurring nightmares. The first invovled me being really small, on a kitchen work surface around some blocks of cheese and being chased by a mouse who was GIANT. I still don’t like cheese to this day. The second was a dream which I had in sepia-tone, all browned out, and had me running around a futuristic looking city being chased by an indian (the cowboy and indian type, not the type from India) - which strangely was amazingly similar to a passage that I read about 10 years later in the book “The Death and Life of Superman”, and by similar I mean exactly the same. I still don’t like indians to this day too (the cowboy and indian type).

Well, the point is that at the time the common bedtime tuck-in routine consisted of me shouting to my mum as she walked down the stairs “No Dreams? No Dragonflies?” And she’d respond - “No Dreams! No Dragonflies” (Yes, I hated and still don’t like dragonflies either). Well, strange as it may seem, since those days way back when I’ve actually had very few dreams, well that I remember in the morning anyway.

Until now.

About a week ago I started remember the mad dreams that infect each of our minds everynight. One night I dreamt that I was riding a one carriage train which was racing at super speed around a mad infinity symbol. Another night I dreamt that I was able to jump around in time, but that everytime I did I transformed more and more into a rabbit.

All in all, I’m really liking the whole new creative/mental side of my night time endeavours. And it’s giving me quite some insight into the crazy person that I am.

The Golden Compass

// December 5th, 2007 // No Comments » // Reviews

On the back of the spectacular trailer for this movie I recently purchased the “His Dark Materials” trilogy from Philip Pullman, from which this movie is taken (this movie being based on the first book, Northern Lights). I absolutely LOVED the books, and will write about them separately, and went into the preview of The Golden Compass expecting amazing things. So, to say that I came out of the cinema a wreck having seen the most disappointing spectacle ever committed to celuloid is almost an understatement. The books are edgy, phenominal page turners with an amazing story about love, organised religion and what really should be important to us humans living out here in the real world - and to make it all the better, it’s completed with the inclusion of super large fighting polar bears in armour. The movie is the equivelant of one of those super large fighting bears - only de-toothed, shrank 80% in a spin dryer, and dressed in pink frilly underwear where once there was Sky-iron armour. The story remains vaguely the same, though tumbled on it’s head missing key scenes and swapping the second and third quarters of the book around - and then totally dropping the last quarter (the one with the twist, the one which sewed the entire previous 300 pages (or 120 minutes) together). So, a screwed story. To that, let’s imagine that instead of going out there to find the best acting talent available the producers went out there thought “fuck it, find me the first 12 year old girl you can” and then repeated this over and over again for every part in the movie. The only sliver of acceptability in the movie come from Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Sam Elliot who are in it for a grand total of around 6 minutes each. While most of the cast are aweful, many of them have age as an excuse - the guy who plays Farder Coram however has no such excuse, and MUST take home the “worst actor in any winter blockbuster ever award”. In the book he is a frail man, but quick witted and intelligent. In the movie he is a 50 year old plank who reads his script with the emotion of an incised child/zombie. All in all this movie sucks ass - the fluffy teddy bear version of the ferocious fighting bear of a book. 2/10