July 31st - Run Fat Boy Run

Run Fat Boy Run. I'm sure someone has probabyl said that to me once or twice in my life, and like this film it is funny but also kind of annoying.

At 90 minutes you think this would be a comedy breeze, unfortunately it feels about three hours long.

The premise is that Simon Pegg's character Dennis is a loser and let the love of his life go by running away on their wedding day. Now to redeem himself to her he decides to run a marathon to prove himself to her. All this setup takes way too long - about an hour because Simon Pegg's character seems to keep hurting himself in way too many slapstick moments.

In saying that, I got a few good laughs out of it but it ultimately ends EXACTLY the way you think it will after watching about five minutes of it.

Director David Schwimmer (yep - the Friends guy) directs by the numbers and realistically if Pegg wasn't the star of this it would just be another run of the mill rom com.

If it's a rainy day (like it was here today) you can't go wrong with this - just don't expect too much

Wednesday July 30 - Avatar

Dont know if this counts as a film, cos it's a tv show but oh well - it's being watched for my viewing pleasure.

I have started watching Avatar; The Last Airbender and before you say "hey! that's a kids cartoon" yes it is- but it's got some mature ideas starting to develop.

I am only at the start if the 1st Season but from what I've heard it just gets better.

I'm looking forward ti diving in and checking it out now that the entire series has finished. I quite like watchung something in a long run rather than pieces.

Plus the score for this is really quite epic and cool.

Check it out - it's not just for kids

A Movie A Day

From last week, I decided I am going to try and watch 1 film a day (where possible) and then do a samll concise review of it.
This came about because at the moment I am an unemployed business owner - that makes alot of sense.....

So now onto the task at hand. The forst film I watched on my 1 film a day quest was:



Thursday July 24: The Dark Knight.
Wowzers, wowzer and more superlatives.
What a thoroughly amazing film, for once the hype was justified. While the film is quite long - two and a half bladder crushing hours - it is most certainly not boring. The plot weaves in and out of various ideas and themes, but the one consistent theme is the ideas of heroes and villains which is summed up in one of the films many great lines;

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain"

Which in my opinion is the essence of the entire film if not Batman's life.
Anyway, this film has it all; action, drama, love story, tragedy, redeemption and of course one of pop cultures most loved villains - The Joker.
Heath Ledger's Joker is exactly what I wanted in a Joker - he is brutal, mischevious and most of all completely fucking insane! The fact that no history is given to this lunatic makes his acts all the more devious.

Go see it now if you havent already

Mind That Child!

Two fine articles this morning in the Dominion Post made me kind of laugh about the state of this country's child welfare, I just ----- the mind boggles

Parent 1: Is out enjoying the outdoors with his 4 year old and 2 year old sons, they are riding bikes.
4 year old tears of down hill (he has just been told not to) so 2 year old follows, 4 year old narrowly swerves corner next to road -2 year old doesn't and smashes his head on hand rail and gets knocked unconscious. Dad, thus freaks out and runs o his son's aid. Meanwhile 4 year old is still determined to keep riding, Dad says no as he tends to his 2 year old who is now slipping in and out of consciousness, once again 4 year old wants to take off next to the obviously dangerous road - Dad, now at the end of his tether flicks 4 year old whiny boy on the ear. But alas the do- gooders of New Zealand were watching....

On to story number 2

Parent 2: is fishing with friends and son in the deep waters of Marlborough Sound in NZ 's South Island - oh no man overboard!!! Dad's son has fallen overboard, so what does Dad do?
Keeps fishing???
The boy was found later floundering in the water by another boat, then they return him to Dad to a resounding - yep..... thanks and all that.

Which takes me back to story 1: The do gooders of NZ after seeing Parent 1 flick his child on the ear proceeded to call the Police and withing minutes Parent 1 was surrounded by 6 POLICE officers!!!
Because everybody knows that it takes 6 Police Officers to arrest someone.
Parent 1 responded by saying "I was teaching my son a valuable safety lesson, which he obviously needed instantly"
Mr Policeman says with shaking finger "You can't do that sir"
Please ...6 Police Officers tell Parent 1 what IS right. How about you beat the shit out of Parent 1 and arrest him in front of his children - whom he was trying to protect.

Nope thats too hard - maybe they should just hit McDonalds - it's what they do best.

Or even better send 5 of those Police Officers to arrest Parents that let their kids fall of boats and then leave them in the water for someone else to pick up

So It Begins

Well, here it is - a blog by me, probably not about me (too much) most likely to be about films, music, lies and other things that pop out of my brain.


So wait a bit , relax, put the cat out for the night and I will post some more stuff soon.

On a side not - we are going to see Kings of Leon tonight so I will probably do some kind of review tomorrow. Unfortunately security issues (I love saying that) mean there will probably be NO photos, although we may get some cell pics.

Chur