First Post of the Year
I developed a stinking cold over the holidays and as result this is my first full week back at work. You will not be stunned to know that my absence was not felt.
It has been a mixed start to the year as while I am still stuck in a job I hate, have still not passed my driving test and came back to a flat with a broken loo there is going to be a sixth season of Horrible Histories so the year is looking up!
January also brings Oscar bait season and so far film wise I have seen Birdman and Foxcatcher. I really enjoyed Birdman. It's funny and quirky and full of glorious meta about Hollywood and the theatre. While Michael Keaton deserves all the praise he's getting I can't help but admire Edward Norton a little bit more for sending up his 'can be difficult' persona. It's one thing to nod and wink to the audience that you're a bit washed up like Keaton does but it takes balls to address the fact the world thinks you're an arsehole.
Foxcatcher is a film anchored by very strong performances and I think it's a pity that Channing Tatum isn't getting any awards nods as he's just as good as Carrell and Ruffalo. Yes really. The wrestling is all very weird though and never have I felt so uncomfortable watching men in lycra grope each other.
Speaking of another seminal Channing Tatum performance; I watched 22 Jump Street at the weekend, found it entertaining and applaud the mid movie rant from an A list alpha male star about how casual homophobic slurs are really unacceptable.
Over the holidays I read The Hunger Games trilogy which I had never got round to doing. The first installment is a strong, YA, dystopian, novel. Book 2 and 3 are filler cash ins and unnecessary which also goes a long way to explaining why the first film is so much better than the ones that have followed.
Also read from the books pile is Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine. I had never heard of Albertine until the publication of her autobiography last year and a review in The Guardian quoting an anecdote from it where Albertine states that Johnny Rotten complained like Kenneth Williams about the way she was performing oral sex on him. That is my kind of anecdote. Albertine was a prominent member of the London punk scene and was the guitarist in all girl punk band The Slits. The likes of The Clash, Sid and Nancy, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Vivianne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren and erm, Tom Hiddleston (No I have no idea how anyone's life goes from Sid Vicious to Tom Hiddleston either, it probably involves moving from less heroin to more tea though) wander in and out of her story but it never feels like name dropping as she comes across as so, well, normal. It's a good read and a far more nuanced than Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman which it's, subtly, thematically like.
It has been a mixed start to the year as while I am still stuck in a job I hate, have still not passed my driving test and came back to a flat with a broken loo there is going to be a sixth season of Horrible Histories so the year is looking up!
January also brings Oscar bait season and so far film wise I have seen Birdman and Foxcatcher. I really enjoyed Birdman. It's funny and quirky and full of glorious meta about Hollywood and the theatre. While Michael Keaton deserves all the praise he's getting I can't help but admire Edward Norton a little bit more for sending up his 'can be difficult' persona. It's one thing to nod and wink to the audience that you're a bit washed up like Keaton does but it takes balls to address the fact the world thinks you're an arsehole.
Foxcatcher is a film anchored by very strong performances and I think it's a pity that Channing Tatum isn't getting any awards nods as he's just as good as Carrell and Ruffalo. Yes really. The wrestling is all very weird though and never have I felt so uncomfortable watching men in lycra grope each other.
Speaking of another seminal Channing Tatum performance; I watched 22 Jump Street at the weekend, found it entertaining and applaud the mid movie rant from an A list alpha male star about how casual homophobic slurs are really unacceptable.
Over the holidays I read The Hunger Games trilogy which I had never got round to doing. The first installment is a strong, YA, dystopian, novel. Book 2 and 3 are filler cash ins and unnecessary which also goes a long way to explaining why the first film is so much better than the ones that have followed.
Also read from the books pile is Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine. I had never heard of Albertine until the publication of her autobiography last year and a review in The Guardian quoting an anecdote from it where Albertine states that Johnny Rotten complained like Kenneth Williams about the way she was performing oral sex on him. That is my kind of anecdote. Albertine was a prominent member of the London punk scene and was the guitarist in all girl punk band The Slits. The likes of The Clash, Sid and Nancy, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Vivianne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren and erm, Tom Hiddleston (No I have no idea how anyone's life goes from Sid Vicious to Tom Hiddleston either, it probably involves moving from less heroin to more tea though) wander in and out of her story but it never feels like name dropping as she comes across as so, well, normal. It's a good read and a far more nuanced than Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman which it's, subtly, thematically like.