just another future song, lonely little kitsch

[extemporanea]

Marking ate my weekend. OK, not quite. Marking and trying to write moving, eloquent, sophisticated papers on vampire Snow Whites ate my weekend. Om, nom, nom. In fact, not even. Actually, socialising ate my weekend, so I had to cram all the marking and paper-writing into the edges, where it worried the legs of my trousers, snarling. This three-career lifestyle isn't all that, when you get down to it.

friendly_shrink and her Nice Man braaied for us on Friday lunch, it being, of course, Braai Day; for some reason large and delectable meals for lunch - or possibly the gin - knocks out the day totally. Then we did movie club on Friday evening, of which more anon. Saturday was mostly eaten by traffic, as first_fallen had her birthday lunch in Hermanus on top of the whale festival, which, while a pleasant occasion full of lovely people I don't see often enough, means two hours to get from one side of Hermanus (Pop. 25 125) to the other, falling over the one horse on the way. Sunday was eaten by resentment, in between marking and paper-writing, because what I really need weekends for is down time, and I didn't get any. Phooey.

Movie club was stv's choice, and the theme was apocalypse. Post-apocalypses. Post-apocalypi? (Very heavy: my next one is going to be dance movies, just to retaliate). Anyway, we watched The Book of Eli and 9, which were definitely both on theme.

• Book of Eli: interesting film, beautifully shot, lots of desert and bad guys with guns. It was flawed by its attempt at a twist, which it absolutely and completely failed in any way whatsoever to justify with the actual, you know, events of the movie. Phooey. On the upside, rather well acted.
  
• 9: interesting film, beautifully animated, lots of ruined buildings and giant evil steampunk machine things with glowing eyes. It was flawed by its attempt at a script, which it absolutely and completely failed to deliver in any way resulting in plot coherence, logical decision making, or anything resembling, you know, enough actual characterisation to create motivation or a reason to identify with these little rag-doll people. On the upside, very cute twin archivists.

I'm glad I saw both movies. I won't be adding them to my collection. But there was popcorn. And a three-day weekend, which was mostly characterised by being over. Sigh.