Jumper - bit woolly for me.
Hello.
Well, it seems here in Suffolk we missed out on all the excitement of 'the biggest earthquake for 25 years' that has effected some parts of England and Wales. I'm not sure if I'm pleased or disappointed by that.
I'm back to work this week having had 10 days off through a combination of holiday days and days off. Going back to a place I don't really want to be anymore was quite hard, not least because I enjoyed spending time and doing stuff with Drew immensely. We spent the best part of three days in London at the end of last week, about which I'll write soon. Suffice to say for now that we had a great, if tiring, time.
At the beginning of last week we went to see 'Jumper' starring Hayden Christensen and Jamie Bell. Drew really enjoyed but I found it a little boring. In fact I haven't been that bored during a film since the second Matrix film, which was a massive disappointment after the first one. Back to 'Jumper' - I didn't have a problem with any of the performances, not even Christensen's (and I'm not being swayed by how pretty he is) or the basic storyline which uses a good, if hardly novel, device to hang a story on but I do think parts of the film could have been trimmed, specifically the beginning which sets up the premise of the whole 'jumping' thing, when 'David' first becomes aware of his talent as a bullied (yawn) teenager. Okay, these scenes set up the rest of the film but it could have been more succinctly done than it was. Then later there is a 'jumping' in a flash car segment which, while impressively effects-laden, is entirely pointless other than showing that Bell's character can jump in anything that moves. And what was up with Bell's accent? Apparently he was born in Stockton-On-Tees, but the accent he employed in the film was more watered-down Geordie than Teesside (and I lived there for 4 years so I should know) and seemed to go on a road trip of its own around the north of England. At least the script let him use proper British idioms and not an American scriptwriter's idea of how English people speak (hang your heads in shame writers on 'Friends' and 'Frasier.' The latter, especially, was a travesty.)
However, when it was moving along at pace it was very enjoyable and if there's a sequel I'd seriously consider going to see it, particularly if Jamie Bell is back in it. The film certainly ended with an obvious opportunity for a sequel. In fact it was so clearly sign-posted that it might have been written by a child, who then underlined the whole thing loads of times with different coloured felt-tip pens, just to emphasise the point!
The best thing about the whole trip to the cinema? The long trailer for the new series of 'Doctor Who.' When did the BBC start advertising at the pictures? First of all there was a long and funny advert for the Chris Moyles show on Radio 1 (I thought it was funny because I like him) and THEN - pow - the Doctor Who one. I'm still not sure that Catherine Tate's character Donna isn't too similar to someone who could have appeared in her sketch show (she seems too mannered in her acting, unlike Billie Piper as Rose or Freema Agyman as Martha) but I'll reserve my judgement until the show's back on air. Anyway, the trailer began with her talking to Bernard Cribbens' character, who appeared in the Christmas -with-Kylie story) and sped-up into scenes from the forthcoming series, ending with those great whompy-thumps that only cinema sound systems can provide properly: whomp! there's Donna, whomp! there's Martha (getting all tingly now) and whomp! THERE'S ROSE!! Goosebumps time.
It made the whole cinema visit worthwhile.
Anyway, it's just coming up to 8 in the morning and I need to go and have a shower before work. More soon.