"All walls are great if the roof doesn't fall"

Empire came today! Hot Fuzz and Grindhouse specials! I'll still be too young to see Grindhouse when it comes out, but I'm still excited. The entire concept is so cool - deliberately setting out to make tacky exploitation pics. Apparently, the movie quality will jump around all over the place - they'll be washed out bits, choppy bits - the odd bit where the film skips altogether and you miss a whole five minutes.

If it's just a low quality movie, it's annoying. If it's deliberate, it's intelligent, post-ironic, self-referential and groovy. Mad, eh? There's a radiator in the Tate modern - it resembles a radiator in every single detail, with one difference. It doesn't work. Because it doesn't work, that particular radiator is art (so saith the artist). Any other identical radiator, but one designed to actually keep people warm, doesn't count as art. Apparently.

Anyway, the plots don't interest me at all. But stylistically, I'm the first in the queue. Pretending I'm 18...


All this cool stuff didn't make up for the Bridge review, which I thought was pretty... unprofessional, actually. The Bridge is a documentary about suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge. I haven't seen it - I'm easily upset, and it'd never come to our cinema anyway. Empire's review focused on the fact it was tastless, and gave it one star. I can't comment, I haven't seen it, but for a film magazine to base a review on a moral judgement feels wrong.

Like Roger Ebert's review of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which praised the acting, script and direction, then gave it no stars because "it shouldn't have been turned into a film" Now I actually agree with him on this point - it's a play about a play, and taking it off the stage is a crime in a roundabout way. But surely, onceit is a film, it should be judged on its cinematic merits alone.

Perhaps The Bridge is actually awful from a filmic viewpoint. If it had been, Empire should have said so. There's no shortage of reactionaries to pick up on the subject matter - surely there was some decent cinematography or something good in there.

My other complaint was the Trial of Moulin Rouge. Empire's new feature shows a prosecution and defence for movies which split audiences. So far so good. I understand why lots of people dislike Moulin Rouge, but as a fan I would have liked to see it better defended. The prosecution was far more convincing. The previous week's article was about Titanic, a film I never quite got the point of. But the defence was incredibly well argued. Perhaps I'll try and write Moulin Rouge a better speech...



Last night we won the school PTA quiz. Our team of five was called the Origami Timewasters (it's an in-joke - origami is one of my more annoying habits. We turned our joker into a flapping bird). Friend 2 wanted Cupid Stunts, and I suggested Spinal Crap, but we thought the teachers may protest...anyway, the point of this is, we got full marks on the film round




This weekend I'm mostly working on the youth speaks - that's the contest I mentioned last time. Teams of three have to present a little speech. We're talking about conspiracy theories - Friend 4 is the chairperson, I do the big bit in the middle, and Friend 3 sums up. They've got to pretend they've never heard my speech before, and laugh at all the jokes. I told them they had to be Marlon Brando, they had to be naturalistic - naturalistic as hell. The quote wasn't appreciated. Anyway, so far I've been pacing about my rooom trying to learn the damn thing by Tuesday. Hence the screenshot, savvy? And because this blog just can't have enough pictures of Mr Orange...



A little about Our New House. I'm going to say everything about it now, despite a sneaking feeling I might have said some of it before.

Naturally, I hate it, and by the second reel we're going to discover it's actually been built on an Indian graveyard and is haaaunted or something. We've called it Serenity. Like the spaceship, savvy? We've painted a sign with the logo. This, I must admit, is pretty cool. Our previous houses have been named 1) after a Canadian waterfall 2) after a French patois word for marigold 3) "house" and 4) after a Middle Earth elf-haven (also pretty cool). Though a spaceship from an unfairly short-lived, fantastic cult tv show has to top the lot.

It's freezing, and the lounge stinks. I suggested that perhaps there's a dead ex-cop down there, a la L.A. Confidential. Dad checked - he didn't say what was creating the smell, but his expression showed he really didn't want to clean it up.

I'm the only one in the house with an en suite shower. I'm thinking of putting a Psycho poster on the door.

We've moved about five minutes away from the old place - possibly next door to Tim Burton. Seriously, the trees are of the spiky-dead varity which populate his movies. The weather is grey and grim - we've got fields on all sides, and a massive manor house across the road. I feel like a Bronte.

Anyway.

I leave you with the news that Tim Roth was the original choice to be Snape in the Harry Potter films. Which is both good and bad. Good: he has artistic integrity! He turned down a sure-fire-success movie, presumably for an admirable reason. And bad: I'm not a huge fan of the books, but I've never really liked Alan Rickman in the role. Dude, you so should have sold out! You'd have been perfect!