Holiday Movies

Here are my reviews of all the movies I've watched on holiday so far. (And if you are concerned I have been forsaking summer sun for cinema darkness, bear in mind how long the flight to Australia is and the wonders of on-demand in-flight entertainment.) I have, inexplicably, gone with the poncy Time Out method of marking out of 6.

Happy Feet ***...
No Nemo. With an ending that is as preposterous as it is badly executed, this toe-tapper misses as much as it hits.

Superman Returns *****.
And oh boy is he back with a bang. Bryan Singer is the MAN and I want to have his babies. (oh wait- his and his boyfriend's babies.)

Scoop **....
Seeing as it has a central COMEDY plot-line about a serial prostute-strangler, British audiences may be lucky enough to find this delayed or even abandoned by cinemas. Clearly a lot of tragically under-rehearsed improvisation going on, even by the usually faultless Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johannson. Where did the Woody Allen that made Annie Hall go and when can we have him back?

Fast Food Nation ****..
Whilst lack of plot makes it difficult to commit to the characters, this tapestry of stories connected to a fictional major fast food chain is eye-opening and unsettling, if unapologetically one-sided. You'll never eat a burger again.

The Holiday ***...
Lumpily directed and in need of a serious edit of the opening 20 minutes, this conventional sugar-coated romcom does exactly what it says on the tin. Jude Law takes a bare script and creates a 3-dimensional character that demands you fall in love with him while the other 3 look like they are doing impressions of people in other rom-coms they watched one. (Kate Winslet's Bridget Jones is particularly unsettling). In need of more laughs but easy on the eye.

Little Miss Sunshine *****.
Steve Carell leads an enormously talented cast in this road-trip study of a delightfully dysfunctional family. Surely the performance of his career.

Night At The Mueum ***...
Jumanji III with the saving grace of Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan in an inspired double-act. If only someone had allowed them more screentime and let them riff. The 13, 15 and 16 year old girls I took loved it.

Trust The Man ****..
A gentle look at two struggling long-term relationships. The Last Kiss meets Sex and the City. Perfectly involving but completely unaffecting making it ideal in-flight entertainment.

IMAX Deep sea 3D ***...
Often beautiful. Occasionally educational. And giant squid attck your face.

Before Sunset ******
Still as perfect on what must be my 6th or 7th viewing. A masterclass in screen acting and writing with bucket loads of unmissable intelligent insights into relationships, romance and growing older. Breathtaking.

Book Review

IF YOU ARE A GIRL. IF YOU LAUGHED OUT LOUD WHEN YOU READ BRIDGET JONES. IF YOU HAVE JUST BEEN TO SEE CASINO ROYALE AND MENTALLY WILLED ON DANIEL CRAIG AS HE RUNS AND PUNCHES AND ESCAPES DANGEROUS SITUATIONS. GO AND BUY THE FOLLOWING BOOK IMMEDIATELY:
OLIVIA JOULES AND THE OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION by Helen Fielding.
I have just spent the entire day in pyjamas unable to put it down. What fun.

BLOG FROM OZ: Day 11 and a half

Haven't blogged for a bit, so here's your catch up:

Christmas happened. We opened presents. Mum's most random offerings this year included; a heavy wooden foot massager (that no-one will be able to get back on the plane), a solar-powered rucksack(-actually, like last years' furry boots, i secretly love it- when not charging my phone or ipod it makes me feel like a proper international backpacker) and SQUATTER: 'Australia's Favourite Boardgame' (an overly complicated Monopoly-like thing to do with sheep-herding that no-one in Australia seems to have heard of). Spent the morning on the beach and the afternoon playing monopoly (yes actual monopoly) with my cousins. Dinner started at 5 and ended at midnight. There was prawns, sushi, lots of salads and things on sticks and my uncle cooked a huge turkey on the barbeque. It was a lovely day and absolutely nothing like Christmas. Aussies don't seem to go in for Christmas the way most of the world do: so there was less commercial frenzy but also just less magic, less joy and less of an event. Hardly anyone had decorations up other than the odd fairy lights- and when I got to Melbourne (a major urban capital - there was barely any sign that Christmas had happened at all.

Oh yeah and Em got stung by jellyfish (twice) but she was ok and she wouldn't let any of us pee on her.

Melbourne rocked. Trams, cafes, big arts/music/culture scene, unpredictable weather: wandering around Melbourne you forget you're in Australia because it feels so much like Europe. Actually although they joke that in Melbourne you can experience 4 seasons in 1 day, I think we must've taken the sunshine with us beacuse it was like glorious British Summertime the entire 3 days.

Spent day at cricket which was surprisingly pleasant. Sat in middle of Boony Army stand because Em said it had best view. Aussie supporters hardly made any noise at all whilst Barmy Army (on other side) were noisy and raucous throughout - although hard to get irritated by such commitment and intonation and co-ordination. They even had choreography. And a very good trumpeter. (Could improve diction - have instructed Flan accordingly). At one point some lads in our stand attempted Waltzing Matilda and it was a musical train-wreck. Is there something in Australian DNA that incapacitates them from singing in tune? Also Em and I gave Flan a dare to get one of his song lyrics into a Barmy Army chant for Sydney. Baring in mind he is not really in the clique that organises such things this could be something of a challenge, but I have faith in him...
Anyway, I supported the Aussies because:
a) They surrounded us
b) They had effectively already won
c) I wanted an inflatable giant finger. They said "GO AUSSIES" on them.
Yeah it was mostly C.

So my team won which was fun, and Shane Warne was really good and everything and it was a lovely day made even better by my sister's expert commentary to me of the things that really mattered in the game; eg. the supporters not letting the beach balls bounce near the policemen because they confiscate them. Emma switched (she is SO fickel) to support Australia in the last hour as well because if thay didn't bowl out the English team quickly then her mate Pete who is a cricket reporter wasn't going to be able to come to dinner with us. You will all be most impressed that my book didn't come out of my bag once.

Had the most fabulous gourmet 3-course meal at the Graham Hotel in Port Melbourne (way out in sticks) that would've certainly cost you £65 or £70 per head excluding drinks in England. We had 3 courses, a good deal of top wine and coffees for £35 each and the service was literally second-to-none.

At Melbourne Museum saw massive bugs, sharks' jaws, dinosaurs and boring history stuff (who wants to learn about that?) plus the Robinson's family kitchen (actual Neighbours set complete with Scott and Charlene's wedding cake if you looked inside the fridge.) Also went up Observation deck and saw sting-rays the size of a sofa at Melbourne Aquarium.

Met up with Flan and three of his little cricket buds (they were in reality quite tall and butch) for dinner. Had been in "Kate-the-international-backpacking-queen-with-actual-backpack mode all day without a trip back to hotel and looked totally gross, so was especially destraught to find all four looking smart for dinner and one incredibly good-looking. Felt like showing them all a picture of me the night before when I had made a huge effort for dinner and looked glam. Thankfully witheld this urge. We ate at St. Kilda which is by the beach and looked like a Spanish town. Toilets had pictures of cross-dressers on them making entering correct sex toilet a gamble. Not everyone was successful. Night ended in bizarre scenario of getting myself locked out of my hotel room and having to sleep on my parents' floor.

On arrival back in Perth I have traded in my sister for someone with more skirts. Sarah is now spending her first morning here and would like to share that her hair is doing a similar act to that Friends episode where Monica goes to Hawaii.

Signing off.

BUG COUNT: 1 more house cockroach which Sarah tried to save by putting it under a glass (clearly no scrabble was going to get played until it was dealt with) but to no avail - Dad trod on it as soon as he arrived home.
FRECKLE COUNT: Sarah is refusing to count them. Have peely shoulders.
ALCOHOL UNITS CONSUMED: mehnee mehnee mehnee

BLOG FROM OZ: Day 3 and a half

Well we have just seen in Christmas day with a session of late night pool action. My dad, my sister and my 13 year old cousin were goofing around making up ball games (including my personal favourite: one-handed catch-no feet touching floor) when my sister dragged me in fully clothed to even up the numbers. Sarah's poor skirt, once knee-length is now down to my ankles. Feel sure that, as is true of all Aussie soaps, everything'll come out in the wash.

More weirdness: in a church service on the other side of the world I did not expect to become the subject of the sermon... not even metaphorically. But at a mega-church in Perth v. like Hillsongs (although a bit more Healing-centric), quite randomly half way through her talk this morning, the ex-Tennis champ Pastor woke the lot of us up by saying : "I met a reporter from the Observer in England last week and she said her mum was an ex-Lawyer in ministry and her sister was just going into ministry, and I said to her 'You stay where you are! We need Christians in journalism..." The John family fame spreads beyond the Beds Bucks border.

Well, it is already Christmas day, so I guess I should dry my hair and get some shut-eye before the madness of splitting presents between 15 people. Then we're off to the beach (5 min. walk) to sun ourselves before lunch. Beach is stunning must post pics if I ever work out how to do that.

Bug Count: 1 small cockroach and 4 v. itchy mossy bites (didn't technically see them)
Freckles: 25 and rising...

MERRY CHRISTMAS LOVLIES! Hope you're day is magical and santa brings goodies and the roasties are crisp on the outside and soft in the middle.
Much love to you all.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

BLOG FROM OZ – Day 1 and a half

After almost 36 hours of no sleep (I don’t do sleeping on planes but thanks to the wonders of “entertainment on demand” I discovered my talent for non-stop movie-watching – perhaps I could break a Guinness World Record? 48 hours has gotta be easy enough –wait, might have to rig DVD player up in toilet –certainly have no talent for going long periods without peeing...) anyhoo, I have arrived in Perth where it is super hot in the knowledge that everyone who said Superman Returns was bad are wrong and stupid.
The little suburban road we live on (in a beautiful house) looks reassuringly like Ramsey Street. My uncle and aunt’s house is round the corner. You definitely know you’re in Oz -everywhere the roads are dusty red and the signs are diamond-shaped. Emma has got burnt THROUGH her giant medical stocking. Our cousins who are all four in the mental image I have of them are inexplicably in their late teens: quiet, cool surfer dude/dudettes. They left the table when the conversation got boring and I realised that I am now one of the grown-ups at family gatherings who stays up late on the patio talking about the dogs and drinking Cabarnet Savign……wait, I can’t spell it – oh that’s a relief…
Mum and I went to the mall this morning to do our Christmas shopping. While we were putting our santa-patterned wrapping paper into our bags, the Musak-arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (one small step away from pan pipes) was interrupted by a radio announcement: “Many of us will experience bush fires this Summer…”
BUG COUNT SO FAR: 1 persistently kamikaze fly.

I'm a BAD PERSON

I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here is the ultimate in unimaginative, exploitative televisual trash.
Quite apart from the fact that these reality shows come back series after series with the same format, the same sleazy partnership with the tabloid press and increasingly obscure wannabes, chasing "real" (oh the irony) drama from the screen with a rolled up OK magazine in one hand and a snake in the other.....
Quite apart from all that, I'm a Celebrity, is, let's face it, even more like the gladiatorial arena than the X Factor. Throw 'em to the crocs and we'll pay to watch them scream.

So how terrible is it that last night I watched, from behind a pillow, as one of these desperate hopefuls (her name, i think was Jan- I couldn't tell you for what she has been granted the sought-after title "Celebrity") was lowered down into a pitch black pit with snakes, tarantulas and the like. And not only did I watch, but I squirmed, squeaked, and yes... enjoyed myself a little bit.

Happy Days

I have election joy. America seems to have awoken from it's slumber (is it possible they ate a massive poisoned apple? although i think George Jnr. is more mushy off banana.)
The leaders of the "free world" have also decided that having (sometimes violently) exported sexual equality around the world, they will now embrace it back home - Hoorah for the first female Speaker.