Sunday 21 February 2010

Sunday 21 February 2010

I wake up slurring this morning, staggering and for some reason disorientated.  The week has caught up with me.  There is an optimism attached to last night though, I wish I still did things like that more often.  Last night most definitely represented my favourite Saturday night in a very long time.

The day begins with me attempting to watch the Jon Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live episode from a couple of weeks ago.  It’s a pretty good episode.  Afterwards I brave watching the new Kids In The Hall which turns out to be some of their most twisted stuff ever, some of their new creations are truly warped.  It all reminds me of some kind of Daniel Clowes existence where some things are so visibly weird but it is the stuff occurring beneath the surface that is the truly strange stuff.  Unfortunately I do find myself nodding off before the end.

Eventually I get up just after 9AM to get a news fix but today it isn’t going in.  I’m not so sure there is a whole lot of stuff happening because the number one news story appears to be Gordon Brown apparently bullying his staff.  I think this is perhaps the most childish story ever to hit politics.  Viewed on a world stage he surely can only represent something of a joke to rest of the globe.  Really what is the point of being prime minister if you can’t push a few people about?

From here I take my desk and attempt some writing but it just isn’t happening.  On TV The Big Questions are causing me to lose the will to live and away from that the other TV option is Something For The Weekend where Louise Redknapp resembles a hippy future bag lady more and more with each passing week.  What kind of lifestyle is this show trying to sell its viewers?

Ultimately I head back to bed, I’m not ready to do anything taxing today just yet.  I flip through my recent DVD purchases and come across the BFI Flipside series sampler Kim Newman’s Guide To The Flipside Of British Cinema.  Kim Newman is a genuinely informed and talented movie expert.  If he were perhaps a bit more photogenic he might have a profile similar to Mark Kermode because he is definitely on a par.  My best memories of Kim Newman are back when he would appear on the Mark Radcliffe Graveyard Shift radio show in the mid nineties.  Often he would choose a great movie or film topic and reveal a whole host of enthusiastic knowledge about it.  Sadly my worst memory of Kim Newman is how Gyle (my friend in the Philipines) asked me kindly to buy her a couple of his books from his vampire series (“The Bloody Red Baron” and
”Dracula Cha Cha Cha”) and when I never got around to posting them to her she went up the wall at me.

The documentary is a fun one, highlighting movies from an era that is now long gone, representing a Britain now since lost to history.  The first film is The Bed-Sitting Room (written by Spike Milligan and featuring Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and just about everyone else from 1968) but then unfortunately it is all downhill from there in the selection.  It is quite frustrating that this Rita Tushingham title is being reissued while Smashing Time is gathering dust elsewhere.  The other titles featured/reviewed generally have an exploitation air (especially the titles set in Soho) and you unfortunately get the impression that they have remained unreleased for a reason.  The one title that does stand out is the Peter Watkins movie Privilege which appears awfully ahead of its time.

After this DVD comes to an end I dig out the double disc version of King Of New York and begin watching the second disc that is full of so many extras.  This release completely delivers with thorough documentaries to rival any Criterion release.

In the end the vast extras waste my morning (and the early part of the afternoon) and before I know it I am heading to my parents for Sunday lunch and routine.

As ever upon arrival the dog goes bonkers, soon wearing himself out with his gestures of affection.  This dog is so strikingly different to Snowy, his personality feels so fleeting and his physicality is so mixed and to the extreme.

For a second week I find myself watching The Virtual Revolution on iPlayer in preference to watching the Sunday football on Sky.  In this week’s episode the presenter covers social networking websites and the change/development in general of people and modern friendships/relationships.

In the end I find myself watching the football on Sky which today is Wigan v Tottenham which sees Spurs impressively winning 3-0 including two goals from their has been Russian Pavlyuchenko.  The club really stocks up on strikers.

I linger around the parents place into early evening, subjecting dad to the Harry Hill repeat which he always says he finds unfunny but secretly you can tell he likes it.

While scouring the digital channels I come across TCM showing Another Woman, which has to be done.  I begin watching the movie with enthusiasm trying to remember what it is about.  It has now been several years since my initial excitement for Woody Allen movies when I would devour them as fast as I could find and buy them.  Now it is several years since then and the films are no longer fresh in my memory, which makes for a good time to revisit them (although I have still never made it all the way through Interiors or The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion).

Another Woman was a Gena Rowlands movie, which means it excretes a Cassavetes tone.  The cast is also an interesting one with Ian Holm being boring, Gene Hackman being uncharacteristically flaky and Martha Plimpton being that girl from The Goonies that never really got very far with her career.  Sandy Dennis also pops up in a role very removed from her usual ditsy rolls in movies such as the original Out Of Towners.  Of course this was also when Allen and Mia Farrow had a good relationship and as a result she puts in a strong fragile lead role performance.

I watch an hour of the movie before heading home to face the Sunday evening blues.  Back at Bohemian Grove I attempt to do some writing but eventually only achieve a fail.

Soon for some reason I find myself distracted by the BAFTA Awards but obviously they send me to sleep almost immediately.  Liven up for fuck’s sake.