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    Current Watching

    This BBC pretend FlashForward thing is a bit rubbish.

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      Current Watching

      Reverse Casualty, as someone else pointed out.

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        Current Watching

        The scripts on Casualty are a little more engaging usually eh. I switched over to Phil & Kirstie but they're awful too.

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          Current Watching

          Bright Star.

          Spoilers

          This is a lovely and strange film. Despite the confident start, pitching us straight into the relationships of all the main characters with perfect vignettes, I wasn't sure at first; the dialogue seemed to be too scratchy and unsure of itself to go with the film. But that eased off quickly, perhaps just as Fanny and John eased into their relationship, and it just became beautiful. I felt I had to be wary of a film about Art; basically it's a work where poetry, textiles, music and cinematography come together and it is what it's about, and all that, but because it's also about emotion it all just works. It works as a piece about literature - all the repetitions of poetry and the discussions about poetry - and music, the cycles and patterns of counterpoint harmonies - and of course as a work of visual art, like Fanny's clothes. They get more and more beautiful as the film goes by. The film is all about nature and the passing of the seasons; and as spring flowers replace winter drabness so delicate ribbons and lush rich colours replace the odd spiky fashions from the first scenes. Visually it's a treat. Of course - we're so used now to incredibly gorgeous design and photography, it's almost become commonplace, something to be expected in a film of this type. But this is also one of those films that reminds you that you can still appreciate classically composed beauty as if it were 'new'. Like looking at a Turner, maybe.

          The emotional core of the film is very powerful, too; I think it's actually quite rare for a film to be as concerned with romantic love, as free to obsess about the tiniest details as the lovers themselves. Because it seems quite long winded and self indulgent (though always riveting). I suppose the only thing I don't quite buy is them reciting his poetry to each other - much as La Belle Dame Sans Merci is practically my favourite poem...

          There's also oddness - an amazing, disturbing scene with a room full of exotic butterflies, bringing to life something Fanny and Toots are trying to understand about the growth/evolution and fragility of love, maybe, I don't know. And then they cut through it beautifully by bringing the pet cat (who's a star in his own right, the best sort of purry lap cat) into the scene. I won't go so far as to talk about the emotional resonance of the uncomplicated love a pet cat can bring, because that might just be about me...

          The secondary relationships make it come alive, though. Whether it be uncomplicated sibling love for the delightful Toots or the quiet devotion of silent Samuel - especially poignant at the end - or the very complex love that Brown feels for John. Campion handles this very delicately, I thought - it's never made explicit what proportions of it are fraternal love, sexual desire, envy or admiration, but Schneider brings them all to life beautifully. His relationship with Fanny, too, is perfectly drawn - jealousy, this time, rather than envy, and contempt rather than admiration, but the troubling question of desire is clearly something Brown is never going to want to know about, so we aren't going to get an answer either.

          Abbie Cornish is fantastic, too. She's stunningly beautiful and a proper real person. At times she looks just like the young Nicole Kidman, and you can see Campion's camera obsessing over her just as it does over Kidman in Portrait of a Lady. I think this film is equally exquisite and wonderful, actually.

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            Current Watching

            This BBC pretend FlashForward thing is a bit rubbish.
            A BIT rubbish!

            I happened to be monitoring BBC teletext for gambling purposes (a successful night picking draws, as it happens) and 'Paradox' was on...

            it was difficult to decide who was acting worse: Tamsin Outtake or the two contrasting 'moody Scots from central casting.' I suppose at least they were contrasting.

            The narrative, on the other hand....words fail me.

            The worst thing is I know some people will nevertheless watch this next week, at exactly 2100 hours...AND THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT!

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              Current Watching

              I'll delete that from the Sky+ then, shall I?

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                Current Watching

                Maybe not-it was historically bad. So bad it's...well not 'good' but certainly remarkable.

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                  Current Watching

                  The worst thing is I know some people will nevertheless watch this next week, at exactly 2100 hours...AND THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT!

                  You bastard! You utter bastard! There I was, waiting for Paradox (and its Minority Report rip-off gimmick) to be discussed on this thread so I could nip in with this crack:

                  The concept of foretelling horrible crimes before they happen is already a reality. The X-Factor is on Saturdays at 8.00 on ITV.

                  And you had to go and pip me to the frickin' joke! That's it. I'm off for a sulk now.

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                    Current Watching

                    I'm really getting into this new series Trauma. It's like a glossy American version of Casualty. Look! There's a man up a telegraph pole, it's raining, he's got headphones on and a pair of pliers. Look! Here comes an oil tanker. The driver is texting! And a child on a bicycle is about to appear between two parked cars. The fun is in guessing who will get hurt how. There are a lot of helicopters and guns and tactical SWAT operations, because this is San Francisco and not Holby. But the doctors and nurses and paramedics and their romantic entanglements are just the same.

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                      Current Watching

                      My mother caught a movie on cable about a month ago and has been talking nonstop about how great it is, so my sisters and I were forced to watch it when visiting for Thanksgiving. It turned out to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, so I'm warning everyone: avoid Death at a Funeral. Tediously unfunny alleged humor telegraphed way in advance and completely uninteresting characters. The funniest part was when Mom chided us afterward for not having senses of humor.

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                        Current Watching

                        Anyone watching Lie To Me with Tim Roth? I can't see it getting as big or good as House, but it's got a Criminal Minds appeal that's good enough when there's not much else on. S'alright.

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                          Current Watching

                          I LOVE Lie to Me. I think it's great. The episode with Erika Christensen was terrific.

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                            Current Watching

                            You know what? I didn't mean Criminal Minds. I meant The Mentalist. ie; guy looks at people's faces and tells what they're really up to...and solves a crime. They're quite similar, really. I like 'em both, to my shame.

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                              Current Watching

                              Oh right. Someone told me the Mentalist was really shit, so I've never bothered with it. Maybe I ought to.

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                                Current Watching

                                Nah, it's not shit. It's light.

                                It's nowhere near the 'sensationalization of cruelty' that is Criminal Minds, nor the darker quirkiness of House.

                                It's for yer mum, but not in a Matlock/Murder She Wrote kind of way.

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                                  Current Watching

                                  Oh OK. I really don't like House, I have to be honest.

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                                    Current Watching

                                    Ah.

                                    I wonder if it's different for Brits watching House, knowing Laurie as a comedian first.

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                                      Current Watching

                                      It's mostly that it's just toss, I think.

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                                        Current Watching

                                        You saying I watch shit tv? Is that what you're saying? Is it?
                                        Cuz that's what my wife says.

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                                          Current Watching

                                          Cracks This is a strange one. It's complete nonsense from start to finish, but there are moments when a much better, more beautiful film shines through, so I kept revising what I thought about it all the way through. It's a kind of NE England Picnic at Hanging Rock; a boarding school filled with girls at just the right level of chunkiness and frizzy-haired-ness to be unmistakeably English, to serve as contrasts to the beautiful Spanish girl that arrives in their midst and threatens their dreamy fantasy bubble world. Lots of garlands in hair and mooning around reciting poetry and singing Greensleeves. The school seems to have no organisation whatsoever - all the girls do is practise diving under the tutelage of the gorgeous Eva Green, and nurse hopeless crushes on her which she encourages, as the predatory old lesbian that every girls' school has to have on staff by law.

                                          It doesn't really ever attain the hypnotic melancholy or beautiful terror of Picnic, but the girls' isolated world (the school is on an island) does recall something of Weir's (and also Australian-ly it does go a bit Heavenly Creatures at the end, too.)

                                          Once again I have to say that art direction and wardrobe are the most creative and imaginative aspects. Fiamma, the mysterious Spanish girl, arrives in a coat and hat of heartstopping beauty in orangey-pink velvet. You wouldn't have believed it possible. She's got the chestnut hair and the dark eyes and her wardrobe is all in shades of pink and peach to bring that out; conversely, Eva's beautiful eyes and pale skin are always wrapped in the deep blues and sea greens of her clothes and her study.

                                          There are no men in this film. Well, one boatman has one line, but otherwise men are absent, and although the girls talk about boys, and sex, and the outside world, they're cut off from it, they have no sense that they can join it.

                                          It's kind of flawed but interesting. And deeply pervy. The slightly sad looking men on their own in the audience weren't disappointed, I think.

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                                            Current Watching

                                            And deeply pervy. The slightly sad looking men on their own in the audience weren't disappointed, I think.
                                            Stop judging me!

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                                              Current Watching

                                              And actually I doubt St Trinian's has anything as filthy in it as a couple of the scenes in Cracks...

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                                                Current Watching

                                                The description from Lyra chimed absolutely with what I saw...in the trailer.

                                                It's obviously one of those maddening fuckwitted trailers that show you the whole film.

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                                                  Current Watching

                                                  Why do they do that? I mean it can't be rank stupidity or oversight. When I see giveaway trailers I just think "Oh Well, that's another movie I won't be watching." Am I alone and does suspense and curiosity not matter to cinema audiences anymore or what?

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                                                    Current Watching

                                                    It would be a boon if Michael Bay's films were edited down to that kind of length, after all, they're simply extra-long trailers with end credits tagged on.

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