Saturday, January 20, 2007

Books and Movies

There’s no TV in my house yet. But thanks to the Bristol Central Library I am surviving on a steady diet of books and movies. It’s back to fiction again as far as books are concerned and am trying to discover authors whom I have only heard of before but never read. I read John Updike’s ‘Villages’ and John Mortimer’s ‘The Sound of Trumpets’. Loved Mortimer, reminded me of the many Wodehouse stuff that I read when I was in school, except that Mortimer is a few shades darker. Updike was good too, but the novel reminded me of ‘The Sea’ in structure and sadly Updike kind of paled in comparison with the other John who went on to win that Booker last year. Currently I have my hands on E M Forster’s ‘The Longest Journey’. Quite an oldie.

As for movies, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ is a very good way to start the New Year if you haven’t watched the movie already. I watched the movie four times over this weekend. Twice just to get the hang of what was actually going on, watched it another time with the subtitles and again with the commentary of Kaufman and Gongry, writer and director respectively of the movie. Also picked up a very entertaining documentary on ‘Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room’. Another one called ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ on Global Warming which had Al Gore (remember him?) who was quite a revelation. ‘United 93’ was another movie, about the plane hijacked during the Sep 11 attacks which apparently didn’t find its target. A very sensitively handled take on what is a difficult subject.

The local theatre in the city centre is called The Odeon. Today went and saw a movie called ‘The Holiday’. I almost regretted the decision. There’s too much saccharine in the movie, if you ask me. Diaz looks great but can’t seem to come out of her Charlie’s Angels’ skin. Winslet’s much better of course, except that her character is quite pathetic for most of the movie. A ‘Bridget Jones’ role but without the funnies. The guys don’t have much to do but am glad for Jack Black. The guy should get more meaty roles like this.

A song from the soundtrack of the movie ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Beck.

Change your heart
Look around you.
Change your heart
It’ll astound you.

I need your lovin’
Like the sunshine
And everybody’s gotta learn sometime
Everybody’s gotta learn sometime
Everybody’s gotta learn sometime.

Good Night, and Good Luck. I am going to watch that one now.

2 comments:

Kusum Rohra said...

I had loved Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

After seeing the movie I immediately called a friend and

Me (all in one breath): Hey, I just realised, having your memories erased is no good. You will forget the pain and will end up being in the relationship again, only to cause the pain again! What should change is your attitude.

Friend ( Not impressed at all): Well, that was the point of the movie.

HMPF.

I loved Good Night and Good Luck too, but I refrain from telling people what I thought after watching the movie, people just shoo me off saying that was the point of the movie anyway!

dazedandconfused said...

I didnt fancy Good Night and Good Luck so much myself, though it had some lovely speeches...