The Three What Of Who Now?

It's been a few days since I last blogged. I haven't really been feeling it. I wanted to write and entry about The Hills Have Eyes but it was even worse than I feared it would be and I really couldn't bring myself to talk about it. Saw some other films but even though I enjoyed these a whole lot more (The Proposition, Syriana), I again couldn't be bothered to blog about them. Plus I fell asleep for 10 minutes half way through Syriana and consequently had no freaking clue what was happening for the rest of the damn film.

Today I went to an early(ish) press screening of The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada which is utterly tremendous. While Tommy Lee Jones still mumbles like a son of a bitch and I still hate him for winning the Oscar for his long distance phone call of a performance in The Fugitive over Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, there's no denying he's a very fine director. And it's nice that Barry Pepper can still get work after Battlefield Earth.

Also over the weekend, I went to see V For Vendetta. Its five month delay didn't fill me with a great deal of hope I must admit, especially as the reason for the delay was a load of shit (the London bombings were cited, yet the film was scheduled to open in November, the bombings occurred in July and furthermore, the original "remember remember" campaign for the original release date didn't start until AFTER the bombings). Also, it has the taint of the Wachowski brothers involvement, who will never be forgiven for the Matrix sequels. Ever. So I was truly surprised when it was extremely entertaining and, for a first time director, very confidently put together. Natalie Portman was astonishing as Evey, nailing the accent (not without the occasional slip, but hey) and delivering a very nuanced performance. There were unexpected delights in the shape of Stephen Fry and Rupert Graves as well as a level of intelligence and ideas not commonly associated with films like these. The imagery at the end of the film was very powerful indeed.

In other news, tomorrow I enter back into the world of full time employment. I have been out of work now since July 9th 2005 and I am so ready to have a job again I can't even tell you. It's with American Express, so hopefully there will be some fun benefits to the job. We'll see. I start at 10am, then it's Mon-Fri 9-5. I haven't had a schedule like that in 6 years, so it should be fun.