Oh good, 2009 sucks too!

Less than one month into 2009 and it's sucking harder than 2008. How is this possible? Well, see, early last year I filed an application for permanent residency in Canada. It takes years to process so I didn't bother mentioning it on here as it wasn't terribly interesting at the time. In November of 2008, the Canadian government changed how many professions were eligible to file for the permanent residency visa, reducing it from hundreds to just 38. Mine was not one of the remaining 38, so when the government then retroactively applied the change to all applications filed in 2008, mine was rejected.

Cocksucker motherfucker. And of course, despite the fact I have it in writing that if my application is unsuccessful, my law firm would return all my legal fees unless I lied on the application, I am not being refunded. I'm currently pointing out to them it's not terribly fair to withhold my refund under these circumstances and they are of course ignoring me. Sigh. So now I need a whole new B plan, which I will begin to formulate after I'm done licking my wounds.

Winner!

2008 wasn't a brilliant year for me in many ways, not least of them cinematic. I didn't even bother with a top ten last year I found it so uninspiring. And when a film arrives on the crest of the critically adoring wave only to be from a director I don't think has delivered a watchable film since 1995, then my overwhelming response is "meh".

So I'm really glad that Slumdog Millionaire was so completely wonderful. It did not put a foot wrong for its whole 120 minute running time. It was wonderfully written, it was superbly acted and it was pretty flawlessly directed. The viewer is drawn in to a story that is by turns funny, sad, dramatic, stomach churning, heartbreaking, nailbiting and of course uplifting. It's colourful, it's loud, it's kinetic, it has a killer soundtrack and if you're not wrestling with a lump in your throat (or indeed blubbing like the homo you are, PCB) over the inspired Bollywood end credits, then you have no soul. Slumdog has kicked off 2009 in fine style as the best film I've seen in quite some time. Here's hoping it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Naked Farmer: The 2009 Return

So this year, my secret Santa bought to me another naked people calendar. This time, it's firemen. There was a website noted on the calendar, so I though "fantastic! I can do the same thing I did last year, only with firemen instead of farmers". Now, there's a sentence. But, I went to the website, only to find it doesn't exist. The farmers, though, are far more organised. So here it is. The naked farmer for January 2009. Enjoy.

People, is this any way to start a new year?

So last night, for reasons I still can't quite work out, I went to the roadshow presentation of Che. The cinema just down the road from me was showing it, in its 4 hour 17 minute glory. The start time was listed at 6:45pm, so I figured it would be done by 11pm and I'd be home not long after.

Wrong-o. There was 20 minutes of pointless faff at the beginning and a 25 minute interval between the two parts so the whole thing took five hours from start to finish. The irony is it was only ever good and watchable (admittedly with an insanely amazing performance from Benicio Del Toro), it never really tipped over into being great. Oh well.

I forget, every time I go to this cinema that, as it's the local "arthouse" cinema, the level of pretentious film snob conversations I overhear tend to make me want to kick people. When I saw La Vie En Rose there, for example, I overheard someone saying "yah yah, well of course Charles did see Edith perform in Paris." Oh fuck off. Last night's little gem was someone commenting to their friend that the last time they'd seen a film here it was Terrence Malick's A New World. He then spent a few minutes waxing rhapsodic about Malick and how wonderful Thin Red Line and New World are before saying "I mean, I find it really challenging to stay awake during them, but they're so amazing". I had to really fight the urge to tap him on the shoulder and say "when a film bores you into unconsciousness, I don't think you really think they're good, do you?"