An update on my reading material of late. I read Joseph Heller's Catch 22, which seemed to take me an age to get through. Whilst it was interesting and funny the disjointed style of writing stopped it from being a page-turner. My fifth year English teacher tried to get me to read this at school as she thought I'd appreciate the humour. I gave up after a chapter or so, so I'm glad to have finally read it.
I then read a biography of Peter Sellers - Peter Evans's The Mask Behind the Mask. It was a bit crap in places, but for the most part made an interesting read. Having read a few volumes of Spike Milligan's memoirs I guess I'll do Harry Secombe next. Or Michael Bentine (sp?).
Movie 'em Danno! Erm.
Saw Love Actually in Queenstown. It was OK. Anne liked it more than I did. Some of the stories were pretty good but I thought there were a few that didn't work so well, including Hugh Grant as PM. Why was he still single if his standards were so low that he'd fall for potty-mouth Tiffany? The first scene when the singer finally gets the words right made me laugh out loud. Brilliantly timed. Richard Curtis knows how to write comedy, and there were a few other laugh out loud bits, but Andrew Lincoln's creepy stalking of that stick-thin bland girl was just horrid. Given that one of the stories is about a shameless Christmas cash-in, it was odd that at times the movie seems to be just that. I guess they were being ironic. I'm still going to give it three and a half stars because I liked seeing London on screen. I miss it!
At Te Anau we watched The Mexican on video. I quite liked Brad Pitt's hapless criminal, and James Gandolfini's kidnapper was quite good, but I thought Julia Roberts was a bit rubbish. Given its cast, it seemed to lack something. Two and a half star.
This one's late: I forgot to note that we saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom at Greymouth. I'd not seen this in years and found it very disappointing. I knew it was the worst of the three but it's just not that good. It has an odd mix of slapstick and horror, and the woman in it (is that Speilberg's wife?) is just terrible. She just screams the whole time. Still, it has some good set pieces. Two and a half stars.