Ex-Libris

Support Your Local Sherrif is on Sky Movies right now. I absolutely heart this film so much. No matter how many times I see it, it always makes me laugh. It's like Hot Fuzz in that respect.
James Garner reminds a bit of David Boreanaz in this. Can't quite put my finger on why.

I'm glad it does me laugh actually because it's been one of those days.

Today was one of those days where everything just pissed me off, regardless of how irrational it was. It wasn't helped though by the rotten mist that alternated with heavy rain where a person had to wear a heavier jacket than usual in order to stay in any way dry. Of course, it was good and humid so even walking down the end of the road in a long sleeved jacket was just icky. My grandmother was in a bad mood and took it out on me, the dogs seemed to forget every bit of training they got yesterday and by the afternoon, I was ready to put my foot through something. So I decided to remove myself from the situation (luckily it was my mother's afternoon off) and I headed to my grandmother's house where I sat reading quietly for a while. I'm reading Snobs by Julian Fellowes, got it from the library. I'm enjoying it a lot. My Supernatural season 3 boxset arrived today as well. I buy off Sendit.com. They're postage and packing free and as they ship from Jersey, there's no VAT which makes DVD box sets a hell of a lot cheaper than buying them down town. Plus there's a lot of box sets that never seem to be included in sales in the shops, like the Doctor Who sets.

Cinema wise, we got to see Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day and the costumes and sets were fantastic. Really evocative of the book. But they changed quite a bit from the book, especially the ending and I can't say that I felt they were true to the spirit of the book in some respects.

Tonight, I went to see Hellboy 2 with my cousin. I really enjoyed the first one and I liked this one too. I have to say though, Selma Blair left me cold a bit. When they mentioned Antrim, Northern Ireland, a guy in our row said in really loud voice, "Oh, Jesus Christ!" as though in a film about demons, elves and the like, this was the last straw. I don't know what his problem was. I mean, Ireland has a really healthy mythology and more fairy tales than you can shake a stick at and personally, I found it very refreshing that a film mentions Northern Ireland and it's something other than a gritty story about the Troubles.

We've really gotten into watching The Unit. I'd seen it advertised but never watched, until a few weeks ago, I caught an episode by accident. It's on three different channels so we watch those, all out of order mind which makes it a bit confusing. My mother and I end up trying to place them by their hairsyles or whether Tiffy is still having an affair with the Colonel. Our favourite part is when Baines issues a smack down to somebody or other. Damn, he's good. He's definitely what Caesar Milan would call 'calm-assertive'.

I've been busy the last few weeks, not with anything particularly big or pressing (except the Six but apart from keeping them clean, dry and warm, they've been pretty low maintenance) but just with things that had to be done or errands I'd run for my mother because now I can do that kind of thing. I also found a really good butchers in town - we had cocktail sausages, rashers and chips for dinner last Saturday and they were scrumilicious! Yesterday's fillet steak wasn't too bad either. So yay for good purveyors of fresh meat products.

As well as that, I got to see The Incredible Hulk twice - so much love! So of course, I had to order the TV series boxset for season 4. It has the two part episode "Prometheus", which I always remembered seeing on television back in the day but had no idea how it resolved itself. Basically a meteor crashes to earth and David Banner goes to check it out, thinking something has crashed and people might need help. But the meteor contains gamma radiation (oh noes!) so when he hulks out upon stumbling into a hornet's nest and goes to the cabin of the blind woman he'd rescued from drowning, his metamorphosis back goes pear shaped and he's stuck half way! What are the odds, people, what are the odds?! Watching the various seasons, it strikes me that he seemed to end up with some of the most hysterical women roaming about North America at the time. The blind woman gets all whiny and likes to shriek at things, which, fair enough, she's recently blinded and having trouble coping, but her constant "David? David? DAVID?!!!" gets annoying very quickly. Plus she's very handsy and starts groping David Banner in a way that made me wonder just how blind she was. Ending up in situations that make a man change into a green creature who goes about tearing the place up probably would test the mettle of even the best of us, I'll grant you, but remember, this is a man who hulks out over having to deal with the most unhelpful operator in the history of the telephone exchange and not having enough change to make another call.  It's sad then that when David Banner does meet a woman who fails to freak out entirely at what he becomes when enraged, it does not end well. Woes. That end credit music is well chosen. The lonely man indeed.
David Banner would probably do well to meet up with Wesley Gibson in Wanted. He'd have no time to register anger at anything because Wesley and Fox would just zoom in and shoot the shit out of everyone. That was a very enjoyable film, I have to say. So much fun. The evening after that, I took myself off to see The Escapist with Brian Cox and Damien Lewis. Damien Lewis only has a small part in it but he's creepy and dangerous nonetheless. It's a good film, Brian Cox puts in an excellent performance as the prisoner putting together an escape plan.
Last night, we went to see Prince Caspian.  I haven't read the books since I was in fifth class, I was about ten or eleven and I would read them at lunchtime, having borrowed them from the class library. I can't say I was mightily taken with them. I distinctly remember being unimpressed with the final book. So it didn't bother me or even register with me what they'd changed or added in. I thought Ben Barnes was very fine looking, I must say, and I really thought he did the accent a lot better than I've heard done in other films. We were very entertained. There wasn't many at the screening though. We went to the 9.35pm show and I had already gotten the tickets (just in case) and insisted we be there by 9.10 at the very latest in case it was busy. When we (my cousin Seamus and me) arrived, the previous screening was about five minutes away from the end and three other people were sitting outside waiting to go in. But it gave Seamus more time to stand in line and buy the munchies so all to the good.

The other big excitement was the Doctor Who episode: The Stolen Earth. I was on the end of my seat the entire time and I believe the words "Jesus, Mary & Joseph!" escaped my lips at the end, despite my best attempts to be a good Catholic. My mother was watching in the other room and came barging in demanding to know "what the fuck is going on?! why didn't you tell me that was going to happen?!" and that's when I re-educated her as to the concept of being spoiler free! For about five minutes, we could only speak in shocked high pitched voices which meant my grandmother started to freak out thinking that was something bad was going down that we weren't telling her. When I told her it was about aliens on the television, I'm surprised she didn't punch me, she was that disgusted. Heh. So of course, my mother and I had to spend Saturday night and most of Sunday coming up with theories as to what is going to happen next. If we paid as much attention to what's going on in the world, we'd be dynamos for social change.

I managed to make my DVD player region free which was very exciting. If you're us, that is. Now all I need is some Region 1 DVD's. Actually what I need is somewhere to store the DVD's I already have. This house was not built with my future DVD and book collections in mind back in the 1940's. Someone really dropped the ball on that one!