Sweet Nothings

Because I enjoyed the first Hunger Games film before reading the books, I was slightly worried that Catching Fire would fall prey to the “adaptations are always a disappointment if you’ve read the book” rule. In fairness to the first film, it managed to stay admirably close to its source without coming across as clunky or bookish, so maybe it was the proverbial rule-proving exception. The second book, although a retread in many ways, does enlarge the canvas with resistance movements and other political manoeuvrings, pretty much ruling out such a close adaptation. Could it still meet expectations? In Catching Fire, Panem - your typical post-catastrophe future dystopia in which humanity has failed miserably to learn from past mistakes - is on the verge of civil war thanks to our heroine Katniss Everdine’s actions at the end of the last Games. No revolutionary, Katniss just wants her family to be safe. Unfortunately, as mentor Haymitch points out, winning the Games becomes a...

This is an article I submitted to a football magazine a while back. Haven't heard any more from them so I'm guessing they weren't interested, but I figured somebody might want to read it... EDIT: It has now been published and is available in the latest issue of Late Tackle magazine, available - as they say - at all good newsagents and several bad ones. Next stop: Fleet Street (the metaphorical one obviously). ------------------------------------------------------ Fantasy football’s warping of our natural instincts is well-documented. You can find yourself cheering on even the game’s most heinous villains when their every touch in the opposition’s half brings the promise of precious points – even when they’re playing your own team. The even murkier side of this phenomenon is much less discussed, however – what becomes of the poor souls for whom FF dominates their football-following lives and yet, somehow, results in utter failure? Spending inadvisable amounts ...

The most photographed corner of Bruges. And proud of it. First things first – don’t come to Bruges with a wheeled suitcase. Yes, it’s easy to get there on the Eurostar and much of the town’s medieval architecture has been lovingly preserved, but this does mean cobbles galore, even on the pavements. The constant clack-clacking of those wheels even on the short walk from the station to our B&B pierced through the relative calm of the backstreets like the call of a particularly irritating bird.  Bordered by a ring of canals, the city centre is a beautiful little island-bubble reminiscent of Venice, and its station also sits on the edge of a canal, disgorging daily hordes of tourists (yes, many with wheely cases) to clog up the city’s narrow arteries. It’s very obvious to trace the quickest route to the heart of Bruges, as these roads are the ones lined with wall to wall gift shops and eateries specialising in waffles, beer, lace and general tut. The key difference is that ...

It felt like Disney were almost daring me to take against Saving Mr Banks . A film celebrating the making of one of their own beloved classics, with all-round-nice-guy Tom Hanks on board to ensure Uncle Walt comes across as cuddly as possible, plus the highly imaginative casting of Emma Thompson alongside him as a brittle English lady? Self-indulgent don’t even begin to cover it. And yet, the fulsome praise in the aftermath of the initial previews suggested that my cynicism was entirely unfounded. Had Disney pulled off the audacious trick of making a great movie out of such transparently cynical ingredients? The story has Mary Poppins's author (PL) Travers-ing across the Atlantic to do battle with Disney and his minions over her creation’s soul. Too protective of Mary to let her go and too proud to admit she needs the Mouse’s money, she represents a spin on the stock fish-out-of-water character – someone who ought to be completely out of her depth, but who exerts h...

I had reservations about Gravity going in, as it has been compared to (amongst other things) 2001, which for me is a tediously dry art piece rather than an actual film. I needn’t have worried, as Alfonso Cuaron’s film is far more concerned with the fates of actual characters than pretentious esoteric musings on the nature of humanity. No monkey suits, either. It starts off with Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and some other guy – who, if this were Star Trek, would be sporting a really red shirt – on a spacewalk. Sandra is nervy and inexperienced, whilst George is all smooth and Clooneyish. Some technobabble later and sundry space junk is flying at them at alarming speeds. Let the thrills begin. The BBFC now quite often warns viewers, tongue often in cheek, when films contain ‘mild peril’. Gravity boasts sustained sequences of genuine jeopardy, of the type that’s conspicuously absent in, say, Superman and General Zod smashing up an entire city of...

Arcade Fire have been accused in some quarters of lacking levity, which maybe goes some way towards explaining the promotional bumph for their fourth record – the pseudonyms, the masks, the  bonkers long-form video , and so on. Clearly Reflekor is an attempt to push the boat out musically too, the hiring of James Murphy heralding extended track lengths and an emphasis on beats more than riffs. Win Butler has also talked a lot about how visiting Haiti inspired many of the songs, and how the locals respond to music in a more primal way rather than viewing everything through the Western prism of “rock”. Such comments are on a hiding to nothing really, as a multi-award winning, adored band will never be able to escape their pop-cultural baggage. The best they can do is to throw out some new shapes, mix things up a bit and hope not to lose the qualities that got them here in the first place. It must be said that all this makes far more sense live than on MP3, especially sin...

Three very different films that can be described as romantic comedies to varying degrees, all seen ahead of their UK release dates (in the States or at the LFF) - this is almost like being a proper reviewer! The buzz for Enough Said , which came out on Friday (oh), is mostly around what has sadly turned out to be James Gandolfini’s final performance. Writer/director Nicole Holofcener’s film is a lot more than that, and certainly deserves better than its tediously generic ladies-only poster campaign. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva, a single middle-aged massage therapist whose daughter is about to leave for college. She meets Gandolfini’s aimiable schlub Albert at a party and they slowly, hesitantly fall in love, until the inevitable spanner hits the works. Most synopses and reviews have spoilerifically revealed the exact nature of said spanner, which won’t ruin the film for you by any means, but I’m glad I didn’t know what was coming. And although some of the plot po...

Doge's Palace (not the real one) At first, I thought that Las Vegas was going to be my favourite city in the world. Yes yes, it obviously represents the nadir of humankind's narcissistic greed, but just look at all those bright lights! The airport is right next to the Strip, so as soon as you get into your taxi you're confronted with a giant pyramid shooting a laser beam into the air for no discernable reason, whilst a TV screen in the back of the cab bombards you with enticing ads for the latest shows. Truly, it feels like you're being ushered towards a cornucopia of unimaginable delights. Once we'd checked in and gotten some of our bearings, reality then bit. When you realise you can only hope to dine at a mere fraction of the hundreds of eateries, and that you're never likely to see the vast majority of these shows, nor play at every table or slot machine, and that you can't stay in every hotel, you do start to think that maybe all this is, ra...

The story so far: The USA's unfathomable governmental structure conspires to close down all the country's National Parks the day before we fly out there for our long-planned holiday. We miss out on a visit to Alcatraz, and have to rearrange our travel schedule for the first week because Yosemite is shut. Wednesday 9 October - Monterey: with neither side showing any sign of conceding defeat, we are forced to abandon our plans to stay at Grand Canyon Village as well. At least this allows us to (a) we book ourselves into the Monte Carlo on the Las Vegas strip for three nights, and (b) book ourselves on a day tour to the West Rim of the canyon for Saturday. NB. The West Rim is owned and run by Hualapai Indians... sorry, Native Americans (definitely not  Redskins ). Although this means it has remained open, everyone seems to agree that compared to the South Rim, aka the "proper bit", the West Rim is smaller, tackier and generally a bit shit. Still, from my point ...

Carmel beach Coastal California has been fairly well mythologised over the years - the mere mention of Big Sur, Monterey or Santa Cruz evokes hazy visions of sun-dappled semi-paradises where the surf is high and so are most of the people.  If I wasn't as excited about this part of our trip as I was about San Francisco or Las Vegas, not forgetting the Grand Canyon (status pending), it was almost solely down to The Thrills, whose jangle-pop dirges "inspired" by the area sapped the life out of my ears a decade or so ago. It's hard to credit how such a stunning environment could possibly inspire such tepid music, but basically Brian Wilson - often imitated, never remotely bettered - has a lot to answer for. Another unfeasibly bourgeois Carmel shopping arcade Thanks to Yosemite being closed, we were able to see a lot more of this region than originally planned. First stop was Carmel, whose official name of Carmel-by-the-Sea better reflects its picture-book natur...

So, most of the US Government is shut. Obviously some functions are being kept going, except it seems for the really essential ones, such as KEEPING THE NATIONAL PARKS OPEN FOR NICE UK TOURISTS WHO'VE PLANNED THEIR VISITS TO ALCATRAZ, YOSEMITE AND ESPECIALLY THE GRAND CANYON FOR MONTHS . First they decide to elect a new Pope just before we go to Rome, thereby depriving me of seeing the Sistene Chapel, and now this. Screw you, Tea Party nutjobs. Screw you, world in general. Still, at least I've been able to see San Francisco for the first time, which is possibly the least practical city on earth. Sure, those pioneer guys who first set eyes on the beautiful Bay Area must have thought they were quids in, but they failed dismally to consider how the 20th century population expansion and the invention of the motor car might work vis a vis the massive sodding hills surrounding the bay. I doubt Top Gear's budget stretches to converting entire cities into racetracks, but San Fr...

Yes hello, I’m not dead or anything. I was going to apologise for not posting for a while, but apparently us bloggers aren’t supposed to do that , so I suggest you accept what you’re given and be grateful that I can be arsed to write anything at all. (There’s a really good article somewhere that collates such “sorry, I was busy!” posts which I can’t find, but I’m not going to apologise for that either.) Anyway, we got to our seats in time to catch the end of Public Service Broadcasting .  Stock footage on a projector screen is accompanied by surprisingly direct and jaunty instrumental rock, as played by one man on guitar-slash-laptop dressed as Matt Smith from Doctor Who, and a drummer who seems to have gone for an IT Crowd-era Richard Ayoade vibe. They talk to the audience through a Stephen Hawking style voice machine. The carefully assembled blend of vintage and modern is all very now , or at least is trying awfully hard to be. This may be a crap photo, but at least it...

  *** Disclaimer *** There’s a group on Facebook for residents of my local area to air their views. Obviously I don’t want to name names here without permission, and I won’t be quoting anybody directly for that reason. Having said that, all these comments appear on a public Facebook group which holds no stringent requirements for membership; it’s not exactly difficult to find out where I live either (not many local council seats will have just had a by-election due to a recent death of the sitting Councillor), and so you could probably locate these discussions for yourself with minimal effort. All this can be summed up thus: privacy sure is confusing these days. So, where does local politics fit in? Oh yeah, sorry: *** End disclaimer *** Privacy is one of this group’s prevailing themes - many of the posts are about recent robberies in the area, which are helpfully advisory/paranoia-inducingly ominous depending on one’s views. The local MP is active on the group, ...