Daily archives: May 28, 2003


Cap'un America?

Last month, film critic and rightwing pundit Michael Medved blundered into the four colour pages and tried to lambast Captain America as anti US because current storylines were trying to be mature about terrorism. I had my say, pointing to wing head’s earlier periods of disillusionment in the 70s and 80s, but I also want to link to this point by point counter-argument by Scott Slemmons.


Film fun

The most memorable cinema advert from my childhood and teens played in Whitehaven’s single screen complex and Bingo hall. In a sequence that could have been an out take from Lawrence of Arabia, Arab horsemen galloped towards the camera. They pulled their horses up short and, as the beasts milled around, fired muskets and ancient bolt action rifles into the sky. Then the voice over, not quite dramatic enough, intoned, “Rush on down to Rea’s the Bakers.” Cut to a years old interior shot of the Craft Bakery down the road.

I can’t really remember any of the top ten Pearl & Dean cinema advertising moments. Not even the pictures can remind me of any.

With the advent of low cost cinemas, we may be able to pay what films are really worth, though the Guardian reckons there are at least 10 films not worth an Easy cinema 20p. At this point I have to come to the defence of Phoebe Cates. Drop Dead Fred isn’t a great movie by any measure, but I’m a sucker for a brunette with big eyes and small……. erm. Just watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High and you’ll understand. Maybe one day sk8er boi, inspired by legal-but-still-too-young-for-me-to-think-those-things-about Avril Lavigne’s song, will make it onto that list.


Normal Service Resumed

I’ve only just got back onto the PC, having been swallowed by a book yesterday evening. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, in fact. Sam Vimes travels back in time to meet his younger self a few days into his Watch career. Not as absolutely hilarious as some of his other work, and a little cramped by the knowledge (and the Causality Monks’ assertions), that history heals itself and everything that had happened in the original past will happen in this one- only in a slightly different way. There’s some neat background on the origins of characters, but little room for some of the inspired inventiveness that you’d get from Pratchett in new territory.

And my brain refuses to imagine what the Ginger Beer torture actually involves.