Okay, so I haven't posted any movie reviews to this blog in quite a while. That's because I've been doing some more… I don't know if I can quite say productive, but certainly more worthwhile stuff lately. :) You see, I'm unemployed, so there used to be periods when I'd spend several days in a row just watching two or sometimes three movies each day. But lately, I've been taking some more steps towards actually getting a life! :)
So yes, this blog entry will be much more personal than what I usually talk about. After all, isn't that the purpose of a blog: essentially an online diary? This one's just for me, so if it does nothing for you, feel free to stop reading at any time. :)
On January 16th, I went for a two-week holiday to England, to visit my best friend John, as well as my uncle Dennis who lives in Bristol. I was intending to look for work in Bristol while I was on it. But when I checked the papers, there were almost no job adverts at all! In fact, in the Bristol Post, there didn't even seem to be a page for job ads! I probably should have been a bit more proactive, including seeking out the local recruitment agencies, but I was really more interested in what the employment situation was like in the area; I never expected any actual work to come of my efforts. That was partly because I was only staying for a week. I'll need to stick around longer next time, just in case I am actually called in for an interview.
But, aside from the disappointment of finding no work, I have to say, this holiday was just the break I needed! :) It was the polar opposite of what I normally do: sit around the house on my own (which I do mostly because I actually don't have a choice). For those two weeks, I was with wonderful people, and I was actually out doing stuff. Hell, Dennis took me on an outing literally every single day I was there! Those outings included meeting up with a friend of his for lunch, going to the nearby city of Bath (which was lovely, let me tell you!), and going for a drive with a couple more of my relatives, which took us through the awe-inspiring Avon Gorge. We also went to the city aquarium and the zoo, but those are entire stories in and of themselves! :D
Still, John's mother Debbie advised me not to give up looking for work, and I don't intend to. :) She suggested that I try writing to the Natural History Museum in London again – since that is one place where I'll be most at home. :) I already wrote to them once before when I visited John in a previous year, but obviously nothing came of that.
However, I always come back to the same problem: trying to handle all this from another country. You might be wondering why I don't just look for work in Ireland, where I live. Well… my roots are in England, so maybe I'm just homesick. :) Besides, I don't think my chances of finding work in England will be any worse than they are here in Ireland. Still, as far as I can see, I won't be able to permanently move out of Ireland until I actually find a job in England.
…Which is why I'm thinking of going back to stay with John for a while longer – maybe three weeks instead of two this time – and looking a bit further afield, broadening my horizons to include maybe Manchester, Oxford and Dover. If and when that time comes, just before I set off, I'll sign up for the local recruitment agencies in all the towns I'm thinking of trying. I know it's tricky trying to find work when you can't actually be on hand, but at least it's something.
In the meantime, there's a training course in computer applications starting in Sligo soon; that should add some more juice to my CV. :)
In other news, instead of watching movies, I've been spending the last few days working on assembling the second shelf unit for my DVDs. I could never find a shelf unit in stores that was the exact dimensions I needed, so I decided to just buy the wood to build one myself. But since then, I've bought so many DVDs that I had no choice but to build another one.
Before I left for England, I'd already roughly cut out all the pieces for the second unit, but I hit a snag when the planer (the tool that trims the edges) broke and I had to buy a new one on Amazon. As soon as I got back from England, I started cleaning up the remaining edges with the new planer.
Then, last week, I started the next phase: actually nailing everything together. But, right off the bat, I encountered a problem. An entire shelf was ruined because of those nails! No matter how straight I tried to hammer them in, they always ended up bent, one of them beyond the point of salvation! So I had to buy another 90×20cm plank of wood just to try that shelf again.
Today, I got back to work, this time drilling 1·5mm shafts for the nails first; I thought maybe that'd help keep them straight. And that approach has worked like a dream so far; five of the nine shelves are nailed together already! :) But now something else has gone wrong! :( One of the nails must have hit a knot in the wood or something, because it wouldn't go in any further; now that nail's ended up bent, and I can't even prise it out again. So now I'll have to buy yet more wood. :( But, on the plus side, one of the side walls (for lack of a better word) of that shelf was uneven, so I can make it a 120cm plank this time to replace both the shelf and the wall. :)
Actually, let me explain that. I get my wood from Homebase (a British home improvement store), and they actually sell these simple wooden shelves as well as big sheets of wood. The ironic thing is that it works out cheaper to buy a tonne of those plank shelves than to buy an actual six-foot sheet. And, even stranger, the 120cm shelf kits are €6.49, while the 90cm ones are €7.49! Why it's not the other way round, I have no idea!
Anyway, until I can get back to Homebase, the assembly of the shelf unit is on hold again.
Once I'm done with the separate shelves, the final step will be to drill holes to accommodate short lengths of dowel – so I can slot the shelves together while still making the whole unit easy to disassemble and reassemble.
I also have to mention that I went up to Enniskillen yesterday and, by an unbelievable stroke of luck, happened to find a region two copy of my most sought-after Superman box set in CEX! :D It's the box set that includes all four movies, plus the Richard Donner cut of Superman II, and Superman Returns. That box set seems to have gone out of print now; most box sets since then have included all of what I just mentioned except for Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut.
I already got this particular box set once before on Amazon.co.uk, but that one turned out to be region one, so it basically busted my laptop's disc drive. So I truly can't believe my luck that I've now found an authentic region two version! :)
Also, looking back, it's staggering how much I've spent on Superman over the years, how many times I've replaced those DVDs! First I got the standard box set of the first four movies, plus Superman Returns separately. But the Superman 1 disc in that box set was scratched to the point where the movie froze at one point, so I had to buy the first movie separately to replace that disc. Then I saw Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut and decided I had to get it on DVD somehow. So I found the aforementioned box set of all the movies, and the whole region one fiasco followed, so then I decided to get the first two movies separately: the special four-disc edition of the first movie, and the Superman II volume that includes the theatrical version and the Richard Donner cut. And now this.
Even the animated movies haven't got a break from that! At first I got Superman: Doomsday on its own, but then the multi-pack of five animated Superman movies came out.
So yeah, that's a lot of money spent on one franchise, but I can't complain too much; it's fucking Superman! :)
Anyway, between my holiday, the DIY and sorting out work stuff, that hasn't left me time to watch more than a couple of movies per week, which I don't think is nearly enough to do my regular "first impressions" summary at the end of the week. But, because I don't want all the stuff I've seen since my last "first impressions" post (which was a month ago) to go without a mention, I might as well finish up here with a few words on each one.
The first movie I'll mention is Gone Baby Gone (2007), Ben Affleck's directorial debut. The main thing I remember about that movie is what a haunting piece of work it is; the atmosphere is conveyed perfectly. And the ending is actually a really poignant dilemma. But this is one of those movies where I couldn't grasp a good chunk of the dialogue, so I'll need to watch it again with subtitles. My rating: 70%.
Then I saw American Hustle. And I'm not going to lie: I don't get it. Even though the focus is on people conning each other, it's still all dealing with the world of business and politics, which I simply don't have a head for, so most of the movie went right over my head. By the third act, I'd long since stopped caring what was going on. My rating: 55%.
Next up, John and I went to the cinema twice while I was staying with him.
The first movie we saw was The Wolf of Wall Street. This is one instance where it really annoys me that some American movies take so long to make it across the pond, because this definitely would have made my top ten movies of the year list had I seen it in 2013. :) The first two hours made me laugh pretty much constantly, mostly because the characters are such greedy, depraved assholes, but so insanely passionate about it that you can't get too mad at them; that delightful passion is why it works so well as a black comedy. One of my favourite scenes is the whole driving-under-influence section. My only complaint with the movie is that it is incredibly sexist; it couldn't possibly be less empowering to women if it tried. But aside from that, this movie is a riot from start to finish. My rating: 85%.
And the second one we saw was 12 Years a Slave. That wasn't nearly as uncomfortable to sit through as I'd heard it was, mostly because I never got truly attached to the character of Solomon Northup, but it's still a powerful and compelling piece. It's an unflinching look at slavery and how shockingly abusive it was. You really can't believe people could be so cruel as to capture a free man and sell him back into slavery. So it may be more effective as a concept than as an actual character study, but it's still a really impressive movie. My rating: 80%.
Next… Dennis had several VHS tapes at his house, and one that I picked out and watched was The Lover (1992). Now, the erotic side of it works really well: the sex scenes are about as sensual as it gets. But it's a shame the rest of the movie is a real chore to sit through. The overall tone is dull, the acting is pretty wooden, and a lot of the dialogue is unbearably pretentious. My rating: 30%.
And, most recently, I saw my first 2014 release: the RoboCop remake. It's a remake that's clearly trying to differentiate itself from the original by doing its own thing. There are several homages to the original, but all with a fresh new twist. And the philosophy of the character is changed: instead of a pure machine with traces of the man it used to be, this time it's a man inside a machine. Unfortunately, a lot of the dialogue states the obvious, with the difference between man and machine being constantly shoved in your face. But the major, major problem with this movie is the shaky cam; I am so sick of that shit! Overall, while there are things about it that I like, this is just an obviously inferior remake that I still maintain was completely unnecessary. My rating: 50%.
I also just got done playing the PS1 version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I still have a nostalgic soft spot for the PC version, but this one… yeah, it kind of sucks! In fact, by most standards, it really sucks! Sometimes it's insultingly simple, and other times it's ludicrously frustrating; I often found myself quoting the Angry Video Game Nerd's Ninja Turtles video: "Why is this game so hard? It's for kids! Have mercy!" Not to mention, the graphics, even for PS1 standards, are horrible! And let's not even get into the countless ways it fails as a piece of Harry Potter memorabilia! In particular, Snape is way too lenient. In conclusion, while it bears a few things in common with the PC version, like the music and a few lines of dialogue, it's inferior in just about every respect. I'll be playing the PS2 version of Chamber of Secrets next; let's hope that fares better. My rating: 40%.
Actually, I've already started playing the PS2 version of Chamber of Secrets, but the game froze in the collectables/tasks menu when I was about halfway through the second stage. And when I restarted it, I discovered there was no autosave feature; the game hadn't saved anything yet! Well, there was no way I was playing through all that again, so I lost patience and shut the game off in anger.
