The Rock Star and I are unapologetic homebodies. Even BEFORE we had children, an evening of chilling out on the couch in pajama trousers ranked fairly high above going out to clubs, pubs, whatnot. So, in the Post Prawn, Pre Squid era, it should come as a surprise to nobody that on any given night, you’ll find us at home; me usually working on crafty nonsense and The Rock Star noodling away to his heart’s content on one of his various axes.

We occasionally get sucked into tv trends. During our time on the boat, the best part of a year was devoted to the whole of The West Wing series. This is, of course, not embarrassing in the slightest as it was an often taut, but at the same time funny and deeply clever political televisual masterpiece. However, not all of our tastes are quite so highbrow as is evidenced by our latest guilty viewing pleasure, the top rated HBO titty and vampire fest, True Blood.

Vampires have kind of come and gone in popularity during my adolescence and young adulthood from Gary Oldman’s peculiarly butt-shaped hairdo in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” to Tom Cruise’s peculiarly butt-shaped performance in “Interview With a Vampire”. I must admit to a 4 book Anne Rice blitz back in my late teens and early 20’s. Rice’s sexually charged but strangely celibate vampires made for good stories, but even at my most romantically impressionable, I don’t think I would have ever been prone to a clothes-rending, emotionally charged squealfest at the mere mention of one of these Children of the Night a-la today’s fanatical “Twi-hards”. (Who also, coincidentally, favor sexually charged but strangely celibate vampires. At least until they get a ring on your finger, and then apparently, there’s a lot of headboard breakage that goes on.) I have to wonder what my reaction would have been to “Twilight” as a 16 year old girl. Anne Rice’s vamps were obviously very grown up, sensual, sophisticated and worldly, so reading about them as a teenager was rather like peaking through the bannister at a cocktail party going on downstairs after you’ve gone to bed. But EDWARD CULLEN HAS 2 TAKE HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY JUST LK ME, OMG, WTF, BRB, BFF, ETC! So maybe the whole thing is just context.

At any rate, True Blood’s take on the nosferatu mythology borrows from a lot that’s come before it with a fair amount of irreverence. This is a show that doesn’t take vampires with a huge degree of “I HAVE CROSSED OCEANS OF TIME TO FIND YOU” seriousness, but rather in a “Hey, I’m a vampire and I just moved in next door. Can I borrow your internet connection until next Wednesday when mine is installed? I’m having trouble finding an engineer that will come out after sundown.”

We’ve enjoyed our vaguely titillating romp through Bon Temps, a Louisiana town whose freak and monster quotient probably tops just about any in the country save Forks, Washington and libidos run higher than the Mississippi. Vampires like to play Yahtzee! and watch “Lost” and the friendly neighborhood goddess of chaos hosts Friday night orgy and sacrifice parties over at her place. We finished the final episode of the second series, which wrapped up old plotlines and started new ones (“I don’t know who I am! I don’t know where I’m going! I’m so confused! I don’t….oooo, sparkly!”) and left us wondering what will be our next guilty pleasure.

The Rock Star and I often become engrossed in bad television. The things that get recorded on our Skybox are truly embarrassing. I hate to even admit that several years ago, we became completely addicted to a “reality” program that was about as real as “The Hills” called “Paradise Island” where a bunch of impossibly beautiful people (and one painfully unattractive, but wormy guy) were shoved together in an impossibly beautiful and luxurious villa overlooking the sea and, in time honoured format, were voted each other out one by one. Such was it’s stagedness, the “spontaneous” camerawork looked as if it were being shot by Martin Scorsese. It was a detestable piece of televisual shite, but because we are morons, we couldn’t get enough.

Lately, my thing has been a deep and abiding love for “Miami Ink” chronicling the life and times of the occupants of “Love Hate Tattoos” in South Beach. Such is the stunning realism of this particular show that every customer enters the shop OBVIOUSLY WEARING A RADIO MIKE and, if they are female, WEARING A BIKINI. I’ve actually been to Miami, and surprising as it may be, I didn’t see many half naked women downtown. Also, there seems to remarkably little blood involved in the tattoo process, and for anyone who’s ever been inked, you’ll know that getting a tattoo involves a fair amount of leakage on the tattooee’s part. Furthermore, when a customer examines their new piece of body art at the end of the process, there is a complete absence of redness or swelling of any kind. Again, a fresh tattoo has the same effect on the skin as having a drunken nightclub patron doodle on your flesh with a lit cigarette.

But pshaw to these little details. They do not hamper my enjoyment. And most dangerously of all, they make me want very much to go get another piece of ink.

Sad as it is to say, the world looks very differently upon tattooing in men and women. A bloke with tattoos peaking out above his shirt collar or out from under a short-sleeved t-shirt hardly receives a second glance or a moral judgment from passers by or employers. However, a woman with the same pieces of body art is likely to be looked upon as, at best rough and at worst, low or unintelligent. Were I a man, I’m pretty sure I would be bold with ink; a neck and back piece, maybe a sleeve with bright colors. However, being female, I feel obligated to keep my dalliances into the world of inkery in spots that generally do not see the light of day. The subversive part of me is keen for everyone in the PTA to know damn well who the Prawn’s mother is. “She’s the one with all the tattoos,” they’ll whisper. “YEAH?,” I’ll shout from the other end of the gym, “AND I CAN STILL KICK YOUR ASS AT MAKING RICE KRISPY SQUARES, BITCHES!” But that little annoying practical voice that I have to kick in the face every so often with a Doc Marten to silence still gets through saying, “Are you sure you can look at that for the rest of your life? Cause it’s NOT COMING OFF. Plus, would it kill you to stop picking at your toenails?”

At the moment, it is easy enough to ignore my ink as it’s almost all on my back. The two pieces on either of my feet are small and unobtrusive and generally only visible in the summertime when even broken glass on the pavement cannot compel me to wear shoes. Perhaps the level of subversion present in my soul is not at quite the level I would like it to be.

Meanwhile, I will dream dreams of descending swallows, blood red hearts and colourful, intertwining flower vines.

I’ve always been kind of a sucker for movie musicals. In recent years, I’ve had only “Moulin Rouge” and “Chicago” to sustain me, so imagine my rapture when I discovered that Tim Burton was in the process of directing “Sweeny Todd” for the big screen, starring Johnny Depp, who just about everyone possessing a certain amount of oestrogen has unnatural feelings for and anyone who admires the cinema cannot help but hopelessly admire for his prowess in bringing life to the peculiar and the quirky.

The Rock Star wanted to spend a quiet evening alone with his guitar, so I got a hall pass to get out and see the film with BoyRacer and Trumpet, who is equally filled with squee at the thought of a big screen musical.

(Possible spoilers ahead!) One rather knows what one is getting into when walking into a Tim Burton film. Burton’s world is a Victorian nursery with peeling black wallpaper and lots of broken dolls with pale faces. I have always found this slightly creepifying, but one can hardly complain when one turns up to see a movie about murder and cannibalism. Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter, who plays Todd’s partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett, are seasoned Burton veterans (Depp has appeared in no fewer than 6 previous directed by Burton) so their easy rapport with the director was guaranteed to help the film along. The director is also no stranger to a musical format, although his former experience has been limited to the animated variety.

The film definitely didn’t disappoint. Depp was riveting from his initial appearance on the screen as the deeply disillusioned and disturbed Todd, returning from a false work sentence in Australia after 15 years. Depp’s acting range is enormous, so it was only the very slightest bit disappointing to discover that his Todd was in fact, the much more evil brother of Captain Jack Sparrow. While Sparrow sailed the seas with fresh air and rum, Todd spent a lot of time alone in a dark room, pulling the wings off of insects. That aside, his capacity for portraying pathos and a whole lot of crazy drove the picture through all its bloody glory.

A lot of you know that I harbor a deep and abiding affection for Alan Rickman, who gets precious few good-guy roles. He has made a living in the bad-guy department. He excels at bad guys who are beset by stupidity on all sides. Bad guys who just can’t get good help. In this case, he and his deep brown voice are a bad guy who can’t keep it in his pants, causing the downfall of the titular Todd’s stainless bride and becoming the main object of his revenge. Rickman’s almost comically evil Judge Turpin slides and oozes his way around the picture, making the audience anxious to see him, at last, in Sweeny Todd’s barber’s chair.

Bonham Carter also put in a stellar performance as the not exactly evil, but certainly amoral Mrs. Lovett who spends her time desperately grasping for the affections of an obviously mad Todd, and for her pains, meets a rather unpleasant end. Sasha Baron Cohen also puts in a rather brilliant cameo as a rival barber who doesn’t really last longer than the first act.

The film struck a good balance between horror, comedy, musical and pantomime. As the plot depended on a great deal of graphic throat slitting, Burton managed to soften the brutality a notch by using a substance that was obviously un-bloodlike, more resembling red paint. Strangely, this went rather a long way towards preserving the theatrical nature of the film and giving a nod to its stage origins.

Due to the double standard in musical theatre that requires note perfect perfection of female players and, at best, a sloppy talk-through by the men, the history of the genre is littered with glorious leading men who were perfectly incapable of carrying a tune in a bucket. Rex Harrison of “My Fair Lady” fame and Robert Preston of “Music Man” and “Victor/Victoria” are two rather shining examples of great performers who were mostly tone deaf. Therefore, the vocal abilities of Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman (who actually managed a few moments of rather sublime harmony during the Greatest Hits of Broadway favorite, “Pretty Women”) were entirely fit for purpose.

I’ve always admired the work of Steven Sondheim and see why he’s widely regarded as the best in the business, but I often find his work hard to listen to. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how listenable the score was. (Albeit cut down for the purposes of the film.) The rollicking full numbers “A Little Priest” and “My Friends” stood out for their terrific execution.

Trumpet and I walked out, chattering a mile a minute, leaving BoyRacer to fend off the popcorn stuffed masses. We were still talking about the film when we reached the car and finally asked him what he made of it.

“Erm…a bit too much singing.”

It turned out that in our eagerness to see the film, we had neglected to inform BoyRacer of it’s musical status, so a lesson to be learned is that one must always let a bloke know if he’s about to sit through a musical, because obviously anything less just isn’t sporting.

For my money, a fantastic piece to see on the big screen.

Before you even ask, NO, I am not knocked up again. But is it me, or is everyone else?

I’m not sure if this is just because I’ve recently developed a large tumour in my brain that compels me to seek out gossip (because, obviously, there’s no other rational explanation for my shameful secret) or if it’s because the press has developed an irrational fixation on pregnant celebrities, but it seems that at any one time, there seems to be some frantic celebrity baby watch going on that will continue at fever pitch until some nosy bastard snaps the first photo of the little blob in public, at which point everyone loses interest.

It seems strange to me that women in the public eye who get pregnant are the source of such endless fascination as (I’ve been told) it’s actually pretty common among members of the female species. I suppose the state of pregnancy is always slightly unusual to the casual observer due to the really quite alarming physical characteristics of the condition, namely, the enormous, animated belly poking out in front. Although other conditions, including gross obesity, also have this characteristic, pregnancy is different. It’s a condition that’s treated reverently and with a certain degree of respect. Therefore, when an A-lister gets into a family way, it is though the light of heaven shines straight out of her ladyplace.

The recent must-have item in Hollywood seems to be an unplanned pregnancy with a boyfriend who spends most of his time running a nightclub paid for with your money and playing Xbox. Obviously chic. Condoms? SO yesterday. And One can’t possibly be expected to remember to take EVERY SINGLE LITTLE PILL in that wheel thingy when you have 15 trips to Starbucks to make in one day.

Press releases from publicists could almost be fill-in-the-blank: “ _________is expecting her first child with boyfriend, Cheaty McWorthless. The couple are thrilled and delighted”. Of course, from just about any photo you care to dredge up, it’s patently obvious that __________ is anything BUT thrilled and delighted, because in fact, __________ was a day away from canning Cheaty McWorthless’s ass when the dreaded plus sign appeared in the little window of the pee-pee stick. Solo pregnancy in show business guarantees headlines in the Enquirer. But pregnancy with a seemingly doting partner gets you People, US, Glamour, Vanity Fair, and a shitload of free baby swag from every trendy specialist boutique. So obviously, Cheaty gets to stay on, being a loathsome sponge until the baby shows up, at which point she is free to sell the story; “I Left Him for the Sake of My Baby” garnering massive public support and securing a guest spot on Oprah.

Then of course, there is the all important matter of a cool name, because god forbid you do something so prosaic as name the child after your grandmother who loved you dearly and baked you things, although you can be forgiven if your grandmother was called Edna or Fanny. (IF YOU HAVE A GRANDMOTHER CALLED EDNA OR FANNY, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT BY THE WAY. I HAD A GREAT AUNT EDNA WHO WAS A LOVELY, LOVELY WOMAN.) I have to admit to falling victim to the peculiar name bug when looking for names for The Prawn. I don’t mind telling you that some of the casualties of the girl’s name list were Kestrel, Lirael and Lyra. (for you literary buffs) But naming an A-list baby seems to be a task that causes famous parents to take leave of their senses and bestow their offspring with monikers that will no doubt make up an entire chapter entitled “How My Parents Fucked Me Up” in their future autobiographies. While Apple is a lovely name for a fruit, a computer and a small, photogenic girl, it is not necessarily a name that will ever look right on a credit card or eventual social security check. Indiana is a fabulous name for a state or an archaeologist, but unless he’s willing to wield a bullwhip in the school yard, no so much for a little boy. (Although I have a sneaking suspicion that in a state of hormone induced madness, it might have been one of the names that I suggested to the Rock Star if the Prawn had been born in possession of a winkle.)

The part of pregnancy that the public rarely ever sees is the downside, which involves miscarriage or infertility. Pregnancy announcements are made and then there is a deafening silence if something should happen to go wrong. In addition to the insanity that surround celebrity pregnancies, it would be comforting once in a while if someone who regularly found their face on the cover of magazines might come out and say, “yeah, that happened to me too” rather than slinking away to hide (although this is probably a more natural reaction) so that other women struggling with the same problems could feel slightly more normal and know that not all pregnancies lead to a) endless lunches at the Ivy or b) an actual honest to god baby.

So we have yet another 6 or 7 months or so before the latest round of unwed celebrity mothers are fit to pop. Let’s hope they’ll use the time wisely. And get rid of Cheaty’s X-box.

It’s been quiet around Blogapotamus central for the last week or so. I feel the need to express this only because I imagine that not writing for some time around when one is expecting a baby makes people think that there are better reasons for your silence. However, my excuse is that there’s been bugger all to talk about.

The waiting game at the end of pregnancy is kind of a crappy one. You feel like you can’t really make any plans, but you’re reluctant to completely shut yourself off from any and all social occasions because god knows when the next time you’ll have a chance to talk to grown-ups without having to worry about whether or not you’ve got baby sick on your shirt. However, the desire to socialize outside your own home is hampered by the fact that you are now the size of an aircraft carrier.

The Rock Star and I did venture to the cinema the other night to take in a film that got good reviews on the opposite side of the Atlantic, The Good Shepherd. Sadly, the most exciting thing I can say for the experience was that our local cinema now has a Ben & Jerry’s stand where I got to have a cone of Oatmeal Cookie ice cream.

The film seemed like one that SHOULD have been very good. The premise- the beginnings of the CIA, through the experience of one of it’s founder members, beginning with his recruitment just before the second World War and following him through to the period just after the attempted overthrow of Castro in the 60’s. This SHOULD have been a good movie, but it found all kinds of ways not to be.

It’s number one problem was Matt Damon. While I can appreciate a small percentage of the body of his work, he is PHOENOMINALLY boring. Although his character went on a rather extraordinary physical and life transforming journey in the film, there was no HINT of an emotional one. NO ONE is limited to one facial expression for 30 years, no matter how stoic, stony or clandestine. The other major problem was the script, which managed to make a film that should have been interesting….not. The origins of the CIA? Working undercover in war torn London and post war Berlin? The paranoia of the Cold War? Great spy film criteria. But the film makers managed to make a spy film with all of the interesting parts cut right out. Even the “big reveals” of the film were done in such a distinctly underwhelming way that one was left wondering if you’d missed it.

At any rate, I felt a bit gypped- likely my last trip to the cinema for a good long while and I spent the last, unnecessary half hour of the film hoping that it would be over soon so I could stand up and get the Prawn off of whatever of my major arteries he or she was sitting on.

In the last few months, every time the Rock Star and I have contemplated taking advantage of Orange Wednesday at the local cinema, we’ve ALWAYS ended up sitting in front of the TV instead due to the lack of decent film around. The market seems to be flooded with second rate film at the moment; an overflowing cornucopia of horror films, comedies that aren’t funny and all of those trying to jump on the digital animation bandwagon to replicate Pixar’s success without the talented script writers to back them up.

Although I DID indulge in the quite wonderful, theatrically based History Boys on my own during one of the Rock Star’s poker nights, my enthusiasm for the cinema has waned somewhat recently with all the second rate action down at the Odeon.

However, the Rock Star and I indulged in a cinema visit last night that was WELL worth the money we paid; The Prestige.*

I’d read the book on which it’s based almost a year and a half ago. At the time, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t a stand out and ended up in a bag headed for Oxfam. When I saw advertisements for the film version, I had to stop a moment and go, “Really? They made a movie out of THAT?” But it then occurred to me that this was one of the rare instances in which the translation from page to screen might actually IMPROVE the story. (This was also my hope for The DaVinci Code. Alas.) The book’s plot had definite possibilities, but the author, Christopher Priest, gave the impression of someone with too many ideas and the inability to present them in an orderly fashion. The film had no trouble in this department. Although some of the major plot elements of the novel were changed, it added nothing but clarity and purpose for the characters.

The story centres around two turn-of-the-century magicians, Borden (Christian Bale) and Angiers (Hugh Jackman- who’s name, incidentally, sounds like one you’d use when making a prank call.) who take their personal and professional rivalry to new and startling levels. The more talented of the two, Borden, invents a marvellous trick that confounds Angiers and starts him down the dangerous, obsessive road of trying to discover it’s secret.

The film itself is cut into fragments that are confusing at first, but allow enough continuity for the audience to pick up on the time-line of the piece. This choice is unsurprising, as the script writers are also known for another rather famous piece of filmmaking, Memento. The combination of action in the past and the present simultaneously helped build suspense and made the audience all the more anxious for the final reveal.

In the end, (vague spoiler, but not really) both magicians find that they have sacrificed a great deal for the trick, and in the pursuit of it, both have, in effect, lost their true identities. We are treated to a film with no real winners, but a plethora of losers in the wake of the pursuit of the ultimate magic trick.

Refreshing, suspenseful and littered with very solid performances,** definitely an Autumn must-see!

*The Prestige refers to the dénouement of a magic trick, in which the magician makes his reveal and takes his applause. (The other two elements are the Pledge and the Turn)

**Except for Scarlet Johansson. She’s the acting equivalent of Horlicks, without exception.

Reality television, in my opinion, is a sin akin to child pornography and talking out loud at the theatre. If there’s anything that can depress me faster than a whole bottle of sleeping pills, it’s flipping through the channels and accidentally coming to rest on a reality program for more than the few seconds it takes to register in my brain and keep on flipping. I’m not sure what the attraction is other than to make us feel better about ourselves. “Hey, I may be in debt/ in prison/ in a terrible relationship but at least I’m not enough of a sad sack to want to make a total asshat out of myself on national television by exposing the deepest, ugliest side of my nature and possibly my knob as well.”

The Rock Star and I had some time on our hands in Portugal and since I was suffering through the throes of morning sickness at the time, (the smell of sunblock was nearly unbearable for me) we spent a good deal of time lounging on the couch and watching one of his Uncle Investment’s giant plasma screen tellys. It was during this weekend that we got hooked, against our better judgement, by Rockstar: Supernova. (For any of those in the dark- a vehicle for Tommy Lee, (he of the infamous wedding night video. Oh yeah, and he was in a band once too, I think.) Gilby Clarke (GNR) and Jason Newstead (Metallica) to form what will inevitably be a short lived, publicity driven rock band fronted by the winner of the show, which turned out to be the skunk-headed, grated voiced love child of Megadeath, the Cure and Keane, Lukas Rossi.)

I know that it ended well over two weeks ago in the States, but we finally got to see the final here in the UK last night. I was determined to avoid any resulting US publicity, so I restricted my web surfing to serious news sites, forgoing my normal forays into entertainment and music pages. Unluckily for me, the show was broadcast on NBC and an ill timed visit to MSNBC spoiled the surprise and forced me to keep the information from the Rock Star when all I really wanted to say was, “Didn’t we say? Didn’t we say during the first episode that he would win? Wasn’t it all just too obvious from all of the mystifying and obsequious ass licking that he received from Day 1? Come on! WTF?”

We love us some good music, and this show had it. With the dirth of good, dirty rock and roll around these days, watching the 12 or so contestants put through their paces with a truly awesome house band was highly entertaining. Less so were the four mouthpieces in the background running the whole shebang.

It’s fairly obvious from the conflicting personalities on the show that the band was literally thrown together for the purposes of the vehicle and not out of any sort of creative meeting of minds. From 12 weeks of watching Gilby Clarke interact with Tommy Lee, I find it hard to believe that he would have said, “Sure, I’d love to be in a band with a perpetually dazed guy who often finds completing sentences a chore. Who used to regularly shoot up with the other guitarist in my band. Who has his sexual escapades with his enormously bosomed ex-wife lurking in every corner of the internet. Who used to set the bass player in his band on fire for fun. And who once bit Eddie Van Halen while on tour. By all means, count me in.”* (My guess is that he’s got a rider somewhere saying that he gets a door on the tour bus that he can lock lest he wake up with vegetables or small mammals down his pants) Jason Newstead always gave the impression that he’d ended up there by walking into the wrong studio. I can’t take away from either Clarke or Newstead’s obvious musical talents, but they AND Dave Navarro (who was doing his best impression of Dracula’s much camper younger brother for the entire run of the show and who’s insistence of calling everyone “baby” turned the most hardened of stomachs) should have taken a clearer backseat to what was going on on the stage.

Our own final verdict was that the folks eliminated later in the shows run would probably go on to have much more successful careers than the actual winner, who was, from day one, the obvious, although not entirely deserving choice. (The two women in the final five are both working with Dave Navarro and Gilby Clarke post-run on albums) The Rock Star and I were hugely impressed with the final grouping of five, especially Storm Large, Toby Rand and Dilana, ANY of which we thought would have made a better choice than Lukas who, while LOOKING like a rock star, has a voice that could peel wallpaper out of your living room and scour pans in the sink. Our three favourite performances? Toby’s Layla,(week Dilana’s Mother, Mother (week 9) and Storm’s original, Ladylike.(week 10)

So we’ve had our enjoyable summer of trashy reality tv. But it doesn’t count. It was all about the music.

*I’m not a huge non-fiction person, but I’m reading “The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band” at the moment, documenting the life and times of Motley Crue. One reviewed called it, “A morality tale- what happens when a bunch of stupid men make an awful lot of money.” I was fairly young when their music was at it’s zenith, but I’ve always associated it with county fairs as “Dr. Feelgood” and “Girls, Girls, Girls” seem to always be on perpetual loop inside rides like the Gravatron. So naturally, I tend to equate their music with extreme motion sickness and funnel cakes.

I enjoy clearing out my old computer files. It’s like going through an old closet, minus the dust and earwigs.

I found a few things this morning that revived my great affection for the Animaniacs cartoon series. Animaniacs was my after-class afternoon indulgence in college. Both abcgirl and I would make sure to snag the couch in front of the telly in our dorm lounge and have a good old time watching the only afterschool children’s cartoon that I’m aware of that has cracked penis jokes in not one, but TWO seperate episodes. (Also, big kudos in my book for getting one in about Oedipus Rex. )

One of the most consistantly amazing things about the show was it’s extremely clever lyricists. Musical numbers are a staple of lots of children’s cartoons, but the writers of Animaniacs were a different breed altogether, taking on tasks like including all of the countries of the world, all of the state capitals and all of the ingredients of a candy bar into a song that hung together effortlessly.

Listen and learn!

I like a mindless action film every now and again, but I find, as I get older, it is getting harder and harder to suspend my disbelief. My common sense gland goes “Oh come ON!” while the rest of my conscious brain tries to tell it to get down in front and go back to watching the film.

The Rock Star and I took in MI:3 last night. (WARNING: SPOILERS THROUGHOUT. I usually don’t care about spoilers with these sort of movies. It’s like saying: WARNING: The good guy saves the girl and wins in the end against all odds and the bad guy gets splatted in some ignominious way. The rest is just breathing space between ridiculous stunts.) I don’t like to encourage that bat-shit crazy dwarf Tom Cruise any more than I have to, but getting to watch Phillip Seymour Hoffman beating the living daylights out of him for 20 minutes definitely swayed my favour. Guys like Hoffman probably got picked on by guys like Cruise (or Mapother, to quote his ridiculous given surname) in the school yard back in the day. Seeing him pistol whip that pretty boy on behalf of every other slightly tubby, sensitive, ginger kid who got the piss ripped out of him was pretty sweet. Hoffman is gold in whatever he touches.

I know exactly when it was that my tolerance for the ridiculous in action movies evaporated; while watching Pierce Brosnan as James Bond parachute off the edge of an icy cliff into the water and begin surfing on a giant tsunami wave OFF THE COAST OF ANTARCTICA.

What kept me from constant turning to my husband during the film last night and going, “Oh FFS” was the thought of writing this blog today. So may I get a few things off my chest?

-While the IMF team seems to have the capability of designing a machine that can make an accurate mask replica of a human face in under two minutes, in a city of about 6000 cell towers, Tom Cruise is unable to get a mobile phone signal in the middle of Shanghai, a centre of tech, trade and industry in China. He should probably switch from Pay-as-you-go.

-Why oh why, must the myth that you can have a 15 minute long fist fight with someone be perpetuated? A drunken grapple in a pub might continue for as long as that, but only because neither participant is capable of landing a punch. One good hard punch in the face and you’re either dead, in hospital or missing a lot of teeth. On the other hand, this stereotype allowed for more beating of Tom Cruise, so perhaps I should keep my mouth shut.

-Near death experiences rarely leave you 100% ready for action. If you take 5000 volts through the chest and then have the good fortune of being resuscitated, some crazy, black market arms dealer trying to kill your girlfriend is going to be the least of your problems. Jumping up, gun drawn is probably not going to be an option for you.

- Another myth that needs debunking. Shooting someone in the head? Very messy. Will smudge more than make-up.

- Sliding down a steep glass roof and stopping yourself with one hand? Dislocation city. No more storming secret government labs for you!

I feel slightly cleansed now, thank you.

Right. This is starting to bug me. I don’t know about anyone else who’s, you know, a grown-up and able to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not, but all the hype around the forthcoming DaVinci Code is making my common sense gland pulse brightly under my skin, a-la E.T. I would very much like to poke my glowing finger of calm into the soft eye-jelly of some of the morons sounding off about this film.

This is the first paragraph of an article found on MSNBC today.

“The Da Vinci Code” has undermined faith in the Roman Catholic Church and badly damaged its credibility, a survey of British readers revealed Tuesday as tensions over — and hype for — the forthcoming film reached a fever pitch.”

MY POINTS BEING…

1. Is it just me, or isn’t faith in your church supposed to be stronger than a work of fiction by an author who obviously knows how to come up with a killer plot, but at the same time, is unable to execute that plot without resorting to clichés that are older than the hills and claims ownership of a writing style that, at best, screams, “2nd period creative writing class”? If the Catholic Church is finding it’s credibility damaged by an extremely lucky second rate novelist, then perhaps it might be time to think about hiring his publicist.

2. Perhaps these brain donors have mislaid their copies of Websters, which offers the following definitions of the word:

fic•tion (f k sh n)
n.
1. a. An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented. b. The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.

2. A lie.

3. a. A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. b. The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.

They also might be surprised to note that this word is related to other words such as “fictional” and “fictionally” BOTH OF WHICH MEAN THAT SOMEONE MADE SOMETHING UP.

A BAD WRITER WROTE A SUCESSFUL BOOK NEVER CLAIMING THAT HIS ASSERTIONS WERE FACT, ONLY BORROWING FROM A FEW CONSPIRACY THEORISTS ALONG THE WAY.

HE….MADE….IT….UP!

Also, another document for your perusal. The first amendment is of particular interest.

3. Please, for the love of god, (which ever one you choose) find something else to complain about. You’ll be amazed how free your schedule will become when you stop sending death threats to Tom Hanks. You can finally find the time for cycling, spending time with your family and all of that stalking of abortion doctors you’ve been meaning to get around to.

My guess is that, if God made us story-tellers, he/she/whoever probably doesn’t want limits on what stories we tell.