h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My parents are away this week in the Brecon Beacons so I’m home alone once again looking after the cat. But it’s not so bad really, I’m hoping to get a good few days of undisturbed work done and my girlfriend came over last weekend to keep me company. After a busy couple of weeks in Mexico we didn’t do anything especially exciting, just cooked good food, watched a couple of movies at the cinema, and some of the weekend’s sport on television and just generally enjoyed each other’s company.

The first film we saw was a strange one called Hard Candy. I usually try to give away as little of the plot as I can when I write about a movie on here, but I’m afraid I might have to bend that rule a little in this case. And I really hate to spoil the story of this film because it did strike me as an interesting one.

When Jeff, a successful photographer in his thirties, meets Hayley, a fourteen year old girl he has been chatting with on the internet, in a local diner we are naturally suspicious of his cool charisma and easy going charm, and when he invites her back to his place, suggests she model for him and begins plying her with alcohol it seems she will be easy prey. However the tables are dramatically turned when it emerges that she has spiked his drink and events take a sinister twist when he looses consciousness and wakes to find himself tied to an office chair.

Hayley explains that she is suspicious of his motives and accuses him of being a paedophile (though, being American, she pronounces it pedophile). Jeff protests of course, but Hayley has found in Jeff’s possession a photograph of a local girl who was apparently abducted from the same diner a few weeks ago. Though it is not exactly damning evidence Hayley is convinced her suspicions are correct and elucidates her macabre plan; that perhaps things would be better for all concerned if she carried out a bit of amateur surgery and removed Jeff’s testicles.

So far so good. Hard Candy has at its core a well conceived and executed idea and Ellen Page is brilliant as Hayley, effortlessly swinging between naïve child and vengeful femme fatal. Indeed both of the central characters are strong, three-dimensional and well thought out. The story seems much more credible because Jeff is not painted as a sleazy sex monster, but an articulate, charming and plain likable man.

There were however, in my opinion, one or two problems with the film. For example despite the potential of the subject matter Hard Candy is essentially a Hollywood thriller and nothing more. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I couldn’t help feeling that it was trying just a little too hard to be something more; the “artful” cinematography alone is testament to that.

But those are just minor niggles. The worst part for me was when halfway through the film the plot began to come unravelled. After a tense and brilliant scene where Hayley “castrates” Jeff it emerges that apparently she was only pretending in order to scare him. Jeff then escapes, but instead of calling the police or just plain running away he goes after Hayley, gets zapped with a taser and tied up once again. This time our intrepid heroine somehow manages to manoeuvre Jeff onto a chair with a noose around his neck, quite a feat for a fourteen year old girl! And now, despite her earlier qualms about carrying out surgery on Jeff she encourages him to kill himself threatening him with an exposé of “the awful truth.” Jeff briefly escapes once again, but only to set up the rather disappointing climactic sequence on the roof where Hayley eventually persuades Jeff to kill himself.

I think at this point we were supposed to sit and ponder thoughtfully about whether Jeff was guilty or not, but his refusal to escape when offered ample opportunity, his subsequent maniacal attacks on Hayley and his eventual suicide pretty much closed the case in my mind.

Hard Candy isn’t really a bad movie, but it didn’t really live up to its potential. I could have forgiven the plot holes in a straight thriller, they were obviously devices to drive the action forwards, but in a movie which initially seemed like it might have something intelligent to say I found it inordinately annoying.

The second movie we watched was the powerful, controversial and somewhat disturbing United 93 by British director Paul Greengrass. Everyone remembers the three planes which, on September 11th 2001, crashed into the World Trade Center (I know it should be Centre shouldn’t it?) and the Pentagon, but United 93 deals with the story of a fourth plane which was also hijacked, but never reached its target in Washington, crashing instead in a field in Pennsylvania.

Less than five years after the September 11th terrorist attacks the release of a movie dealing with those events was apparently greeted stateside with horrified cries of “too soon,” but not only is United 93 a surprisingly balanced and neutral piece (admiral given the short period of time since the events it describes) it is also not the only September 11th movie around. The Nicholas Cage vehicle World Trade Center follows hot on its heels and after all Fahrenheit 9/11 was years ago.

Putting the controversial subject matter aside for the moment, United 93 is a very well made film. Right from the opening scenes where passengers queue to check their luggage in and make phone-calls and check emails in the departure lounge there is a stark and honest sense of realism. Greengrass is even brave enough to suggest that the hijackers might be human too when we witness one of them telling an unknown person “I love you,” by phone before boarding the plane. This even handed honesty is carried throughout the film and later we see the terrorists portrayed as little more than scared boys who are barely able to control the situation they have created.

Greengrass takes his time with the story and United 93 can be agonisingly slow at times, especially considering that we all know what the eventual conclusion will be. But it is perhaps a testament to his filmmaking that, despite our foreknowledge, we still find ourselves hoping for a better outcome.

Though it’s certainly not an entertaining movie in any normal sense, United 93 is a commendably tactful, thoughtful and though provoking film and, though I shudder to use the phrase, it’s an important piece of cinema.

Aside from movies we also watched a fair bit of sport over the weekend, starting with the ubiquitous football World Cup and England Vs Ecuador. I’m not really a football fan, but I usually make a point of watching England play, especially when there’s a World Cup or such like going on.

On paper England would perhaps be expected to beat Ecuador fairly easily, but, as ever, there were doubts about England without Michael Owen and Sven Goran Eriksson’s controversial decision to put Wayne Rooney up front on his own. Personally I feel that these overly elaborate strategic analyses are misplaced in what is essentially a very simple game and was more concerned that Ecuador might simply score more goals than us and knock us out.

In the end a fairly dull game was decided by a David Beckham free kick, one of his ever more rare flashes of brilliance. The most entertaining part of the match was watching Beckham being sick shortly after scoring (though you had to watch the ITV coverage later to see “the money shot.”) In the end we made it through to the quarter finals and I suppose that’s what matters. But in my opinion (for what it’s worth) Portugal are a real danger and we will really need to raise our game on Saturday if we have aspirations of making it any further.

The other main sport action at the weekend was the Canadian Grand Prix. I missed the British Grand Prix while I was away in Mexico so I was looking forward to getting my Formula One fix and I wasn’t disappointed.

It was a close run thing, though Renault were once again the dominant force. For the first part of the race it looked like we were finally going to see the Kimi Räikkönen Vs Fernando Alonso duel that has been building up for so long. The McLaren looked strong and Alonso was pushed to keep Räikkönen behind. But it’s difficult to get excited about a supposedly resurgent McLaren when clutch problems led to a couple of painfully slow pit-stops and effectively ruined Räikkönen’s chances of taking the win.

In the latter stages of the race it seems a status quo had been established. Alonso had a healthy twenty second lead over Räikkönen (thanks to his pit-stop troubles) who in turn had eighteen seconds over Michael Schumacher. But all that changed when Jaques Villeneuve stuck his Sauber in the wall at turn seven on lap fifty-nine. The resulting safety car meant the top three were once again within sight of one another. After the restart though nothing much changed, lapped back markers in the field allowed the top three to maintain their positions and an increasingly dirty track (you could actually see the balls of rubber on the television footage) meant overtaking (never an easy prospect at Montreal) was effectively impossible. But with one lap to go Räikkönen made a fatal mistake, he went too deep into the hairpin and Schumacher surged past him to snatch second place.

All of this looks good for Alonso who also won at Silverstone and is now 25 points ahead of Schumacher and 45 points ahead of Räikkönen in the Drivers’ Championship. I think Schumacher was very lucky to get second place, after all he only managed to qualify in fifth place, and I don’t believe they yet have a car to challenge Alonso’s Renault. Likewise, I can’t get excited about McLaren’s apparent return to form when they are still hampered by problems which are costing them race wins. As far as I can see, their car has always been fast enough to challenge the Renault, it’s just not reliable. And even if they manage to fix their reliability issues (which they haven’t managed over the last two years) it strikes me that with Räikkönen 45 points adrift it might be too little too late for his championship aspirations.

Right that’ll do for another week. Anyone who’s got this far need not worry, I don’t really like tennis and I shan’t be commenting on Wimbledon. Besides, it’s nearly time for the weekend again and there will be more football and another Grand Prix to watch, so I’d better get on with some work.