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

The Martian has rave reviews, and I've no doubt it's good, but I'm not tempted to spend 145 minutes sitting through it all in a cinema, for fear of feeling I'd need rescuing myself.

The movie needed to be extra long to give the potatoes enough time to grow.

I was able to avoid "Paper Towns" and "Man from UNCLE." I don't go out of my way to avoid Tom Cruise movies, but the original TV series was not my cup of tea. Nor, for that matter, was "21 Jump Street." I think very little is lost if you avoid movies based on TV series, with the possible exceptions of "The Addams Family" or "Sex in the City", though neither of those could ever be consider essential movie viewing.

"Bridge of Spies" has good performances from all, including Tom Hanks.

"Goosebumps" was a handy guide to a series that came along after I stopped being in its target audience.

Last night I saw "Crimson Peak," with some of my favorite actors, good direction and first-rate sets, yet the tropes of horror movies were/are so numbingly absurd that I had a hard time feeling frightened. Why do characters in these things always do the dumb things they do, for no other reason than the director's obligation to show things going horribly wrong? if I had been the heroine, I would have taken one look at the snow falling through a hole in the roof three stories above the ground entrance, and left forever. But, no, the audience wouldn't get the chance to see the ghouls in the shadows and the "forbidden" basement rooms.

But, Halloween is near, and this was among the best horror choices .

On the flight to San Francisco I watched two "safe bets" - sequels to films I had seen and enjoyed as guilty pleasures - both left me with a grin on my face.

- Pitch Perfect 2, which had a totally incoherent plot, unlikely characters (particularly the German ones) and lot of singing in it.

- The Second Best Marigold Hotel. I just love Dev Patel, and he really hammed it up here. Happy end all round, of course.

Between these I watched a couple of TBBT episodes, which seemed familiar until I realised I had the DVD of Season 5, and I started to watch that crime series with David Tennant, but it was Season 2 and I gave up because I had no idea what was going on.

On the flight back, I watched four films back to back.

- Dope: This was a many facetted film, and, if you can stand all the "f"-ing, was really a good watch.

- Love and Mercy: Elizabeth Banks does get around a lot these days, doesn't she!?!?. An interesting insight into what happened to Brian Wilson in those years when he wasn't on the scene. The "young" BW was very well played, and the later version, played by John Cusack, was also convincing, although you never saw the transition from one to the other, and there was absolutely no physical resemblance. The film wasn't as good as I expected, but the music made it interesting.

Paul Giametti was really sinister - my husband was watching San Andreas (didn't I say that I hoped they wouldn't play that on the flight to San Francisco?) with a more benign Paul Giametti on the screen next to mine!

- Fargo - the first episode of the TV series with Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman. Pretty gruesome, even if it is supposed to be true. Might try and get hold of the rest of the series to see how it works out.

- Man up with Simon Pegg. Lots of laughs, silly film. Just right for watching on the plane.

I like Dev Patel and Paul Giamatti, too.

Maggie Smith has been around so long that I assume she must be in her 90s, but she's actually just 81. Her most definitive role was apparently the title character in "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" -- I'm reading the Muriel Spark book it was based on at the moment. After that, whop knows what I'll read? The question is, do I want to read "The Godfather" or watch the movie version? I have the theme song gong around in my head, but I don't know how much that counts...

I forgot to say how hilarious Rory Kinnear was in "Man Up". He is surely one of the best British actors around. He can do funny, sinister, dramatic and romantic so convincingly that for the moment you forget other roles you've seen him in. Although, after Man Up it might be difficult not to remember him lying on the toilet floor in his underpants....

I'll find out when I go to see Spectre. I assume he's in that?

"Spectre" has not come to my area yet.

I went to see "Burnt" last night and, well, got burnt. Most of the characters were too unlikeable to invest much of my sympathy in, so I left after about an hour. I found that I didn't *care* whether Andy got his 3-stars or not.

I just got back from seeing "Truth," starring Cate Blanchett as Mary Mapes, an assistant to Dan Rather who spearheaded a "60 Minutes" story about George W Bush's national guard service in the early 1970s. Because the story reflected poorly on Bush during an election year, partisan critics pulled strings to get Dan Rather retired and Mapes fired. Blanchett excels in this role!

I ought to mention that we saw "Martian" at the weekend. In 3D.

Suspension of disbelief is all very well, but it stops for me when he starts chucking things out of the rocket and they drop straight to the ground, even though Mars's gravity is only a fraction of earth's.

As I watched it in German, I can't really comment on the script or anything, but my husband did remark that it was "beautifully filmed".

Now I think about it, it was fairly monochrome - when I think back to remember it, it was all red (the ground on Mars).

Actually, perhaps I have mentioned this already somewhere - Jeff Daniels' voice sounded so WRONG to me. I checked, though, and the same actor has synchronised his lines since as far back as Dumb and Dumber. Despite his record as a comedy actor, and, of course, Kristen Wiig's, Matt Damon was the comedic one in this film.

But those antics in space?

Not really. TWO very risky manoeuvres and both went off without a hitch? Oh yeah?

That's Hollywood for you . I can never get over the "rehearsal" scenes in musicals, where no one ever makes mistakes. Or "improvised" scenes where everyone knows where to be at every moment.

Suspension of disbelief is hard under such circumstances, granted. What else can you do, though?

That aspect of musicals doesn't bother me because it's unreal anyway, with people suddenly bursting into song at any point in the proceedings. Although you do have a point. To my mind, a proper musical is almost always about music, or singing. So there are bound to be rehearsal scenes, or scenes where musicians are doing things like declaring their love for each other and often burst into song, apparently spontaneously, and still they never make mistakes. It's not pretending to be life, and disbelief can be suspended to the utmost.

Good point.

I, too, have seen Spectre now. It didn't blow my socks off, in fact I was feeling bored at one point.

Christopher Waltz wasn't sinister enough, the story never seemed to get going, and here's one weird continuity thing -

When they were eating in the restaurant car on the train, Madeleine had really dark red lipstick on. (Actually, the Rita Hayworth look didn't suit her - tut, tut to make-up) Now, to get that effect, you have to apply, press on with a tissue, apply, press, repeatedly at least three times, then seal with lip gloss. With that dark a colour, your lips are practically stained as if you've eaten blueberries and it is impossible to get off - you usually still have to scrub to remove the last of the colour in the shower the next morning. Hers had come off by the end of the ensuing fight enough to jump into bed with JB and not even get a tiny smudge on his collar.

Normally in films, girls' make up will still stay on even after a 12-hour traipse through the desert, a ride on a camel in a burka, a shower and a romp in the hay with the hero.

The gadgets were the best bit.

Tonight I expect to see either "Spectre" or "Love the Coopers." It's a tossup....

Last week I saw "Room," which is about a woman who is trapped by a kidnapper in a garden shed for seven years. She even has a 5-year-old son by him. She finds it difficult to persuade the son that there is a world outside the shed....

"Brooklyn" is a film which has been attracting my attention - I've been looking for the DVD, but it's not available yet apparently, and it's not released in Germany till next February . I'll have forgotten about it by then!

I saw "Spectre" tonight. I like Daniel Craig as James Bond. Except for Sean Connery, I haven't been impressed with the other Bonds.

Of course, there's always a sense, these days, of the difference in eras, the cliches that fans seem to expect. The ludicrous fact that a villain can apparently be killed in a fiery inferno and then show up relatively unscathed in a later scene, and *then* survive a helicopter crash and still be able to drag himself along the ground another thirty or forty feet. And then Bond gets the chance to shoot him, but doesn't.

You never see Bond carrying a suitcase, so where does he find the impeccable white coat to change into on the train?

Then there's the helicopter that Bond jumps into in Mexico City that the bad guy has just jumped into form the rooftop of a building. After Bond has thrown the bad guy out and immobilized the pilot, Bond safely lands the helicopter. *Of course* Bond can fly a helicopter. And an airplane later in the film. And he can survive the plane losing bits of its wings bit by bit, then the landing wheels, until it skids safely to a stop in the snow....

A huge building in downtown London comes crashing down, but passersby don't seem to be panicking to get away from it.

What strange world was this Bond movie designed for?

Ah - but in this film you did see him with luggage - twice! I think it ruined the magic a bit, although it's something everyone has always wondered.

1. When they get off the train in the middle of the desert they both have a suitcase.

2. When he gets off the plane in the Alps he has a holdall.

3. He hands the pageboy on the train a suit and asks him to press it.

When they arrive at the compound in the desert, a dress has been laid out on the bed for the girl. It is the most unflattering, awful dress, but she puts it on all the same.


Can someone explain one thing to me. I must have missed it. I thought that Madeleine and Christoph Waltz's characters were brother and sister, but why did they not address each other as such?

And you would have thought by now, that the word would have got round amongst the bad guys. If you capture Bond, knock him off straight away.

Don't take him into the heart of your operation and gloat. He WILL escape. And you WILL have a massive exploding and burning installation to deal with.

"3. He hands the pageboy on the train a suit and asks him to press it." [TC]

Yes, I remembered that, but I wasn't really thinking of it as luggage. Still, it's a good point.


When you're watching entire buildings crumble [as in Mexico City and London], keeping an eye out for luggage isn't going to be likely on the first watching. Good for you!

Off to see Mockingjay 2 on Thursday with the girls from work. We have done this for the previous 3 films, so it's a tradition, in a way. Still - I am wondering what happens next, not having read the books.