Friday 28 August 2009

Femme Fatale

Last night we settled down to the evening's trip to the cinema courtesy of VideoEzy (shameless plug). I had spotted Pizza bases in the cheapo bin at New World and we were chomping on our slices of anchovy pizza - Polly made them up and cooked them, after a shouting match at the electric oven which neither of us had used before, preferring our portable gas hob. Most, if not all, modern appliances need a manual (which reminds me I started a post about reading manuals and scrapped it for a later date) and there was none available for this model in our rented house. Amazingly I cracked it in about five minutes. I realised in this machine that the dials for the timer mechanism had been replaced by LEDs but the process was much the same - easier to my mind once I spotted the trick.
I already had the DVD fired up and the viewing software poised on the brink of the first scene ...
What the flip? I don't remember Bridget Fonda having lesbian sex with a barely clothed model wearing a few diamonds in strategic locations. Almost choking on anchovy I had another look at the box. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh ... not what I thought I had picked. This is how it came about. We had seen a film Kiss of the Dragon the week before written - not directed - by Luc Besson - and I had thought I might like to refresh my memory of my one and only viewing of La Femme Nikita not to be confused with the remake with Bridget Fonda called Point of no Return or Assassin in some countries.
Now this is where I got seriously confused. In the DVD store I thought I was looking at a cover picture of Bridget Fonda, who was also in Kiss of the Dragon mentioned above. It seemed as if a plan was coming together and I had found almost immediately that which I had been looking for (up yours Bono). Ah now.
We suffered the film anyway, well it did have an attractive leading lady, none other than Rebecca Romjin. Most of us with good memories (and slowly fading palpitations of the heart) will recall her delightful appearance (subtle) in X-Men as Mystique.
Unfortunately last night's film also had Antonio Banderas in it which for me is a no no. He's really much better when he is not speaking save when he is the voice of Puss in Boots in Shrek.

Sunday 16 August 2009

Important dates

Master Samuel Beckett and Miss Peggy-Sue - 3rd June, 2009

We moved - 20th July, 2009

Today:now know about Mayhem Parva




Friday 14 August 2009

Le Nautilus and the Nursery


Years ago I read an article in a magazine written by semiotician Roland Barthes. It mentioned the author's little known admiration for the British Carry On films. I thought the article was wonderful and so representative of Barthes work in cultural signification. Then my world fell in. Not long after I discovered the article was a hoax. An April Fool's joke, Un Poisson D'Avril if you will. French cultural reference. I did not know who wrote the article until the other day.

Now I can reveal all. It was written by Gilbert Adair and appeared in an issue of Sight and Sound. Memory played tricks on me in this regard, as memory does - frequently. I had thought the article I read The Nautilus and the Nursery appeared in Cahiers du Cinéma, mais non. It ought to have, I suppose.

Anyway, once I read Adair's (Red Adair - geddit?) biography how could I not like someone who wrote a book called The Postmodernist Always Rings Twice?

I discovered also that he wrote three humorous detective novels with the central character, writer Evadne Mount, being a parody of Miss Marple or perhaps Agatha Christie herself.

I am reading the first one in the series now: The Act of Roger Murgatroyd