MOTD

I found the instruction leaflet for my watch and confirmed that the "double tick" behaviour is done deliberately to show the battery is running low. While I had suspected this was the case I was disappointed as I had thought that my timepiece was special.

A package arrived from The Brother with card, book and CD. I have since been enjoying reading Going Postal. Mr. Pratchett has clearly had a lot of fun with the von Lipwig character. Maybe if Kevin Costner had waited and used this as a script instead people wouldn't have laughed at him so much (I guess there's always Waterworld...). The CD was by Goldie Lookin' Chain. From the cover I initially thought that Chris had made a mistake and accidentally given me one of his sons' discs. I gave it a spin on the way to work and was laughing all the way (You Knows It). I don't think a Newport accent has seen so much air time since the (fake) one used by Siadwell from Naked Video.

Some crazy person returned Palahniuk's Diary to the library so I now have that waiting in the wings for after Pratchett. I opened the book at random and my glance landed on the word "zygomatic" which might make crackmonkey smile.

For fillums I finally watched 《英頬》. I kinda liked it but big action doesn't make a film as far as I am concerned. There's no denying the cinematography is excellent, especially the duels in the autumn leaves and at the lake, but Zhang doesn't have a monopoly on that kind of action. As far as the script is concerned, similar themes were portrayed in 《荊軻刺秦王》 and 《秦頌》 and the characters in those were far more interesting. Zhang Manyu was excellent however. I had seen her previously in two very diverse roles in Chinese Box and 《花样年华》 and expect great things from her in the future.

After 《英頬》 I watched The Thin Red Line for the first time. I don't know how I have missed seeing it before. A truly adult war movie is rare and this was just bizarrely addictive. The entire dialogue appeared to be a series of epigrams. The music is also very haunting. I was soon back at the library to pick up the soundtrack. Before watching 《英頬》 I had borrowed the director's cut of Spinal Tap which is a film I initially loathed but now grudgingly acknowledge has its moments. In the supplementary clips two unexpected funnies made me laugh;

(At a record signing session)
Fan: What's the name of the new album?
David: Its called "Smell The Glove". See it has the name on the poster.
Fan: Oh! I thought that was some kind of contest.

(At the zoo)
Nigel: I read somewhere that the larger apes are essentially bread eaters.
David: And yet, as a race, they haven't developed baking skills.

Tonight I followed one of the librarians' recommendations and watched Confidences trop intimes. She had warned me that this wasn't one that she had let her kids watch but that turned out to be because of the adult theme rather than sex and/or violence. It reminded me a little of Truly, Madly, Deeply

If you are bored, try Rock, Paper, Scissors, Tiger Hand, Pen Missile.