Work Bonus

Got a new job which was nice. It's not bad either, pretty interesting work and my desk overlooks the River Thames (in London). If I crane my neck to the right I can watch the London Eye spin its way merrily through another day in the capital. And as I'm packing up my things to leave I'm greeted with the actual Waterloo sunset, the one the Kinks were always going on about. It's also paying for my amazing adventure around the world in January. So I should be pretty happy.

Alas things are not so smooth. Someone had the genius idea of creating a shelf and filling it full of books that hadn't been sold so that employees could have them instead. It has the intimidating name of 'the Pulp Shelf' and it is the bane of my working life. Don't get me wrong, at first I was over the moon at such a prospect. The people all around me told me of the old classics they had picked up, and I was worryingly excited when I managed to acquire a copy of that essential bedside reading 'The Fabric of the Cosmos' by Brian Greene. (It had a nice vintage cover).

For the last five days however I have dreaded going to the Pulp Shelf. Everytime I head down on the lift I allow myself to dream. For a few seconds there is a tiny glimmer of hope that all the best books haven't already been snatched up, and then, in a horrifying instant, it is shattered in the most humiliating fashion by Fern Britton's smiling face. She looks down at me from her autobiography and she mocks me. Every morning. It's a horrible way to start your day.

Moon

Popped along to the cinema with Little Girl Clark the other night and to our pleasant surprise twas 'Bargain Tuesdays'. We watched the Sam Rockwell film 'Moon', and I must say it was pretty darn good. If I went into any more detail it would wreck the entire plot.

But Kevin Spacey plays a robot.

Twilight

The teenage girl inside me had been bugging me to see this film. It seems to be all that anyone had been talking about for ages and so, when I spotted it in the sale at HMV I bought a copy, bowing my head in a feeble attempt to hide my face from the guy at the checkout. To his credit he showed no scorn whatsoever.

I was intrigued as to why there was such hysteria over the film. All I knew before I watched it was that it had a good looking vampire boy who falls in love with a human girl. Not exactly groundbreaking in terms of originality, but my sister had assured me that the tension between the two leads was unbelievable. Someone else had informed me that there were lots of luscious shots of woods, which was far more to my liking.

Encouragingly the film started well, as it followed a young girl as she moved to her father’s home in Washington State. The opening shots reminded me of an indie film, but unfortunately the rest of the film was fairly underwhelming. The main problem as I saw it was a severe lack of plot. I’m sure the Stephanie Meyer books are more complex, but the film was incredibly simple. The first half deals with Kristen Stewart’s character finding out about a vampire boy (and then falling in love with him) and the second half seems almost tacked on, as Robert Pattinson’s vampire attempts to protect her from another blood-sucker who has taken a shine to her.

The opening section is by far the better, as we learn about the vampire family (including a tour of their house in the woods) and love blossoms between the two main characters Bella and Edward. There are a few particularly nice touches: the vampires we meet are ‘vegetarians’ who feed on animals not humans, yet there is a tension between Edward and Bella as we are informed that, as much as he may love her, he also has a strong desire to drink her blood. Other interesting plot strands are brushed over, for example Bella’s relationship with her father (who she hasn’t seen for years), and the role of the American Indian tribe in relation to the vampires. Lots of angry glances don’t fully explain why the Indians have such power over the vampires.

A lot of the film is cheesy. The romance seemed inevitable as did the triumph over the vampire (who used to be in the O.C.) at the end. Whilst there are lots of great views of the woods, there are many more unanswered questions. Ultimately the film’s main problem is that it is the first in a series, and as a stand-alone film it doesn’t quite work.