Glastonbury
I really wanted to like this film, because you know that the
Daily Mail will hate it. And it's not positively bad, it's just like being stuck on a long train journey with someone droning onto you about how great it was in 1994, because they had a bad time in 1992 and they didn't go in 1993, and all the time you are being slightly distracted by the slight odour of spoiled milk coming out of this his bag. Not quite cheese, more like fat-man fold-sweat....
Just how long it was definitely pushed it over the edge into
shit, I'm afraid. Had you ever actually been you might love it. There is just too much footage of people having a party while you are sitting in the Odeon Panton Street watching it. There are good bits. Especially good bits are a) the toilet cleaning sequence, and b) the Battle of the Beanfield. This has been the film I have been most torn about whether it is good or shit while I have writing this blog, so maybe you should watch it and make up your own mind.
Napoleon Dynamite is Useful
I am evidently having a bit of an 80s retro weekend, because not only did I watch that Squid and the Whale film, but I also played Trivial Pursuit when I was round at my mum's. And one of the questions was, what is the cross-breed of a lion and a tiger called? Well, I haven't watched Napoleon Dynamite like 47 times not to know the answer is a liger, "bred for their skills in magic". So, Napoleon Dynamite is definitely good for something, cos we marched on to ultimate trivial supremacy on the back of that question.
The Squid and the Whale
Poor old Bill Murray, he is trapped into a nightmarish situation where he must continually remake Rushmore. Unlike Groundhog Day, I think he started off enjoying it, but it must be getting quite tired by now, especially when he made The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, his 493rd remake of Rushmore in the space of 6 years. Unfortunately this peeved tiredness probably added another layer of authenticity to the role, and Murray's protests were misinterpreted as merely laudable.
So, Murray adopted a new tack with The Squid and the Whale. He signed up to be in it, but after Rushmore remake #494 (Dead Flowers) he decided he could not take any more goddamnit, so he didn't make the picture. Which gives us Rushmore remake #495, only without Bill Murray in it. Jeff Daniels takes the Bill Murray role, and he is very good. There is a Baldwin in it too, and a funny tennis fixation like in The Royal Tennenbaums.
The film is
good, and I enjoyed it. I was ready to feel radically uncomfortable, because it's very similar to a lot of things that happened in my life in the 80s. And his parents got divorced in New York, whereas mine got divorced in Charlton, his fucking divorce was a lot more cooler than mine. But I really liked it because all the people were really horrible, so you could laugh at them. And there were loads of moments where you just squirmed at how terrible an arsehold the people were being. So when I got out of the movie my divorce envy had totally evaporated, which was nice.
I think the next stage for Bill Murray will be for him to appear in a ninja-assasin movie, that's the only way to stop Rushmore becoming the viral mastertext of Western Civilisation, with Wes Anderson as its Bertrand Russell.
I am sorry I have not been blogging by the way, I have turned into a jock.
