A Little Less Whining…

I may have given the wrong impression. So many posts about me whining about little and not so little things. It’s time to talk about things that I like. Yes, being a teensy bit hypomanic makes the world seem better. Not great or anything; just better.

A few things I liked lately (not that anyone really cares):

1. “Sherlock”. Yes. I’m glad the money I had to pay for the TV licence didn’t go to waste. If you haven’t seen it, please do. It’s brilliant. Baker Street was my old neighbourhood (North Gower Street) and had the film crew (literally!) outside my flat twice this winter. I almost fell on a lamppost thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch. No one saw that, thankfully.

2. Not a great year for music. Hot Chip, The Knife, LCD Soundsystem, JJ, The Drums, The National, and Caribou released excellent albums though..

3. Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe by the Catalyst Theatre. Best performance of 2010 so far. The music was great too.

4. Getting the chance to be at the audience of QI. Jealous? I know you are. If only Stephen Fry had heard our question before the start of the show.. We were asking for Psychology trivia. He heard syphilis instead. What would Freud say? Sorry for that. Freud jokes are not funny.

5. Dirty Projectors at Barbican. Enough said.

Me against Hollywood

So many people claiming that Nolan’s “Inception” made their brains work. Of course it did, it’s the age of the idiots, isn’t it? Yes, I know I’m whining a lot lately, but for Sherlock’s sake, the film was stupid, boring and… superficial. There’s a word that sums it up; Hollywood. It’s getting worse minute by minute, by the way. Special effects, more special effects, loud noises, explosions, gunshots, no need for script at all. You may as well fire all the screenwriters and hire more people to do the special effects.
Do you know what was even worse than the film itself? The movie trailers shown before. PIRANHA?!?! People will pay good money to see a film like this? Just because it’s 3D? Do you need more proof? Aren’t you convinced that we live amongst millions or billions of idiots?

Coming back to “Inception”… Seriously, what was original about it? Hmmmm… If you’re 10, you have a good excuse. Visit your local videostore, DVD store, or torrent site and start watching some older films. Some PROPER films with screenplays and all that. If you need movies that make your brain “work 100% (like some tweeps say)” try watching “Mulholland Drive”, or “Solaris”. Now, if you’re older, do the same. It’s like the whole Benjamin Button thing all over again. Good ideas, hideous writing… The next sentence contains spoilers. You can stop reading now, if you’re planning to watch “Inception” – please don’t. What can be more pretentious than the last scene in “Inception”? This is childish (and pretentious). The perfect Hollywood success recipe: make a movie that seems complex, and deep, but keep it simple, so that people will make sense of it. They’ll leave feeling clever(er) – like they’ve solved a riddle or something. Thus, they’ll end up adoring your movie.

Unfortunately, the financial crisis didn’t generate any great ideas. People have become so numb and dumb… TV is so much better than Hollywood. Dr Who, Sherlock, The IT Crowd, The Big Bang Theory (…) and guess what? You can catch them on repeat on iplayers and watch them on your own without all those annoying people chewing pop-corn in your ear!

PS1: ART isn’t about solving riddles.
PS2: Go watch Sherlock.
PS3: forgot what it was…

Real Life is Boring

It’s the first thing you discover when you finish high school, graduate from uni and try to find a place in the real world. No parental guidance and no filters this time. You can see the whole picture now.. and well quite frankly real life is boring. Pathetically boring. Nothing exciting happens except if you’re an idiot. Then everything’s OK. You never expected anything spectacular anyway. If all you wanted was a normal boring life, a normal boring job, a normal boring wife/husband and a dog, relax, you have nothing to worry about.

Luckily(?), not everyone is like that – even though they are hard to find, there are some people wanting more from life. They want time travel, mystery, adventure, big entrance scenes, music.. Well, I guess we were the ones that read a lot as children, the ones that dreamt a lot, the ones that still daydream. But the reason why we did that is obvious; life is boring. That’s why you – or shall I say we?- got art. The idiots have reality TV. What’s more boring than that? Who wants to see their pathetic neighbours on the small screen? What’s the point?

Anyway, I’m off to the pub to meet the Doctor and Arthur Dent. He promised to bring some Vogon poetry. Sherlock and Watson will join us later. Coming?