Fireflies in the Garden / Adventureland

I have an incredibly embarrassing crush on Ryan Reynolds, embarrassing given its disproportionate size and because he is your archetypal Hollywood actor who is very cheesy and used to be engaged to Alanis Morisette but is now married to Scarlett Johansson. (Us Weekly reader, moi? Nooo.). i'm not quite sure how it has developed. and gotten so out of control, more to the point. well, i do know, it's because i've been to screenings of two films with him in in the space of two weeks - Fireflies in the Garden, and Adventureland. In the former, he plays a writer fucked up because his father, Willem Dafoe, psychologically tortured and bullied him as a child. He returns to his family home for a funeral and a whole bunch of horrid emotions stir up trouble. but the film flicks seamlessly between his tortuous childhood and his complex emotional entanglements now, and is moving and not your average Hollywood film wading through a quagmire of grand emotional matter clearly beyond its reaches. this keeps things on a perfectly intimate scale and is affecting without being schmaltzy, plus has a brilliant ensemble cast that includes Ioan Gruffudd, Julia Roberts, Emily Watson and Hayden P from Heroes. RR is H.O.T. the tortured writer kind of hottie with the sort of muscly arms it would be criminal to have anywhere but around you, an attitude problem, and a high sex drive, which is obviously the best kind. in Adventureland he plays the sort of cool, smooth, music, handyman guy who is not in fact cool at all, rather a small town sleazebag who spins stories to high school girls in order to sleep with them, even though he's married. but since i am more than happy to play high school girl to his sleazebag, i'm more than happy (worth repeating, obviously). i should also probably mention that RR's role in Adventureland is minimal, in fact, and the film is really one of those lovable loser romance teen flicks set over the summer in an adventure park cum funfair. apparently it's supposed to be set in the 1980s, but apart from the fact that they play Amadeus by Falco on repeat, i saw virtually no evidence of this. I went with John who works in film so should know his stuff and who thought it was cute. i thought, well, that there should have been more of RR in it. he plays the shit so well.

Covonia and Kaufmann

this is just a thought, but i think my impressions of Charlie Kaufmann's new film Synecdoche, New York (out in May, in case you're interested) might have been slightly impaired by the fact that i drank an entire bottle of Covonia cough medicine before seeing it, plus another half during. It's potent stuff - even a small whiff is like inhaling ammonia. but my cough was so bad that i had to swig shots from the bottle followed by chasers of strepsils, plus vast quantities of water to keep my choking fits under control. no one at the cinema likes a cougher. but i do think that my linctus inebriation may have helped me enjoy the film's more bizarre aspects (one of the characters, for example, lives in a house that is permanently on fire. no explanation. a situation that means nothing and leads nowhere. funny though). In the queue for the loo after the screening all the girls were bemoaning its length and tediousness but i rather liked it. even if it is 2 hours and pretty bleak. i mean it's weird, but it's Charlie 'Being John Malkovich' Kaufmann for god's sake, if it wasn't weird that would be weird. In a nutshell, Philip Seymour Hoffman is a washed up provincial theatre director who, after his wife and daughter move to Berlin, embarks upon an epic production of a play about the minutiae of his life (after 17 years of planning). he hires actors to play the people in his life, which eventually means the actor playing him as the director has to hire an actor to play him and so on like it's some kind of infinitely reflected, nightmare hall of mirrors. meanwhile, off set, uncorresponding versions of characters get involved with each other, as each person responds to the same events and versions of people in different ways. it's complicated. but interesting, i think. a bit like seeing how different characters would handle your life if they literally did exactly the same thing as you - would they take control of the chaos, tread water, or kill themselves? that's what i took from the film anyway, but, in reality, it could just have been the cough mixture talking - a fact which i think CK might like.

Religulous

On the News this morning they were talking about the newly launched ads on London buses that respond to the atheist party's posters (above) from a while back. Apparently 3 Christian groups have launched campaigns (along the lines of "There is a God. BELIEVE. and enjoy your life") to the tune of thousands of pounds. it's all insane (especially in the current economic climate) if you ask me, and at the very least just people shoving their opinions down my throat when i didn't ask them to... which is sort of how i felt when i went to a screening of Religulous on Tuesday eve. In the documentary, comedian Bill Maher (and director Larry 'curb your enthusiasm' Charles) basically say: enough is enough - we'd be tolerant about people's religious beliefs if only they weren't infecting politics and basically fucking everything up on a world scale, a fact that is especially insane since religions are essentially based on a load of completely ridiculous fairytales (hence film title ridiculous / religious, get it?). so far, fair point. Maher, a half catholic - half jewish comedian, announces his intention to find out what religion is all about and why supposedly sane people believe in things like talking snakes, messages from alien planets and people living inside whales for three days. and in the main, his investigations are hilarious - there are some fucking crazy religious people out there, who, when you scratch the surface, really don't know anything at all about the religion that's supposed to define them and the way they live their life - they're complete nutters. but, the thing is, it's so EASY to ridicule these targets - they're ignorant, money grabbing and arrogant. where are the articulate, intelligent believers? there are about 3 in the film, all of whom have limited air time (of course). Maher's interview style is quite Jonathan Ross, i.e shout over whatever his interviewees actually have to say. plus he actually laughs in most of their faces, which many of them deserve, it's true, but after a while this just becomes crass and annoyingly smug of him. still, it would all be fine if THEN Maher doesn't get all moralising and dogmatic and basically become an evangelical preacher of doubt and uncertainty, which is as bad as someone shouting at me to believe in god, i think - up til now the atheists have basically kept schtum, and i kind of liked it like that. anyway the film left a nasty taste in my mouth, despite the fact that for most of it i couldn't help laughing like a banshee.

could i have said 'basically' any more in this post? i don't think so.

Pencil Thievery, part I

Whenever i get invited to advance film screenings, or fashion press days at one of the Firmdale Hotels (it's usually The Charlotte Street, Covent Garden, Soho or Haymarket) my heart does a little dance. They are gloriously swish and it feels very decadent to watch films sitting sunk low in cowhide or luxurious velvet chairs, usually with one hand clamped round a glass of wine, in the company of only a dozen or so others, OR to hang around a ba da bing bling indoor pool (at the Haymarket) or lavish suites taking notes on the new season's trends. But, if i'm honest, what really gets me excited are the SERIOUSLY COOL pencils that sit atop the reception counters in each of the hotel foyers and by which i am obsessed, and therefore make a point of taking handfuls of every time i happen to go in. they're the stripey ones in the middle of this picture, and each hotel does theirs in a different colour. I pretty much write in pencil the whole time (I occasionally make an exception for 0.7 uniballs) and am very fussy about which ones i use. i like a rubber at the end and the kind of wood that makes shavings that are neatly curled (rather than flaking off in tiny bits) without feeling too rubbery or plasticy (these look quite pink in case you're interested). Happily and handily my friend Sophie collects pencil shavings, so we are very well matched, and i especially look out for brightly coloured pencils so her collection is more exciting. the pencils above are the ones on my desk today. i have more in my desk drawers, all my handbags, plus my in bedroom, kitchen and living room. none in the bathroom though, i don't think.