I Sat Through That? – The Break-Up
Posted on | September 14, 2009 | 2 Comments
I’m not certain why this film affects me so profoundly but it certainly moves something deep within me. I get angry; really, really angry just by thinking about it. This film and all of its sullen, bleak baggage upsets the hell out of me and not in a snuffly, Old Yeller, something in my eye, sort of way. This is a Feel-Bad Movie. I’d like to encase it in concrete and sink it to the bottom of the ocean.
Begone, The Break-Up. Begone with all of your unfunny, ridiculous, petty, animosity. Begone, I say!
Tags: I sat through that > reviews > The Break-Up
British Short Screenplay Competition
Posted on | September 8, 2009 | 4 Comments
I’ve just heard that my short, WILL, has made it through to the next round of the BSSC.
Hurrah for me.
Last year, I made it this far but no farther. I think it’s a better effort this year so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Oh, and hurrah for me.
I Sat Through That? – The Lord Of The Rings
Posted on | September 7, 2009 | 5 Comments
Really.
I am courting controversy. I am sacred cow-tipping – sneaking up on it as it sleeps the long, drowsy sleep of the utterly bored and giving it a ruddy good shove. The cow will emit a torpid, barely audible moo before falling on its bloated, special-edition, extended arse where it will sit lazily without even attempting to get up.
The Lord Of The Rings: corpulent, lethargic, slow-moving, sacred cow. You don’t get that time back, you know. So much precious, precious time (no Golum comparisons intended).
I Sat Through That? – The Lord Of The Rings
Tags: I sat through that > Lord Of The Rings > reviews > sacred cow
Nobody likes a smartarse penguin
Posted on | September 6, 2009 | 2 Comments
The penguins glare at me from the shelf.
A dozen of them, maybe more. They glare and chatter in that penguiny way they have.
“We have classics,” they gloat, “many, many classics. Great works; wonderful, worthy works full of magnificent, moving, powerful prose. Prose that changed the world, that shaped imaginations and perceptions and lives. Prose that touched people, that inspired, provoked and incited them. Wonderful words that people have read and read and carried with them a lifetime.”
They add, slowly for emphasis, “we have beauty.”
The penguins wait, making sure it sinks in.
“And what do you have?” they ask. “What do you have but an inferiority complex and a bunch of scoffing, anthropomorphised, flightless birds?”
I have no answer.
Bastard penguins.
I Sat Through That? – M. Night Shyamalan
Posted on | September 1, 2009 | Comments Off on I Sat Through That? – M. Night Shyamalan
I could have taken the lazy way out and written a column on each of three Shyamalan films for the next three weeks but, instead, I’ve done a triple-header. So, pop over for a. longer than usual, column of Shyamalan bashing – specifically, The Happening, Signs and The Village.
I Sat Through That? – M. Night Shyamalan.
Incidentally, it seems that my fingers believe there to be an extra ‘P’ in the word ‘triple’. Every time I type it, I always put in an extra P – it comes out as tripple and I have to backspace to correct it. I may have to write to the Merriam-Webster people.
Tags: I sat through that > reviews > Writing
Antsy
Posted on | September 1, 2009 | Comments Off on Antsy
For the last two and a half weeks, I have been family guy. I’ve been spending even more time with my little girl to keep her reassured during the lead-up to starting big school. She actually started this morning and it all went remarkably smoothly – there were no tears from her and even my wife managed to control her womanly emotions.
While I, obviously, enjoyed the time I spent with her, I always get anxious if I can’t get away to actually ‘do’ stuff and I was all too conscious that two and a half weeks had passed and I’d written very little. Other than the I Sat Through That? columns for Flickering Myth, I did no writing at all. This built and built and for the last few days I’ve actually been fidgety and restless. I’d even go so far as to say twitchy – as if I’d drunk ten cans of Red Bull.
Part of me thinks that this is a good sign. Another part of me worries that I may be a bit mental.
Probably the latter.
I Sat Through That? – Unbreakable
Posted on | August 24, 2009 | Comments Off on I Sat Through That? – Unbreakable
I am rather abashed that there is nothing between the post informing you of this week’s column and last week’s post informing you of the, then current, column. I was having a rainy holiday in the Galway area though so that’s my excuse. Not that I need to make excuses to the likes of you.
Anyway, I digress. This week, over at Flickering Myth, I take an in-depth look at M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable and deconstruct it carefully and at length. Obviously, by that, I mean I just whinge and bleat about it being a bit shit. Such is the way of things.
So, I Sat Through That? – Unbreakable.
Tags: I sat through that > reviews > Writing
I Sat Through That? – Planet Of The Apes
Posted on | August 17, 2009 | Comments Off on I Sat Through That? – Planet Of The Apes
New column available over on Flickering Myth. This week, Planet Of The Apes. Not the original, the one where Charlton Heston’s a dead, duplicitous, right-wing monkey with a gun as opposed to – oh, never mind.
I Sat Through That? – Planet Of The Apes
Tags: I sat through that > planet of the apes > reviews > Writing
Lard-ass
Posted on | August 16, 2009 | 1 Comment
I am on a diet. Really. Having to buy a new suit so I could get tarted up for a wedding a week or so ago was the final straw. I have declared War On Tubbiness. The paunch must go before it gets to that critical mass where I’m just to damn lazy to do anything about it.
And it’s working. I’m losing weight. And it’s all a mostly painless process. I know the dieting secret, you see. The one that those fat-cats (pun not intended) don’t want you to know. The dark mystery of weight loss.
Stop being greedy.
That’s pretty much it. I’ve been losing weight for a fortnight and I haven’t been any more hungry than I normally would. I’m still eating loads but I’m just being sensible with what it is – lots of veg and whatnot. To be honest, I’m actually quite enjoying it. I have cut out my beer and cheese evenings (previously most evenings). It stung for a couple of days but it’s fine now. I do miss the cheese from time to time – especially when I open the fridge and see that I’ve still got a jar of delicious, spicy, home-made chutney left. That calls to me occasionally. Other than that, all’s rosy.
One slight potential hiccup looms: I’m off on a mini-break with my family. Will be eating out every meal for the next four days. That may be more difficult but I am a determined fatty.
I will be lean and trim again soon.
Well, leaner and trimmer, relatively speaking.
Then the beer and cheese evenings can begin again. I’ve a lot of catching up to do.
Column: I Sat Through That? – Castaway
Posted on | August 10, 2009 | 2 Comments
Yeah, yeah, it’s got Tom Hanks in it – doesn’t mean it can’t be bad. Look at The Da Vinci Code. Hanks is fine in a Hanksy sort of way – he’s fat, he’s thin, he’s beardy, he’s clean-shaven, he’s the man of a thousand faces and bellies. Castaway is still a bit pants though.
I Sat Through That? #5 – Castaway on Flickering Myth
Tags: I sat through that > I Sat Through That? > Writing
Gerry Hayes
I mostly sit around all day and drink tea. Occasionally, I write stuff and send it to strangers so they can humiliate me and deride my efforts. Other than the self-harm to dull the shame of failure, it's not a bad life. Like I say, there's tea.
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