Alana, at the Prestonfield Hotel.
I’ll call this an outtake, but these are my favourite kind.
Alana, Prestonfield Hotel.
Click to enlarge.
Shooting Season, part 2.
This is the last from this shoot, although I might put up some from a second shoot I did with Lisa (above)’s sister, Alana, when I get some edited.
Alana & Lisa part III
Alana and Lisa, productive twins.
Shooting season.
Good read. Dino eating chart cover.
I’ve been reading a lot recently, including the above, as well as writing. It’s that kind of time.
It will soon be a time for photoshoots and filmshoots and experiments and other endeavors.
Alongside the several television shows that I am currently watching and rewatching, I have begun to watch Home Improvement again, from the very beginning. While most of the shows I watch are in some way to aid an essay I am putting together (and for general televisual research), I cannot claim to be watching this for same reasons (despite the innovative and postmodern use of the studio audience doubling the “Tool Time” audience). It’s just good tv.
I managed to procure the first season and am going to work my way through. I used to watch HI on late-night Disney. It is the perfect viewing for when you’re in bed, the lights are out and you don’t want to be strained, challenged or have to follow any complex narrative arcs. You can pretty much guess the episode outcome within the first five, but the humour (I’ve noticed a lot of tool and “rub it - oh you mean my shoulder” innuendo this time, that I didn’t pick up on the first time round) and wholesome family values make it so.. pleasant.
The show actually has a really clever format and the different areas (in the house, the back-garden/Wilson segment, Tool Time and so on) make it quite rich. I don’t have much of value to say right now, but I am only bringing it up because I intend to construct an essay about my thoughts on the show (which will hopefully be riveting compared to this post).
So you know how there’s nothing to watch at like 1am onwards (except crap phone-in gameshows, poker and other nonsense)? Get a copy of Home Improvement for that time, it’s only £9 for the first season.
This is genuinely scary.
Natasha Poly is never as good as when she was eating ice cream.
I love that they are called Puti Clubs.
Zombieland, unofficial sequel
Somehow Zombieland evaded my upcoming movie radar (the one that caught (500) Days of Summer, Shaun of the Dead, et al. as internet-hyped movies to see) and by the time it was out I had no overwhelming desire to go see - possibly the poster of the burning globe that is at the start of the film: for me it had connotations of something I couldn’t quite figure out. Regardless, the hype started to creep into the mainstream, I was receiving texts regarding the cameo, the footage I saw was the polar opposite of my expectations and so on.
I’ve seen it twice now. I’m not going to review it but some scenes were not only excellent and funny, but there was a lot of ‘why haven’t I thought of that’ (why hasn’t this been done before)? Also, sometimes Zombie films last 10 - 15 minutes too long, this one didn’t.
But did anyone else get the weird feeling that this film could unofficially be a sequel? I don’t mean in the fact that it blended zombie movies and comedy well, ala Shaun of the Dead, I mean specifically actor-based.
Woody Harrelson
He is excellent in this. Like, really good. Like, this could be the best I’ve seen him. He’s on the right sight of broad humour and his physical stuff is really enjoyable. He is on a killing spree that we have never seen the likes of. Except in Natural Born Killers. In fact, it is conceivable that he could have lived the Natural Born Killers role and then the world went Zombie-fied. (unofficial sequel no. 1). I usually don’t love him in films, but he was great in this.
Jesse Eisenberg
He plays a similar sort of role here to the ones I have seen previously, but it works here and it works in a new way. He’s spot-on in the part and with the level of geeky-humour. The third act of ZL is set in an amusement park, not unlike the vocational setting of Eisenberg’s in Adventureland. It’s not exactly conceivable that this could be a sequel to that but it’s all a bit familiar (bonus points for the title similarity). (usn2). I usually don’t love him in films, but he was great in this.
Abigail Breslin
It’s amazing how you can judge how you have aged by the speed at which child-actors mature. Abigail seems a lot older all of a sudden and despite being the kid of the pack, plays an almost adult role. But a road trip across America with older people discussing her loss of childhood innocence? This says Little Miss Sunshine all over it (Little Miss Sunshine 2: Now With Zombies). (usn3). She’s a great wee actress for her age.
Emma Stone
Yeah, try as I might, I’m not going to even pretend this is a sequel for her. I will say that she has made everything I have seen her in better.
Bill Murray
There is the obvious, but it doesn’t really work, does it? I pretty much feel the same way about him that everyone does (including Harrelson’s character). All I can think about when WH is telling him how much he adores him is them in Kingpin together. That bit of knowledge makes this fanaticism work really well (maybe more so than Pesci or whoever may have).
Conclusion
I’m only joking really. I wanted to say go and see this film and I didn’t want to write a review and these are just a couple of things that popped into my head when watching. This is the kind of film where I hope for a rich selection of DVD features.
