Do you still think that way about me now?

It's pretty much what you'd expect from a Cameron Crowe movie: life-affirming story, quirky characters, highly quotable lines, voiceover narration, and a looooooooooong-ass soundtrack filled with killer tracks (lots and lots of Tom Petty, Auntie!). Probably my only big complaint would be the soundtrack; it starts very early in the film and felt very intrusive at times. In one scene, I was too busy listening to the tune and missed a whole section of dialogue. Orlando Bloom is solid in the lead: nothing spectacular but not horribly stilted either. He doesn't hold the American accent consistently, but he does better than I could, and the camera sometimes spends too much time staring up close at his face, but that will probably make the fangirls squee no end. The scenes with the extended family remind me a lot of what families and funerals are like around here.

Net result: decent movie that I would be happy to see again. Wins points for the most inventive way to commit suicide I've seen in a film. And I would like the soundtrack please - the whole soundtrack, and not just the paltry 15 tracks they released as a "soundtrack". Intrusive it can be, but it's hard to be thoroughly irritated when the songs themselves are so good.

[Edit]: ( Tagged by Nissa )

[Edit 2]: ( Forgot to mention my X-Men nightmare )

As far as I'm concerned, winter lasts from November to March, which makes this the first day of winter. It's a cold, windy day, but clear - no rain as yet. Anyway, I thought I'd welcome you all to the new season. Happy wintertime, everyone! :P

I didn't do anything in particular for Hallowe'en, but I've had a real itch this year to dress up. I blame all you guys for this lol. You talk so much about dress-up all the year round and it gets more intense around Hallowe'en. My brother Philip was at a superhero party in his hall last week, and I'm a little miffed he didn't tell me about it before. He went as Murdoch from the A-Team. Some of the costumes were fantastic: Elastigirl, Indiana Jones, Wolverine *dress-up itch increases*

One thing I could have done without, though, is the fireworks going off all night >.<

Good luck to all the NaNoWriMoers! Damnit, one of these years, I will have the time to join you! *beats up sucky PhD*

Forgot to say! I saw Wallace and Gromit at the weekend. It was fun, though not as good as The Wrong Trousers. But The Wrong Trousers is legend, so they'll have a hard time matching/beating it. I'd like to see Curse of the Were-Rabbit again; sometimes, I enjoy these things better the second time around.

Hm, Sveta was talking about going to the cinema tonight, but I'm not fussed on the idea.

Today is gonna be a day of stunned anxiety and gut-twisting guilt. And I can't explain it to anyone because it would breach confidentiality rules. *shakes head* */mysteriousness*

I got Nightmare Before Christmas last night. I hadn't seen it before so I was curious. I think I'll enjoy it better on a second watching, though.

( And now for spam! )

Today is the birthday of P. T. Barnhum, showman and circus-owner, who reputedly came up with the phrase, "There's a sucker born every minute." (info courtesy of my Forgotten English calendar)

I feel as if I should make a nice, long LJ post, seeing as how my last few have been itty-bitty short. Hmm, what to say, what to say...

FINALLY got around to seeing Batman Begins, which, for the record, was BRILLIANT!! :DDD I could follow the fight scenes just fine, apart from the one in the warehouse, and you weren't supposed to follow it, because it was all about the confusion. My brothers went to see War of the Worlds, which will be my next target. And they got to see the trailer for King Kong!! *flails*

I had a dream about Bruce Wayne. During his wanderings, he joined a circus that was a cover for a training school for revolutionairies. He had a girlfriend and a girl best friend, and he was incredibly happy. It was so nice to see him happy *pets happy Bruce Wayne* :) And then I dreamed about Spiderman, who was in a valley with black web-stuff arching over his head.

Work-wise, FINALLY got to meet with my supervisor. He's still keeping me on redrafting the second chapter :/ I dunno, I'm supposed to have the thesis done for next February, I still don't have an angle for my third chapter, I'm teaching in the upcoming semester on 18th century literature, which isn't really my area, and from what I've heard it's very easy to get distracted with teaching preparation, my funding runs out in September, and I just want it OVER ALREADY, so I can find out what it's like to have a life :P

This is Graduation Ceremony week, so there are people wandering about in black robes and coloured sashes. I love the graduation ceremony. I love wearing robes, getting my picture taken, and then strawberries and cream in the quad ;.; I wish I were graduating already.

Anyway, I should give you a heads-up that I probably won't be on LJ next week. It's the week of the Twelfth - July 12th, when the Orangemen march to celebrate William III whupping James II's ass at the Boyne. In certain parts of Belfast and in some other places, it can get nasty. The last few years have been ok and I doubt anything would happen in the area I'm in, but meh, I'd feel happier at home - or my mum would feel happier if I was at home, which amounts to the same thing. Anyway, important point is, I won't be on the internet as regularly, so try and not have any important crises while I'm gone :)

Shelley! I got your postcard. Thank you! *hugs*

I saw Mr and Mrs Smith at the weekend. It was great fun. I always forget that Brad Pitt is actually a damn fine actor, because he first came to my attention as the pretty boy pin-up all the girls at school talked about, and that implanted a prejudice in me against him. Angelina Jolie's character was also cool. There were some good funny moments and the violence was well staged, particularly the fight in the house and the car chase. There was a sense of... I don't know if this is the right term, but there was a grittiness to the fight scenes which I wasn't expecting. Or there was until the end :P

My brother Philip went with me. "Hm," he said, "domestic violence." I pointed out that it was mutual domestic violence, and after all, she did hit him ( possible tiny spoiler? ). "Point taken."

Eed, if we ever go to the cinema together, we'll have to take separate seats. I was only about 15 rows back from the screen, but the action sequences sometimes went blurry on me because I was too close. My eyes were going, "ACK! Too close, too much! You expect us to process this?? We're going on strike; you're just gonna have to guess what's supposed to be happening, and where that gun slid off to, and how they ended up in this place when last time you could see they were somewhere else."

I now have the cold, thanks to going home at the weekend. According to previous sufferers, this is a cold that comes with a face ache. Yes, thank you, I always wanted one of those X0

[Edit] Oh yeah, and Saturday night's Doctor Who was AWESOME!! Big Brother! Daleks! Nekkid Captain Jack!

I saw Episode 3 yesterday. It was good fun, which is all that I look for in Star Wars. I loved Ewan. I rolled my eyes at the "younglings" (George, you have the phrase "poster-boy" in your script, why go pseudo-pompous-fantasy on us? Sometimes it is OK to use the easiest word that's there); some of the scene wipes were just showing off; a few scenes looked pointless; others were rushed and their point lost. But the lightsaber battles were great!

To get to my subject title: OK, Star Wars, great promo slot for the coming summer blockbusters, right? What do we get? Two trailers - and some dozen-odd product adverts that we see everyday on television anyway. I'm sorry, I don't get it. This is a cinema. Its job is to sell movies. Not beer, not music festivals, not deodorant, not satellite/cable television, not computer games, not holidays in Scotland. MOVIES. And I enjoy trailers. I'm probably the only person who likes to watch the coming releases they put on videos before the feature. I expected maybe four trailers before Star Wars at least. Two (however good those two were, and they were good) is just not enough.

Screw product advertising. Bring back trailers.

I'm also annoyed that the book I was reading is missing pages 91-138, giving me instead a reprint of pages 43-90. There were other minor printing errors - things like "it" instead of "if" - which were irritating but ignorable, but you can't ignore some 40 pages not existing.

I'm in a strange mood. I want to talk but I don't have anything to talk about. And I'm very sleepy. I had a troubled night on Saturday, with strange dreams, briefly featuring Hugh Jackman, punctuated by periods of being awake.

I am completely calm about my chapter now. Taking a break really helped. I spent much of my time doing spider diagrams laying out what I wanted to try and include in each section. I never do spider diagrams! Whatever it is about this chapter, I've had to change my working method completely.

It's all that close analysis that has me in this strange mood. I find myself wondering if I've completely changed in my theoretical remit as I go on. I wonder if I'm drifting towards *shudder* poststructuralism sometimes. Oh well. At the minute it's working, which is good.

I also think I may have "answered" another of my topics while writing this chapter. I may have to think up another subject for my third chapter if that's so :/

Gah. Just thought about the paper I have to give. Sometime early in May. I'm adapting part of my first chapter, so I guess it's already written, but the thought of presenting an oral paper unnerves me. This is the chapter that got ripped to shreds at differentiation, and that was just by two members of staff, and I didn't have to stand up and read it or anything. Now I've got to present it to the whole School! (Or those that show up, anyway.) Suddenly, my insecurities about my critical grounding are back. Please, Lord, don't let this be differentiation round two. I'd rather leave that to the viva.

On a nicer note, Wimbledon is a sweet movie, although Kirsten Dunst's American accent is overpoweringly strong in it. Hmm, tennis players. I'll take Paul Bettany and the guy playing the German. I have only the vaguest remembrance of the rules of tennis, but I like the noise the ball makes against the racquet. London and Brighton look very nice in it, and New York briefly features at the end.

And Wimbledon makes me think of the Wombles and so I end up with their theme song stuck in my head, which on the one hand is sweet and on the other is somewhat annoying. #Under ground, over ground/Wombling FREE!/The WOMBLES of WIMBLEDON/Common are we!#

For someone who doesn't have anything to talk about, I sure can say a lot.

/End pointless ramble

Minty, I was wondering if you'd seen a movie called Alex and Emma. It's got Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson in it, and it's about writing a romance novel. It's no Oscar winner but it's cute and made me think of you.

I am reliably informed (by Amanda and by MSN) that today is Chinese New Year. According to MSN, it's the Year of the Rooster. It's also Ash Wednesday, so for anyone celebrating that, happy Ash Wednesday too and good luck if you intend to give anything up for Lent. Furthermore I am informed by my Forgotten English calendar that today is the feast day of St Apollonia, who is a patroness of toothache sufferers, so for anyone with dental problems, happy St Apollonia's day and get thee to a dentist.

Er, yes, not a lot going on in my life. I'm kind of stuck on the PhD thing and I have no motivation for work. For example, yesterday, I trawled the internet, had lunch, went down town and read the blurbs on DVDs in HMV, came home, rented some DVDs while sneakily trying to watch Wimbledon which was playing on the overhead TVs, and watched a DTV sci-fi called Xchange. It was quite good, actually, even though the director had an obsession with naked boobs and at one point, it was clear that he thought, "Hm, we haven't had any giant fireball explosions in this movie yet, I know, let's just have one happen anyway, even though it's entirely unconnected to anything!" Also Stephen Baldwin's hair looked like it's been ironed flat to his head o.O'

This is why I like Empire; they have a section reviewing DTV movies and letting you if there's any worth your time. I remember them reviewing Xchange, and also Foolproof, which I think I mentioned some time ago.

I am intrigued by spoosh's "ten things you don't know" meme, except that (a) I take ages to think of things and (b) if there are things you don't know about me, I probably don't want you to know them. Everyone needs some secrets.

I have my flights booked for London. Now I just need to find somewhere to stay...

AND I read (ok, skimmed) through all missed entries! Eed's Target ghost, Auntie's fish, Daisy's babysitting Pullips, Spoosh's comic strip, Dava's jury duty, Sparky's school horrors, Kat's Harry Potter fixes, everything!!! All the way back to Foofy's renaming her Frilly Frocks boutique. *collapses*

Nothing interesting happened to me. I did lots of hoovering and ironing and washing and drying clothes. I also did lots of sleeping in until the afternoon and staying up much later than I should have done. I watched news, which I never get to do when I'm in Belfast. I did some reading for uni, but probably not as much as I should have done (it's never as much as I should have done). I FINALLY got to see The Incredibles!!! I now want to be Mirage. *adds to "things I want which only exist in the movies" list* The carpet has been laid in my room. There is no word about whether Mum and Dad's Gran Canaria trip has been booked, and they gave them the dates they wanted back in December. Mum is still reluctant to go and has been looking for any way out she can. We have some minister-in-training shadowing our church congregation (I think this is the part of the course labelled "How not to do it"). Big Cat Week on BBC1 was brilliant as usual. Criminal Intent second season begins Wednesday on Channel 5, which I can't get in Belfast *weeps* but Sharon has promised me she'll tape it for me *rejoices*. The ads they've been using for it plaster a big grin on my face. Bobby's standing in a shadowed corner, going on about how he can read your mind and freak you out, while shots from the programme are projected on to the walls on either side. Sharon said, "He's a creepy man." I said, "Yes he is. That's kinda the point."

And now I'm back in Belfast. I need to do some serious work so I can give Leon something at the end of January. I went today and bought lot and lots of lovely food, except for vegetables, which I'm realising I will have to buy on a day-to-day basis, because I just have no way of keeping it fresh, the fridge is just too small. I now have a George Foreman grill and a DVD player, and also a hot water bottle which doesn't leak. Queen's have a team on University Challenge tonight, trying to get into either the quarter or the semi-finals (I can't remember if University Challenge holds quarter finals or not). Obviously, I'd support Queen's whoever the other team was, but they're up against an Oxbridge college, so of course I want them to thoroughly whup their candy asses!

I have a vague notion for the background milieu for a novel, which has grown out of my Perdita ideas, and which has become attached to a random scrap of writing which I did because I was bored and wanted to write, and I was still buzzing from Blade Trinity at the time, so my original idea for it was kind of vampiry, but this other notion has blown it out of the water. I've also written an opening section for a mystery/police procedural/suspense thriller. I have no idea where the story will go from that, but I really like what I've got so far *marks both down in "things I must do when I finish the PhD" list*

An old alternative-universe version of Criminal Intent has come back to haunt me recently. All tall, dark, strong-looking men with mysterious, angst-ridden pasts are henceforth to be nicknamed "Puppy," because I say so.

I will do some memes some other time because I am hungry and need to go feed myself.