The trouble with not having a day job, and being alone with my thoughts, is that they tend to take over somewhat. It is, I suspect, not entirely healthy to spend an entire day moping on the sofa... Nevertheless, that was my Friday.
Today was slightly better. Having reconnected the phones, I arranged to meet up with my old mate Paul to go and see The Green Hornet at the new IMAX screen in the Uxbridge Odeon... Sadly, this is looking to be something of a cursed weekend because, when we got there, the shutters were down, and signs had been posted to the effect that a substantial leak had rendered the premises a Health and Safety Risk. They were hoping to open later in the day, but offered no guarantees.
So, after lunch, we headed back to Harrow by train, to try the Vue cinema there... Only to find that the escalators were being shut down. By the time we'd got our tickets, one escalator was open, but not operating, and was being used as stairs up and down. Simultaneously.
On the upside, a quick shopping trip in the remaining time before film yielded a boxed set of the four (so far) Resident Evil films. I liked first, thought the second was a bit lame by comparison, despised the third, and really enjoyed the latest (in - yawn - 3D)... At £24.99 in HMV, it's like paying the standard price for the latest, and getting a 3 for £10 deal on the first three. Not to be sniffed at.
Nor was The Green Hornet. I wasn't sure what to expect, other than that I'd probably loathe Seth Rogen attempting to play a comic book hero, but that expectation was certainly not met. While he didn't quite work as the millionaire playboy son of a newspaper magnate, the idea of him being an initially inept anti-hero, ridding the streets of crime by coming at it as a criminal himself, worked very well... Not least because he spent the majority of the movie being spectacularly bad at doing anything good. The story was funny without resorting to tired toilet humour and, while not necessarily the most exciting thing in the world, it kept my attention the whole way through... and, yes, despite having had very little sleep over the last few days, I stayed awake for the entire movie.
The horseplay between Rogen and Jay Chou (Kato) was pretty good, and it was refreshing to see a hero and his sidekick not getting on very well, and arguing about the way they do things. The only oddity, really, was Cameron Diaz as the non-love-interest (Lenore Case). There was a reference to her being older than the two leads (and, in typical Hollywood fashion, the age difference between actors is nowhere near as pronounced), and not a single kiss ensued, despite the best (useless) efforts of the two leads. As a secretary with a background in journalism and criminology, I suspect she'll play a greater part in the inevitable sequel.
Supplemental: Either I missed something important, or there was something very wrong with the packaging for the Resident Evil boxed set... It seems that the anti-theft tag had not been removed. When I finally got the case open (by breaking the bloody thing), it turned out that said tag has a metal part that had been scratching one of the DVDs. I'll give it a quick look tomorrow, but I think I shall return it for exchange...
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