Ghostly

So, Ghost Rider. Hardly the most impressively coherent of Marvel's many properties, is it?
Nic Cage starring, Eva Mendes as the love interest... so far, so blah. Peter Fonda playing Mephistopheles (aka the devil)? Oh, please no, just stick hot needles in my eyes right now.

Right?

Wrong.

Ghost Rider ain't Shakespeare. It was never going to be. It is a surprisingly entertaining, if utterly formulaic supernatural contemporary Western. Nic Cage plays Johnny Blaze somewhere between Castor Troy (Face/Off) and Elvis, with much posing and dramatic pointing at evildoers. He clearly enjoys the role (it's my understanding that he really wanted the part, being a great fan of the Ghost Rider comics), and goes some way to making it his own. The same can't really be said for Eva Mendes, but she's basically playing a part written for any actress - it's completely generic, and utterly secondary to the plot, so you can hardly blame her for playing on autopilot. Her one outstanding scene is thanks to a bit-part actor playing a waiter. Peter Fonda fares better, and looks bizarrely like Stan Lee... Intentional? I dunno... but all you'd have to do is add Stan's trademark 'tache and shades, and that's who the devil really is ;) Props also to Wes Bentley... Blackheart isn't a great part. It's Stereotypical Villain through and through. Reminded me a lot of Stephen Dorff in the original Blade (coincidentally, Donal Logue played Quinn, Deacon Frost's 'muscle' in Blade, and Mack, Johnny Blaze's friend and roadie in Ghost Rider!), particularly at the point where he becomes all-powerful thanks to the object he, his father, and the Ghost Rider are after. Sam Eliot was immediately predictably the previous Ghost Rider.

You wouldn't cast him as anything else, really, would you...

It's a good movie - reasonably exciting (more so if I wasn't still feeling very jaded about the whole Superhero Movie thing), occasionally quite funny (intentionally), and very, very watchable. The special effects are pretty decent, though even they seemed formulaic at times. All things considered, definitely worth seeing.

Before the movie, my mate Paul and I did the rounds of the shops - there aren't that many good ones in that area, to be honest, despite two shopping centres in very close proximity. They seem to cater to the Chav market more than anything else.

I was looking for a watch, because my old, faithful Casio Colour WatchCam just keeps on crashing. Just suddenly resetting itself for no obvious reason. Generally while I'm at lunch, so I have no idea what time it is, or when I need to think about getting back to the office.

Needless to say, the watches I saw were either silly, showy things (and I'm kinda thinking I need a sensible watch these days), or designer label watches, which I loathe on principle. Why pay an extra fifty to one hundred quid for a watch just because it carries a particular name? What kind of mug to they take me for?

Um... How about the kind of mug who goes shopping for a watch, and returns home with a second-hand Sega Saturn?

Hey, give me a break, OK? My old one went horribly wrong having been packed up in the loft over winter while I was in Auckland several years ago. I came home and, while it worked as far as it was concerned, what it put up on screen was hopelessly garbled.

Now, at least, I can play the official UK games, even if I can't play the imports...

The annoying thing is that I already have a spare somewhere. The first one I bought - brand new, box and all - is knocking around at home, I just have no idea where I've put it. It came out of the box to accommodate the 'switched' one I picked up in Computer Exchange, but that's the last I remember of it.

Depending on how I feel (not to mention whether it's still possible) I may get this one 'switched', or I may try to find the original before I do anything drastic. Who knows...

One thing I forgot to mention about my haircut: It's really short. So short, in fact, that the barber was rather surprised I wanted so much chopped off. When he asked what I was after, I showed him how short the fringe should be, asked for number two at the back and side, and that I wanted to be rid of the parting.

He stood there for a couple of seconds, slack-jawed, then said "OK, that was unexpected."

But ain't that just me all round?

Now I must be off, to think of bunny rabbits...