At The Pictures: (500) Days of Summer

Saw (500) Days Of Summer in Chapter’s lovely little Cinema 2 the other week but forgot to tell you, my blog, about it. Sorry! I enjoyed it. It was quite inventively done with the jumping back and forth through the 500 days. I’ve read a few criticisms that the Summer character is a bit under-written or whatever, but I didn’t really get that. It’s all told from the guy’s point of view so it’s no wonder she doesn’t come out of the film looking too good, but there’s enough stuff in the film to show you that she isn’t a horrible person or anything. They’re just different is all. But yes, it was a good film, and they all wore nice clothes, and the indie references didn’t really feel shoe-horned in or anything. I did find myself thinking “there’s no way he could afford the rent on that apartment” at various points, but then I think that in a lot of films to be fair. Plus that blackboard bedroom would play hell with your allergies.

At The Pictures: Toy Story and Up in 3D

The last 2 visits to the pictures have involved Pixar films in Disney Digital 3D. I’m not sure how that’s different from the normal 3D. Toy Story was all re-rendered, and Up was subtle, so you didn’t really get any of that ‘things whooshing towards your face’ 3D-ness. I can’t really decide if that’s a good thing to be honest. Having depth in the picture is nice enough I suppose, but it doesn’t really add anything to the experience that justifies forking out for specs that don’t really fit over normal glasses properly. Part of me thinks that maybe 3D should stick to being a bit tacky and exploitative.

The films themselves were great obvs. I’d forgotten how good Toy Story was, and how perfectly pitched it is to appeal to children and their parents. Up was simply incredible. Genuinely touching and equally hilarious with brilliant characters and imagery. Not quite sure if I prefer it to Wall E and The Incredibles, but I think they’re a bit too different to compare. The only slight quibble I had was with the ‘baddie’. You just didn’t get enough sense of his character, and the failures that had made him so bitter. But other than that, faultless.

Swn 2009

My Swn from fuzzy memories:

Thursday - Shape night at Dempseys was mostly great. Thought the stripped down Freddie Stars were a bit boring alas, twas a shame. The rest was great but I was well tired by the end so I was itching for Zun Zun Egui to finish. Was relieved when they said "we're going to play one more song!" and then the relief soured when that one song turned into a 20 minute jam. They were pretty good though. Islet and Them Squirells were both great, and Evils as a full band was cool.

Friday – Was excited about seeing Exit International again, but now they're a bit too FOTLy/Mclusky-ish. When I first saw them the long hair man had crazy distortion over his vocals and the whole thing was a lot more sludgey and messed up sounding (for the better). PIZZA SLICE BONUS: Then I had a nice pizza at Pizza Express, the Sloppy Guissepie (or however you spell it). I’ve tried ordering it the last few times we’ve been, but it’s always been unavailable. It was nice, but I thought it would be sloppier... Then I saw a bit of Jonny Foreigner and I still don't like them, so I saw a bit of the Longcut who were also not great, and the Fuwch Goch doesn't really work as a venue that well, so I went back to Clwb. Pulled Apart By Horses were amazing. Attempted to head back to Fuwch Goch for Girls but obvs it never happened with the queue, so decided to catch people up in Dempseys but it was 1-in-1-out for Silver Gospel Runners (WTF?) and so we ended up in City Arms (first time I've been there since Twatty Bouncer-gate) for a drink because I didn't want to see Rogues, though this then meant we couldn't get in for Strange News (which was a shame as everyone who made it in said it was great) and then we just ended up dancing to the ridiculous DJing downstairs at Clwb till stupid o'clock.

Saturday - caught a bit of Allo Darlin but they weren't for me, bought some CDs in the record fair. I think new Chapter is good, nicer than old Chapter. The Gate stuff was great, though I don't know why it took them quite so long to serve people at the bar. I'm looking forward to seeing Internet Forever again at some point, and I think it was the best I've seen Los Camp ever. Mark Attack's Record Breaking Crowd-surf was amazing. Got into Slow Club no problems really (having power-walked over from the Gate), but they started about 15 minutes early which is a bit naughty, and it was full of people chatterboxing away which annoyed me no end. They were good though despite not playing their best song (All Our Most Brilliant Friends). Took one look at the queue for Right Hand Left Hand and realised there was no chance of getting in so had a quieter sit down drink whilst Adam Walton DJd in City Arms (didn't actually realise it was Adam Walton DJing untill the next day though, woops) then back to Dempseys for Moshi Moshi DJs - who were fun. So yes, all in all I had a fun weekend.

It's quite easy to find small niggly faults with Swn but equally easy to overlook them and have a great time (which I did), so hope they keep going strong. Just maybe try and not have the most hyped bands of the weekend in tiny venues with no other alternatives on next year please? It’s a shame they didn’t use Buffalos and Tommy’s Bar as they’re both semi-established venues despite their faults, so I hope they’re involved next year. Curious to see how the festival evolves from this point in, but best o' luck to 'em.

The Pizza Slice - DOUBLE PORTION

Alright Blog? How are you? This week I have had 2 pizza experiences. Firstly, I made my own on Monday night. They were a triumph. Toppings were some wilted spinach, chestnut mushrooms, and Italian cured ham. Plus the obligatory mozzarella and tomato sauce. I think they were probably the best pizzas I’ve ever made; and the first since moving house. I think the fan-assisted oven may have made a difference. The next step on my odyssey is to get an unglazed bit of marble or whatever to use as a bake-stone. Don’t want to buy an expensive one from the kitchen shops though. I'm sure I’d be able to get a cheaper option from a reclamation yard.

Pizza experience 2 was Pizza Express. King of the Highstreet. I had a voucher which gave you starter/main/drink for a £10er. I’m not that fussed on the garlic bread or doughballs personally; you don’t really need a bready starter before a bready main. My main was the ‘la reine’ which is ham, olives, and mushrooms. Ladyfriend had that one with spinach and an egg – it was nice but the egg got a bit rich. Can't go wrong for a £10er though!

At The Pictures - The Thing

One of the local cineplexes have been doing a season of ‘classic’ films every Tuesday, showing them on cleaned up digital prints. They showed The Thing which is one of those horror films that everyone goes on about. I’d not seen it before so thought “what better way to see it than on the big screen?” and off I went, with only a minor hiccup on the way – the lock to my front door started acting up so I was actually locked inside the house for a short while and couldn’t leave! Got to the cinema just in time really. My 'party' got three of the last 5 or so tickets so we managed to squeeze in to the heaving cinema.

The film itself was great. The opening scene is amazing, and the paranoia of the whole things is just brilliant. It’s the special effects that obviously stand out though. The model work looks a little shonky now I guess, but no more than CGI does after only a couple of years. I loved the inventiveness of the alien’s mutations. Special mention as well to some great lines of dialogue – “I don’t want to spend all winter tied to this fucking couch!” is a classic.

I think the whole concept of showing older films in the cinema is brilliant. More of it please! It’s great to see stuff ‘as intended’. I saw Double Indemnity earlier this year which was great, and year before last I saw It’s A Wonderful Life in the run-up to Christmas. Perfection!

Urgh, I’ve just read that there are plans for some kind of prequel/remake of The Thing to be set in the Norwegian camp. URGH. Why bother?

The Pizza Slice - La Vita

La Vita is a new-ish Pizzeria opposite Cardiff Castle. It used to be Café Europa which was my favourite place in town to have a cup of tea and a sit-down. In between it became Dirty Sue’s Café, which looked really rubbish so I never went in. Anyway, it’s now La Vita and they’ve exposed some of the old stone walling that Dirty Sue decided to cover in boring white plaster board, so they won plus points for that straight away. I opted for the ‘Gianni’ pizza, which is a mozzarella and cherry tomato pizza that’s finished with Parma ham, rocket, and parmesan cheese once it’s done cooking in the oven. Actually I can’t remember now if the Parma ham was cooked in the oven or not, I don’t think it was… whatever, it was really nice. You could tell that the ingredients were good quality, and I think that the simplest pizzas often offer the best results. I sampled a section of my friend’s pepperoni one which was nice and had a good level of heat, and my ladyfriend had some spinnachy pizza which I also sampled and enjoyed. The restaurant doesn’t have a ‘proper’ wood-burning oven so you don’t get that amazing slight charring to the base, but most restaurants don’t have a proper pizza oven anyway so you can’t really complain. The base was good as it was anyway. It’s nice being in family run places as well isn’t it? And the chef man gave us some free limoncello as well, which was nice – the last time I tried limoncello I didn’t really like it, but this was good. Had a little chat with the chef and he seems like a nice chap, the best of luck to them basically.

At The Pictures - District 9

District 9 was... alright I suppose. A film of 2 halves really. I really liked the first section, which is done in a fake documentary style and is sort of like a body-horror of sorts with a bit of conspiracy theory thrown in. But then as the film progresses they ditch the documentary angle and just go for a pretty straight actioner. The effects were really impressive, given the relatively small budget especially, but yes, by the end I did just feel a bit like I was watching someone play a computer game. A lot of fuss has been made that the depiction of the Nigerians was a bit racist, what with them being more-or-less the only black characters in the film and they weren’t really portrayed positively. I’m not sure I agree with that, but I did think it ridiculous that they were subtitled despite the fact they spoke in perfectly clear English.

Nice seeing a film that isn’t based on a book/comic/game/remake/reboot/re-imagining/sequel/prequel/theme park ride/whatever (though it is adapted from the director’s previous short film so umm, what’s my point again?)

Trailers – arrived a little later than planned so only saw two trailers. The first was Sorority Row which is just a generic looking horror/slasher. I guess today’s ‘demographic’ for that sort of thing would only have been about 6 years old when I Know What You Did Last Summer came out. The other trailer was for Whiteout, which is based on a comic and stars Kate Beckinsale. I think it’s about some US Marshall investigating a murder up in Alaska or something. It looked like it could either be ‘not bad’ or ‘utter pants’. Couldn’t quite tell.

Afterthought - The main character in District 9 reminded me a bit of Murray from Flight Of The Conchords.