At The Pictures: A Single Man & Iron Man 2

Had 2 slightly underwhelming trips to the pictures last week, let's hope whatever I see next restores my faith in cinema.

First up was A Single Man, the lauded debut from fashion man Tom Ford. The direction was a bit OTT for my tastes, lots of slow lingering arty shots. It was a bit like those perfume adverts you get at Christmas time, only a bit depressing. The performances were great though, Tony From Skins did particularly well to overcome his weird mega-tan and the worst jumper ever created. Ultimately it felt empty though, and the ending was a bit of cop-out.

Iron Man 2 is the imaginatively titled sequel to Iron Man, the surprise hit of whenever it was that it first came out. Like A Single Man, it has some cracking performances - Downey Jr is perfect in the lead roll, but it's Sam Rockwell that steals the thunder with his fantastic turn as a business rival desperate to cash in on the Iron Man arms race. Unfortunately the film really does fall apart around them. The plot is really unengaging and doesn't really do anything beyond moving us from point A to point B. Mickey Rourke has a great intro but isn't really given much to do after that. Scarlett Johansen is utterly pointless. Samuel Jackon turns up for a confusing cameo that probably means nothing to non 'fanboy' types, and the director Jon Favreau vainly inserts himself into as many scenes as possible. On top of this you've also got Gwyneth Paltrow in a will-they-won't-they roll that's hard to get excited about, and Don Cheadle gets to be War Machine for a bit. Even though there's already way too much going on, they then shoe horn in a load of 'world building' stuff to supposedly wet our appetites for the other Marvel films in production - Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers. It's not a bad film in any way, but it's not a good film either. It's a bit of a shame really.

The Pizza Slice: Cafe Citta

Cafe Citta's biggest boast is that they have Cardiff's only wood burning pizza oven, countering the claims made by the gas burning 0 Degrees and Prezzo. So obviously I've been itching to go since I noticed it opening a few months ago. I wasn't sat close enough to the oven to see it exactly, but there was definitely wood smoke in the air as I ordered a ham and mushroom. Unfortunately it wasn't a stone oven, but some kind of metal one, so the oven can't sustain the fierce 400 degree heat of a proper pizza oven - no 90 second pizzas here, but it was still one of the best pizzas I've had in Cardiff. Nice base, slightly charred (though not blistered), and crisp at the edge. What really sang though was the quality of the ham. Not sure exactly what sort of pig it came from, but it was really tasty. The service was a bit slow as the oven isn't big enough to cope with the demand of a full restaurant in which everyone wants pizza. Which was a shame, but the pizza we were presented with was worth the wait I suppose. The side salad that came with it wasn't particularly great, and I've had better coffee as well, but I'd still be happy to return.

At The Pictures: Hurt Locker and Kick Ass

Haven't had much time for blogging for various boring reasons so I'm a bit behind.

The Hurt Locker - finally got round to seeing this a few weeks ago in Chapter's Cinema 2 (the tiny one that's all red with stars). If I could, I'd see every film in the world in that little room. Mind you, it did get really warm what with it being completely full of people - including 2 brilliant old ladies sat behind me who went "gosh!" and "no!" and talked about mints in that brilliant way that only old ladies can. DIGRESSION! Sorry, the film itself was pretty good but I didn't really take anything away from it. Definitely not the best film of the last year, but good enough. It goes downhill a bit towards the end, but the tension is (for the majority) held throughout and the main character's recklessness is engaging. It just loses it at the end. I really didn't like the last scene at all, wrong choice of music more than anything. Anyway, nerd face on - I really want Katheryn Bigelow to direct The Avengers. She's built her career making films about men being manly, and if you just swap the 2 leads from Hurt Locker with Captain America (the straigh-laced 'by the book' character) and Iron Man as the reckless one and you've pretty much nailed the dynamic. Oh well, she/they won't do it and The Avengers is going to be a horrible mess of a turd.

Kick Ass - when I studied for my A Level in Film we did this bit about genres, and how there's 3 stages to a genre's developement. Kick Ass shows the superhero/comic book genre (restarted by X Men about 10 years ago) moving into the 3rd and final phase, what we called The Decadent Phase. Basically what this means is that it gets a bit postmodern and dicks about with the genre conventions and the viewer's expectations. Kick Ass does it brilliantly as well, from that opening shot of the crazy guy attempting to fly and onwards, it's basically made the whole genre redundant - Mark Webb's Spider-Man reboot feels especially irrelevent now (though I'll keep an open mind 'till I see some footage obvs). Nic Cage channelling Adam West is one of the greatest things I've seen on screen. The only thing I didn't like was the use of music from other films. It's fine when it's done in a pop cultural way, the Banana Splits theme soundtracking Hit Girl's first massacre is brilliant, but when it just cuts into straight 'film music' from 28 Days Later and Sunshine it really jarred me out of the moment (especially with the Sunshine one, as I couldn't remember what film I'd heard it in before and it was bugging me). But all in all it's a cracking little film and well worth watching.

Side note re: Kick Ass - Where the hell was my Scott Pilgrim trailer Cineworld? I'd been avoiding it online all week so I could catch it on the big screen! Boo-urns. I've watched it online now anyway. Looks like Edgar Wright has really nailed the feel of it and the visuals, but I'm still unconvinced on Michael Cera as Pilgrim. Wait & See innit.

What I Did On My Holidays: Aberaeron

As a birthday treat the girlfriend booked us a weekend away on the coast in Aberaeron. She got us a lovely little thatched cottage through Under The Thatch.

We got there on Friday afternoon, and were pleasantly surprised that the owners (or whoever) had left us a pint of milk and some amazing pics (welsh cakes, not pictures). The cottage itself was great, the outside was lime-washed pink and the inside was really nicely done up with a sleeping area on a mezzanine floor, and a wood burning fire stove in the living room area. We wandered into town and had amazing fish and chips with mushy peas at The New Celt, and a pint of Rev James in The Monachdy. Town was pretty quiet actually, considering it was a Friday. Hadn’t really realised that the population would be so seasonal. After that we went back to the cottage for a relax. A short while after she’d booked it, my girlfriend received an email informing her that the cottage now had a hot tub installed in a small outhouse, so we gave it a go. It was set at 40 degrees Celsius, and we couldn’t get the temperature to drop any lower despite frantic jabbing at the minus button. Neither of us are particularly great with heat. I don’t think we managed to stay in there for more than 20 minutes, it was just too hot. We had the windows open and everything, by the end we were sitting on the tub’s edge with just our legs in the water and it was still horrible. Need to stick to a luke-warm tub in future.

On the Saturday we drove down to Newquay and had a walk along the beach. Again, a lot of things were still shut for the season, so we ended up driving north to Aberystwyth. We had a walk about the shops and along the front, had a pint and watched half of the Wales game, had a cup of tea and a toasted sandwich, and played on the 2p machines in the arcade. Then we drove back to the cottage. In the evening we went to the Harbourmaster, which is a gastropub of sorts I guess. We ate in the bar (didn’t really fancy paying the restaurant prices). Girlfriend had a nice bit of grey mullet on linguine pasta; I had the burger which, whilst being tasty enough, basically fell foul to every ‘chefs trying to over-poshify their burgers’ cliché. The bun was really crusty, the cheese was too strong and didn’t melt properly, and the whole thing was too big to actually take a bite out of. In the end I had to abandon the bun lid and eat it with a knife and fork. Every chef considering burger cooking should be forced to watch Heston Blumenthal’s In Search Of Perfection where he makes the perfect burger. The man understands. They also served it on a chopping block. A trendy double bluff at appearing rustic that a lot of restaurants seem to be doing – it’s better than serving it on slate though, nothing worse than the scrape of a knife against a sheet of slate. After that it was back to the cottage for a couple glasses of wine and I finally finished reading China Mieville’s The City & The City, which I’d been reading since around Christmas time. Short review: it’s good, but as with all of his other books, it’s got more ideas than story.

Then we came home on Sunday to do Mothering Sunday stuff with assorted mothers, and then won £125 at the pub quiz. All in all, it was a lovely relaxing weekend. 10/10.

The Pizza Slice: Pizza Express and Strada

Sorry, have been falling behind on my Pizza Slicing. I’ve got 2 to tell you about.

Had an Al Tirolo at Pizza Express. Speck Ham, and a medley of various mushrooms. Really enjoyed it. It was topped with some fresh parsley after it had been cooked, though I would have liked a little more of it. It was on the Romana base which I am a fan of. Was considering going for their new ‘hottest ever pizza’ from the new range from the guest chef, but I wasn’t in a spicy mood and I quite like a bit of veg on my pizza. I’ll give it a whirl next time. I had a nice lemon tart for pudding.

Then about a week later we went to Strada as we were in the Bay anyway to watch Richard Herring at the Glee Club. Was once again impressed with the weight of the glasses and the pop-top bottles of table water. I ordered the Bresaola, which features thin strips of cured beef and huge dollops of ricotta, topped with fresh rocket. It was nice, though the ricotta was a bit rich, and there wasn’t that much flavour to the beef itself. Had a nice macchiato coffee after.

Still can't decide which of these 2 high street titans is my favourite. Think Pizza Express slightly pips it, as it’s slightly tastier and the menu has more depth. However, I find Strada a nicer ‘dining out’ experience, and I also prefer their bases.

BBC 6Music

Like a lot of people, I was pretty disapointed to read about the BBC's proposals to shut down BBC 6 Music as part of their 'strategic review'. Here is the letter that I emailed to the BBC Trust to add my name to the thousands calling for them to reconsider. I adapted it from another letter I saw on the internets (can't remember where sorry, probably linked from DiS) but added some more of my views etc. It's not brilliantly written, but I hope I got my message across coherently and I'm glad I managed to not slip into "you should get rid of Chris Moyles!" territory - a slightly elitist argument that just makes you come across like an indie/middle-class/Guardian reading/leftish version of the always hilarious spEak You're bRanes comments that litter the internet.

I didn't really mention the Asian Network as it's something I have no knowledge of, or interest in (if I'm being honest), though I'm sure it provides a fine service:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to address proposals announced this morning which suggest the possible closure of BBC 6music.
On the whole I am a loyal supporter of the BBC and the licence fee, and understand that the way in which the organisation is funded places it under a unique pressure to appeal to mainstream and niche audiences alike.

I have been a semi-regular listener to the service since it was first launched in 2002, originally through Freeview and the Listen Again feature online, and more recently through DAB radios, and feel that the station has really grown into itself – the recent additions of Lauren Laverne and Jarvis Cocker to the schedule have further complimented the station.

It is my belief that this station fulfils a remit that the commercial broadcasting sector does not. The Strategy Review itself states that 6 Music "plays a wide range of music that listeners do not hear elsewhere and it introduces many listeners to music that is new to them", and the website http://comparemyradio.com/compare - which compares unique songs played by various radio stations – shows little overlap between 6Music and it’s nearest competitors (such as the various XFM stations, NME, and Absolute). The same website also highlights 6 Music’s uniqueness when compared to the other BBC stations playing ‘popular music’ (which is itself an out-dated term, which fails to grasp the shear breadth of music falling under this banner). Trying to shoe-horn 6 Music’s shows and values into either Radio 1 or Radio 2 would mean cutting back on some of the programming which currently makes those 2 stations currently successful.

I also find it disheartening that the BBC, having spent the past 8 years encouraging people to upgrade their old FM radios to the newer DAB technology (which I did a few months back, at a cost of roughly £80), are now retreating from this sector with the closure of 6 Music and the Asian Network.

I understand that these proposals have to be considered and approved by the BBC Trust before any cuts are made, and so would like to add my voice to those requesting that the Trust strongly consider rejecting the call to close these stations. Their very existence proves the validity and necessity of both the license fee and the BBC, especially in an age when commercial pressure on broadcast media is stronger than ever.
Kind regards,

(ends)

If anyone reading this cares about 6 Music then please email your concerns to the BBC Trust, and if you can find the time to fill out the online consultation response then that'd be great as well (I've not done this yet myself, but we've got 'till near the end of May to do so). Twibbon, #save6Music, online petitions, and Facebook groups are all lovely gestures, but you need to send the message direct to the BBC for it to have any kind of impact.

I noticed a curious semi parallel last night as well when I was reading an interview with Toby Whithouse, the creator of BBC3's Being Human - a programme highlighted in the BBC strategic review as an example of the success of BBC3.

The pilot episode of Being Human was first broadcast on BBC3 as part of a package of pilots designed to encourage new drama or something. Out of that package, it was a programme called Phoo Action that received a full series commission. Phoo Action was a kitsch, 60s style martial arts programme, from the creator of Tank Girl and Gorillaz, that was slightly reminiscent of the Green Hornet. However, it was Being Human that had received the higher viewing figures on broadcast, and more importantly it was Being Human that resonated with viewers. There was an internet outcry (which past me by, I never saw the pilot), and a full series of Being Human was eventually commissioned (though with a slightly altered cast).

The 2nd series of Being Human ended a week ago, the finale received viewing figures of 1million plus (brilliant for BBC3), and the format has been sold on to an American network for a remake. Phoo Action has, so far as I remember, never progressed beyond the pilot.

I think there's an important message in this for the BBC management to remember; sometimes the fans know better, and the customer is often right.

At The Pictures: Up In The Air

This could have easily been awful, a Garden State for grown-ups, but luckily they kept it off the well beaten path of Oscar baiting rom-coms. The script and direction are pretty snappy, and the trio of central performances are all great. It’s a cliché to go on about how George Clooney is like Carey Grant et all, but he really is the only proper Old Hollywood Movie Star we have nowadays.

Using ‘real people’ whose lives have been affected by the recession was a bit of a gimmick, but it does give the film a weighty punch – reining it in from what could have been a slightly screwball knock-about comedy.

And it’s always a pleasure seeing JK Simmons and Sam Elliot pop up in scene stealing turns.