a pleasing selection

Another day, another night... another late one. Sigh. My lateness at going to bed is minor in comparison to my father's early morning vigils and my brother's all nighters, but how I wish I could break through the 10 pm barrier more often - go to bed before 10 that is! Surely bed time is not genetically predetermined?

Here it is already after ten, so this post will be brief and light.

You might be forgiven for thinking Frank and I watch movies all the time. It isn't true! I can probably count on one hand the movies I've seen this year, including only two at the cinema - Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, both well worth the effort. I am prone to forgetfulness, so I may have seen more than this, but it's been a while between drinks movies. Even movies at home have been sporadic, though I did so enjoy Ever After in the middle of the day recently... so risqué!

Despite our dearth of 2010 movie viewing, this is my third movie blog in 18 days. What a binge we're having. Ever After as November commenced, Sound of Music one week in (you should have seen the girls at school stop and stare when I broke into 'Favourite Things' for their entertainment yesterday!), and in the last week Valkyrie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and, tonight, A Very Long Engagement. (The last three courtesy of Video City's "3 weeklies for $9.90" deal... such value for money, who can resist?)

We're on a winner, because all three were good... and that's despite war movies not being my cup of tea.

A Very Long Engagement was a quirky mix of moving, funny and... well... French. We both giggled a little, enjoyed it a lot and found it touching.

But now: So long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Good night.

a curious case

I was going to tell you about my cooking adventure this evening, as the loss of kitchen creativity has left me open to disaster.

There's nothing quite like a new internet recipe or two to reinvigorate cooking passion. Most of the time it works, tonight it was (how shall I say this)... less than a success. Sweet potato gnocchi would be fine I suppose - if the recipe was correct and I didn't have to more than double the flour in it, such that I ran out and augmented with flour of the wholemeal variety, which changed the taste of the thing all together, after which I rolled it as specified and made gnocchi three times the normal size.

Pesto covers a multitude of culinary sins, and just when I thought this one would find its way to the bottom of Frank's preferred meal list, it saved the day. Frank liked it, I could tolerate it, and with gnocchi the size of small golf balls, we'll only be eating it for one more meal.

However, what I really want to say something about is the movie we watched tonight. 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. Oh my, what a movie. Beautifully made and wonderfully told, but deeply disturbing.

It's probably a good thing I've ended up telling you about the meal rather than the movie, because I can't quite gather my thoughts together to write much anyway. Frank and I sat there kind of shell shocked when it finished, strangely moved but unable to express what was happening for us. I'm wishing I could age backwards so I could go back to school and study it in detail, explore its themes, examine the characters and dig deep inside it.

Then again, can you imagine being treated completely the wrong way around all your life? People assuming you are old when you're not, or treating you like a teenager when you have more life experience than the average person around you? That would drive me insane.

But perhaps if I aged backwards I could take all my life's lessons and put them into action with my new youthful body.

I'm mid stream in one of a series of age crises... Benjamin Button plugs into that I think. If anything, it makes me want to get the most out of every moment of my life while I'm fit and able to. Am I doing that? I feel strangely dissatisfied with some of the things I put my time into.

Hmmm. Shall I tell you another cooking story? So much less confronting!

i don't really think 2012 will be like that... but maybe it would be nice

I'm not much of a blockbuster movie type, but Frank is. Which is kind of funny, because when he first asked me out, he wrote a letter suggesting we go see 'Minority Report'. He thought it might be a good movie since it was in the same genre as 'The Matrix'. I'd never seen 'The Matrix', and still haven't (shocking I know), but I rather liked that he used the word 'genre', and the rest is history. If only I'd known he liked blockbusters more than sci-fi.

So I reluctantly agreed to go and see '2012' with him tonight, a decision aided by the pre-purchased tickets which greeted me on my arrival home from work. We had exactly twenty minutes from when I walked in the door until the movie commenced. It's one of the beneifts of living in a small place - we were seated five minutes before the previews started.

It wasn't too bad, as far as movies go. Certainly better than I had anticipated. Lots of biblical themes and crazy loons making strange predictions. (I had no idea 2012 was such a significant year - check out this wikipedia page to read more!) Of course, being the a rational society we are, science was called upon to back up the strange predictions, and things began to go rather pear shaped for the global village. And throughout it all the warm, fuzzy human interest factor.

There were some interesting themes, like love, selfishness, cruelty, and the nature of humanity, with a few points of interesting social commentary. I mean, why were the Americans the last country to respond with compassion? And do we as a society sell tickets to comfort and safety, before opening our hearts to the desperately needy?

At the risk of drawing too deep conclusions from what is little more than a formulaic blockbuster, I have to say I like the twist at the end. I like how it turns what we know on its head. (Oh... spoiler alert. Do not read on if you don't want to know the ending) 'The day after tomorrow' does the same thing. In that movie, the citizens of the USA head down south to become aliens in warm, welcoming Mexico. In '2012', Africa is the safe haven. The few surviving citizens of the world turn their super ships for the Cape of Good Hope and all is well with the world.

I've just realised this makes the whole movie rather myopic. Africa doesn't even feature in the movie until the end. The sole survivors of planet earth are supposedly on board the three ships... yet Africa escapes relatively unharmed. Does that mean Africans don't count as people? Or they only count when we need them? Whatever it says, I like the turning of fate, where the westerners, who have exploited Africa, end up beholden to them as the only remaining habitable place on earth. Nice. They suddenly have the power. Except it's only a movie and one shouldn't read too much into movies!

Anyway, I liked it. And did you get the whole 'Noah' thing? I reckon I know a few people who wouldn't know what the arks were all about!

Six and a half out of ten, I say. Gran Torino remains the movie to beat in my books.