Palomear

John Hurt, once Winston in 1984, does a formidable job as the Big Brother figure in V for Vendetta. It’s set in either an alternative reality or in 3 years time, hard to tell which, where Britain is governed by a totalitarian regime bent on power and rampant with corruption. The populace is kept at bay with scares about avian flu terrorists and immigrants and V, the masked protagonist, is out to shake them out of their ovine slumber with some bonfire night pyrotechnics all over London…

I’ve always been fond of Natalie Portman despite her Star Wars travesties but in this film her English accent is a stretch to believe. She sounds like a South African who had a Canadian au-pair. Luckily for her, her lines good enough for you think about what she’s saying rather than how she says it. And in the second half of the film there’s the constant expectation she’s about to launch into Nothing Compares 2U.

There’s constant meditation about the power of ideas and not-so veiled references to US, and to a lesser extent British, politics too. The Bill O’Reilly figure is pleasingly hideous. It’s all too plausible if you ask me. Jose watched it too and reckoned it was more like the PRI than New Labour, but that’s cultural differences for you. He’s right that New Labour hasn’t had any political opponents assassinated (yet), whereas the PRI does have that reputation…

I reckon this film could stand a few repeat viewings. There is a lot of stuff going on and in that sense is a worthy successor to the Matrix (shame about Matrix II & III) for the Wachowski brothers. As for why Alan Moore took his name of it, I’m guessing because it doesn’t go far enough. Although it is daring for a film to have a terrorist as its hero, he’s nowhere near as anarchistic as he could have been. I’m not criticising it for that though, he’s placed as far left as he can be and forces you to consider the whole freedom-figher/ terrorist thing. And there ought to be more films advocating political awakening and revolution.

Stylish, well-scripted and excellently paced I’ve no trouble at all recommending this one.

CUANDO LA MUJER SE SACA EL MELATE (Mexican Lottery)

Una mujer llega a casa muy apresuradamente, rechina las llantas de su auto en la entrada, corre dentro de la casa tirando las puertas y grita a todo pulmón a su marido:

‘Apúrate!! Empaca tus maletas!! ¡¡Me gané el Melaaaaateee!!!!!!!!!’

-El marido responde entusiasmado:

‘¡¡¡Dios mío!!!…. ¿¿¿Qué debo empacar??? ¿ropa de playa o de montaña?

Ella responde…

-¡No importa pendejo!!!!. ¡¡¡¡Solo empaca y LARGATE A LA CHINGADA!!!!

I woke up this morning with my arm aching, mainly because the only bowling balls that fit my fingers were the extremely heavy ones. Despite Ed not having played for 15 years, allegedly, he beat me 4 games to 3. We were getting quite good by the end of it too. Today it’s Sita’s grand return from L.A., shall be intrigued to hear if she managed to get upgraded to first class on the way back as well as the first leg… Some people just exude classiness. Anyroad, it’s also Ed’s birthday today and bowling may feature again if I can get some Deep Heat salve somewhere… Pretty much everything was closed yesterday so today it’s stocking up in the supermarket for provisions for the imminent arrival of Sita, Monica & Daniel, and possibly Sarita’s cousin from Chile who’s in the United States of Mexico right now. All will become apparent in the next few days.
Did I mention I start my job on Jan 9th? and I haggled the hours down to 10 to 5 M-F… I’m actually looking forward to starting and it’s nice to finally have a finite point when my holidays finish. Eeh well, Ed just surfaced to it’s off to carpe the diem. Merry Xmas-NewYear lull, enjoy the telly

Yeah, this is an advert for Microsoft, but it’s funny and stars Amy Sedaris…

Office 2007 is a pretty good product too…

Here’s photos from this morning’s expedition with the dog. You may wish to skip the black-and-white-birds-on-telegraph-wire ones, I got carried away again. Nice to know this ind of landscape is all within walking distance of the house.

To use a Californianism, I’m totally psyched! I’ve been a fan for quite a while. Guadalajara’s suddenly getting world class concerts. There was The Strokes the other day, and Franz Ferdinand, Slayer. And soon, Lila Downs, Julieta Venegas and er, Toto, coincidentally enough. Ooh, what to wear?

Here’s some photos from this afternoon’s wanderings round Zapopan with Victor, Jana & Megan. If you’re in the area and fancy seeing some world class photography of the low points of 2005/06 then the exhibition on now at the MAZ is highly recommended… The slideshow below uses a new fangled javascript thing, fingers crossed…