6 Lessons learned from the last 2 weeks

Just a quick post to indicate that I’m still alive. Regular readers may be disappointed by this. Nothing has particularly irritated me (other than a film below) over the last couple of weeks, so here are some things (films and stuff) that I have liked and one thing that I loathed:

(500) Days Of Summer: This film was a smart and savvy appraisal of being one of those pathetic hopeless romantic types- featuring the gorgeous Zooey Deschanel and “The Kid From 3^rd Rock From The Sun” (more popularly as Joseph Gordon-Levitt), they were believable characters and shared reasonable chemistry- both in a coalescing and combusting sense. Quite brutal in places, it lightened up a bit at the end, but still didn’t result in being overly schmaltzy. Unlike He’s Just Not That Into You; a film which spent 2 hours saying that women are not the exception to the rule (he WAS a player but he’ll change for you etc.) and then ended with the most desperate lady ever seen on film gasping “I am the exception” whilst a man- who had spent the film being completely uninterested in her- was in the act of ravishing her. This made me far angrier than any film should.

The Lovely Bones: Peter Jackson back with that superb directorial eye of his- juxtaposing lavish dreamscapes with visceral scenes and some astoundingly tense moments in a rather horrible story of a girl who is brutally murdered and continues watching the repercussions of her murder- her family’s slow descent into ruin, her killer continuing to go free. Mark Wahlberg subtle turn as the father of the murdered daughter and Stanley Tucci’s equally restrained- and frankly quite terrifying- role as the murderer (who probably could evade suspicion more easily if he didn’t dress like a stereotypical serial killer) are both worth the price of admission- although I should add a special mention goes to Laura for paying for me to see this.

Bioshock 2: The long-awaited (by me at least) sequel to the original Bioshock game came out. I got it a day early- thank you very much zavvi- and went about completing it.

The art design- both character and location- is superb, having been set a decade after it’s predecessor, most of the underwater city in which Bioshock 2 takes place is becoming increasingly derelict and the inhabitants are less human in appearance (having messed with their DNA), and these are generally well thought out. This means that whilst it doesn’t look as realistic as say Modern Warfare 2, it still manages to look quite superb. If you’re into barnacles and Art Deco furnishings.

The story falls a little short of its predecessor, but there is still some mildly interesting philosophical debate to be had, if you’re willing to search hard enough, but nothing that you wouldn’t hear from a drunk student at the union after a few pints. The game is also fairly easy, even on the hardest difficulty. Still, despite these flaws, Bioshock 2 is a game that does a good job of capturing the tone and style of the first, and I’d recommend checking it out if you’re gaming inclined.

I finally got around to listening to The Shins’ “Wincing the night away” the other day, after “Black Wave” came on in a pub and I decided that I needed to own it, the rest of the album is quite wonderful as well.

Finally, in a surprise at number 6: Engineering works on Valentine’s day are awesome, having serendipitously introduced me to a girl who had skived off work in order to try and win her ex-boyfriend back. Thus restoring my faith in people attempting to make life more like a romantic comedy. Even if she failed in winning him back.

Honorable mention goes to "The Devil In Ember" by Mark Gatiss, a book which I have been enjoying for the last couple of days.