Archive for February, 2006

In the wonderous month of February, in the splendid year 2006, we of Aylesbury Grammar School did venture unto the mysterious mormon state of Utah, to explore mountains white and powder deep, and generally catch some air.

Yay, for we did catch a plane at a god-awful time in the morning and fly on carbon fibre wings to the New World, and capture a glimpse of stunning vistas, traverse white-blanketed forests and eat shit heartily where edges were caught.

I, Captain Faceplant, took it upon myself to use my magical camera box to trap pockets of beauty, danger and sheer ugliness in order to show you.

Put in a less flowery/medieval way, I went snowboarding in Utah with my school, and photos are here! Unfortunately, thanks to the low temperatures, my lens cover froze for some of the higher altitude pictures, and there’s a black triangle in the top right-hand corner. As for the poor quality of the photographs, I have an extremely unsteady hand, I’m afraid to say.

[ photos offline temporarily ]

All 3 in one week! Aren’t I the lucky boy?

Well, as for the first 2, I can say I’m certainly not lucky. For the past 2 days I’ve been pretty much unable to sleep - on Sunday night I only managed to doze off around 4.30am; last night I only managed to get off around 3am. I spent most of the time lying awake wondering why I wasn’t asleep, which probably didn’t help matters at all. Sometimes I just can’t turn off my thoughts.

The other problem I’ve had this week is that during my time off school (thanks to a niggling throat infection) I’ve become addicted once more to Bejeweled. Those of you with MSN/Windows Live Messenger will probably have played it once or twice - I did too a while back. Then I played it more, and more. Eventually I got a score of 114k, (old account I’m afraid), and remained addicted for a good while. Yesterday I started playing again, and it’s worryingly addictive.

But, now to the positive side: tomorrow Caley’s coming over! I will doubtless spend many hours lying in my lover’s arms, just happy that she’s there, while my mother doubtless sits in the next room playing Spider Solitaire, listening (whether intentionally or not, I’m not certain) through our thin plaster walls to what may end up as somewhat dubious noises. But life is good.

Edit: Let me rephrase that last sentence. Life is good, unless you’re trying to sleep with retainers. Good night.

This film was weird. And yet, I loved it. I’m not quite sure what it was about this quirky, oddball film that quite so caught my attention, but I think it’s a film that you should definitely see, if only to say that you’d tried it.

After having tried about 3 times to describe the story of the film and started over, I have decided that it’s best left unexplained. There are several main characters whose paths cross and intertwine throughout the film in a way which seems at first somewhat arbitrary, but yet at the same time well-thought out and clever. In the end, each character finds love in a way that Love, Actually wanted to, but completely failed at doing.

IMDb describes the plot as being about “a lonely shoe salesman and an eccentric performance artist struggle to connect in this unique take on contemporary life,” but this does not even come close to outlining the film. See it for yourself.

The direction and writing of the film is perfect at capturing the emotions of the characters, and their feelings for one another, in a way that I can’t even begin to describe.

I hope that Miranda July’s works following this debut will live up to the standard set here, and I certainly hope to find out if that’s the case.

Information

• Directed by Miranda July
• Rating UK 15 / Ireland 18 / USA R
• Starring Miranda July / John Hawkes

Related

• Film details at IMDb
• View the trailer at IMDb
• Buy DVD on Amazon