Pynchon

On Sunday I went to see "Children Of Men".



"Children Of Men" is a highly regarded film. Other than one review I read that called it "confused", all of the other reviews have been positive.

I thought that "Children Of Men" was OK, but that is about it. It starts well with a beautifully rendered future dystopian UK, all muted colours and shabbiness. Lots of nice attention to background detail (advertisements everywhere that move, headlines like "Nuclear fallout over Africa", strange looking cars, etc.) and a good vision of how the UK might look one day; like it is now but different.

The problem with "Children Of Men" is that it just did not grab me. I wish that it did, I wanted it to because it was an interesting story, but it didn't. It just seemed unfocused. Not quite enough drama, comedy when comedy was inappropriate, mawkishness as emotional content. I notice that the screenplay was credited to five writers. Five writers? Didn't William Goldman write something along the lines of, if there are any more than two writers on a screenplay you are looking at a compromised piece of work that cannot have a coherent vision? I think he may have been right.

As I said, "Children Of Men" is OK. It just wasn't for me.

Anybody watch Robbie Coltrane's return at Fitz in "Cracker" last night? Shame there was no Jane Penhaligon or Charlie Wise, but I liked it nethertheless. It was better than "White Ghost" (absolute rubbish and an appalling way to end the series in 1996), but not as good as "To Be A Somebody" (one of the best pieces of Television drama of the 1990's, in any genre). Nice to see that Jimmy McGovern still has a point to make. The Iraq war, Bush, Blair, Northern Ireland and the mental disintegration of a traumatized man.

Also, a pretty difficult sell to any American TV network that might want to buy it, I would have thought.

I am thinking of changing my template. I'm just so over pink. My current template also looks shit on my mega, big monitor, small cock screen.