WATCHING, READING AND LISTENING TO

THE EDITOR

WATCHING: I don't go to the cinema often, but I've not seen many films this year better than Into The Wild. Sure, Chris McCandless was selfish, cocky and reckless, but his journey and eventual fatal stay in the Alaskan wilderness still makes for a haunting tale and it's very well told by Sean Penn, who stays remarkably faithful to the book (which I've since started reading). The cinematography is sublime throughout, with stunning scenery as Chris wanders around the fringes of American life, and Eddie Vedder's soundtrack is good on its own and awesome in the context of the film. Penn rightly realised that the true tragedy of this story comes from the people that Chris meets, charms and then walks away from, not least the poor old man (played with class by Hal Holbrook) whose heart is clearly breaking when he has to say his goodbyes. A gorgeous road movie that cuts deep and leaves a mark.

READING: Like I said, I've been tearing through the Into The Wild book, written by journalist Jon Krakauer in 1996, inspired by an article he wrote about McCandless. It's a great book, particularly as it fills in all the gaps around what you see in the film and sticks to the hard facts of what we can know about what happened, while obviously some of the film is fictionalised, not least the parts where he is in Alaska on his own. When I finish that, it'll be back to Anna Karenina, appropriately as Tolstoy was one the authors who inspired McCandless' adventures. Then when I finish that, it'll be back to Wild Swans by Jung Chang. Only three books on the go at the moment then...

LISTENING TO: Erm, Into The Wild! Seriously though, the soundtrack has taken on a whole new depth since seeing the film, and all the short songs that didn't make much impact on their own have suddenly developed a real spine-tingling quality. Good work Vedder! As well as that, I've been listening to lots of very good albums from 2007 to start trying to finalise my Top 20 lists. Some albums haven't sounded as good as I first thought they were, and have fallen down or out of the list, while some have shot up the rankings. And I think we have a winner, unless something special comes out in the next few weeks...


THE WRITER

WATCHING: Frankly, it's not been a great week for films. I've only watched two flicks this week and both have been pretty rotten. Firstly, I watched High School High, a John Lovitz-starring Dangerous Minds parody whose jokes were so lame it came off as more of a bad drama than a good comedy. The second film I watched was Cannonball Run, which was marginally better, but did feature Burt Reynolds at his most irritating and Roger Moore parodying his James Bond, which is quite an achievement really seeing as his Bond was a parody anyway. Meanwhile, on a random point, I saw that Coca Cola ad with the people chanting 'Holidays are coming' that hasn't been showed for the past few years, but appears to have made a comeback. Evil company, great advert.

READING: I'm back on the Bonds. Earlier in the year, I embarked upon a literary James Bond marathon by reading some of Ian Fleming's original novels. They're all really enjoyable reads (especially Moonraker, which only make the unrecognisable film 'adaptation' even more unforgivable), but I struggled to get through Diamonds Are Forever and have only just returned to it. It's widely regarded as one of the weaker 007 books, and it's not hard to see why, with its slow-moving plot and un-engaging villains. Still, in emotionally scarred Bond girl Tiffany Case, Fleming has created a rich, grounded femme fatale who would fit well in the Casino Royale sequel.

LISTENING TO: Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. I've never been quite as convinced by Danny Elfman's score writing talents as most other people are. He‘s certainly very talented, but his work has a trademark to it that makes it sound fairly uniform and, despite my enjoyment of both scores, its sometimes difficult to differentiate his work on the Batman and Spider-Man films. Having recently listened to the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, though, I am now well and truly in the Elfman camp. This is a rich, textured score that is not only good enough to be ranked up there with any of the truly great musical soundtracks, but also displays his sadly unexplored talent with lyrics. What's This perfectly describes the childlike wonder of Christmas and This Is Halloween has the phrase 'tender lumplings' in it. No real analysis to add to that, I just think it's a phrase that should come in to more common usage.