The evening’s party playlist was also interesting because it seemed more-or-less random apart from the titles being each related in some way to horror. It’s great that we now have the technology to create random playlists by entering keywords into the computer, and get out the eclectic variety of Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), Born as Ghosts, the Rocky Horror Show soundtrack, Monster Mash and the Cranberries’ Zombie.

A few friends came over and we got fajitas from Los Cardos across the road — and despite the utilitarian appearance the food was pretty good. The staff were friendly too. I got a “fajita burrito”, which is kinda what I’d call a fajita if I was making it at home, except they loaded it with rice as well as the usual fried onions, peppers, cheese, salsa and spicy chicken. (There are a number of other fillings available besides chicken, including haggis…) The food was more or less what you’d make yourself, simple but plentiful, and they had big, good quality tortillas which seems to be the hardest part when it comes to make-your-own fajita meals.

The film was weird as all hell. I borrowed the special edition with audio commentary and a separate making-of disc — I wonder what explanation they’ll have for some of the stranger scenes. Some didn’t even seem to connect at all to the rest of the story. It certainly wasn’t what I expected. I knew there was action in light-striped arenas that probably represented some gaming system, but I didn’t realise that most of the protagonists would be computer programs. Needless to say, if you know anything about computers you have to plug your ears at some points or risk bursting into entirely inappropriate laughter. The plot is a bit like The Lord of the Rings (take the magical item into the evil overlord’s domain to free everyone from tyranny).

The sequel — coming out in December I think, so aiming for the family Christmas market I suppose — follows the action twenty five years later in the same inner-computer environment. Hopefully they won’t be relying on the crutch of dazzling graphics and spectacle instead of coherent plot. But that’s probably a foolish hope…

Helen’s out tonight because one of her colleagues is leaving the lab, so she didn’t get to see it. Maybe we’ll watch it tomorrow with extras before I give the DVD back.

The three-dimensional aspect was very well done — much better than Beowulf in 3D which was hampered by terrible graphics. It looked fabulous and, who knows, maybe the added depth helped to make the action clearer.

Unfortunately the plot was fairly boring and the characters were about as shallow as it’s possible to get. In fact, it was largely the characters from Aliens — including Sigourney Weaver herself — fighting the Corporation and their unethical ways. They had a knuckle-head military guy, who appears to be a subtle blend of Duke Nukem and Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. No, I tell lie, there was nothing subtle there at all. They had a sleazy company guy and they had a mining operation set up to gather Unobtainium. I couldn’t help but snigger that they actually called their precious metal unobtainium. I wonder if they use it to make MacGuffins?

Mega Shark really was as bad as we all imagined. The acting was just short of terrible, but the overall artistic vision was disastrous. It’s amazing how many “armed guards” there were in this movie, standing in the background in laboratories and offices, all wearing dark glasses despite the moody lighting.

I took particular enjoyment from the “science” scene, in which the marine biologists mixed arbitrary liquids in test tubes until they found that right combination that luminesced. (Don’t worry, it wasn’t all taxing science in the laboratory: there was time for a sex scene in the supply cupboard. Unusually, it’s legitimate to say that it was a necessary part of the plot.)

The shark and octopuses were a bit lacklustre. I was hoping for some old-school giant rubber tentacles reaching over boat decks and maybe some stop-motion or something. Instead we were treated to the same three clips of shark swimming, shark fighting octopus, octopus swimming, in various combinations. It was just like watching Saturday morning cartoons again.

The sizes and capabilities of the monsters are ludicrous to say the least. How fast does a shark have to be swimming when it leaves the water in order to overtake — and maul — a cruising 747? Answers on a postcard.

The title Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus doesn’t hide any aspect of the film from you. It’s exactly as you imagine. I Know Who Killed Me is another daft title but this one was apparently meant with all sincerity. Lindsay Lohan is abducted by a serial killer and then Lindsay Lohan turns up a few days later claiming to be a different Lindsay Lohan but bearing all the wounds which identify this particular serial killer.

This film wasn’t as bad as I expected. I don’t know if that’s because of drastically lowered expectations, or whether the elements of goodness shone through the rubbishness. Lohan did win two Golden Raspberry Awards for it, tying first and second place for Worst Actress, which I think is a bit harsh. She was far from the worst thing about this film.

Last night I saw a pilot for a modern version of the 80s classic Knight Rider. It was about as rubbish as you’d imagine, though the Hoff got a little cameo as the main dude’s absent father. And they ended on the original theme tune. But the rest of it was still crap. Reimagined, reworked and rebooted series can work very well — see Star Trek: TNG, Battlestar Galactica — but the real work is not done by the computer graphics people. You need good stories, believable plots, interesting characters! Wikipedia reveals that the series had one (shortened) season and was dropped. Hardly surprising.

I’m looking for more so-bad-it’s-good movies if you have something to recommend(!). Fixed in my mind is Battlefied Earth. Any others?

• Looking for Eric

  This doesn’t really count as a Festival event because it’s just a film which was on at the Filmhouse. But it was really good so I’m putting it here.

  It’s got Eric Cantona guest starring as Eric Cantona, as the fairy godmother/spirit guide for a struggling postman. It’s directed by Ken Loach, and is that typical triumph-over-adversity plot which makes for funny and warming cinema.

• Polly Paulusma et al.

  An acoustic night at Medina, and all the acts were completely unknown to me. Polly headlining and support from various others including local newbies Mayhew. I’m sure I recognised two of the band members.

• Nick Harper

  The second unknown. I really enjoyed his show, though I’m easily drawn to an artist who’ll sing the intro to a song unaccompanied while restringing their guitar. He played with just an acoustic guitar, and a mixture of floaty, shoegazing songs and angry, energetic songs.

  He was a bit pissed and very garrulous, but wasn’t nearly as drunk and annoying as some of the audience. I can kind of forgive Helen and Ken not enjoying themselves so much because of the twerps sitting behind, stomping out of time on the ricketty seats. I had a lot of fun though.

Have you seen any interesting new musicians lately?

Star Trek could also be called The Young James Kirk Chronicles, but in a good way. I’m not mocking Indiana Jones here, after all. This story creates an alternate history for James Kirk and the original crew of the Enterprise, and follows their story from Starfleet Academy. But don’t worry, it’s not the Hogwarts School of Exploration and Astrophysics. They quickly head out to war rather than staring into their own navels.

All the characters from the original set appear, with subtly altered stories to suit the new timeline and to make things a bit more interesting. Kirk’s a tearaway, Spock’s been suffering some playground abuse for being half-human, and Bones… we’ll he’s still a cantankerous pessimist so that’s okay.

It was a really great movie, neatly treading the line between the high camp silliness of the original Star Trek series and a modern action movie. At one or two points they veered into Galaxy Quest territory but they also balanced this with some heavy emotional stuff. Well worth seeing at the cinema.

The contrasting X-Men Origins: Wolverine was terrible on almost every level. The script was leakier than Rab C Nesbitt’s semmit, and you have to use a lot of brainpower not to think about all the ways these people with superhuman powers could have solved their problems earlier.

The story was long and lumpy, which only frenetic action scenes can disguise. The editing was woeful. If you care about spoilers, jump to the end of this paragraph. But there is no good reason why Victor is seen climbing up the outside of the building in Africa because he does nothing up there. There is no good reason why Gambit being elbowed in the face should leave him running across the rooftops. But those scenes still happened, completely without context or explanation.

Even the individual scenes were so terribly cliched it’s hard to remember them without cringing. Surely Hugh Jackman’s got bored of cradling people in his arms and screaming at the sky?

The big secret about this movie is the two separate teaser endings. We didn’t know about them and left the cinema early (very unusual for us, and doubly irritating because of it). The two different prints are distributed randomly between cinemas and the idea is that you see the film twice to catch both endings. Either that or it’s an attempt to create interest in the pirated films, which will probably be available with both endings. Cos really, who’s going to see this dreck twice for the thirty seconds of extra footage?

The real flaw for Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen is that he doesn’t seem to realise he’s directing a film, instead of filling in the gaps between storyboard frames. I’m sure if you read the script you could easily find the 12 discrete episodes that made up the original, faithfully translated into the new medium. The result is disjointed, lacking in momentum and somewhat emotionless.

Tragically, what ruins the overall film is what makes each individual scene so good — the faithful rendering of the original. Most of the characters and their complexity came across quite well. I was really worried that Rorschach wouldn’t translate well to the screen, so I was really impressed with his character in particular.

SPOILER ALERT

The important point with any adaptation, besides being enjoyable, is how much it reflects the story that shares its name. In that respect, Watchmen is pretty faithful. Veidt is still masterminding his conspiracy to bring about world peace, the Comedian still dies at the beginning, Rorschach is just as crazy as ever, and Dan Dreiberg still can’t get it up. I was also surprised that there was so much character back story in the film. It was pleasing to see but it did terrible things to the pace of the film.

Some departures from the original were entirely warranted. If they’d included anything from Tales of the Black Freighter they would probably have successfully confused everyone. But they could certainly have done more. Dr Manhattan’s self-indulgent scenes on Mars with his big crystal palace were tedious in the original and not any better in the film.

The loss of the knot-tops and the death of the first Nite Owl was also understandable. It wouldn’t add anything significant to the film because the pre-war tension of the populace was largely ignored. Only the main characters really got to show their emotions regarding the war.

The main focus of the plot — the actual details of the conspiracy — were completely different for the film, and in my opinion no longer made any sense. The original story involved a staged alien invasion, complete with dead alien, madness and death in the streets of New York. The enemy was tangible and terrifying.

The new conspiracy involved a fake attack by Dr Manhattan on the major cities of the world. Never mind that the film goes to great lengths, like the book, to show how Dr Manhattan is becoming less and less interested in the fate of the world and humanity. We’re supposed to believe the only people to have spotted this are the superheroes who confront Veidt at the end of the film. But then, to compound the absurdity, the nations of the world get together in order to defend themselves from Dr Manhattan. To use his own analogy, this would be like all the termites in the mound banding together to defend themselves.

It is odd, that many of my complaints about the film as a whole (rather than the ending, which can be ignored) stem from the slavish translation from comic panel to film screen. Even the music referenced in the book is blasted out at overbearing volume through the course of the film. Almost as if the director is saying “hey you fans, I’m totally making Watchmen here!”. But sadly he didn’t.

It’s about a family whose father escapes to the West. The mother throws herself into the communist society and becomes a recognised idealist and champion for improving society. But she falls into a coma and sleeps through the fall of the Wall, and all the other changes that came along with it. When she wakes up the doctors advise that she not be made to suffer any excitement… so the grown-up children decide to hide her at home and pretend that the German Democratic Republic is the same as always.

This gives great scope for embarrassing social situations, awkward moments as you think the cat will be let out of the bag, and so on. It was a very funny film and a neat counterpoint to the misery and paranoia of The Lives of Others. Really recommended.

• The Educators (5.45pm, 11 February). German comedy (I think) about pranksters who sneak into rich peoples’ houses to rearrange the furniture. The last in the German Film Season. The other two have been really good.
• Inherit the Wind (5.45pm, 16 February). Classic Spencer Tracy court-room drama with Bible-lovin’ good-ol’-boys and such. There’s a talk afterwards from some science bloke about science and such. I’m looking forward to this one.
• I’m Going Home (6pm, 24 February). Family dies leaving small boy and grandfather alone in the world. Probably quite moving. French, I think. I’m writing this with the guide in the other room…
• Hunger (6pm, 9 March). Bobby Sands and hunger strikes in prison. It’s probably quite miserable, but who knows.
• The Counterfeiters (6pm, 17 March). About the people brought together to produce forgeries for the Nazis — I guess making fake newspapers, currency, whatever else seemed useful for propaganda purposes. Sounds pretty good, anyway, like a heist movie but without the heist. Just lots of random people with different skills doing intricate stuff.

Finally, this Sunday there’s a screening of Hero at 1pm to mark the Chinese New Year. Be there (if you want).

The Lives of Others or Das Leben der Anderen

This film is a few years old but we only just got round to watching it. There was a German film season at the Filmhouse, which was a great opportunity. Just before the screening, a lecturer from the university gave a small introduction to the film and its relevance to the political landscape in Germany. By her interpretation, it had done a lot to bring the topic of East German affairs into the public again.

This is an amazing film, and if you haven’t seen it you really ought to. This is also the first time I’ve felt some anger that there is a special award for foreign films at the Oscars. This film could have taken best movie from The Departed, I think.

Slumdog Millionaire

This is a Danny Boyle movie though it’s a bit of a departure from everything else I’ve seen of his. Fewer heroin addicts and zombies than I’m used to.

It’s about a boy from the slums of Mumbai who gets on the Indian edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and does extremely well. Is he cheating? Is he really a genius? Was it all luck?

His interrogation forms the framework on which the film hangs the little vignettes from his life that “made” the boy who he is. A mixture of dark comedy and romance in an unusual setting. It deserves to make the term “chai-wallah” a household word, too.

The Wrestler

The first Darren Aronofsky film I’ve seen since Pi, the amusingly-clichéd but interesting debut about numerology and the stock market. This one stars Mickey Rourke, making a come-back after his career as an old boxer… to play an old wrestler.

Some martial arts movies make a big deal about the action. This is not that kind of movie — after all, this is American pro wrestling we’re talking about here. The appeal, or whatever you call it, is in its showmanship. The heroes and the villains, the staged fights, the comedic action.

The point of this one is, I suppose, what happens to old warriors. People who can do nothing else, but who are too old or decrepit to do what they want. It’s quite a slow film, without any sense that it’s stopped or spinning in circles. Mickey Rourke is excellent as the lugubrious Randy “The Ram”. Watching him ruin his life and his body and his relationships, to the point where the only thing he can do is carry on, is a little bit heart-breaking.

We’ll be watching more films this year. Helen got us a joint membership at the Filmhouse, which gives us a bit of a discount at the box office and at the bar. We hope to make good use of it, and we’ve been marking the calendar with stuff that we’d like to see.