Heed the taxi-man

Last night I took a taxi home. The driver has somewhat forthright views on everything. He reckons he has the answers to all the ills facing this country (and Farnham traffic). I’m not going to elucidate because, basically, he is a racist, sexist, pig. However, one thing he said seems to have turned out right and that’s his weather reporting skills.

Friday was a bit miserable with intermittent showers, the sort of grey day that looks to last for a few weeks. He assured me, however, that today was going to be a bit murky first thing but brighten into a glorious day of cold sunshine.

When I left the house first thing, to go into Farnham, the day was, indeed, quite murky. The sky was grey and it was very chilly. By the time I returned, the sky was completely blue and the sun had put in an appearance. It stayed this way all day.

His other predictions were that Sunday would be grey but dry and Monday would be horrible. We shall see.

Mirinda spent a lot of the morning working on her DBA with a lovely fire blazing away (it’s really turned quite cold). In the afternoon we decided to take a trip up to the garden centre. I needed a new fork and some weed killer. We ended up with a trolley full of stuff.

Back at home, we took the poodles for a lovely walk around the park in the dying rays of the day. Mirinda reminded me that it has been a month since she’d walked the whole way round because of the terrible flu she’s had (the cough is still there). It was lovely.
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Tonight we watched Snow White and the Huntsman. Normally I wouldn’t bother watching a movie intended for an angst-ridden teenage market, especially if Kristen Stewart is in it, but, of course, a lot of it was filmed in and around Frensham Little Pond.

Firstly, from a purely local point of view, it was great to recognise bits of woodland and water that we’ve walked around and through many times. It was also great seeing the little camp that they built on the shore (and which I photographed at the time). Secondly, the film had some great effects, including some great dwarfs who were not, actually, of small stature. Thirdly, however, the leads (with the exception of the evil queen) were incredibly one dimensional and I found myself siding with the nasty queen.

A quick note on Charlize Theron, who played the evil queen. She was excellent. Not as funny as Julia Roberts in Mirror, Mirror, but very evil and very beautiful. It was quite obvious that she WAS the fairest in the land. She was also a rabid feminist. This is how Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly put it

Ravenna hates living in a world where men can feed on women’s beauty and then toss them away. She’s a fascist of feminism, and Theron’s acting has the blood of operatic anger coursing through it.

Actually the movie had quite a few, refreshing feminist threads running through it although it is rather obsessed with physical beauty (the women who scar their faces so the evil queen doesn’t see them as a threat, isn’t really teaching the right message, if you ask me).

Speaking of reviews…I quite liked this snippet from Michael O’Sullivan of the Washington Post

Overlong, overcrowded, overstimulating and with an over-the-top performance by Charlize Theron as the evil queen Ravenna, the movie is a virtual orchard of toxic excess, starting with the unnecessarily sprawling cast of characters.

However, by far the worst thing in the movie was the wooden Kristen Stewart. She has two acting faces and they both look exactly the same. How anyone could think she has any talent is well beyond me. Actually I know why the director of this movie does, after all they had an affair during the making of the film, but it’s beyond me why anyone else would.

According to one reviewer I read, Kristen Stewart plays exactly the same character as she does in Twilight. I disagree. Rather than Stewart playing the same character, she actually only has the one performance in her…and these are both it.

But then I look at who this type of movie is aimed at: Angst ridden, short attention spanned, miserable teenagers. Clearly they can’t deal with too much depth of character and a film needs to be either serious or funny. Never both.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if this is what they want, all power to the producers who see the need and fill it but it’s interesting that this type of film only really appeals to one level of audience. However, Kristen Stewart is perfect for this. Though I guarantee she won’t be around for very long as a performer if she doesn’t learn some sort of variation.

I watch a lot of kids movies with Tom and the good ones have the amazing ability to appeal to kids and parents alike because they have to – after all, the kids can’t take themselves to the movies so the adults have to sit through it as well. Cue adult humour that flies over the head of the little ones. (It always makes me laugh when I chuckle at something and Tom turns to me wondering why it was funny.)

Anyway, I’m seriously not going to recommend Snow White and the Huntsman unless you like wooden, non-humorous films or are in love with Charlize Theron…or know Frensham really well (possibly the real star of this movie).

I just thought I’d finish with a photo of Mirinda down the back of the garden, enjoying a cup of tea with Day-z on her lap.