Manhattan

I first watched Manhattan - Woody Allen's love story set in and about New York city - in early 2005. It was an interesting time in my life when my University education was finishing, I was looking for a job and was all-too-aware that a chapter in my life was about to come to an end. I had always harboured desires to go and see America - so when my imminent move across the country to a new job sharpened my interest in places and travelling I resolved to travel to New York.



One of the best bits about having a job is that you have the money to do the things you want to. So 4 months into my new job I had saved up enough to fly out over the pond and spend a week in Manhattan. It wasn't quite the black and white urban jungle of Allen's movies (it rained relentlessly) but it did ignite a desire inside me to see the world that persists to this day.

Take a look at the opening sequence to the film. Allen narrates over Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, telling us why New York is the greatest place on earth and why his heart will always lie there. I've been twice now and its cosmopolitan bustle fills me with excitement every time I think about it. If you're not been, go. If you don't want to go, watch Manhattan.

Dr Who

Saturday was an odd day for me. I got up very late and very hung over after a work night out on Friday. After watching my mates play some football I watched the FA Cup final and decided to watch the Eurovision Song Contest with my friends. Top night in eh? Seriously though, the Eurovision can be quite entertaining once you accept that the music will be dross and put away all the patriotic bullshit. Laughing at Europop with your chums is no bad way to spend an unplanned Saturday night.

Trouble was though, with the cup finishing at ~5:30 and the Eurovision starting at 8, what to do in the interim? Well, turns out that my friends watch Dr Who - so I joined them. It's a long time since I watched Dr Who, even longer since I watched any kind of mainstream Saturday night TV. As a huge SciFi fan I loved the old Dr Who, but was largely unmoved by the 2004 reboot in which Christopher Eccleston took on the role. I watched the first series, but then gave up and never saw any of the series stuff with David Tennant and now Matt Smith.

Saturday night was a revelation.

The episode I watched was titled 'The Dr's Wife' - a stand-alone episode in which the TARDIS exits the universe and for reasons it would be pointless to go into here has its matrix (soul) transferred into the body of a dying woman. Suzanne Jones plays the role of the woman-now- TARDIS, a role which required the meshing of a number of science fiction themes (the machine that's suddenly human, the being that can perceive all time as present, the alien that can't understand humanity) as she portrayed this machine able to speak for the first time. Matt Smith portrays the doctor is an unhinged genius - which of course all actors have tried to do. Smith looked like he was in control of the role though, like the way that Tom Baker always was.

The programme was a love story between a man and his machine - now a woman in the flesh. A story nearly 50 years in the making which incorporated humour, love and horror into a brilliant steam punk setting which (I'm reliably told) moved the series plot arc on at the same time. This is not the stuff of the bad old days of rubber monster suits and female companions screaming, this is the stuff of the modern age of superbly-plotted television drama a la HBO. It probably helps that the BBC have allowed the writer to reign supreme here, Neil Gaiman (yep - the Neil Gaiman) wrote the episode.

Whatever the BBC have done in the intervening years between the Ecclestone reboot and 2011, they've done it right. For anyone out there who thinks like I did, that either Dr Who is a kids show or that the new stuff just isn't as good as what came before, I implore you to think again. That 40 minutes of television on Saturday night was probably the best BBC production I've seen in years. I've seen the light and am converted - bring on the DVDs!

True Grit (the old one)

Interestingly-timed was the arrival of the original True Grit through the post from Lovefilm while I was away in Jordan. At first I thought that was a little depressing to watch the same film twice in a row, but then I thought it was remarkably good timing as I'd be able to properly compare and contrast.

I think it might be a generational thing, but I preferred the remake. Maybe it's something to do with the Technicolour, maybe the 1960s production values make it look slightly more cheesey than it wants to be. I don't know what it is really, but The oddest thing about watching this original version was my realising that I don't think I'd ever seen a John Wayne film before, or at least I don't think I've every watched one in which he was so clearly the star. There'll be purists out there who'll disagree vehemently with me, but I enjoyed Wayne's Rooster Cogburn less than the Jeff Bridges version. Wayne seems to be playing the character from a much more of a slapstick angle than Bridges does, whose version of the character is much more pathetic and sad - and as such endearing.

One large bonus that the old version of True Grit has over the remake is its casting of Robert Duval and Dennis Hopper as members of the gang to whom Tom Chaney turns for refuge. Overall though there wasn't anything in this original version that would make me think anything more of 'True Grit' as a story. I remain unconvinced.

True Grit (the new one)

On the way back from Jordan they had the same selection of films as they'd had on the way out. A shame since there wasn't too much on. On the way out there I'd plumped for Unstoppable mainly because nothing else was too appealing.

Apart from True Grit. True Grit didn't appeal to me when it was in the cinema and only its nomination for an Oscar made me think it might be worth a go - basically I always want to have seen the Oscar-nominated films so I can have an opinion. Hence watching it as a last resort on a plane.

The Coen brothers love America don't they? There's a constant theme of reverence towards the kooky part of State-side culture that runs through all their films. In some of their films it's more prominent than others. Raising Arizona is all about the comic excesses of being a hillbilly, whereas films like Fargo or No Country For Old Men are content to play with US language and accent. True Grit sits firmly in this mould, allowing Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon free reign to don their thickest wild west accents and mumble their way through oodles of frontier gibberish.

I enjoyed watching Jeff Bridges let loose to stamp his interpretation of a southern drawl all over a Western. I was also entertained by the to-and-fro between him and Hailee Steinfeld - who plays Mattie Ross, the young girl who's father was murdered and hires Bridges' character (the drunken Federal Marshall Rooster Cogburn) to get revenge. A good actress in the making there, she carries her lines with incredible poise and maturity.

Other than that though it's a bit of a throwaway film. An OK story with some good performances and a few laughs with some grisly deaths thrown in for good measure. Standard Coen brothers stuff these days, they're operating on the successes of their earlier films at the moment. Perhaps they need a few years off without releasing anything to give them a chance to come up with some new ideas. I'm happy with my decision not to pay to see it at the cinema.

Unstoppable - There's a train, it's unstoppable

On my way out to Jordan last week I had the usual chance to watch some films on the tiny 6" screen provided in the back of the head of the person in front. My normal approach to film selection on a flight is to go for something that I would never normally dedicate my time to watcing otherwise. Hence Unstoppable.

The first time I saw the trailer for Unstoppable it appealed to the child-like action fan that hides inside my head and rarely gets out. The plot is the most simplistic action fluff anyone could come up with - there's a train and it's unstoppably heading for a populated area. Denzil Washington is in a race against time to stop it before it can kill thousands. Who can ask for anything more than that? Sadly though I couldn't find anyone willing to put their brain on ice long enough to come to the cinema with me (and I certainly wasn't going to pay £8 by myself) so I never saw it. Finaly my saviour came in the form of Royal Jordanian Airlines.

I'm not really sure if there's much more to say about Unstoppable than I already have. There's a train - it's unstoppable. Densil Washington plays a guy who has worked all his life on the trains, imagine the kind of conflict of personalities that are likely to ensue when he's partnered with Chris Pine - a young green guy who got a job through family connections. Do they think they might clash? Maybe they'll have different outlooks on life? Maybe though, the experience of chasing down the runaway train will bring them together and show them how they're not really that different?

If Unstoppable sounds like a yawn-fest then you probably wont enjoy it. I think Densil Washington is a bit of a legend, so I'm quite happy to watch him run, jump and shout his way through a series of entertaining set pieces that just about anyone could have scripted. Take it or leave it as it is, Unstoppable wont be winning any awards any time soon.

Petra - actual Indy

For comparison, here is the actual Indiana Jones at Petra.

Obviously there were fewer tourists there when they filmed this. Reviews from the films I saw on the flights over there coming up soon...

Petra - Just like Indy

So I was as on holiday in Jordan last week and I wanted to post a clip from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - since bits of it were filmed at Petra in Jordan. Sadly there don't seem to be any on Youtube, so I've gone with a photo of me at Petra instead.

This is me (very tiny person at the front) standing in front of the Treasury at Petra - probably Petra's most well-known landmark. It's carved into the rock face and is over 40m high.

Petra is bloody huge.