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Friday, December 2, 2011

I would dearly love to go to Bath

One of the plus sides of our internet age is that we can come to have friends in far away places. For me, one would be Matthew Coniam, whose love of the cinema has caused him to create a most entertaining blog.

Here is a slice from one of his recent posts where he was pondering the qualities that make a screen presence endure in our social consciousness:
"So will our children know much about Jennifer Aniston? Not sure. Here she is in a film I only watched last night, but try as I might, I just can't remember the title of. I had to go to the shelf to remind myself in order to Google for this photo, and I'm now going to have to go to the shelf again - and we're talking less than ten minutes later - to remind myself again in order to write the title here.

Ah, yes. It's called 'Just Go With It'. Ask me to remind you at the end of this post and I'll doubtless have to go and check a third time. A suicidally unmemorable title, I'd say. Originally sat to Jen's right in the picture is Adam Sandler, a light comic actor whose true level of popularity I've never quite been certain of, but who also keeps working away, in films that seem to do consistently well-ish but rarely smash (or bomb). I've only seen him in 'The Wedding Singer' and 'Fifty First Dates'. He gatecrashes when we invite Drew around. (Even Winona couldn't hold my attention too long into Mr Deeds.) He's showing his age in this one; getting a bit stocky, and it looks like he's dyeing his hair now. Comes to us all, I suppose. Quite a nice little actor, albeit not one I would have picked from the chorus line personally.

A few good laughs here. Not too bad. It's not really a pure pink film, but a kind of couples movie that strives to appeal to both sexes equally, and full of references to contemporary popular culture, of which I understood just enough to realise how much of the rest of it went careening over my head. And even when they're not punchlining about tv shows and pop groups I've never heard of, they're talking very quickly, often at the same time, and with a lot of ambient noise. And I know this is supposed to be a golden age of sound recording, but to me at least a lot of the dialogue reached my ears like this:

Adam: Dgfgf rhrhhr jjytuwpq shdh?
Jennifer: Kf Lotrgfcd ghtyr!
Adam (unimpressed): Thf hghr jkupzcmght agde.
The blonde cutie Adam's trying to pull: Wqryr hghfde slpu.
Adam's dorky brother: Aw, come on! Retss fgfhr hjyt!
Jennifer (in comic triumph): Ghjfkjtye puytrew!!!"
Keira Knightly, patron saint of Movietone News

This guy cracks me up!

A very fine writer and a lover of the theater, his blog is a delight. Read the whole post here.

20 comments:

  1. Sometimes, I just need a break from this Obama guy, and really it does give one relief to have a more pleasant visage to consider.

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  2. But can he ever stay wake to give us his review of Possession? Does he have the stuff to get his wife to watch it with him too and let us know what she thinks--maybe even encouraging her to comment here herself?

    I not only want to know but I'm pretty sure Keira does as well.

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  3. What a lovely surprise when I sauntered over here this morning. Thanks, James!
    And thanks for saying I'm more pleasant than Obama.

    Darrell - that's a pretty low trick, bringing Keira into this. If only she was in the film I'd probably have watched it a dozen times by now. But I guess this Sunday is free...

    Cheers all!

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  4. In the event that it is a family, you should have a couple of additional, as these snares can likewise turn out to be off the cuff storage room for the garments that should be washed, however you haven't yet gotten to it. look at this now

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  5. Good friends, good times. I do miss these days.

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