all quiet on the west cardiff front

this week we haven't really done much, not many gigs on (and found out too late for the ones there were) so spent a lot of time cwtching on the sofa watching movies. sunday we switched on THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW for allegedly 5 minutes cos i wanted to see the appalling "toast to man united" scene and ended up watching almost the whole bloody film. silly but fun. monday we went to the duchess (duke of clarence), a pub only 4 doors away from our house that i used to practically live in a few years ago, to have a drink with the patti ladies. we nattered and had a proper catch up and discussed green man, atp, canal breaks and other possible holidays together. they are such wonderful and lovely people, very glad they are our friends.

tuesday i finally got steen to watch THE LAST UNICORN. i was very excited, steen less so. this is one of my favourite films from when i was a kid and then when i discovered the amazing alison black liked it when we were at university we would make everyone watch it weekly after going out (often this coupled with FIRE WALK WITH ME was the ultimate in endurance tests for newcomers to the house like prospective friends and boyfriends). it has the wonderful voices of jeff bridges, alan arkin, tammy grimes and mia farrow; the music of soft rock psych band america; and gorgeous japanese animation. happily, steen did like it and even ignored the fact that i got tearful / excited / scared / did unicorn impressions even though i've seen it a million and one times.

wednesday whilst steen fiddled with some computer software and had to listen to INME for buzz magazine (i refused to be in the same room after having to endure something similarly horrible last month) i watched THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. god bless film4. i wouldn't normally sit down to watch this but since reading THE WATCHMEN have a bit of a low level alan carr obsession and wanted to know how true it was to his ideas. it was ok, lively enough, not nearly as good as the book as you would expect but some nice fun entertainment and sean connery was still quite sexy and believable.

thursday night we went with the patti ladies and it seems most of chapter (including raybould, jon, benny, anne and the gang) to see MOON. this was so powerful it gave me funny dreams last night. it starts with a pr film for lunar industries who have solved the world's power problems by harvesting energy on the moon. this brought up all sorts of sci fi references (TOTAL RECALL for example) and is actually wholly believable as i read an article ages ago in the NEW SCIENTIST talking about this very same potential idea. when we start a very beardy sam rockwell is talking to robot gerty about how he only has 2 weeks left before going home, ending his 3 year contract as the sole engineer on the moon harvesting energy for the earth, again leading to references of creepy tension in space, to 2001 and SILENT RUNNING. but when sam starts seeing things in the corner of his eye, like little blips in a computer program, the tension mounts and starts leading you towards EVENT HORIZON and SOLARIS. but it takes a different turn, it quickly stops from being a cliche. it has wonderful solid, old fashioned effects, a good script and a great performance (or should that be performances) from sam rockwell. he is the only person we actually see on screen who isn't a fuzzy mirage or video but he is never unwatchable, you never get bored of wondering how he is, wondering what he is going to do. the film is actually all about loneliness and sacrifice and the human spirit rather than how many things we can blow up in space, a refreshing change.