cinema

Househunting

| Richard

A busy weekend: Saturday started off fairly well with an opticians’ appointment to have a contact lens check at Surrey Quays. On the plus side, there was no change in my prescription but on the minus side I was then forced to go food shopping in Tesco with my glasses on (due to the yellow dye they put in your eyes to check fit).

Then a very enjoyable evening in Epsom with a drink at the Assembly Rooms, followed by a meal at the excellent Cinnamon Spice Indian restaurant and then on to the Barley Mow for more drinks.

Sunday saw lots of bike racing on the telly – MotoGP and BSB – interspersed with househunting. It’s about time I sorted myself out something for the long-term and with my divorce pending, now’s the time to start looking if I buy new.

So off I went to see Berkeley Homes’ Kidbrooke Village Development. This isn’t too far out of London – 15 minutes’ train journey from London Bridge (near my office) but as it’s early on in the development, there’s nothing there yet in terms of shops, bars, restaurant and amenities. Lovely place though but the lack of my own secure and powered garage is still a major issue. Perhaps it’d be better to buy a house in Rotherhithe near where I am as this is a short bus ride from work and I can even walk it (and do!).

Then back home for a Thai stir fry and TV including “Salt” which I’d recorded. And copious wine…

Arthur

| Richard

So Warner Brothers decided to remake “Arthur“, the 1981 hit film,  and then try to sell it to the public (according to an interview I saw on Sky) as having a novel twist: instead of a butler, the new film has Arthur’s Nanny!

Wow! What a fabulous comic turn that is! This is sarcasm, by the way, for the hard of understanding and Hollywood movie moguls.

To make matters worse, they decided to use that completely over-hyped and under-talented Russell Brand for the lead role and trout-lipped cardboard ‘actress’ Jennifer Garner for one of the other roles. Two more reasons to avoid this like the plague.

I wish this would be a complete flop at the box office but I never underestimate the stupidity of the (particularly US) cinema-going public and I expect it to do fine and encourage the studios to make more piss-poor attempts at remaking classics, like they did with Psycho, The Italian Job, Get Carter, Taxi, The Wicker Man, et al.