Apr
23
2006
Dir & writ: Paul Weitz
- Hugh Grant - Martin Tweed
- Dennis Quaid - President Staton
- Mandy Moore - Sally Kendoo
- Willem Dafoe - Chief of Staff
- Chris Klein - William Williams
The things you’ll do for family. Yes, I took my little sister and my cousin to see this horrible excuse for a film while I was in Sligo this weekend. It was truly terrible.
The basic plot isn’t all that awful. There is a reality show with an unpleasant English host. There is an American president more than a little unsure of what is going on. There are manipulative wannabe stars and gullible boyfriends. Picture all that, now through in a reluctant singing and dancing terrorist who ends up as a the novelty item. Oh, and may just turn out to be a suicide bomber.
Got all that. See how it maybe could have been funny if done in a South Park style. Yeah, it wasn’t.
If you are going to make fun of people blowing themselves up live on TV then you really need to go all out on the bad taste factor. This doesn’t, and it isn’t funny. Just in poor taste.
In short, it is one to be avoided.
IMDb | COnfessions of a Film Critic | Cindyfilms
Apr
23
2006
What does one wear to a baptism? Cause that is where I am now[1] at B#1’s kid’s christening[2] and not only are clothes an issue, but also gifts. What does one buy a 3 month old baby? Not like he’s going to remember is he? And seeing as I’m to be godmother there’ll be plenty of time for future purchases.
I suppose I could name a star for the baby, but wouldn’t it be a lot easier to name a baby for a star? Or a constallation[3]
B#1 is 3 years or so older than me[4] and when we were kids he was definitely the leader of our little gang. This is when we lived in Dublin and hung around the estate and park. There was B#1, B#2, the boy next door, the boy across the street, and boy around the corner and me. Yes, being surrounded by brothers I was a bit of a tom-boy. And as the oldest B#1 was responsible for all our entertainment 
whether that was climbing on shed roofs[5] messing about, or invading the nearby building site[6] He was also responsible for the yellow reg game. We used to travel between Dublin & Sligo quite a bit, and being squashed in a car for over three hours mean you need to play games. Or read books. Anyone else play yellow reg? Back in the day[7] the only yellow license plates were those furrin English ones. So not a whole lot of them around. When you spotted one you’d thump the person next to you saying “Yellow reg, touch my foot” and then touch your foot, meaning they couldn’t hit you back. Course B#1 figured out before all of us that any car that had a single letter, then some numbers and then more letters[8] was a British car, and so would have a yellow rear plate. I’m not sure why they didn’t/don’t have them at the front, but they didn’t. So obviously once he learned this he got really good at spotting yellow regs.
Anyways, despite the fact that none of the family read, or know about the blog[9] this is to congratulate B#1 on the birth of his son.
Linknotes:
- obviously not the now that I’m writing this in, but the future now that you are reading this in. Unless you are reading this after I’m home from the christening. Or on a different day. ↩
- memo to self, come up with shorter name for the nephew ↩
- maybe I’ll refer to kid as Perseus from now on. Maybe not ↩
- I never remember their ages. They keep changing. ↩
- I so wanna spell that with a v ↩
- it is a prison now ↩
- such a long time ago now. ↩
- or maybe the other way round, I don’t really play anymore ↩
- and if they do I’d prefer they not say ↩
