Ugh!

I hate Tuesdays, because they usually feature a big fat pharmaceutical chemistry lab that involves running around for up to six hours, competing with everyone else for analytical instruments, evaporators, bunsen burners, oh...everything. Today we did extraction and analysis of caffeine from tea-bags. The 0.02g sample of pure caffeine we ended up with did NOT seem worth all the effort, and now I will never look at a cup of Tetley's in the same way ever again.

I've moved this blog over to the Beta version. I'm not sure how it'll look until I publish, though I think the comments will disappear, according to what I've heard.

(Oh Yuk! AGAIN! Someone near me in the computer pool room keeps farting, and it's VILE!)

In other news, I have bought a new phone (complete with new number. The chosen ones will be notified of it as soon as I get around to it) so I am now free of the torment of having long text messages truncated, the earpiece cutting out mid-conversation (kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a phone, when you can't hear the person talking to you), and the power cutting out whenever the notion takes it. My new baby is a Sagem my501c. It's really rather dishy...

Nothing else to report, except I'm back drinking again, albeit a bit more sensibly. Oh, the willpower of a dying swan.

Oh James!

History has just been made. For the first time ever, I am prepared to sit through a James Bond film.

(Clue: The reason doesn't have much to do with the story)

Daniel Craig has the honour of being the only one of the 007 movie stars - one of the few male Hollywood stars, in fact - that I would like to disrobe. Seán Connery's accent killed stone-dead any presence he may have had, Roger Moore's arched eyebrow added to the camp factor but detracted from the oomph, and Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan hardly registered at all. Craig is something of a departure for me. He's not particularly big, he's not at all hairy, and he doesn't have a beard. Yet he has a certain something, and a big part of that something is his eyes.

I've never really paid attention to someone's eyes in the grand scheme of attraction before, but his are definitely out there. Then there is the body. I've always been a fan of muscle (what person who digs guys isn't?) and Craig has the best body of all the 007's.

I've always thought the films themselves to be vastly overrated piles of shit. Octopussy was half-decent only because of the female acrobatics, and only Grace Jones could add an interesting twist to that one, what was it called? Does anyone care? I went to see Goldeneye with my sister when it first came out, and as soon as Pierce Brosnan did that jumping-onto-the-aeroplane thing, I rolled my eyes, sat back in my seat, and waited for the rest without too much anticipation. For some reason, being chosen for the role of either Bond himself or a Bond girl is an honour. Why? You could be incapable of acting your way out of a paper bag and still pull it off. It's nothing more than a dodgy signpost of popular culture.

But anyway, I shall be going, if only for the above scene where he come out of the water, and another one where he's apparently in the shower.

One thing I heard in the midst of all this was how lots of people felt that Craig wasn't right for the job (if someone could please take a minute to explain to me what being 'right' for this entails, I would be very interested), and some of these pathetic miserable fools saw fit to send him hate mail after he was chosen for the part. Which only goes to show just how much something of little consequence can mean to someone who seriously fucking seriously needs to get a life!

Bleh!

I'm in college this morning, having gotten up for an 'class' that has no attendance requirement, i.e. you submit everything for it over the internet. I still have something to work on from last week, but I could've stayed in bed for another couple of hours instead of hauling myself into the shower at the ungodly hour of 7:30am.

Dublin and Mallow was cool, although travelling at weekends reminds me of cattle being herded into the milking machine enclosure, with the way we were all trying to squeeze through airport security. On my way back, the steel toe caps on my army boots set off the metal detector, and the security guy made me take off my boots and walk through again. My socks had holes in them. It wasn't half obvious. 'Nice stockings, bud' said he. 'Thanks', said I, 'It's the student lifestyle, dontchya know'.

There were a couple of things I noticed about Dublin that distinguishes it from Brighton.

1. Dublin appears to have only one focal point for everyone at the weekends. That of the Temple Bar and Dame Street area. Every lager lout and his mother converges on the city centre at the weekends, and it's impossible to get away from them. Brighton is more diffuse in that respect, attracting different kinds of people to different areas, and West Street is enough to draw the flies away from the honey and towards the shit.

2. In spite of the fact that nightclub closing times in Dublin are more staggered than Brighton, taxi queues at 2 in the morning are still insane. What the fuck is going on? You can come out of a club in Brighton at any time and not have to wait more than 10 minutes for a cab home.

3. The traffic, Oh My God. I got on a bus yesterday to get to the airport TWO hours before my flight. It took an hour to get from Connolly Station to Drumcondra, and by that stage I was panicking that at that rate, I was going to miss my flight. I made it, but there was a mass exodus from the bus as soon as it arrived. Obviously others were counting on arriving earlier than it actually did.

4. Nightclubs and drink prices. EIGHT FUCKING EURO I had to pay to get into Bad Bobs at about 10pm. OVER TEN BLOODY EURO for a pint and a shot of vodka: I handed the barman a tenner, he went to the till, and came back. I had my hand out for the change. Into it, he put the receipt for 10.70 and held out his hand for the rest.

My nephew's christening on Sunday was cool, and the plans for my brother's wedding continue on, though the bride appears to have turned into an animal and has already had a massive blowup with the bridesmaids, both of whom have been her friends since school. Anyway, I've been measured for a tux.

I also had a meeting with my bank manager when I was in Dub, and I felt a bit better coming away from it, as I had a complex about my current debt, but he assured me that, relative to others in similar circumstances, I was doing quite well.

Anyway, back to work. I've got a report to hand in, eyes closing or not.

Ugh!

I fell off the wagon last night and stayed out more than a little bit beyond my bedtime. Today, for my sins, I am dying.

If nothing else, it serves as a reminder why I'm cutting down. Well, that or the fact that I really need to make myself drink some water before I fall into bed when I get home.

Days 'til I go home: 5. Roll on Friday!

I toddled along to Kung Fu again tonight, replete with navy tracksuit pants and cut-up black t-shirt, so that I would blend in a little bit more than I did the last time. Then I saw another guy there, one who had been before, in a white t-shirt and casual pants and I realised I was giving it too much thought.

It was pretty back-breaking this time, with loads of stretching and contortion exercises, and my basic movements still need some work, but progress is being made, so it will be stuck with for the moment. One thing I'm struggling with now is something called the choo-goo-e-loo, a sequence of combat moves, quickly executed one after another. I covered the first quarter of it tonight, and of that, I can only safely remember half of it. Hopefully there's something out there on the 'net (If any kung fu enthusiasts have come across this blog in the last while - a snowball's chance in hell, I know - feel free to furnish me with any information you may have).

The sessions technically are only supposed to be one hour or so, but this one went to about two, as we had started early and there was no-one waiting to use the hall after our alloted time. Towards the end of the session, he had us gather around him while he spoke.

What started off as a lecture on technique and commitment rapidly mushroomed into something more substantial, and anyone hoping to make an early exit would have been more than a little bit put out. Amongst his assertions, which I'm not sure if I'll be taking as read just yet (and others I simply couldn't hear, thanks to the lousy acoustics of the sports court) was the declaration that the body only needs 4-6 hours of sleep a night, and the 8 hour recommendation is worthy only of rejection. I can only say that it would make for an interesting reaction if he found out about my slumber patterns.

Another bone of contention with him was the stress that society imposes on people, and how it's become every man for himself. He wouldn't be the first person to say that the world is going to hell in a hanging basket, but some of what he said, well, I'm feeling the need to examine it right now.

To follow the standard pattern of job/marriage/mortgage/kids is a one way ticket to stress:

Leaving aside the fact that getting a job is basically an absolute unless you have an enormous trust fund, opting out of the others purely for the sake of it isn't really the way to go. If you plan to have a family, or stay with your partner for life, marriage isn't the most stupid thing you could ever do. Mortgage repayments are basically not much different to rent payments, except you own your own property at the end of it. Lastly, having kids can be the right thing to do if you genuinely want them.

Get an education for the sake of it. Don't worry about getting a job, you'll get one if you really want one:

This is the kind of advice I would offer to anyone, save for one thing. No one person can take on an entire job marketplace. Simply put, if you study for a degree that isn't vocational, you have to accept that there will be a lot of people in the queue for a job afterwards, both in front of and behind you, and the person willing to work for the least money will set the wage offered for that job. If you read for a degree in an area where there are more jobs than graduates, you'll be able to pick where you work and for how much, when you can leave, and most importantly, who you work with.

Simply put, you have be able to distinguish yourself from others in a very positive way if you follow that edict. I would have liked to ask the master how much he's pulling in per year, to see how successful this theory of his has made him, but I don't think that would have been a good idea.

Having said all that, it's better to have opinions than not, and he seems like an interesting person, if more than a little frighteningly driven. But then, I could do with some of that rubbing off on me.

Haaaaiiiiii-YAH!

Well, I've just come from my first Kung Fu class, and it was pretty interesting.

I walked in, and felt more than a little uncomfortable in a t-shirt, jeans and runners when most of the other people had fancy martial arts outfits on. It didn't seem to matter, and we started off doing laps of the gym, running in various different ways. Having jogged for some time now, I usually find these circuits pretty easy, but the instructor incorporated these arm and leg movements into the running that made it a whole lot more challenging, and within a minute or two I was breaking a sweat.

After that, the main tutor turned up, and we got down to it. Everyone was put into one of two groups and got on with it, except ME. *I* was left standing in the middle of the gym while the tutor (sensei?) gave a talk, which does wonders for your composure when you're feeling self-conscious already. Eventually, I was paired up with a more experienced guy, and he taught me a few postures and punches. The postures are hard bloody work. One of them involves the position you adopt when sitting in a chair, except without the chair underneath you. Yes, dear reader, I fell on my arse quite a few times at the start, and I still haven't quite got the hang of it yet.

There was also the lovely moment where the tutor said we would all have to be able to do the splits by christmas. I felt like leaving when he said that. Oh well...

My attention to form and breathing from the days of doing weights came in handy though, and I managed to pick a few things up without too much bother. I'm definitely going back. It beats doing circuits in the gym. The 75 minutes was over before I knew it.

In other news, I'm going to see a college counsellor tomorrow. I don't feel as overwhelmed as I did when I was in the middle of the exams, but I still think I need to get my thoughts out into the open for examination. My attention span is as usual all over the place, and I could with some help on getting focused.

With a bit of luck and playing my cards right, I might be able to wrangle a Ritalin prescription, which I can use to help me study for hours on end and help net me a string of A's at the end of the year. Ha!

Dear Gawd

A few days ago, I noticed from the tv guide that Showgirls was on cable over the weekend. I had seen bits of it here and there at different times, but had never seen it all the way through before. I should've counted myself lucky, and left it at that. Reviewed on entertainment.ie as 'Abominable', 'little more than a masterclass in how not to make films', and - the part I like the most - 'has garnered a cult following based purely on its awfulness'. I was intrigued, and when its' time came on Saturday, I sat down to experience it.

The critics were being charitable.

I don't think I've ever come across a story so unconvincing in all my life (main girl meets other girl, in less than a minute the other girl decides to take main girl in, and they become friends: What the fuck is that about?) and the acting, oh Jesus, I wouldn't know where to start. However, where Verhoeven really takes the piss is in his depiction of women. Hint: His service in the Navy may serve as a clue.

He is quoted on Imdb.com as follows:

"As a director, my goal is to be completely open. Just look at how I portray sex in my films. They're considered shocking and obscene because I like to carefully examine human sexuality. It has to be realistic."

Bollocks. He likes to focus on female sexuality in his films, and by christ, is he ham fisted about it. Let's have a look (I'm ignoring anything before Robocop. I really don't give a shit about his pre-Hollywood history):

Robocop: Hardly any women at all. The only one, a police officer, is carefully selected to not be conventionally too pretty, which no doubt is a reflection of her inner honesty. The only other women who can be considered attractive are drug-addled call girls, who for some reason are spared when Miguel Ferrer's character gets blown up.

Total Recall: Attractive woman: Oversexed, hyperagressive corrupt agent (Sharon Stone) who takes to fighting or fucking at the drop of a hat. Understatedly pretty woman: A goodie, who eventually is involved in the killing of Sharon Stone (Rachel Ticotin), but whose femininity ensures she never really upstages our 'hero' Arnie. Tit count: Not much, though a woman with three breasts makes an appearance at one stage. A similarly mutated man is nowhere to be seen.

Basic Instinct: Hardly in need of an analysis, such is its notoriety, but for the first time, Verhoeven's misogyny is fully highlighted. Attractive woman: Oversexed, cocained-addled icepick-wielding homicidal maniac. Her sexuality is 'examined' through various carefully chosen shots of her in various stages of undress, one of which features her vagina, and in various positions during sex. Slightly masculine-looking woman with big hair: Surprise! A lesbian. She proves that she's all (wo)man by trying to run Michael Douglas's character off the road in her car, but losing and getting killed, 'cos everyone knows that chicks can't drive as well as guys. Curiously, her corpse shows the very minimum of blood on her face. Well, it's important to die looking fabulous, isn't it? Passibly attractive man (as long as he keeps his clothes on): Michael Douglas. Portrayed as basically a decent cop, whose weakness is his penis. He has a problem with the relationship between the two girls, nay any two girls, and at no stage throughout the film are we led to criticise this state of affairs. Tit count: Lots of breasts and girl-on-girl action. Male nudity: Restricted to a single shot of Michael Douglas's saggy arse. There is a pattern emerging here. Can anyone spot it?

After a particularly vigorous session with Stone in her bed, Douglas realises that Roxy is watching in the bathroom, and requests an audience with her 'man-to-man'. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Verhoeven likes to 'examine' lesbian sexuality on top of everything else. As it happens, the gay community took exception to this depiction of themselves in the film, and at the premiere of the film, they handed out cards which gave away the ending. They needn't have bothered: As a whodunnit it was shit anyway.

Showgirls: Attractive woman: Desperate for stardom, and will do anything to get it, such as disrobing completely even when the plot doesn't require it in the slightest. She's not alone though. There are lots of shots of the backstage area where the girls get ready before going on, and judging by the (un)dress of all the women there, the air-conditioning must have been in serious need of repair. As an aside, this area is also the backdrop for another of Verhoeven's pet devices: Catfights between women, and they are legion. Understatedly attractive woman: The 'moral backbone' of the film, who tries to keep attractive blonde woman on the straight and narrow, but in a gratuitous twist that serves no purpose to the plot whatsoever, she is raped. Of course, attractive blond goes around to rapist's house to avenge her, and in a scene not entirely dissimilar to one in Total Recall, Verhoeven 'explores' female assertiveness through her beating the daylights out of the perpetrator. Oh, and there's a bisexual woman in there too, but far from us being invited to empathise with her on any level, she's cast as a bitch. Tit count: More breasts than a porn compilation. Male nudity: Once more kept to a single shot of Kyle Maclachlan's arse, which to be fair, did look better than Douglas' in Basic Instinct.

Starship Troopers: Not much fun to be had here, as the film is so ridiculous, it almost take the piss out of itself, but adhering to our original criteria: Attractive, classy woman: Becomes a figher pilot in the war against the creepy crawlies, while her high-school boyfriend joins the marines 'cos he flunks maths. She decides to move onto better things and dumps him, beginning a relationship with another pilot, but always keeping her clothes on. Flame-haired junoesque woman: Begins relationship with jilted boyfriend, and we are treated to her nude form while they share communal showers. Her feistiness is demonstrated when she slaps him on the arse which is, again, the only naked wickedness we see from Casper Van Dien.

*Cough*, sorry, I went all Margaret White there for a minute...

Of course, classy bird realises what she's been missing (well, that and the fact that her other boyfriend's brains gets sucked out by the queen creepy crawly) and she ends up back with her original squeeze again. The error of one's ways, eh?

Hollow man: Attractive blond woman (Elizabeth Shue): Technically gifted scientist, who shares a bed with one of her male colleagues, but they keep it a secret from the rest of their research team, as they don't want her ex-squeeze and team member, scientist-come-nutjob played by Kevin Bacon, to know. All other women are incidental to her, though at one point Shue is slapped across the face by one of them, so that's one purpose served. Tit count: Just one, surprisingly enough, from unfortunate but attractive woman who falls victim to a visit from ol' Kevin himself. Verhoeven must be mellowing in his old age.

So there you have it. Tits - 50, Cocks - nil. Verhoeven gets assimilated into Hollywood, providing a uniquely noxious perspective on femininity into the bargain.

His attempts at science fiction are nifty enough, though. If only he'd stick to them.

As an aside, I remember a show a while back that featured critics discussing trends in modern cinema, and how emphasis was shifting from sex to shoot-em-ups, and this was the reason why Showgirls bombed, because Verhoeven failed to anticipate this. Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, the simplest explanation works best. Showgirls flopped for the simple reason that...

IT WAS SHIT!

Christ, what a MONTH!

Well, I had another test on tuesday, and managed to redeem myself somewhat with the result. After 3 not unheavily-weighted assessments in the first month of the academic year, TWO of which centred on cardiac physiology, which was not formally taught in lectures, merely given as guided study, we now appear to have slowed things down somewhat. Thank God.

I'm going home for a break in two weeks time. It'll be needed. Friday 17th in Dublin and the rest of the weekend at home.

Alcohol is still being given a wide berth, though it's only been a week so I'm not about to congratulate myself just yet. I think I need something to distract myself with at the weekends. I've made enquiries about signing up for a Kung Fu class. It was on this evening, but they started early so by the time I arrived they were already at it. The instructor was understanding, but everyone was already paired up with fighting partners, and I wasn't exactly appropriately dressed (everyone else appeared to have some fancy gown on) so I told him I'd turn up on Tuesday instead.

Still, I ended up going around the side of the gym and having a look at them doing their thing, on my way to the library. It all looked rather impressive, with everyone periodically emitting guttural cries, and punching and kicking the air decisively. It'll be my turn next week.

Elle Driver watch out!

Marie Antoinette

It would not be an exaggeration to say I had very high expectations of this, after Sofia Coppola's last film Lost in Translation ranks in my all time top ten, and The Virgin Suicides before it also comes higly rated.

It didn't live up, unfortunately.

Coppola Jr.'s thing with her films so far has been dealing with women who jar with their surroundings (this film, Lost in Translation) or women who are just not of this world (The Virgin Suicides), and if ever there was a time for her to charter new territory, now could well be it.

One of the things I liked so much about Lost in Translation was how contemporary it was. The dialogue and the situation both of the characters found themselves in had never been approached in the same way before, nay approached at all, by any other writer-director, and it was only right that the film scooped an Oscar for best original screenplay.

Marie Antoinette was different. It was a period piece, and while the sets were spot on - it must be said they always have been in her films - the rest of it didn't really fly. For a start, the film was quite gender specific in that the men weren't exactly given all that much to do, with Marie's husband in particular enjoying the rather bizarre role of a leading character with very little to say. Women have been given the spotlight in Coppola's other films, but not generally at the expense of the opposite gender. Marie's frustration is linked to her husband, and while the director knows better than to pull a stunt like the one that was done with the prince in Braveheart, the circumstances the couple have found themselves in can hardly be described as his fault. It's left to the likes of Rip Torn, and to a lesser extent, Steve coogan, to carry the torch in that respect.

None of the other characters are fleshed out all that much either, with the ladies-in-waiting providing some diversion but never really allowed to participate fully in their own right.

Then there is the soundtrack.

I've waxed before about using contemporary songs in films. The fundamental problem is that the movement and climax of a song will not coincide with those of the scene in which it is used. The director got around this problem before by using tailor-made recordings for The Virgin Suicides, and using atmospheric songs without an obvious beginning, middle, or end in Lost In Translation. This was to a certain extent the case here, but (and I appreciate that this may be my problem) the thing was, the songs were almost without exception ones that I had heard before. It almost seemed to me like a game of spot-the-80s-artist, like she had compiled a mix tape of all the songs she liked, and thrown them up there. When you hear something like The Cure's Plainsong (played for, like, five seconds during Marie Antoinette's coronation as queen), it automatically registers as a separate entity, evoking something that you have previously associated with the song, rather than complimenting or augmenting the scene in which it is heard. But I appreciate that that is partly just me. It's integrated well, and still better than Martin Scorsese throwing in a U2 song or another Rolling Stones song into one of his films. Still, I think original composition for each film - provided it's affordable - is the way to go.

Still, the sound and visuals are as compelling as usual, such as the aforementioned sets, the views of Versailles, and the scene where they're using their wine glasses to make sounds reminds me of that scene in Lost In Translation where Bill Murray's character was swimming lengths in the pool, it's got that kind of experimental vibe.

A point of note that I mention is the historical aspect of it. There was none. External events are allowed only the most minor of intrusions into the storyline, and any historians who pick at it are only making themselves look like pedantic old farts.

So, cinema is better off for it than without it, but it still lacked a certain something for me. Next one, set in the present day please, Sofia, with more for the men to do.