lathany

Since I last posted a long entry, two months ago, work has become less busy, the weather has improved and I've spent a lot of lunchtimes at the British Museum. Outside of the working day, I still have more things I want to do than time to do them in, but I think that's unlikely to change any time soon. My Meteor groups are heading for end game territory and I think they will finish - very roughly - at the end of this year. As a player, I'm in Candlewick and also the local gaming group (Dogs has just finished and another round of Revolution is about to begin).

We've continued to see a couple of films a month (mild spoilers):

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish version) - The Swedish title translates as "Men who hate women" and, frankly, that's a much better title for summing up the film. It's very violent and very focused on these men who hate women. I found it interesting to watch (it's a murder mystery) and enjoyed it, but I'm not so sure I want to read the book or see the sequels.
Cell 211 - This was a thriller set in a jail where the prisoners took over (consequently I think there was only one female character). Tense and atmospheric with interesting characters and a good main character. Well worth seeing.
Paprika - Anime film about using dreams to help people and the other effects. Needless to say it's weird, but enjoyable.
Attack the Block - I'd heard very mixed reviews for this and was apprehensive about it beforehand. However, it turned out to be totally brilliant and it's easily my favourite film so far this year. Sci-fi, comedy, action and horror with some good characters (I liked Pest). It's set in and around a tower block in London and it was nice to see a British sci-fi film.
Ronin - A crime-thriller film about a team of former agents of a mix of countries who are being paid to seize a briefcase. It stars Robert De Niro, Jean Reno and Natascha McElhone among others - who all give good performances. It's got a couple of insane car chases (we realised our own car type was one of those used!) and a lot of shooting people (who then die - this isn't The A Team). However, it was good without being excellent. I think what was missing was that the plot - when you got to the bottom of it - was fairly straightforward. And a key question remained unanswered (admittedly, deliberately).

I've read a couple more new books on the train:

The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko - Good vs Evil with Balance and a lot of one-upmanship all round. It's a good read and I now want to read the others in the series. However, I did find that a little went a long way and it's the sort of series I would want to go through slowly (plus the boss always being one step ahead was irritating).
The Vesuvius Club: A Lucifer Box Novel by Mark Gatiss - A comic historical spy thriller, this is a difficult book to describe. Entertaining and with a central mystery. Much enjoyed, if slightly over-the-top at the end.

Finally, We've been watching The Killing. It's like a cross between 24 and Prime Suspect and is Danish (with subtitles). The main characters are great - all believable while being different from any other characters I have seen. The plot is good. However, it did suffer from wanting to not finish the main plot until the end of the series and had a bit of a feel of them planning the episodes as they went along rather than at the start. Overall - not quite excellent, but rather better than most other TV right now.

I'll try not to leave it for so long next time.