Busy Not Blogging

The overextension’s been kicking in, plus I’ve been doing the social life thing.

A couple of films worth mentioning, although lord knows i’m well behind the times on catching movies as quickly as I should. Capote was great. A quiet, simply filmed piece designed as a frame for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s deservedly Oscar-winning performance. It’s un-nerving just how accurate the portrayal is, although one has to wonder how his performance would be viewed if he tried putting those mannerisms onto a ficticious character. Truth is clearly stranger than fiction.

I also enjoyed Brick, again a simple piece with an incredibly good central performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Definately a film that’s polarising opinion, it’s use of noirish hoodlum speak coming out of high school students either captivating or irritating the fuck out of audiences. There were a couple of walkouts at the screening I went to.

However, I thought it worked really well, and felt like street argot rather than something forced on the characters as a conceit. I can see Californian high school kids talking like that.

Music news. I missed the Foo Fighter’s Hyde Park gig (drat) but managed to get into the Apollo Victoria for the acoustic set earlier in the week, which was utterly splendid. An eight-piece version of the band (actually 9 at one point, as head roadie Joe Beebe popped up for a solo on “Virginia Moon”) crused through a set including a lot of stuff from the second disc of “In Your Honour” along with some oldies, and a hammering solo blast of “Best Of You” from the Grohlster. A top, top night. One big fat hug of a gig.