More movies
Dec. 26th, 2012 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearFast Girls is a fairly standard team sports story - girl from disadvantaged background qualifies for world championships, joins relay team, tensions lead to bad performance, everyone eventually makes friends, and victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat. It wasn't a bad specimen of this genre, but nothing really stood out about it - apart from how weird it was to see Bradley James (Arthur in Merlin) out of armour. Mostly, it made me want to watch Bend It Like Beckham again (mmmm, Keira Knightley...), so I did!
Babette's Feast is a Danish film from the 1980s, telling the story of a village where everyone leads lives of abstinence and plain fare, and how their lives are changed when a top French chef decides to make them a special meal. It got off to a rather slow start, but picked up as it went along, and the dinner scene was positively genius. Mostly, though, it made me want to watch Chocolat again (mmmm, Johnny Depp...), so I did!
I also finished listening to Kraken by China Mieville (whilst cleaning the flat on Christmas morning!), which was mostly rather good. It was very weird, in the usual way of Mieville, and the modern-day London setting made it all seem even more bizarre (it's much easier to accept alien concepts when they're set in a fantasy world). I didn't enjoy it as much as his Bas-Lag trilogy, or The City and The City, but it had a lot of interesting twists and turns (the misdirection was very skilfully done) and I liked a lot of the characters. It was a different experience, listening to Mieville in audio form - I think it connected me more to the characters, but prevented me from appreciating the narrative as much. Good, though.
Babette's Feast is a Danish film from the 1980s, telling the story of a village where everyone leads lives of abstinence and plain fare, and how their lives are changed when a top French chef decides to make them a special meal. It got off to a rather slow start, but picked up as it went along, and the dinner scene was positively genius. Mostly, though, it made me want to watch Chocolat again (mmmm, Johnny Depp...), so I did!
I also finished listening to Kraken by China Mieville (whilst cleaning the flat on Christmas morning!), which was mostly rather good. It was very weird, in the usual way of Mieville, and the modern-day London setting made it all seem even more bizarre (it's much easier to accept alien concepts when they're set in a fantasy world). I didn't enjoy it as much as his Bas-Lag trilogy, or The City and The City, but it had a lot of interesting twists and turns (the misdirection was very skilfully done) and I liked a lot of the characters. It was a different experience, listening to Mieville in audio form - I think it connected me more to the characters, but prevented me from appreciating the narrative as much. Good, though.
