Halloween

So I had a very unconventional Halloween this year. I enjoyed it immensely, but it felt quite different. Britain does not celebrate Halloween the way we do in the US; they recognize it, they have parties and people do dress up, and there are the random decorations here and there. But children do not trick-or-treat. Most houses are barren of decorations. And the people who dress up pick from one of three costume ideas: The slutty angel, some painted-faced ghoul, or a pirate. That's all I saw on Halloween on the Tube and the street. But I'm sure others dress up in different gettups, I'm just surprised that Halloween didn't feel quite so festive as it normally does. It felt like we skipped October 31 and moved right on to November 1.

A normal Halloween would include a Doc Films screening of something terrifically horrifying like last year's extraordinary Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, and would probably include a good day of random people dressed up on the quads and seeing all the many homes in Hyde Park decorated. Then the nearest Friday to Halloween would include a trick-or-treat through the dorm by neighborhood kids, and we all dress up, and there would be an Off-Off show to take in with some horror themes, followed by a Halloween-themed movie back at the dorm. I imagine this year would have included just that, only I would have taken in the movie over at The Apartment, as I call it. And I probably would have worn my catsuit costume idea, which is now saved for next Halloween.

Anyhoo, my actual Halloween involved getting up at 6 am and taking two trains and a bus to get to Haworth, Yorkshire where the Bronte parsonage is located. We toured the home where the Brontes lived, and even saw the creepy sofa (THE sofa) where Emily Bronte died. There were a few minutes spent hanging with a few horses and making friends with one who really liked me (aka, he kept trying to eat me), and we chased after some sheep at one point but they ran from us, the great fluffy things, and then we set off for over two hours on a tour of the moors. It was quite the hike, full of steep climbs and LOTS of mud, and I felt quite proud to have bought some boots the night before for this very purpose, but unhappy that they were giving me blisters. It was absolutely stunningly beautiful. I still don't know if my vocabulary quite describes the views of the moors. I mean, rolling green lands, ranges of clouds floating in and hanging there above the green, sheep Maahhhing in the valley and carrying to us on the wind, the waterfall trickling down the side of one valley and escaping into a narrow river, and hills and trees and the blue sky and the stray rustic home spotted across the valley. It was very humbling, very surreal, and we were constantly looking for the movie crew. I can't imagine how it must be to live there and to have those lands as your backyard. We were all in a trance, especially when we went down to the waterfall. I don't think there was a single person who wasn't thinking how much they wished they had their friends and family and significant others back home with them to see it all. It's the kind of thing you want others to see, just so they can experience how powerful it is. Because it is just that, powerful. I know I have an obsession with landscapes, but the moors will just knock you to your bum because they're such a visual power.










I also saw Quantum of Solace yesterday. I was not particularly impressed. I didn't really like it. It felt like it borrowed too heavily from the Bourne films, it wasn't cohesive by any means, it was abrupt in every sense, from the shots to the scenes to the ending. At 100 minutes, I wanted a little more exposition. This story felt like a little dalliance before the actual third act arrives. For a film that was supposed to tell us about Quantum, the organization behind the events of the first movie and Vesper's suicide, we learned very little and instead it allowed Bond to get sidetracked trying to investigate some lame water/oil maneuvering in Bolivia. And so much was ridiculously unrealistic, more than your average Bond story, that I couldn't help but roll my eyes. When you drop out of a plane and swim to another person in the air who has the only parachute, and you pull the chord two seconds before you hit stone earth in a sinkhole, and you are perfectly okay, both you and the Bond girl in the evening dress, frankly, I get agitated. The wonders of the first film were all the live stunts performed. This had a few of those, but it used CGI for its big action set pieces, which are supposed to be those moments when you show off; instead, the CGI detracted. EVERYONE remembers the opening running stunt in Casino Royale and the way Bond blast through the drywall. We didn't see that here. And we remember how Bond was human in the last film. In this one he's positively indestructible, and it's aggravating to see Bond always getting up again and again like he's Superman. Furthermore, don't even get me started on the lack of dialogue and humor that powered much of Casino Royale. Casino Royale spent a lot of time on a lucky poker game, but it was powered by bits of gun fighting and poisoning and snarky dialogue. This film lacks snark, wit, and intelligent dialogue, and instead is fueled by a lot of irrelevant snippets and throw-away lines. A lot of the dialogue doesn't even help the plot proceed. The plot lingers and things happen and you find no explanation for why Bond is flying here or there, or why Bond brought Mathis in for two minutes, or why the villain even matters a great deal. The villain doesn't even present conflict or obstacles for Bond; he just sort of goes after him out of curiosity and interest in bringing down someone slimy. I found the movie too slap-dash and jumpy and bleak to hold my interest much, and that's unfortunate, because I had such high hopes. Perhaps the third film will straighten things out, and my wish for the Casino Royale director to return will be granted.