What am I doing???

Ok, I had one of those days today. You know, the ones where you have no idea what you're doing, why your doing it, and what you'd actually prefer to be doing. The Mid-Twenties crisis. I suddenly felt, after getting up, that I really didn't want to go into work tomorrow. But then I got to thinking, why? What do I possibly have to look forward to next weekend to make me want to get through the next week. Apart from a bank holiday so three days off, what else will I be doing? So in a perfect remedy to this I did absolutely nothing of merit today, just watched a couple of films to get them off my ever growing pile.

Now I say a couple, but it was actually four. How I managed this I don't know. Normally I find myself procrastinating so much I have barely enough time for one. Also I'd like to note, this is not my personal best. The surprising thing was, they were all good films...

I started the morning off with Legend of the Shadowless Sword (Young-jun Kim, 2005) A Korean martial arts film set in around 926AD, about the last Prince of Balhae reluctant to take up his role as King to save his kingdom. From there its pretty much straight forward. Prince has to get from A to B, having fights along the way. As the film progresses we learn more about the Prince, how he fought alongside his father in the war, and gradually showing off the skills he keeps hidden. But its a good watch. The fights are well choreographed and there's lots of shuriken action. There is a bit too much magical flying though, which has always been a part of Asian period/fantasy cinema, and I've never know the reason for this, one day I'll look it up.

With about a half hour break, I then sat down for Dogma (Kevin Smith, 1999). I've never had a problem with this, or any other Kevin Smith film. There's a hell of a lot worse out there. You know, Scary Movie and its BASTARD children like Superhero Movie. I wish I hadn't mentioned those now. My blog is tainted. Anyway, so I never understand why people have a problem with Kevin Smith. Dogma is kind of the adventure film in his oeuvre so far. His other films are either straight up comedy, or comedy/drama (which is a bit of a contradiction). I didn't want to say this but in a way, Kevin Smith can do no wrong in my book. Even the slated Jersey Girl wasn't as bad as people made out.

The third film of the day was Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998). Now how cool is this film. I haven't seen it in a long time and I recently bought the Director's Cut DVD. I did worry about the changes that were made, but I can say none of these detracted from the film. He's removed the opening narration, put in a couple of extra scenes, and played a bit with the CG effects, but as I said, I hardly noticed a difference. I have nothing but praise for this, the cinematography, colour pallette, design, music etc. Everything in this film is just great. It does makes me feel sorry for Kiefer Sutherland. His career seems full of stand out performances surrounded by generic, "What is that film?" roles. But in Dark City he's great. It's a kind of role he needs to return to to shake Jack Bauer of his back.

Finally I've just finished Slacker (Richard Linklater, 1991) This one is very different from the above in that there is no central character and no real plot. As with many of Linklater's films, it's a film about conversations and ideas. I know this sounds boring but if you're in the right mood, it is interesting and funny in places. It was probably the weakest I watched today, but that does not make it bad. It was also the lauchpad for his career, and director's break-in films always interest me. Especially when you can see where they've gone since, and if they deserved it. (Unlike Michael Davis' Eight Days a Week with which I forgot what happened the minute I ejected the disc)

So all in all, I've got through a chunk of my pile in a good days watch. Now it's time for bed then work, and we'll see what adventures the coming week brings.