I watched Cowboys and Aliens last night. Ruth has been wanting to see it since it was on at the cinema, but I've completely resisted going to see it because I assumed it would be a giant pile of dung. Then, when I found out Graeme, Carol and Suzanne were all going to be watching it last night, I thought 'Oh well, why not?'. Even though they were watching it in Grantham and we were watching it on Teesside, it still felt like a shared experience. Sort of.
In actual fact, it wasn't half bad. There seemed to be some gratuitous Daniel Craig getting his top off while getting dripped on from above nonsense, but other than that it was quite engaging. Another thing I've noticed about Daniel Craig, other than him getting his top off, is that he also seems to really enjoy punching people, because he doesn't just hit people once, he keeps pounding away on their faces until they look like mincemeat. I'm sure it's not fully necessary.
Harrison Ford was in it too, and he seemed on good form. Last time out, as a geriatric Indiana Jones, he hardly seemed to be able to move, but he looked quite sprightly again last night, he was chinning aliens and all sorts. I suppose in the style of the later Roger Moore Bond films, I didn't see him do much bending, but he seemed to compensate for this, by riding round on a horse and firing guns all the time.
I think I lost it with the last Indiana Jones when he survived an atom bomb by hiding in a fridge, and when the fridge landed after being blown about 3 miles from the epicentre of the blast, Indy just walked out without a scratch. I fell asleep after that.
There was a dog in the film last night. A collie. And of course he made it through till the end. There was shit blowing up all over the place for nearly two hours, except for around the dog, where all was calm. And it reminded me of all those other films, where people are getting rolled over by buses, and are falling into craters in the Earth, and getting melted by volcanos, and there's always a dog, and the dog always makes it.
It made me wonder if I should consider getting another dog. As insurance against the coming apocalypse. Will Smith's girlfriend had one in Independence Day and she got away, there was a tramp in The Day After Tomorrow who had a dog, and he was fine, even when loads of people were getting frozen outside. There was a dog that was right next to a Sumo man in the middle of New York in Armageddon when he was hit by an asteroid, and the Sumo man ended up down a big hole, but the dog was unharmed.
This dog-friendly habit amongst film-makers probably isn't helped by our tendency, as an audience, to join in each time and start rooting for the dog. We're willing the dog to get away, even when in the background New Yorkers are being swept away by tidal waves and aliens and Godzilla, and oh dear, the Chrysler building seems to have fallen on a coach load of nuns again. Never mind.
The one film that I can remember, which is the exception to the 'dog always makes it' scenario, is I Am Legend. Sorry to spoil it for you, if you haven't seen it. The dog's death scene in I Am Legend, is, by the way, genuinely upsetting. The ending is complete baloney as well, but even though this film has some good bits, I would never want to see it again. Because I wouldn't want to see the dog buy the farm again.
Yet, I've watched Independence Day, Armageddon and the Day After Tomorrow about a hundred times each. In these films thousands of people get blown up, crushed, burned, frozen, incinerated, melted and otherwise killed in an endless array of horrible ways, but that never puts me off watching them.
I just keep smiling and say to Ruth 'Oh look, here's the bit where that reporter gets crushed by a billboard, pass me another chicken wing, will you?' or 'Oh look, Jeff Goldblum's boss has just been crushed by a bus, how about a nice cup of tea?'
I even kind of felt sorry for the wolves in 'the Day after Tomorrow' when they were trying to bite Jake Gyllenhaal's legs off. I mean, they had been swept out of the zoo, and so they weren't getting regular meals any more, what were they supposed to do?
And the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, of course he wanted to eat Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill. All he'd had to eat all day was a goat. That wouldn't even fill me up.
In actual fact, it wasn't half bad. There seemed to be some gratuitous Daniel Craig getting his top off while getting dripped on from above nonsense, but other than that it was quite engaging. Another thing I've noticed about Daniel Craig, other than him getting his top off, is that he also seems to really enjoy punching people, because he doesn't just hit people once, he keeps pounding away on their faces until they look like mincemeat. I'm sure it's not fully necessary.
Harrison Ford was in it too, and he seemed on good form. Last time out, as a geriatric Indiana Jones, he hardly seemed to be able to move, but he looked quite sprightly again last night, he was chinning aliens and all sorts. I suppose in the style of the later Roger Moore Bond films, I didn't see him do much bending, but he seemed to compensate for this, by riding round on a horse and firing guns all the time.
I think I lost it with the last Indiana Jones when he survived an atom bomb by hiding in a fridge, and when the fridge landed after being blown about 3 miles from the epicentre of the blast, Indy just walked out without a scratch. I fell asleep after that.
There was a dog in the film last night. A collie. And of course he made it through till the end. There was shit blowing up all over the place for nearly two hours, except for around the dog, where all was calm. And it reminded me of all those other films, where people are getting rolled over by buses, and are falling into craters in the Earth, and getting melted by volcanos, and there's always a dog, and the dog always makes it.
It made me wonder if I should consider getting another dog. As insurance against the coming apocalypse. Will Smith's girlfriend had one in Independence Day and she got away, there was a tramp in The Day After Tomorrow who had a dog, and he was fine, even when loads of people were getting frozen outside. There was a dog that was right next to a Sumo man in the middle of New York in Armageddon when he was hit by an asteroid, and the Sumo man ended up down a big hole, but the dog was unharmed.
This dog-friendly habit amongst film-makers probably isn't helped by our tendency, as an audience, to join in each time and start rooting for the dog. We're willing the dog to get away, even when in the background New Yorkers are being swept away by tidal waves and aliens and Godzilla, and oh dear, the Chrysler building seems to have fallen on a coach load of nuns again. Never mind.
The one film that I can remember, which is the exception to the 'dog always makes it' scenario, is I Am Legend. Sorry to spoil it for you, if you haven't seen it. The dog's death scene in I Am Legend, is, by the way, genuinely upsetting. The ending is complete baloney as well, but even though this film has some good bits, I would never want to see it again. Because I wouldn't want to see the dog buy the farm again.
Yet, I've watched Independence Day, Armageddon and the Day After Tomorrow about a hundred times each. In these films thousands of people get blown up, crushed, burned, frozen, incinerated, melted and otherwise killed in an endless array of horrible ways, but that never puts me off watching them.
I just keep smiling and say to Ruth 'Oh look, here's the bit where that reporter gets crushed by a billboard, pass me another chicken wing, will you?' or 'Oh look, Jeff Goldblum's boss has just been crushed by a bus, how about a nice cup of tea?'
I even kind of felt sorry for the wolves in 'the Day after Tomorrow' when they were trying to bite Jake Gyllenhaal's legs off. I mean, they had been swept out of the zoo, and so they weren't getting regular meals any more, what were they supposed to do?
And the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, of course he wanted to eat Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill. All he'd had to eat all day was a goat. That wouldn't even fill me up.
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