There are times when I get to the cinema – most of the time I don’t.
So what have I seen recently?
United 93
As I suspected, this was not an easy film to watch. I guess Sep 11th will be one of those events that no-one will forget. I was teaching a course at Intel, just outside Dublin in Ireland. We were in an airless, windowless room with no Internet connection.
From time to time, people popped in and told us what was happening – it was early afternoon for us. I remember going back to the hotel and every channel was carrying the same story. Seemed surreal. My thoughts went to Canary Wharf where I worked during 2000 and early 2001.
Watching the film brought those memories back, but I think that Paul Greengrass (dir/writer) did a good job up until the last few minutes of the film.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Good fun, although to my mind a little over long, and although the effects were very good, I thought it a little gruesome. Didn’t give me nightmares though.
Where it let me down was the way that it was not only obviously a sequel, but was also obviously building up to a a cliffhanger for the second sequel (next year). I suppose that it didn’t have the same impact or originality of the original story, and (bless him) Jphnny Depp didn’t seem to be quite as inebriated as in the Curse of the Black Pearl.