Winter's Bone

Bert and I watched this film together. He had already watched it on his own but chose to watch it for a second time with me. It was superb and I'd recommend it to anyone. It is not sunshiney but it is life-affirming. Jennifer Lawrence playing the young heroine is fabulous in the part and the child actors were astonishingly good.

There is one harrowing scene featuring the actress Dale Dickey playing Merab. Merab is one of three practical, hard-nosed sisters who don't fear violence, the dark or power tools. I'll not go into details but afterwards I said to Bert,

Can you imagine me, London Sister and Ganching at that carry-on?

And he said,

Youse would be complete wimps. Youse would be, "Oh I'm scared!" or, "It's so dark!" or, "Is that a cow? It's looking at me!" Maybe Kerry or Leitrim Sisters could handle it but not you three!

Well. I don't know about Ganching and London Sister but I couldn't use a chainsaw in a canoe. I can't even swim!

Anyway - if you get a chance to catch the film watch it. It really is good. Look out for the Deadwood actors, especially Sol Starr (John Hawkes) playing Teardrop.

A Desprit Hoor For The Culture

Tonight Bert and I went to Ballymena and found ourselves in an entirely spide-free zone. And it wasn't even a church! We went to see the Lyric Players perform The Beauty Queen of Leenane in The Braid. We thoroughly approved. Sure what else would a body be doing on a Thursday night? Watching The Sopranos and drinking gin? A change is as good as a rest, as they say.

Recently we've been having a fly at Kurosawa's The Idiot. Dem heavy going we thought. We were glad to get back to The Sopranos.

Bert says,

That Tony Soprano's a whingeing bastard.

D'ye think?

Mind you I wouldn't like to tell him that to his face.

Other cultured things I've been doing include listening to Barnaby Rudge. You know, I'd never even heard of the Gordon Riots before! But does listening to audiobooks count? Although I always have the hard copy to hand to properly read parts I sort of missed out on because I saw an interesting bird or the cat did something funny or Bert tried to engage me in conversation.

I've been doing some proper reading too - Flann O'Brien, the Ikea Catalogue and the discusion boards on Lexulous and Wordscraper. Some of the discussions on those last two are a horror movie. I can hardly believe that adults say that sort of stuff to each other. Little wonder they need alter egos.

Off to bed now with a Killer Sudoku and the NME death issue. This culture stuff can be very tiring.

Film & Book

Monday was our first Pearl-free evening in ages. I got very mellow indeed and watched Cave of the Yellow Dog. I adored it. Hardly anything actually happened but it was mesmerising. In some way it was like a documentary but without the irritating voiceover. No Ewan McGregor or Bill Paterson intoning, "The family are now taking down their yurt.."

One of the most enjoyable wildlife documentaries I ever watched was on Portuguese telly with the sound turned down. I think voiceovers are greatly over rated and frequently patronising. But back to that film - I'd definitely recommend it. Maybe have a nice cup of Earl Grey, wee special brownie...

And I read The Shack. A rare read indeed. Not my usual thing at all. It didn't do me a bit of harm and maybe a wee bit of good.