I’m usually on the ball when it comes to sorting through photos, but for some reason I left these pics from our trip to the beautiful Mt Macedon gardens this past autumn sit on my camera for months. Then again, it’s kinda cool to look at them later on the other side of winter and get a mini-blast from the past.
My dear and entirely selfish wish is for my local council to chop down the evergreen trees in my area, and replace them with the European ones instead, so I can get spectacular autumn foliage at my door.
The DVD I rented offered me a choice of the theatrical cut, and the alternative version with the original ending that was scrapped after it was unfavourably received at the test screenings. While I really enjoyed the movie this story of two radically different endings is probably its most interesting aspect. The DVD menu made me feel like a character in a fairytale: shall I take the road on the left, or the road on the right? With the magic of the remote, I watched both endings, and once again marvelled at Hollywood’s willingness to ruin a perfectly fine film.
A mind-bending Spanish psychological thriller with Penelope Cruz, which later was remade as Vanilla Sky, an ill-received American version with Tom Cruise and, bizarrely, Penelope Cruz again. I’ve watched this in a rather groggy state of mind after a poor night’s sleep, and the movie’s twists and turns definitely perked up my brain by the end of it all.
In my mind, the original Blade Runner was a cinematic lightning-in-a-bottle that emphatically did not call for a sequel, so when Blade Runner 2049 was announced I felt rather sceptical about the idea. I can’t say I’ve been entirely converted, but I can definitely say that Denis Villeneuve’s film is worth watching on the big screen for the spellbinding visuals alone, and if Roger Deakins doesn’t win the Best Cinematography Oscar for his work here they can just disband the whole Academy Award thing.
Another book club read, this time a crime novel by an author with a perfect crime writer name (imagine if she wrote romance instead; Forbidden Love, a new luscious bodice-ripper from Karin Slaughter).
yggdrasille.com 