crash into her

so i’m listening to the greatest dave matthews band song of all time, and thinking about the fantastic weekend i just had with Laura.
i’ve decided i miss silly adventure films.
they certainly are a diversion – i love my serious abstract and generally international visual tastes (international meaning not amerikan) – but good ol’romps in deserts and secret tombs and jungle islands are good fun to be sure.
over the weekend Laura and i watched (on dvd of-course) the bourne supremacy, national treasure and sky captain and the world of tomorrow.
so the bourne supremacy wasn’t a romping adventure, but we loved it all the same – of-course i like my drama anime flavoured, but the bourne films are very atmospheric i find. both films featured one lengthy smack-on where there was no trendy music bashing about in the background, and bourne is such a lovable character that he truly justifies stacking the odds against him, then overcoming them. it also shows that he isn’t totally without fear, and that he isn’t invincible – sure, that someone is actually that strong and enduring is nigh on impossible, but at least it’s believable – at least with a bit of imagination – and that’s what escapism and a good chunk of film making is all about (not all of it mind you… but anyway)
imagination!
which brings me to national treasure and sky captain – i can just hear all the elitists screaming ‘stupid amerikan filthy filth!’ but they’re not! for starters they’re films made for kids – so you can’t expect heavy emotional or intellectual content – they’re meant to be fun. they’re meant to remind you of turning the rope and wood bridge in your school-yard playground into a cliff millions of meters up in the air – of crawling through your back yard and seeing it as a magical forest – of lifting your toy planes in the air and making zoomy noises.
national treasure ok, was a lot of yankee propaganda, but it didn’t turn me off the film at all – it’s easy to look past all of that stuff and just enjoy the atmosphere of all that sneaking around, stealing things and unlocking cryptic clues and puzzles. that and i also found nicky cage’s geeky sidekick to be hilarious.
sky captain was great for similar reasons, though it presents itself in totally different ways. it really does have the styling of 40s film and early sci-fi. the characters were good fun – jude law especially. gweneth’s character was a bit obnoxious in the beginning – which she was absolutely supposed to be – so she played the roll well – and i really did warm to her chracter as the film progressed. for a blue-screen cg effort, it looks simply stunning – fantastic mechanical design, vibrant cg sets – it just looks wonderful.
i probably have a whole lot more to say about all three films, but my enjoyment of them all was very much amplified by the company of my girlfriend – a fact of which i’m quite proud. Laura is still such a wonderful person – and i’m enjoying my time with her more and more – the problem is now we’re in a rompy adventure film mood now (these days) – but we’ve pretty much seen everything – the mummy films, indiana jones, pirates of the caribbean – tomb raider i think doesn’t really count – though neither of us have seen the second one – it’s just that not a lot happenes in the first one… aparently sahara was a recent foray into adventure – but for one it has penelope cruz in it whom i don’t like one bit – but to boot it’s just disappeared from the cinemas and is yet to appear on dvd…
in any case, i’m sure i’ll find something.
with that this entry comes to an unexpected and abrupt end.