What a laugh ... back in September it was the Teacher's birthday and the four of us (myself, the Teacher, the Daughter and the Boy) went out for a meal at a very nice local Indian Restaurant.
This was before we shot Monsters and before the Boy was on Bamzooki (and no, I haven't forgotten, they made rather more episodes than I expected - he hasn't been on yet, I'll let you know).
The discussion got on to the subject of shooting schedules - who was doing what and when - then we suddenly realised what we sounded like, all this TV and schedules and so forth, and burst out laughing.
However on to the main course:
We've been having a bit of a Bruce Willis Christmas.
We have a tradition: Boxing Day involves closing the curtains and watching a set of films from a series. For two years we did the entire Lord of the Rings extended - needs 12 hours - last year we did all four Indiana Jones (not entirely satisfying), and this year we did the Die Hards. (Next year we'll be doing LotR again.)
The Die Hards are good satisfying fun - you almost never see the third one nowadays since it involves bombs in New York - and we enjoyed them (the Boy had only seen 4.0 until then). EDIT: Die Hard 3 was on this very evening. Typical.
The Teacher was also very pleased with her gifts, since she got one of her all-time favourite films on DVD: Hudson Hawk. This is a very silly film and it was a box office disaster - but it has a certain charm. The Teacher loves it. And it's a Bruce Willis film. From a screenwriting viewpoint there is an awful lot wrong with this film - it doesn't know its genre for a start - and yet it still manages to please.
In the great video cull of 2008 we lost a lot of films we liked to watch - though by then we did not have a video player that worked properly (except one integral to a very small TV). So we've been replacing with DVDs - we've seen Blu-ray on a big TV and yes, it is fantastic, but we won't changing in the near future.
We have now also re-acquired The Hunt for Red October which we watched. Quality stuff. Other DVDs we've newly received but not yet re-watched: Galaxy Quest to go with our brand-new copy of Star Trek, and Practical Magic, as a family we're big Sandra Bullock fans and the Teacher and the Daughter adore this film.
TV has been mostly irrelevant, as it tends to be at Christmas. We watched Dr Who, of course, and were suitably impressed - bearing in mind it was a "part 1". I'll talk about the new "Day of the Triffids" tomorrow when we've seen part 2. However the fact that it had almost zero promotion may give you a clue - John Wyndham knows how to spin a terrifying yarn in novel/short story form, adaptations are always hard.
Oh, and the DavidTennant/PatrickStewart/RSC "Hamlet", of course. Overall we think it wasn't as good as the Brannagh one, but still damn good. Brilliant writer, of course.
And I got a telescope for Christmas, I was absolutely stunned and delighted - I've always been interested in astronomy - unfortunately there is a problem and it's not focusing. We are in discussions with the UK distributor.
What's on the turntable? "Your sister can't twist (but she can rock and roll)" by Elton John
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