lightning strikes twice

Starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway

I’ve only soon a bootleg of this, but I can’t wait to see it on the big screen. Its an incredibly engaging look at life at the top in the fashion game, buts its lessons are really for those striving for the top in any world. What price fame and power?

Andy (Hathaway) is a recent graduate that is taken on as an assistant for the very demanding Miranda, editor in chief of Runway magazine (apparently modelled on Anna Wintour of Vogue US). Despite a nervous start, her smarts eventually shine through and she becomes as trusted by Miranda as anyone in the Runway empire.

Meryl Streep is amazing. I should make a point of seeing more of her films.

8/10

starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor

This film is a vivacious and fun story about a playboy, Catcher Block, and his nemesis, Barbara Novak.  Who can out maneuvre who in this battle of the sexes.  Clever with its retro-styling and wit.  Not really too much to say about it, but it is quite watchable.

7/10

starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson

My enjoyment of this film was rather subdued when watching, but it has grown on me since.  Match Point is a subtle and delicate take on one man’s struggle to reconcile lust and a life of largesse.  Chris Wilton, the ex-pro tennis player, is a lucky man, and within half an hour of the film beginning he is being groomed for a top job by the incredibly succesful father of his girlfriend.  He also falls for his girlfriend’s fiance, and it is his balancing act that forms the focus of the rest of the film.  Will his luck run out?
Jonathan Rhys Meyers turns in a poor mans Joaquin Phoenix, and doesn’t quite nail it but does a pretty good job.  Scarlett Johansson comes across at first as disjointed, but its not till the end of the film that you realise just how good she was.  Overall the film is exactly free of all the things that makes one cynical about most blockbuster movies.  It is a return to the classics in that sense.
7/10

starring Nicolas Cage

Honsetly I thought this movie was self-indulgent and whiny.  It was that introspective American filmmaker type of film, which just looks ridiculous to anyone BUT Americans.

Dave Spritz is “the weather man”, a whiny and discontent middle aged man who has managed to screw up all his relationships from his kids to his wife, to his father to complete strangers.  The only thing he seems to be good at is his job.  The main culprit of his disintegrating personal life seems to be a  thorough lack of enthusiasm, which is also a surprisingly apt description for me writing notes about this film.  Not as bad as “Garden State“, but not very good either.

5/10

I love NBA basketball but this is stupid:

As the Americans accepted their bronze medals Saturday night, many gave military salutes to the Saitama Super Arena crowd of 16,700.

Can you think of a better way of looking like jerks than *giving military salutes* — maybe you could have guessed that making your trip to the world championships (which you expected to dominate) look like a military operation was an idiotic thing to do. No wonder the rest of the world likes to see you beaten.

A couple of months ago I was deeply sleepless due to the football World Cup.  Thankfully, the FIBA World Championsips are on at a much better time, since they’re being held in Japan.
I haven’t been able to watch all the games, but I have seen most of the Australian games, and it was pretty good basketball.  In fact, they were involved in one of the games of the tournament when they gave up six points to Greece in the last ten seconds of play to lose to Greece by three.  Then Australia went on to be thrashed by the USA in the round of sixteen.  Now given that they almost beat Greece but were soundly beaten by the US, I guess you would expect the US to beat Greece easliy.

But in probably the game of the tournament so far, Greece managed to defeat the USA in the semi-finals.  The game was highly spirited and highly skilled.  With their contrasting styles, with the USA being amazingly atheletic and Greece having the better team play, the game was absorbing.  Greece managed to shoot and slice their way to victory and were understandably overjoyed at the win.

Now halfway through an excellent and tightly contested Spain v Argentina semi-final, it looks like another classic.

To cut this rambling post short, I guess my point is: basketball really is global, and globally good.