had my [highly favourable] annual review over lunch in the jerwood space cafe which is just round the corner from the office. ross kemp and ewan mcgregor were there [though not together]. i always thought of the jerwood as a gallery, but i see it's got rehearsal spaces.
went to the city yesterday to get my own photos of the building being demolished from the bottom up, below:
and found that the lloyds building opposite was being used as a location for a pierce brosnan movie, cunningly made over to look like new york [the taxi, the signs, shopping bags of extras etc]:
after the third take i got bored and wandered off towards st pauls. city architecture photos here, brosnan movie photos here
sometimes a movie comes along that tickles everyone's fancy. went to see hot fuzz on saturday with three of the grace crew - we found it highly amusing. big-city-cop-in-small-town movies usually have the big city cop learning the wisdom of small town values - but in this case there is no wisdom. small town values get trashed. big city cop's brains and guns rule.
west country small town middle england is where i grew up [and i know the town of Wells, where it was filmed, from my student days], so it was fun to see it taken apart. in some senses it's a very london movie - i wonder about its effect on the ego and behaviour of the metropolitan police - shades of the sweeney where life imitated art imitating life.
like any buddy movie this is a love affair between two men, and the film flirts knowingly with the subtext. the scene where our heroes make friends is played as a conventional seduction - "why not come in for coffee?" etc - but the climax is not sex but watching dvds - specifically 'point break' and 'bad boys 2' which will be referenced throughout the rest of the movie, along with spaghetti westerns, star wars, romeo and juliet, the matrix and many many others. one wonders what happens when a film this referential gets referred to itself - as it surely will.
hot fuzz is a perfect saturday night movie - one that needs seeing more than once. i foresee great success on dvd where the gags and gunfights can be pored over. ironically it will probably end up in every small town cop's collection alongside point break and bad boys 2...
in response to helen mirren's oscar win,
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said she was "sure that the Queen will be pleased" by Dame Helen's victory.
"after all, one feels it is in some sense a best actress oscar for oneself"
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