I
think I have accumulated a 'see-list' and another of 'read-list' about
half a mile long! Of films and books I am interested in seeing and
reading. A friend was telling me today about a film called 'Reader' and
from his brief description, it's jumped started a few paces to be near
the top of my 'see-list'. A few others I found, heard of or read about
include Clint Eastwood's 'Changeling' starred Angelina Jolie, and Tom
Cruise in 'Valkyrie'. I am not amongst fans of Cruise, (nor Jolie), but I
am curious about how he plays that challenging role of Valkyrie, and
the story itself greatly interests me.
My
'see-list' is long indeed. Amongst others There's 'Australia' with
Nicole Kitman, 'Spirit', and 'Gran Torino' where, according to Clint
Eastwood himself, it's to be his last picture as an actor. That's a
real shame; I love him as actor and as director. Just as well he
promised to work until he drops as the latter.
My biggest problem is that there's little chance I can see any of them as I live in a small coastal town, with miles of beaches but only one cinema, which caters totally for the locals, so all the films are in Catalan, rarely in Spanish, and definitely not English. Tourist here only want the sun, the beaches and good restaurants, few or none is interested in going to the cinema or the library. So books in English are as rare as films, not to swear that they are non existent.
I
also like to seek out independent films and those produced in Europe
and the Far East, and tend to ignore general critics' opinions defining
a film as good, bad or so so. If you have 10 professional critics
watching the same picture, it's not entirely unlikely that you will get
10 different opinions or verdicts. It's like food critics talking about
restaurants. But who knows better than yourself what you most like to
eat?
Books
are however much easier for me to find as most of them are in Spanish
as well as in Catalan, the former I have no problem with, but I always
feel that some fine points and literary structure are often lost in the
translation, and certain humour too very difficult to preserve it's
original characteristic of the country where it comes from.
I
have a problem too trying to download films to watch online. Last
couple of times I tried, with rapidshare, my Firefox crushed the second
I hit the download button. That's my weakest point, being a tech.
illiterate!
