The Silver Screen

I'd sort of intended to watch two or three movies on my recent flights to and from Wales. But as it turned out I watched only one, that being Lincoln. I enjoyed it, but I think it would have worked better on the big screen. It was just too dark, in the visual sense, to watch comfortably on the tiny screen you get on a plane. Excellent performances though - Day Lewis as expected, but also Sally Fields and Tommy Lee Jones are entirely convincing in roles that might not seem so obviously tailor-made for them. Nice to see a film dealing intelligently with the pragmatics of politics for once - Lincoln is rightly celebrated for being compromised and getting his hands dirty.

And that was it for me as far as Hollywood was concerned. I thought about calling forth The Life of Pi and The Hobbit from the system, but couldn't summon the enthusiasm. Perhaps it's because I know the books well and that sense of knowing what to expect took the impulse to view away. Also, of course, I was feeling tired on both legs of the journey.

But I did find time for several episodes of Big Bang Theory on the way back here. It was Fifi and Fafa that alerted me back in December to this very funny American comedy and I'd caught odd snippets now and again with appreciation. Watching much of the first series in sequence was not something I'd ever imagined myself doing, however, yet it turned out to be very easy to do so. It's slick but daft enough to avoid the complacently irritating self-awareness that comes with stuff like Friends. And it's distinctly cruel at times in a disturbingly liberating manner. Anyway it served to pass the time in what seemed an almost fruitful manner.