London film notes

I'm stealing the motto of London's Odeon's chain where they claim they are "fanatical about film." The new motto of CineRobot: psychotic about cinema! That just sounds a little more serious and frightening. Here's a blurry photo of me in front of the Covent Garden Odeon.

I've only seen three films the past week while in London because Sarah and I were just really busy. There's so much to do in London that we were ambushed by other things--walking the maze of city streets, museuming, eating, figuring out what to eat, shopping, resting, stopping and looking at the fold out map that rested perpetually in my right back pocket. We'd finally make it to a theatre and plop down exhausted and foot-sore after a day's activity.

Another reason we haven't seen a bunch is that I've crushed my personal record for most amount paid to watch a film--factoring in the conversion of dollars into pounds, it costs about $18 to watch a single movie. You got it, eighteen bucks! The previous high for me was $12 so there's a new benchmark that's going to be hard to top.

The three films Sarah and I saw were: Big River Man, Coco Before Chanel and Fish Tank. The best of the three is the gritty, British, teenage rebellion film Fish Tank. While there's been a lot of films similar to this--Fish Tank pulls no punches and is somber and intense. Coco Before Chanel, starring Audrey Tautou, on the other hand is dull, dull and more dull. I almost went to sleep during the first thirty minutes--maybe this was due the fact I'd traipsed all over London before I saw it? No, I don't think that's it as it's just not a great film and has lots of problems.

I'm up early tomorrow morning to catch the 6.19am train into London King's Cross Station; then I'm on the 8.00am train to Edinburgh for the next 3+ days. I've located a couple of theatres there so I plan on seeing at least one film there.