Well staying in from cold last night me and the ladyfriend watched the comedic drama Away We Go starring John Krasinski (Jim from NBC's The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Minnie Riperton's daughter!!! yes, daughter) as a couple expecting their first child and trying to decide where they want to settle and bring her up.
So they zig zag across North America and meet some weird and dsyfunctional friends and family along the way. Allison Janney, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels and Maggie Gyllenhaal all put in great cameo performances. There are some real laugh at loud moments, plenty of tittering and the odd watery eye piece of poignancy.
There are few moments when the pace of the film falls away a little too much and it drags but they are few and far between (great saying). The soundtrack is also a bit too twee and plinkity plonk for my liking but overall a really good film. I did read some reviews saying how the two main characters are unlikeable because they are arrogant and smug but that's really unfair. They are simply a couple who love one another, don't fight and enjoy each others company. Hardly a crime.
Also a big Happy Birthday to Mrs Pontiac who is 25 today. x
A funny thing has happened to me as 2009 has become 2010. For over 10 years I never wore, or even considered wearing, Nike trainers. Its not like I had been boycotting them for some ethical reason and fashion principle. It was that I bought a pair many moons ago and took absolutely no wear or tear and felt apart like trainer I had ever owned. Since that pair I had never went back.
I now have 3 pairs and am looking to buy another pair. Here is my story:
In November I bought a really swell pair of these chunky Adidas Forum Mids....
However, it was a bad time to invest in such chunkiness as I was recovering from a busted ankle and they just felt right. So I took them back and broke that 10 year cycle of no Nike. For these super bouncy similarly black n white Nike Pegasus...
Within a month I had my second pair. Mrs Pontiac surprised with these monster Air Force Max 1 on Xmas Day. My cautious response to their size was overcome by some street pounding coupled with new thicker socks...
With my second pair sitting in the bedroom my 3rd pair were ordered from Crooked Tongue on Boxing Day. When I first saw them in Size? I laughed at the shag carpet swoosh but I kept checking them out and their Marty McFly chique with phat tongue meant I had my first pair of Nike Air Jordans...
And now I am at a crossroads. I want to buy a different brand next but my attention is being swung towards this lurvly red Nike Dunks....
But fighting for my feet are these glorious Adidas ZX 600. They look very comfy, that dash and sweep of green is very enticing and they're black is the color I am strangely attracted to at the mo'....
Aaaah but then again I have seen a New York Knicks color themed pair of Adidas Forums. The problems of a thirty something man eh.
Well all the blogs, facebook homepages and radio waves are full of top/favourite lists of 2009. So I am trying to get a headstart and laying out what I think and hope will be my 'bests' of 2010.
Best TV Show
Season 5 of 30 Rock was no doubt the funniest show of the year again but in terms of drama, excitement, dark humour, incredible writing and astounding acting it was easily Breaking Bad - Season Three.
Best Film
At the beginning of the year I was excited about a lot of films. If you asked me back in January what my favourite film would have been I would have put a large bet on Date Night starring Tina Fey, Steve Carrell as a couple who take another couples reservations...and deal with the hysterical consequences. Ruined by Mark Wahlberg. Of course I did enjoy Hot Tub Time Machine abd Toy Story 3 but the defo best of the year the rampaging atheist propaganda piece which combined the best aspects of Assualt On Precinct 13, The Mist and Prophecy to make an all action-all tension classic. I'm taking about Legion and its tale of an angry God sending his angels to wipe out humanity. Only a rogue angel and the occupants of a desert diner stoof in there way. I hope you enjoyed your 2010 at the cinema.
Best Album
Funnily enough I did not enjoy Peter Gabriel's new album and while Daft Punk score to Tron Legacy was worth the wait I am still listening to LCD Soundsystem's third album. On the surface more rockier than there previous output, I adore the disco sounds underplaying each track. A true example of the disco-punk-funk that inspired Pontiac Dream.
Best Act Of Parliament
An obvious choice but I know we were all ecstatic with the Sinn Feinn bill outlawing the advertising the comparison websites on TV. The Freedom From Comparison Act has cleared the tv channels of that meerkat, go-compare operatic Danny Baker lookalike, trolley surfing Peter Jones and of course those webcam recording faking douche-bags from confused.com.
Best Pair Of Trainers I Bought
After spending a couple of years spending 98% of their time (suedes excluded) making trainers for neds, Ferrari fans and skinny big haired students, Puma renounced this path in May with the release of the classic Puma Basket minus city themed designs, modern bulky curves and pimpled leather. Simple blacks and whites, blues and reds. I bought two pairs and they still fit like no other trainer I have ever worn.
Best Badget Cowon's S10 media player. While the Cowon S9 was superior in terms of sound, video playback, battery life and appearance to the Ipod touch it touchscreen interface lagged way behind the almost unbelievable responsiveness of its fruit based competitor. So they released the S10 which matches and goes beyond the Ipod. The perfect player.
Best Game Who would have thought I Spy would have been such a hit on the Wii. Me and mrs Pontiac play it each and every evening before we retire.
Was watching Bridge To Treabithia today. A family/kids film seeemingly perfect for boxing day and sore belly that comes with it.
Its a pretty basic tale of a boy and girl who are outsiders at their school but find a release for their imaginations and fears in woods near their home by inventing a new world of creatures and adventure called Terabithia.
So, anyway, its all going along nicely when the boys music teacher asks if he wants to visit a local museum. As he fancys her he doesn't invite the girl. On his return he finds that she has died after falling into the stream which borders Terabithia. Cue me starting to cry!!! No idea why but got very emotional. I did not see that one coming and it really got me in my lady-genes. Not that good a film really but what does that matter when it does such a job on the viewer.
This may be my favourite Woody Allen film. Love And Death is a homage and send up of the epic Russian literature of the like of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. You don't know anything literature? Neither do I and most people who have seen this but its make no difference. This is laugh out loud from beginning to end.
Allen is the odd one out in a world of glorious Russian stereotypes and Napoleon's invasion of the Motherland. We see him first as a small boy struggling with the contradictions of religon and patriarchy before he blossoms into a young man...struggling with the contradictions of religon and patriarchy but mostly war and his love for his cousin, Diane Keaton.
The on-screen interaction between Keaton and Allen leaps forward from Sleeper they slip between farce, epic monologues and lyrical waltz's with ease. The film again looks great while the score is dominated by bouncy Russian classics.
Love And Death was the last hurrah (for a while) of the carefree gags of Allen's youthful output. While Anne Hall still has them they are tightly bound up in that film's leap forward into a more mature and introspective vision. So find and watch Love And Deathso get a taste of what real comedy can be.
The trailer below is not the best quality so sorry about that. However, it still gives a good taste of the film. An even better sample is the clip which is much better quality and shows off the perfect balance of Love And Death between Allen's roots in absurdism, the developing on screen relationship with Diane Keaton and the ingenius philosophical comical lyricism which came to dominate his future productions.
Sleeper continues where Play It Again Sam left off. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton again star together and its one liners, sight gags and even more of a double act.
Allen plays an unfortunate jazz musician (and health food owner) who goes in for a routine operation in 1973 and after complications gets frozen and then dug up 200 years laters in an America which is now a futuristic police state.
Untraceable, the revolutionary underground ask Allen to help them in the bid to topple The Leader. Soon he is on the run and seeks the help of vacuous socialite Diane Keaton. And on it goes in that form as their love grows despite of their comedic efforts to break loose of the state and the underground.
This is a brilliant film. Its very very funny. The inter-play between Allen and Keaton is effortless. The vision of the future is suitabley nihilistic. The score is superb collection of ragtime jazz. So many great moments I cannot list them but do give the jazz score some justice I have included an hysterical scene below where the hungry fugitive Allen breaks into a farm of the future to steal giant fruit and veg. Be careful of banana skins.
Next is a film which really should be the definition of a sex comedy, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask).
Woody Allen's adaptation of a best selling sex manual is a series of short stories or vignettes, if you would prefer, featuring Woody Allen in various roles, John Carradine, Anthony Quayle and Lynn Redgrave and Gene Wilder.
The stories all cover various sexual quirks, perversions, temptations and discharges:
1. Do Aphrodisiacs Work? In which a court jester gives a love potion to a Queen but is foiled by her chastity belt. There are references to Shakespeare's Hamlet throughout. 2. What is Sodomy? In which a doctor falls in love with the partner of an Armenian patient. His sheep. 3. Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm? About a woman who can only reach orgasm in public. Allen's homage to Italian film-making in general and Casanova 70, Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini in particular. 4. Are Transvestites Homosexuals? In which a middle-aged married man experiments with women's clothes. 5. What Are Sex Perverts? Which features a parody of the game show What's My Line? called What's My Perversion? After the panel fail to guess that the contestant's perversion is "Likes to expose himself on a subway", a second segment of the show is presented, in which a rabbi gets to act out his bondage and humiliation fantasy. 6. Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate? In which a researcher and journalist visit a sexual scientist. After they see a series of bizarre sexual experiments underway at the lab and realize the scientist is insane. The segment culminates with a scene in which the countryside is terrorized by a giant runaway breast created by the researcher. 7. What Happens During Ejaculation? Which is set in a man's brain (and other parts of the body)m a la the beano's numbskulls, as he gets involved in a sexual clinch. We see the NASA-like control center in the man's brain (headed by Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds) and see the soldier-like sperm as they are dispatched paratrooper-style into the great unknown.
This film was very successful at the time but I think it is the weakest of his 1970s output. It's not just that so many of the jokes are from a seventies time-capsual of outdated sexual preconceptions, but some of the stories peeter out a little.
But it's still a gag-fest and all of Allen's characters are perfectly played. The best story? Well the Gene Wilder sheep-love tale one is played so straight its hard to tell if you want to laugh or cry. However, the inner workings of mans body during courtship, seduction and intercourse, steals it. Especially when the black sperm turns up!
After Bananas Woody Allen's next comedy classic was Play It Again Sam which he wrote but did not direct. This was his first film with Diane Keaton who would go on to co-star in six other Allen movies.
While the the physical and verbal gags still come pretty fast in Play It Again Sam I think its main difference is that the relationship between Allen and his love interest (Keaton in this instance) was more central to the plot rather than a series of sketches that dominated Allen's earlier output.
Allen plays another neurotic loser whose wife has left him and broken his fragile spirit in the process. Allen's best friends, Keaton and the brilliant Tony Roberts, try to help him out his lonely depression by getting him back into world of dating. Cue lots of clowning around on dates and lashings of self-depreciating humour from Allen while he also invokes the spirit of Humphrey Bogart to help him 'be a man.'
Slowly Allen and Keaton's characters fall for one another and the plot thickens....
Again I really enjoy this film whenever I see it. His self-diagnosis of having 'homosexual panic' is brilliant as well as his futile attempts to sweep an array of women of their feet.
I've included the trailer below and a scene from one of his dates when poor Allen gets all confused about what she wants. A very 1970s scene and not really a scene that would make it intact nowadays but I thnk Allen's face during the girls monologue his hysterical.
