Back on the train ride into the tropics

Well... I haven't ventured onto this for a while. What did I tell you? I'm useless at keeping these things up to date.

Anyway, a lot has happened to me in these months, as should anybody have, unless their lives are entirely devoid of any meaningful productivity.

I got drunk, several times. It was good fun. Incredibly good fun in fact - I'd highly recommend it. Meaningful experiences and meaningless relationships are often the products of becoming intolerably drunk, but with such blurred vision, it's okay until you wake up beside a face that could make the mirror crack.

I sat some ridiculously long and tedious exams which turned out to mean absolutely nothing other than I have a qualification which won't get me a job because we're facing a recession and employers are scabby pricks who don't live up to their name and employ people. Rather, they work in their establishment and hoard all the earnings for themselves, leaving youngish students like myself devoid of work and more likely to engage in what the psychiatrists of today call the cure for extreme boredom and what policemen call a breach of the peace. Luckily, although I haven't got a job, my extremist moral background refuses to allow me to become a common thief, so instead, I lie around, bored and penniless.

I procured myself a place in college doing a course in Audio Visual Media production and it's going reasonably well, considering it's only my second week in. I've played with cameras, endured the pain of watching two of Scorseses first shorts - one, which had the interesting characteristic of having a story and the other which was fifteen minutes of mind numbing torture.

Recently, it has been my habit to visit a place called the cinema far more often, and I actually have a few reasonably recent films about which I am able to talk about.

Pineapple Express is the new baby of producer Judd Apatow and writer/actor Seth Rogan. I found Superbad tolerably super and not at all too bad, but my opinion of the lowly 40 Year Old Virgin caused me to have little respect for Judd Apatow, who managed to get me to laugh once throughout that film.

However, Pineapple Express is different. It's better than 40 Year Old Virgin (what wouldn't be) and funnier than Superbad (quite a feat). I enjoyed it thoroughly. James Franco has finally proven to mainstream audiences that, yes, he doesn't just go around with a business card with actor written on it. Seth Rogan has proved, once again, that being funny is more than relying on your fellow co-stars to be and basking in their brilliance (take that, Steve Carell). The film started well and got better, the black comedy got funnier and the performances became fatter and even more exhaustingly hilarious. Packed full of in- and out-house jokes, the film promises to give you a comedy/action filled ride. Turn off your think tank, sit back and enjoy.

The controversial comedy of the year is certainly equal to Pineapple Express and may well exceed it in laughs and quality. However, it certainly has a trailer which couldn't possibly live up to its name. Welcome to Tropic Thunder - the blockbusting, controversial comedy of the year. Forget South Park, this has brought at least three 'minority' groups out with protest signs - blacks, 'intellectually challenged' people (handicaps) and quite possibly method actors or fat people.

This film is a work of comic genius and the writer was Ben Stiller. His satire on the Oscars, Sean Penn, crap television, rap artists, black people, method actors, Australians, Platoon, handicaps, Asians, drug lords, martial arts, British directors, American producers, the government, America - pretty much everything to do with Hollywood, is damn hilarious. You may only get a quarter of the jokes, if you're lucky you'll get half of them. If you're just really sad and looked up all the jokes before watching the film, you'll probably get them all, but maybe not, because you might be just slow.

Robert Downey Jr. delivers some incredible lines and although Jack Black is possibly the biggest waste of space in cinema (I am of the belief that his performance was a satire of himself) he doesn't do too badly. Watch out for the many cameos in this film. If you're really good, you might spot the mystery cameo. If you don't, or just to confirm it, sit through until the cast list comes up at least. Your eyes might just pop out of your head (go to an ear hospital if this happens, the eye hospital was useless, they just gave me glasses).

I would highly recommend seeing both films.

On a more serious note, I watched an obscure British film called 'Boy A' today. If you liked the recent 'Somerstown', 'This Is England', and the less recent 'Kes', I would highly recommend looking for it. It's an excellently crafted film which forces you to think in a non philisophical or bullshit "deep" way. It just makes you think about stuff. No wine and cheese attached.

This is the end of my post I think as I cannot think of anything more to say. I may post my recent short story here soon if I feel like it. It was quite a nice one.

Other than that, I think I'll end with my favourite Wilde quote (as only sharp wit may be quoted):

All art is quite useless.