Fresh air and Sunshine

So - yeah. Now that I am over the immediate trauma of breaking my glasses (but not by any means the underlying *grrrrr*), let me tell you about my weekend.

Friday night was very sociable - you could even have accused me of being a bit of a butterfly. First an hour in the Wrens with nalsa, maviscruet, their young ladies and assorted other friends, during which we discussed flickr business cards, the top three best-known British monarchs and the fall of the Roman empire. Next, a curry at Hansa's with hieroglyphe and johnnydefective, over which we talked about academic job prospects, johnnydefective's naughty office pranks and filmage in general. Finally, down to the station to meet up with The Sisterly One and her partner (Nicolas), who were coming to stay for the weekend.

We were all kinda knackered after we got back to my flat, since they'd had a whole day of work plus a long train journey, while I'd been cleaning the house all day and then butterflying all evening. But not so knackered we didn't have time to chat for a while and for me to give Charlotte an early birthday present (her actual birthday is today - woo!).

Saturday saw us heading off on a big adventure - to Roundhay Park Tropical World! Yay! It was very hot inside, but we saw lots of extremely cute and interesting animals, such as ring-tailed lemurs, bushbabies, lion-faced golden tamarins, blue macaws, enormous carp, bats, striped grass mice, turtles, snakes and meerkats! (*squee-squee-squee*) They were definitely the best - and come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen them in real life before. So that was cool.

After Tropical World, we ate much-needed ice-creams, and took a long walk round the park, seeing people playing cricket, a fake castle and millions and millions of seething tadpoles as we did. Then it was across Leeds by bus to show off my new house and have coffee in Headingley, before heading on down to the Hyde Park Picture House to see Sunshine - more about that in a separate 'films watched 2007' post.

Sunday was quiet and chilled, after a lot of walking around outdoors the previous day But we did find time to simultaneously look at architecture and do some shopping in Leeds city centre. Charlotte got some nice skirts, I got rechargeable batteries for my digital camera and some pretty sandals for the summer, and Nicolas got some good photos of the Edwardian arcades.

Finally, they headed off to catch their train, since Charlotte wanted to be back in London for the day of her actual birthday, and I pootled off home to enjoy the previous evening's Doctor Who. Which seemed solidly back on track after the slight wibble that had been the Dalek two-parter.

So nice all round, really. Just a pity I had to top it off today by breaking my glasses!

9. Sunshine (2007), dir. Danny Boyle

IMDb page here. Seen at the Hyde Park Picture House with la_guapita and Nicolas.

It didn't sound that good from the IMDb plot summary - I only suggested it to Charlotte and Nicolas because I wanted them to have the experience of the Hyde Park Picture House, really. But once Charlotte had reacted with 'Ooh, yes, I really want to see that', and johnnydefective had enthused wildly about it over curry, I figured it must be worth checking out after all. Those are two people whose film opinions I usually trust.

See, what the plot summaries just don't bring out (although maybe because it is so blindingly obvious given the setting that they felt they didn't need to) is that this is an example of one of my favourite kinds of film - the 'cabin-fever' movie. Like The Thing, Night of the Living Dead or (best of all) Cube, you have a small number of people trapped in an extreme situation - and the rest is really about their character interactions, rather than about the specific setting.

The science of it all is pretty obviously bollocks, and there was also one point where it felt like a huge chunk of footage had just been taken out, causing us to leap suddenly forward to an event which it had seemed a moment before wouldn't be happening for quite some time (I'm trying to be non-spoilery, here!). But neither of those things really mattered. As I said, it's character-driven, and that side works out just fine. There are some tense moments, some unpleasant realisations, and the consequences of some bad (but plausible) decisions to be faced. And of course there is Cillian Murphy, who's already proved his worth in a Danny Boyle cabin-fever movie in 28 Days Later. He manages to do the 'small, vulnerable human facing things too terrible to imagine' thing very nicely.

So yeah - I wouldn't say re-arrange existing commitments to see it, but if you get a chance, it's a good use of an evening.