Sport Yeah! Pity I was watching the shockingly bad monther-in-law from hell thriller Hush at the time. As one reviewer from Rotten Tomatoes puts it: "Good news: It's very funny. Bad News: HUSH is a thriller." Not even Gwyneth Paltrow could save this dog. I really need to get my watching priorities straightened out.

Life Heard in the street today. Two teenaged boys with cropped haircuts, tracksuits and extremely strong scouse accents.

Teen 1: Have you ever been knocked out by a pigeon?
Teen 2: No.

They walk a bit.

Teen 1: I have.
Teen 2: Have yer.

They walk a bit more.

Teen 1: I was on my bike riding along and a pigeon with a broken wing was flappin (makes the action) and he flew into me face. I fell of me bike. And it knocked me out for ten minutes. Then I got up and rode home ...

Sport I think the word for the Olympics opening ceremony in Greece was gloopy. Pacing wise it reminded me of the film Saving Private Ryan. Began with lots of bombast and excitement, then an hour and a half of people walking around before an impressive finish. After five years of being exposed to Greek culture through Fani it was interesting being able to spot cultural icons and references, especially during the extended history lesson. Unintentional amusement at hearing Barry Davis, sports commentator extraordinare reading this script; intelligent man to be sure but being told in that voice about DNA Helixes and the dawn of civilisation felt odd. But not as odd as the appearance of Bjork, who we love but seemed alightly out of place -- Natasha Atlas not available? Nostalgia abounded for the Manchester Commonwealth Games where I volunteered in 2002 -- and a certain amount of envy at seeing the jumpsuits the volunteers are wearing in Athens. Who could forget the purple monstrosity I had to wear. At least this time I'll have a chance to see more than one sport...

Blogging Just spent the past three hours recording an audioblog entry only to find that it was too long and therefore too massive to upload via my dial-up modem (no matter how I try to encode it to mp3. So either I subscribe to Audioblog or suggest that you email your address and I'll post it to you on a cd. Which is sort of missing the whole message instantly online ethic I suppose...

Life Rained again today. But much less. I think my jinx may be broken. Watched Midnight Cowboy tonight. Never mind that being the first X certificate film to win Best Picture. Surely it's one of the most depressing as well. Very hot. Very tired, and wanting a break from everything...

Theatre Casting Shakespeare with Muppets:

"Miss Piggy automatically gets the female lead, whether or not she's suited to the character. She simply wouldn't accept anything less. This means that Taming of the Shrew is a much shorter play, once she wises up."

"When in doubt about a role, try throwing Sam the Eagle at it. Shakespeare is culture at its finest, and Sam will do anything within his abilities to advance it, no matter how humiliating."

Mana-mana du du dee du du ...

Film Incredibly linkable article about the Internet Movie Database. I've been using it for years, even before it sold out to Amazon and it's still indispensable. But where do they their information?

"To spackle those holes, IMDB has a virtual Hollywood construction crew - spies, really - some of whom can't be identified or risk losing their day jobs. 'We get our info from disparate sources, but these contributors are our lifeblood. It's a large group of trusted users and submitters in whom we've gained a level of confidence, much like you begin to trust a movie reviewer,' Simanton says. 'It could be a professor from UCLA, the screenwriters of the film themselves, the maiden aunt of someone who died years ago. But it?s the gleaning aspect and process that really makes the IMDB what it is.'"

Plus they're quite happy to publish even the most challenging of reviews. [via]

Life Apologies if you experienced heavy rain fall and/or widespread flooding today. It was totally my fault and I'm not proud of myself. Let me explain. Over the weekend I invested in the Pro version of Winamp, which includes amongst other things an obscenely easy way of making cd mix compilations. Create a playlist using the tracks that you want to appear on the cd, put them in the order that you want them and burn the playlist. After all those years huddled over the pause/record buttons on a hifi as I shuffled through my LP, tapes and compact discs it feels wrong, like I'm transgressing some great law of humanity.

Sorry I'm going off on a tangent. Because I want to have the kind of random music that I enjoy on my pc when I'm writing when I'm elsewhere in the flat, especially the balcony, I've been burning some compilations themed around nouns. And last night I created a cd with the following tracklisting:

Wasting The Rain - Shea Seger
Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage
Sunshine On A Rainy Day - Zoe
Rainbow Lake - Wendy & Lisa
Purple Rain - Sina Nordenstram
Dry The Rain - The Beta Band
Rain Dance - Badi Assad
Rain Love - Rosalie Deighton
Who's Gonna Stop The Rain - Anastacia
The Rain Song - The Bangles
London Rain - Heather Nova
It Look Like Rain - Jann Arden
Summer Rain - The Primatives
Crying In The Rain - Carole King
Flowers Never Bend With The Rain - Simon & Garfunkel
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head - B J Thomas
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall - Bob Dylan
Rain, Rain Beautiful Rain - Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Rain or Shine - Ray Charles
I Listen To The Rain - Beverley Craven
Prelude "Raindrop" - Frederic Chopin

Now I want you to look over that list again. Can you spot the common thread? Evidentally when I played the cd last night it was like the modern Sony equivalent of a rain dance. I mean never mind the song itself, some of those titles are just asking for trouble. So I'm deeply sorry. When you're filling in your insurance claim in the box marked cause you can forgo the spirit crushing 'Act of God' and put in 'Act of Stu' instead. I should warn you though -- I'm playing it again now -- so remember to take your umbrella out with you tomorrow and a pair of wellington boots.

Obituary "What a week. I'm just imagining that somewhere in heaven there's an almighty party going on with Fay Wray, Rick James, Cartier Bresson and Bernard Levin. Now that's a party I'd like to be at (though without dying obviously)." -- ciderwoman @ Metafilter

Film While I'm linking to Guardian Unlimited, in yesterday's Observer there was a very good, positive interview by Simon Garfield with Woody Allen. I've been sick of hyper-critical pieces saying Woody's passed his best and shouldn't be making so many films, which disregards two things: Firstly, even when he's not so great Woody is still heaps better than some of the hacks strewn across the place (and more interesting) and secondly if I was him and people kept giving me money annually to make a new film and I didn't have anything else on I could spend my summer with people like Scarlett Johansson I would be doing it too. Noticably he seems to have slipped back into a cycle of more dramatic films so I imagine in a year or two people will be lauding him again. Fingers crossed. If Anything Else can finally get a distribution deal over here, anything's possible.

Games I miss Aleks Krotoski when she left the television screens up on the end of the last great attempt at making a show about computer games Thumb Bandits. It's good to see her still around though and writing for The Guardian's GameBlog. For some reason I couldn't imagine anyone else writing a White Paper for ELSPA about Women in Games. Or an entry about girly pink gaming products. I'd forgotten about Sissyfight...

Film I-Robot is an extraordinarily kinetic film. During many of the action sequences the camera weaves and bends around the scenes to the degree that it necessarily disorientates the viewer but without, and this is its strength, diluting the clarity of the narrative. It's an expensive looking film, a well realised coherent futuristic vision. A lesser film would have made the robots a feature from the off -- here they're just another part of the city, weaving through the sidewalks accompanying and serving their human masters. On the surface this is what can by classed as a typical summer Hollywood action film; there are car chases, fight scenes and a race against time.

It is also a perfect example of what director Martin Scorsese describes as 'smuggling' -- wrapping a much deeper message in the trappings of something else. Like Minority Report before it, this is a film which entertains while saying something about ourselves, themes piling up on top of one another. There is the increasing reliance on technology; there is the naivity many of us have about the honesty of big business and it's ongoing quest to convince us that it only wants to help; there is predjudice against others and our reactions to our own predjudices; there is the expectation that things will always be better in the future.

It is a wierdly literate script. It was a brave move to present the essence of Asimov's work rather than produce a straight adaptation. We've seen that before -- it's appeared on television a couple of time (with Leonard Nimoy). A good comparison is the work Robert Altman did with Raymond Carver's work in Short Cuts. Taking the stories and weaving bits and pieces of them in and around each other to create a new vision. In places it's own technobabble is undercut as is it's po-facedness. It's also impeccably structured, opening up the story and the possibilites of this world at a pace slow enough for the audience to catch up, but fast enough that we aren't bored. That it was written by Jeff (Final Fantasy) Vinter and Akiva (A Beautiful Mind) Goldsman is a shock -- but a welcome one.

It is no surprise to me that Smith's performance as Spooner is actually quiet excellent -- as is always the case when he is given good material to work with. For all the giant leaps and superhuman punch-ups, jokes and quipes, he manages to give a quite touching layered performance. Equally, Bridget Moynahan's work as Calvin shouldn't be underestimated. Within the running time she has to develop from being a walking computer into a woman with real feelings and she definitely pulls it off. But the real tour-de-force is Alan Tudyk's Sonny. Like Andy Serkis's Gollum, the actor played the role before being replaced by computer animation and like Gollum the process gives the illusion of a real character within the space. Sonny has weight the audience has few difficulties suspending their disbelief. The real success is if the audience forgets they are watching something animated. Well I did.

It is a shame that the film was released now because I don't feel like it's being enjoyed or applauded as much as it should. The viewer has become quite blaze about the action film genre of late as we've lucky enough to have been able to see a series of film which do mix action with ideas. The viewer wants more and now it's getting it, they forget what it was like in the bad old days of theatrical releases for Under Seige 2. In previous years this would be getting five star reviews and be appearing on top ten lists. Instead critics are giving it average reviews, three stars and making flip statements about Will Smith's acting ability. It's annoying and unfair, especially to Alex Proyas who has managed to take all the brilliance of his previous film Dark City and apply it to a Hollywood aesthetic.

It is a soon to be undervalued near-classic. Go see.

Ego Waxy has created a league table of Metafilter sources -- and there I am at no. 18810 just above straightjackets.com. Although all the oners seem to be in a fairly random order so in my mind I'm at 8333 ...

Music I would say that a good percentage of the music I listen to is from film soundtracks -- usually the quasi-music inspired by and from items which turn up with anything. It's unusual how few really good examples there are around. The worst are just a collection of songs without any seeming coherance to the choices, all different and clinging together hoping the listener won't assign them to obvlivion with the use of the skip button.

I've found that the really good soundtracks are those which both evoke the film they're based on but at the same time are as unique and enjoyable away from the movie. This can definately be seen in 6Music's list of top five songs as voted for by listeners. In all of the cases listed the album itself is an excellent introduction to a particular style of music -- as though a genre has made a mix-tape to promote itself including both popular hits and forgotten classics. Yes even Dirty Dancing. As is customery in these situations I offer my top five.

Grosse Pointe Blank
Groundhog Day
Almost Famous
Stealing Beauty
Martha, Meet Frank Daniel and Lawrence

Although that's far from complete but I really couldn't live without any of them so it will do for now.

Sculpture About two years ago I wrote: "I love art. I was almost part of the art world. But I can count the number of art objects that have given me a gut wrenching emotional response on one hand." That was when I was trying to describe the profound effect Georgina Starr Crying had on me. I've never actually elaborated on what the other four fingers represent. Today I had the chance to revisit the forefinger.

I first and last saw Anthony Gormley's Field at Tate Liverpool in the Summer 1993. It was just before I went to University, a brief break during the months when I was pointlessly reading through a series of core course books instead of being out enjoying my final month of being a school leaver. I think I went with my Mum (she'd dragged me away from the books which I thought were so important) and to be honest I don't remember all that much about that visit.

But I do remember going back alone and standing there again, looking over the sea of simple orange faces stretching on across the gallery space and wondering how something so profound could come from the mind of a human being. I felt very small -- smaller even that the little clay figures because I didn't feel like I had the capacity for that kind of inspiration, or to be able to say the things they seemed to want me to say to them. That Field was made with people from St Helens and Ibstock, a local brick making company. Which was the other process which threw me -- that something so universal could be created by local people. Made it even more personal somehow.

So here I was today, eleven years later in Tate Liverpool looking over those little black eyes. This time it was about familiarity and nostalgia. Things had been so much easier then -- I'd been looking up across my twenties as a time for potential for all the possibilities. A decade later the philosophy has drifted away and I looked at Field for what it is, thirty-five thousand clay models arranged in such away we perceive a hoard of beings looking up expectantly.

This time I had something to tell them, and was ready, but when I looked down, they seemed to know it already. They were eyeing me in such a way that wanted to explain it all to me instead but couldn't because their makers hadn't decided to give them mouths as though to keep their secrets from the world. This Field was manufactured in 1990 by the Texca family of brick-makers in Mexico, sixty men, women and children aged from six to over sixty; if you agree with the idea that when someone moulds clay the put something of themselves into it, this Field was older and had a greater degree of experience and was from a place I might never see in my lifetime.

Eavesdropping on the conversations of other visitors I discovered that Field is going into storage after its visit to Liverpool. It feels like it should be displayed permanently somewhere, in a massive room; perhaps all of the different Fields from around the world could be brought together, accessible enough that anyone can make the pilgrimage just to stand in front of them and ponder. A fellow visitor had another idea. She wished she could have a couple under a tree in her garden so that she could see them every morning before work. Which on reflection sounds like an astounding merchandising idea.

Blog! Exhibit A in my case for continuing to use The Rules on this weblog (even though of late its meant that things have been a bit dull and brief -- things will pick up soon, I promise). But mistakes happen and hopefully Michael can dust himself off and start again.

Film You will have noticed that the Saturday Scene Unseen has taken a break, although something new will be along soon. In the meantime fans should take a look at this post at the remarkable Review: A Day which covers many of the things I would have gotten around to eventually and plenty of things I hadn't thought of.

TV Although I've only minimally been following it the last couple of months, I wanted Shell to win Big Brother. I did as soon as I saw her get out of the car on the first night. She was the most normal one there (although Dan runs a close second on that) which obviously hasn't made her too popular. Frankly if I have to choose from the final two, Nadia to win, if only to make a point about how progressive we've become of late.

Film (what again?) Useful piece from Suw which equates the formats of scripts and weblogs, what constitutes each and whether pinning down those definitions is all that important anyway.

Film A remarkably honest interview with Joe Dante about his career before and after the just about Ok Looney Toons: Back In Action:

"If you're going to make a movie like this starring characters that you've owned for years you wouldn't take all the cartoons off the air for five years before this feature, but that's what they [WB] did! When they got back all their old cartoons, which used to be owned by various different companies, they took them off the networks and they put them on a cable channel that they own - intermittently. So they weren't as fresh in the public mind as they thought they were. So when the picture came out the kids were not that familiar or even interested in those characters as they were in the Powerpuff girls or Japanese anime and some other stuff. And so it was very disappointing attendance."

The main problem with that film is that it can't decide which audience it's trying to service. There are all these funny animals walking around, but there are also a hundred film references which fly over the top of their heads. Clearly as Dante says the kids have moved on from these characters so it would have been more interesting to cater for an older demographic with something nostalgic -- go even further in that direction. But -- oh yes -- they've already done that -- it's called Who Framed Roger Rabbit ...