A Bug's Life

Books read (36-40)

Rule 34, Charles Stross (2011)
Simple Statistics, Frances Clegg (1982)
The Jazz, Melissa Scott (2000)
Last Summer at Mars Hill, Elizabeth Hand (1988-94, 1998)
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (1990)

Films watched (52-65) 3 at the cinema, 7 DVDs, 4 on tv
Happy-Go-Lucky
The Host
Super 8
Monsters
How To Lose Friends and Alienate People
Arietty
Winter's Bone
Porco Rosso
Sex and the City
The Guard
The Illusionist
Runaway Bride
The Fly (Goldblum)
2010

Lots of good films, and some which just happened to be on tv.
Of the monster movies it's a toss up between Monsters and The Host, The Host just has it for the moments of High Cinematography, epic heroic poses and slow motion running to classical music. It turns the story of a somewhat hapless chap into moments of poetic beauty.

I recommend The Guard, a dark comedy of small-town Irish police and an unlikely buddy movie. Brendan Gleeson is great as the sergeant, dour and cynical with a dry sense of humour. And he's impossible. The robbers in this tale make for unusually philosophical comic relief. I laughed a lot more than I expected to.

The Hand was my favourite book, a collection of short stories but this is not mentioned anywhere on the cover and right up to the end of the first chapter story I was expecting it to continue. Fairyland in New England.