Borcerer's Apprentice

Have you ever been bored to the extent where its caused to actually cry out in despair and pain? Its not a common thing in grown ups. Children are extremely adept at letting you know just when things are numbing their brain with such a lack of stimuli that they will shout, scream and cry until the situation has changed. I was an expert at this as a child, as was my brother. Together, as a duo, we ruined many a trip to the supermarket or shopping centre. Cries of 'I'm bored' echoing round the happily dull minds of people aimlessly looking at furniture that's designed to quell all emotional response. I - and I realise this might make me sound mental - would get so bored at school in my first few years of primary that I would come home and yell or bang my head against things until someone got me something more interesting to do. Happiness only emerging when I was being creative instead or doing something that was actually a challenge. I'd love to say this means I was some sort of child prodigy, but this and the extra lessons that followed to help me cope, only lasted till secondary school, after which I realised it was far better to have friends and look at girls. Which is a prime indicator of why, as adults we don't complain enough when things are boring. Life teaches you social etiquette and correct response, allowing you, despite experiencing almost painful amounts of dull, to sit through the most boring of meetings or lectures. I've managed to quell all need to speak out about my frustration at something's ability to interest me by doodling, scribbling or now, thanks to the future, tweeting or Facebooking with my phone under the table. All of these are highly rude things to do, but at the same time I'd argue that its highly rude not making the effort to speak in a non-monotone manner or about things that would bore the hind legs of a donkey and then force the donkey to eat his own now removed legs in order to have to pay attention to anything other than his surroundings.

Last night, upon returning home from a long day, Nat, Tom and I decided to watch The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a film Nat was given on Blu-Ray from her voice over job. It didn't help that previously I had caught the end of Jumper, a film where Haydn Christensen realises just how shit the Star Wars prequels were and appropriately tries to end his own life. Regardless of how dull Jumper was though, with Sorcerer's Apprentice we only lasted 13 minutes. After that brief amount of time myself and Tom were actually rolling on the floor crying in pain. It was as though there was some sort of subliminal message buried within the absolutely nothing that was happening on screen that penetrated the very core of the mind and made it feel like what we were witnessing was extreme brain torture. I say nothing was happening on screen, but actually, what we were witnessing was a wizard battle that in other films or times would have been nothing but exciting. Who doesn't love a wizard? The Catholic church probably. But apart from them, seriously, who doesn't? Personally I think magic and violence are the exact recipe for excellence. Screw Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals, if he shoved Merlin and a sword into bowl and mixed vigorously, well, he'd probably get turned into a frog then cut to pieces. That would be an amazing show. And yet, and yet, watching Nicholas Cage and Alfred Molina fight was akin to watching paint dry on a financial accountant. Somehow in 13 minutes, the time that other films have created some of the most memorable opening scenes ever, built up characters, established incredible stories and scripts, this film managed to provide absolutely nothing.

Nat became sad. She was enjoying the banal shitfest, and it required Tom and I to really shout and scream until it was forcibly removed from the Blu-Ray player and there was much discussion about whether we should put it in the bin or frisbee it down the hill. Tom suggested putting it up on eBay but I wouldn't dare inflict such horrors on anyone else. It'd be not dissimilar to The Ring. This single Blu-Ray getting passed around and upon watching, instead of something as exciting as a woman crawling out of the screen, the sheer lack of anything would cause viewers to gnaw off their own arm out of distress. All I'm saying is, if you ever think about watching it, please note you'd have more fun adding 400 pages of fiscal figures into Microsoft Excel will listening to 'O Superman' by Laurie Anderson on repeat for 8 hours. Yes, really. It has now been decided that life in our flat will, on the whole be happier, as whatever we're doing, no matter how painful, we can look back to that incident and know that we aren't watching Sorcerer's Apprentice, so things could be worse.


Only other thing I wanted to mention on this blog was about an article in the Evening Standard yesterday on the very sad case of Joanna Yeates. Now before you embark any further into this and immediately go all Daily Mail, shouting and screaming about how dare I insult or demean anything about this very tragic case, I want you to know that's not what I'm about to write about. I too watched the whole debacle unfold over Xmas and send my condolences to the family over what was a very sad event. However, once again the media's ability to report on it all is appalling. Firstly there was the immediate finger pointing at the weirdest looking man in the area, before any actual investigation had been carried out, like some sort of poorly headlined witchhunt. Then yesterday the paper was adorned with images of Joanna Yeates, aged 11, at school. The article stated that her killer was still on the loose, while pictures of her, aged 11 'had emerged'. Emerged? Pics of her from 14 years ago can't have just 'emerged'. Nor can they in anyway help any sort of investigation, or by printing them all over the media, help any of the family's grieving. I can't imagine someone out their is thinking 'well I hadn't remembered seeing her that night from all of those pictures of her as she was, but now I've seen what she looked like aged 11, I can totally help with evidence.' No. Please, the media, sort your shit out.