No movies for weeks worth watching on Greek television, or movies showing that have already been seen and then, like London buses, three all come at once, in this case in the same evening. A film called SHOOTER which I thought I would watch because Mark Wahlberg was in it. It turned out to be a run-of-the-mill hero framed, lured into a trap for the sake of his country, clichéd piece of nonsense full of holes and with Mister Wahlberg giving a run-of-the-mill hero framed performance not a word of which I clearly heard. He was being so butch his mouth could hardly move. He had the police, the FBI and the CIA all after him and should have been killed half a dozen times, after a fall that would have killed a lesser mortal and with two bullet holes in him but miraculously stayed alive (in one instance because of a beautiful girl – natch, this is Hollywood calling)) to come out on top at the end. America is a vast country and how the plot got from one state to another in a matter of moments was quite miraculous The second movie I watched because it was a Western and starred Johnny Depp and I love Westerns and have always liked Mister Depp as an actor, except for “Sweeney Todd” in which I felt he was horribly miscast, mainly because he was too young. Anyway, the film was called “Dead Man” made in 1995, a truly unusual or should I say weird piece? and so-o-o-o-o sl-o-o-o-w! The third film was about the fourth plane on the fateful day, 9/11 and again was pretty much run of the mill and, as there were no survivors, what actually went on in that plane according to the movie must be mostly from the writers’ imagination and who could gainsay them? So really I could have missed my three buses and waited for a taxi. Now there will be nothing interesting to watch for days. Fortunately we still have so many tapes and the following evening I watched “The Assassination Bureau” a ridiculous but fun comic strip movie I hadn’t seen for a long time and with a terrific cast.
If folk in the UK want to know why their council taxes are up in the stratosphere somewhere, ponder this – in central Bedfordshire they have something called “The Local Development Framework – task force” Framework? Framework! What’s with this framework? And this is followed by something called the “Oversight and Scrutiny Committee” obviously to make sure the Local Development Framework is actually doing something useful for the money, but who then scrutinises the Oversight and Scrutiny Committee? Have you ever heard anything quite so ridiculous? Well yes, under New Labour that’s the way once Great Britain has gone. And how much do these two organizations (if that’s the right word for them) and all the other quangos cost? Once upon a time before PC, multi-culturism and the compensation culture, councils did all that was required of them and nothing more. Now they can’t even manage their waste disposal – except in the matter of money that is. Plenty of waste there.