The rest of Catch-22

Joseph Heller's Closing Time, as a sequel to Catch-22, is what happens when all the life is sucked out of the characters, and they're all a bit depressed. It's not bad, of course not, but it's not very easy to read. All the insanity and humour of Catch-22 seems to have left these characters fifty years ago. They're mainly just dieing of cancer and looking back on every inch of their life. It's about degredation - long, painful, agonising degredation. Not very fun then, but Heller hasn't completely lost his morbid comedy. Yossarian's doing alright, living off Milo's money and pretending to be ill in hospital; he has developed an annoying habit of comparing everything to pretentious German opera, so you can't have everything. Some of the most entertaining sections of the book are the memories of the Second World War, which the character's strangely describe as one of the best times of their life. Disappointingly though, Major Major never turns up.

There's a surprising supernatural twist half way through the book that really saved it for me. The surreal military underworld brought back some of the energy that was ebbing away. Heller seems to put the reader into this melancholic daydream before shaking everything up with the end of the world. Not gripping then, but it does have its moments.

Drag Me to Hell, with smiley goats

Drag Me to Hell is squelchy good fun. It doesn't try to keep you scared for two hours, it just makes you laugh at the actors that are having maggots poured over their heads. It's full of jumpy moments, but the horror turns into comedy pretty quickly. And when there is gore it's so overblown that its funny - eyaballs popping out of heads, that sort of thing. Sam Raimi does this physical. unsubtle horror really well. It's unashamedly ridiculous and, compared to others in the genre that are just nasty, it's a pretty friendly film. It seems to be an exercise in the different ways to make you jump. There's the sudden the scares, the slow pans, the loud rumbling then sudden silence, crash zooms. All good stuff. They are pretty frequent though, and by the end of the effect had worn off. There's only so many times a Scary Old Woman with funny teeth is going to be scary, even if she does stick her arm down your throat.

Perhaps the funniest character in the film is the sacrificial goat that smiles all the way through a seance. He seems to be enjoying himself. He recognises how silly and entertaining the whole thing is, and he's just pleased to be there. Nice goat.

Doctor Who regenerates its face off

(this is covered in spoilers)

David Tennant has regenerated into Matt Smith in Russell T Davies' last episode in charge of Doctor Who. And, to be honest, I didn't entirely understand the plot of these last two episodes. The Time Lords return even though they're all dead (something to do with a time bubble) and the Master has an overflowing 'life force'. Still enjoyed it though. The image of the Doctor with a gun in his hand was probably the most surreal moment, especially after four seasons of him using only 'forgiveness' as a weapon. And the final 'knocking four times' scene was nicely understated.

It's the right time for David Tennant to leave. Three seasons (and a bit) is exactly the right amount for one Doctor, even if he is immensely popular. Any longer and he'd just be repeating himself. He's done it all. There's no more room for that Doctor. The last twenty minutes of 'The End of Time' brilliantly summarised his time on the show, as he visited all the people he thinks he might miss (including the descendant of John Smith's wife from 'The Family of Blood').  David Tennant has made it look easy - so easy that you you don't really notice that he's spent years building this character. The time has gone quickly because he's never been short of excellent, even in the slightly average episodes.

But of equal importance is Russell T Davies' departure from the show. He managed to take a franchise that I didn't care about (because I'm not 40) and created one of those rare shows that is mainstream and nerdy at the same time. It's difficult to make four seasons of anything, and he's managed to keep the quality up despite significant cast changes in each one. It's been the same show but always noticably different. It'll be interesting to see whether the tone changes with Steven Moffat. It's unrealistic to expect every episode to be 'The Girl in the Fire Place', because he has a responsibilty to the time slot, but maybe there'll be less running and silly aliens. Probably not. One thing that is obvious though, is that we won't be seeing any of these old characters again. Rose, Martha, Mickey, Donna - they're all done with now. Time to start again.

Kevin Spacey-bot isn't evil after all

Moon is a really big small film. Duncan Jones managed to make a proper sci-fi film on an independent budget. I say 'proper' because there aren't any big space battles, and nothing explodes. A man on the moon finds himself (and I don't mean that in a soulful, emotional way) and is understandably confused about it. Sam Rockwell has no trouble playing the same character twice and it's all seamlessly stitched together in a way that I don't entirely understand. It's about ideas, exploring the sort of themes that are automatically tragic. Utter hopelessness is an ambitious thing to go for, and it doesn't usually work for me. But watching a man slowly deteriorate on the moon as he stares at the distant Earth is, I have to admit, quite sad. I would have liked half an hour more of it though. The film ends abruptly at a point where you think it's just moving into its last act. I get the feeling that with a little more money they would have made this last section. After piling all those effects into an indie film, there couldn't have been much left to spend.

But perhaps the most surprising thing about Moon is that the sinister Kevin Spacey-bot wasn't all that bad. In fact it was quite nice. Didn't try to kill anyone. Didn't shut off any oxygen supplies. And when asked it even explained the entire plot of the film, without even trying to be mysterious. Nice robot.

More Jewish fighter than James Bond

Defiance spends a lot of time in the woods. The Bielski partisans live in the woods. They run away from and fight Nazis in the woods. They find a little Russian army in the woods. So it's a testament to the filmmaking that this never gets boring. There's a real growing sense of futility as these Jewish refugees are repeatedly discovered and attacked. Occasionally things settle down and they all get to sit around eating potatoes, but even that is a bit tense. Even though there are moments of violence, this isn't a straight revenge thriller - you'd probably have to talk to Tarantino for that. This is more about the serious questions the fighters have to ask themselves, like whether it's possible to survive with any morals, whether they have to become as bad as their enemy. All serious stuff, but ultimately not as bleak as it sounds.

Also, I've still not seen Quantum of Solace, so it doesn't bother me to see Daniel Craig 'out of character'. He's not James Bond yet.

Murakami's clever boring bits

Will this post have anything to do with Christmas? No, of course not.

Haruki Murakami's Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World has faults, but Murakami is one of those lucky writers that make you think he's doing it on purpose. They're not faults, they're post-modern jokes, or something. When it wants to be, Hard-boiled Wonderland is a good book. Murakami does surreal very well - there's wardrobes hiding chasms that lead to rivers with silent waterfalls and unicorn skulls that hold dreams. The book is divided into two sections, one half in a modern Tokyo and the other in the fantasy End of the World town. In the 'real' world setting Murakami is determined to show how boring the character's life is. With his last day he literally just sits around thinking about trivial things. But the problem is, it's boring. I know all the mundane details are there for a point, but they'res still mundane. I notice the point he's making but I'm not enjoying it.

There are other faults that I'm not really allowed to call faults. The protagonist is constantly drinking beer. Every woman he meets is desperate to sleep with him. That sort of thing. Comments on the standard American hero, not (probably) bad writing. Most of this is guesswork though, because this is the only Murakami book I've read. He could be a bad writer, but I'm sure he's just being clever.

Indiana Jones is very old now

It's difficult to have an opinon on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. You know what to expect, your expectations are met, and then it ends. There's the bit where Indy is cornered by baddies and is surely going to die, the bit where people punch each other on top of fast moving vehicles (probably next to cliff), and the bit where everyone's a bit perplexed by the ancient tomb. I can't complain, because all this stuff is entertaining, but it was entertaining in the last three films that I've seen many times. The old trilogy have become the sort of films that sit above anybody's critical opinion. You don't watch them and wonder about their narrative strength, you watch for the memorable bits, for the favourite lines and the nostalgia. The sort of films that you'd watch near Christmas with a packet of biscuits. Watching Indy getting through the traps to the Holy Grail is good stuff. Can't question it.

Take the exact same formula into a new film and it's lost all the magic. Now that it doesn't smell like nostalgia it can be seen for what it really is - a bit dull. Maybe this is just because I've seen it all before. But if this had been the first Indiana Jones film I'd ever seen, I still don't think I'd be impressed. Loud action set-pieces aren't that interesting anymore because they can be done by anyone that knows how to work a big computer. And the plot now looks tired because it's not twenty years ago. If it's meant to be a tribute to the old films, then it needs a lot more charm than this, and should probably do away with the silly bit at the end. George Lucas-style filmmaking just isn't that interesting anymore, because everyone can do it. And a lot of them do it better.