And so it begins...welcome to the inauguration of Life's a movie..., a hopefully amusing little wander through the vagaries of low-budget film production and general cussing of the competition by an industry bottom-feeder! I'll try to avoid too much stream-of-consciousness stuff as it just clogs bandwidth - plus it'll bore you all senseless - plus if I probe the dark recesses of my psyche too deeply I may end up listening to the voices in my head and bodies will start appearing in dumpsters...

So what's caught the attention so far in the New Year? Not a great deal, it must be said. Did the obligatory and saw 'King Kong'. Big, bold, great SFX, all the usual superlatives; so why did I nod off for twenty minutes after they made landfall at Skull Island? Scarier still, I didn't seem to have missed any of the pertinent plot points. Still, a couple of the girls in our group went teary-eyed at the end so it must have been defacing emotional scratch'n'play cards somewhere. Me, I was rooting for the iceberg by this point. Oh no, my bad, wrong blockbuster...

Also got mightily bored and caught 'Aeon Flux'. Very, very bad move. Having been a fan of the comic and the animated version from back when, I couldn't have been more disappointed. Never has so much money been spent on so much hype and so little substance. I'd even go so far as to say...horror of abject horrors...I actually thought 'Pearl Harbour' was a better film. Anyone else notice the whole of AF had the feel of a very expensive student film? No, actually, some of the art direction/set design was OK, but overall it was such a mess. Poor dialogue, terrible fight sequences, awfuly lit and shot, and what a waste of a talent like Charlize T. Apart from what I'm sure was a hip-displacing paycheck what on earth possessed the poor girl to tackle this project? I hope this isn't something she's been infected with by her charisma-black-hole BF of the last few years...

Also had a long-lost actress acquaintance flow back into my life recently. Well, not so much flow as meander past in a brief eddy tantalisingly just outside my grasp. She'd moved to LA and is doing mighty well for herself in the music biz. She always was a flighty little number, seemingly predicating her life's wanderings on whichever wealthy boyfriend she currently had in thrall. Be curious to know if she's currently dating...oo-oh, I don't know, let's say an LA musician? All power to her, we have to work with the clay from which the big man made us so who am I to criticize. Still love her to shiny, sparkly little bits and I so envy her free-spirited approach to life's journey. Kudos, girl.

Pet peeve #1 for January - why do people keep giving white, middle-aged, middle-class filmmakers money to make critically-acclaimed, worthy films which no-one under the age of sixty goes to see? Ever? (Yes, you know who you are.) Answers on a postcard 'coz I'm still at a complete loss after twenty-three years of trying to figure it out...