The World's End

I watched The World's End last night.  I'm not gonna write too much about the film itself, partly because it's late, I'm tired and lazy but also because it's the sort of film you want to see with as few preconceptions as possible, it's not an M. Night Shyamalan style twist film, but Wright, Pegg and co. have done a great job of keeping the majority of the film out of the trailers and it'd be a shame to miss out on that.

So what did I think of the film?  We'll I liked it, at the moment it's my favourite film of the year (so far).  Having said that it's not been a great year for films (and I've not seen Pacific Rim yet).  The World's End is a good film.  Edgar Wright brings the same top notch craft and visual flair he's brought to all his other films, there are some fantastic sight gags and I look forward to re-watching the film again and again to spot them all.  Frost and Pegg both turn in fantastic performances, I'd gone off them a bit recently, but their work here stands up with anything from the Cornetto Trilogy and the supporting cast match them ably.  Having said all that when I left the cinema I wasn't as excited about the movie as I had been about Shaun or Fuzz.

I think a big reason for this is the movie's plot.  I have no problem with the movie's writing generally, as I said above it's a very well crafted film.  However, I think it's definitely the hardest of the Cornetto Trilogy for me to relate to.  A good part of the film's plot, and pretty much all of the main characters' emotional journeys, revolve around returning to your hometown as an adult, and that's a tougher theme for me to emphasise with than the slacker's coming of age story in Shaun or Hot Fuzz's parochial paranoia.

I currently live in the town I grew up in, it's not where I want to spend the rest of my life but I don't see it as a pit I need to escape.  I've not left and laid down roots somewhere else or refused to move on and obsess over past glories.  I'm still in the process of finding my own place in the world, while all the characters in the film have either achieved or rejected this.  A lot of Shaun and Fuzz were about growing up, The World's End is about being, (or not being) an adult and that's not something that I really worry about. 

This obstacle prevented me form enjoying the film on a purely vicarious level as I could with Fuzz or Shaun.  However, it absolutely is an obstacle that will disappear with time.  I for the moment I can enjoy the film for it's jokes, it's craft and it's plot and I'm sure as I age the character's struggles will resonate with me more strongly.

I am a grumpy old man.

I've just got back from the pub quiz.  After very nearly winning I left the pub through a throng of eighteen to twenty year olds who gathered around the door, I heard one of them say "let's get a taxi" and I despaired.  They were only going to the top of the hill! How lazy does someone have to be to take a taxi a mile and a half up a moderate incline?

When I was their age I walked home every night.  There wasn't a night out that didn't end with me strolling up the hill, by myself, in the dark.  Every Thursday I'd stumble home, crying and covered in sick, half naked.  I'd walk dazed and confused without any thought for where I was going, my homing instinct drawing me home like I was some overgrown pigeon.  I'd shuffle shoeless over the pebbles and brambles, weeping uncontrollably at my teenage state with most of a pizza smeared across my face and cheesy chips in my hair.  My shirt hung open, exposing my bald adolescent chest to the unforgiving night in all it's magnificent pearlescence.  I'd scream obscene challenges at owls both real and imagined as I plodded onwards.  I'm rambling, the point I'm trying to make is that that was the best, everyone should be like that, I'm the best, goodnight.