The going is good at the moment.
A draft of ‘Some kind of Insanity’ has gone out to my group of readers and at least two have fed back that they are enjoying so far.
In the mean time I am painstakingly working through the logic of the plot of the (potentially) sci-fi story and I am slowly getting there. I really want to take my time getting this one right as it is quite a complex one – or rather subtle and could be too complex if I don’t get it right. So simplification is really what I am up to.
On a completely different subject, I saw Inglorious Basterds the other night. What a great film. To be honest I have never actually liked a Tarantino film before so it was a surprise. Though very gory, it did go to great pains to depict the terror that I am guessing people must have felt under the Nazi regime – especially scenes like the bar-in-the-basement scene which you knew was going to go badly and you just watched the faces of the ‘allies’ as the SS officers (or was it Gestapo) gradually sussed out what was going on. I think what is different about this film is that it doesn’t go for the stock take on Nazis as incompetent fools – they are demonically clever. Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa was really good – I couldn’t take my eyes off of him for the whole film. I kept thinking I had seen him before and he reminded me of so many people that I was sure I had met. Perhaps this is the sign of a really good actor. Actually, this is his first English-speaking film I think (according to www.imdb.com ) so I don’t think I have seen him before.
Diane Kruger has to get a mention – again in the basement bar scene she was really good as the agent posing as a crass German actress. I didn’t even know it was her for at least five minutes, even though I knew she was in the film.
Finally, there is Rod Taylor. I haven’t seen much of him for years but he definitely did the definitive HG Wells story in The Time Machine. He has done other good movies too – Zabriskie Point, to mention one. Kaw wasn’t that good a few years ago but his appearance here as Winston Churchill was a surprising bit of casting. I knew immediately that Tarantino had cast him, because he was a fan of Taylor’s, and that seems to be the case. I didn’t spot Rod either until after the film had finished and I wondered where Rod Taylor had been.
Lazlo Ferran | Vampire, Werewolf and Sci-fi Books 