Last night’s viewing (and my first day at the Belfast Media Festival)

Hi, all. 

I landed at the MAC earlier this morning and I still have a bit of time to write something before I head in for my first event.

Truth be told, I was gonna write this before I went to bed last night but I was a little tired and I wanted to save my energy for today. So far, I’ve resisted the temptation of the nightlife and I was instead happy enough to sit in my hotel room and watch movies. The Transporter was on TV, so I watched it for the first time in years. It’s unapolegetically silly but it’s way too much fun to not enjoy and Jason Statham is so effortlessly cool as the main character. Mind you, I still wish they kept that bit from the trailer where Statham repels a missile with a fucking tray. It’s silly but it is my kind of silly. Ah, well. I guess you can’t have everything.

I also watched Dead Ringers (the Cronenberg film) which is worlds apart from Statham defeating human traffickers by slathering himself in fuel oil, but it’s still a great film regardless. It’s slow, strange and a bit grotesque, so it won’t be to everyone’s tastes (even for some of those expecting a bit of that trademark Cronenberg body horror), but it’s a fantastic psychological thriller and Jeremy Irons is excellent in the film’s two lead roles as twin gynecologists whose “unique” relationship with themselves and with other women begins to unravel when one of them falls in love. Compared to Cronenberg’s other films like The Fly, Videodrome or even his more recent Crimes of the Future, the body horror in this film is quite limited, but its ideas and themes are pure Cronenbergian at their core. Definitely recommended if you like your body horror to be more implicit than overt.

Anyway, I’d better get myself ready to check out the rest of the Belfast Media Festival.