Food. I like it. You probably like it too, everyone does. So a short series on food seems like the right thing. I’m going to go over a few very unhealthy recipes (that sounds a bit formal for the kind of thing I mean but alas there are no better words), and possibly diverge a bit. To my knowledge (ie from recall, rather than from looking through the archives), this is the first post I’ve done on food since the ill-fated omlette incident, way back at post number six. Anyway, the best place to start when it comes to food is the dessert.

‘Now’, you’re wondering, ‘what culinary masterpiece is Gary going to teach us how to make today?’ Today, today, we make mars bar melts. Here’s how:

• Buy a Mars bar.
• Put it in the fridge for a day. You want it to be cold to the touch and rock hard.
• Unwrap, put it on a plate, and microwave it for 20 seconds.
• Enjoy! If you’ve done it right, the chocolate shell should still be relatively solid and the middle should have melted. Warm goo! Nummy.

If you’ve got any masterworks of the black art of cooking that would make Mr Grossman envious, I encourage you to take this opportunity to post about them. Another, more savoury, treat in a day or two.

A full month of cinematic goodness brings us four films pretty decent films.

The 40 Year Old Virgin is almost entirely predictable. Our protagonist’s colleagues find out he has never had sex and set about fixing that, in increasingly bizarre ways. In the end he finds the right women and all is well. Even though the premise doesn’t warrant the two hours or so that the final cut is, it’s still a good film. Steve Carrell pulls off both the geeky and awkward side of the character and his quiet wit with aplomb. If nothing else, this film should be a vehicle for him to go on to bigger things.

Next up is new Wes Craven film, Red Eye. A killer corners his victim on an aircraft and tries to get her to assist in his plan. Being a headstrong young women, she resists. Until the final acts, it does pretty well; the two lead characters showing a fair amount of depth and creating a real tension. Sadly the final section, away from the enclosed space of a plane, is truly awful. The film degenerates from a creepy encounter to a farcical horror film. Shame.

Sadly, I’ve yet to see Dogtown And The Z-boys so can’t compare it with its dramatised reimagining, Lords Of Dogtown. The story of the friends who reinvented skateboarding by introducing aspects of surfing, we see fame and fortune tear them apart. An enjoyable film, even if the acting lets it down at times.

Finally, George Romero, king of zombie films, adds another chapter to his infamous series with Land Of The Dead. Set decades after the dead begun rising, the last remnants of civilisation are holed up in a walled city. The poor stay in slums and the rich in a fortified tower block, keeping everything else out. In a continuance of the smarter zombie theme from Day Of The Dead, the zombies begin to realise that the city is where they need to go. Mix into this the theft of the one weapon capable of taking away the power from the rich, and you’ve got the makings of an interesting storyline. It’s not as good as the predecessors, taking in too many action movie influences and making sure the increased budget is spent rather than focussing on the characters, but still damn good.

Film of the month is Land Of The Dead, but if you know me you would have known that before it came out.

And a second list of quotes appeared and it was not quite as good as the first list, but was still reasonably entertaining. It also made for excellent blog filler.

The second quote list.

Yar, it be another Talk Like A Pirate Day (well it will be in 45 minutes). Which, of course, means a very minor redesign.

As the lack of posts around here lately probably show, I’ve been very busy for the last few months. It’s been ages since I’ve had both the time and energy to write something worthwhile. The last series (about my hometown) probably wasn’t worthwhile, and I wrote literally months ago for a posting drought like this. Oh well. After going to Edinburgh for most weekends in August (ah, the fringe), the usual bunch of September flatwarmings (spread over no less than 7 cities this year), and various other things during the week (my job being one of them), things seem to be quieting down.

If I say here that I’m going to release my first Greasemonkey script soon and that I’ll finally write up my fourth year project, then I may actually begin work on either. Or then again, it might be another quiet spell. We shall see.

This month’s film fight is another full four-way.

First, we have Tim Burton’s remake of the classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Where to start? The vision of Willy Wonka is nowhere near as strong as the original. Where Gene Wilder was a magical, musical, but weary showman, Depp is a slightly disturbed and frightened boy who never really grew up. It seems that the modern take on the story had to include parental issues, rather than just being tired of a world that doesn’t care for the joys in life. It’s still enjoyable, and has some absolutely hilarious moments, it seems a little sad that the point has been missed.

Comedy comes in the form of The Wedding Crashers. A double team of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson meet a fairly dysfunctional family at a wedding and hilarity ensues (yes, it can be summed up that glibly). It is, however, excellent. So many spot-on comic moments, and so many perfectly played characters, including Christopher Walken’s family figure/senator.

As mindless trashy entertainment, The Island is a strong film. Take it any more seriously than that and it all falls apart, with plotholes everywhere, terrible acting, bad plot devices, terrible direction, stuff that just doesn’t make sense etc.

Finally, in Crash we have manipulative and stereotyped attempt at producing an indie film feel with a bunch of Hollywood A-list actors. While it does ask some interesting questions, it does come off as a bit convenient, rather than clever, that all the characters intersect one another.

The winner this month, then, is Wedding Crashers.

P.S. If this seems a bit rushed, it’s because it was.

P.P.S. I’m probably not going to do a music post for August. In September, buy the new Reuben album. They’re the best British band in decades.