All action

Well, that's my Sundays mapped out for the next couple of weeks. Maddy has never seen any of the Indiana Jones films. They were showing Raiders of the lost ark tonight with the next two to follow over the next two Sundays just in time for the new film opening in the UK.

Maddy was, it has to be said, very reluctant to watch tonight. I think she'd decided it wasn't her thing, but with the offer of us helping tidy her bedroom tomorrow if she didn't enjoy it she decided to give it a try. Ten minutes in and she was engrossed.

Call me sad if you like, but I'm really looking forward to the new installment. The Indiana jones films were, along with the Star Wars films and Ghostbusters, amongst the favourites of my childhood. I've got a feeling that even though I'm now in my mid thirties when the music kicks in in the cinema I'll get that same buzz I did in my youth.

Roll on the 22nd.

On entirely the opposite end of the cinema spectrum I finally watched the Golden Compass with MAddy today and I really wish I hadn't. Oh sure, it looked nice and everything but having loved the books I have to say they murdered the story. I heard that the original screenplay was by Tom Stoppard who worked closely with Pullman which would have been fantastic but the studio, after billing it as the next epic on the scale of Lord of the rings, brought in a director who demanded the right to do his own screenplay. It ended up rubbish. I reckon even if I hadn't read teh books the story would have seemed rushed and confusing. Having read them it was just wrong bits changed, moved about and just plain wrong.

I'm not naive, I'm well aware that film adaptations seldom live up to the original books but I'd be struggling to name one as badly done as that, Hell even Dune has redeeming features depite missing huge chunks of the book. That it was such a good story they ruined just makes it all the worse.