Episode 458: Empty Plane...

Flight was really empty today, had the entire row of four seats to myself. Should have seized the opportunity to actually get proper sleep while lying down, but ended up watching five movies instead: The Ugly Truth, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, The Host, Four Christmases, and About A Boy. Think I actually only slept for 30 minutes throughout the entire flight. Rest of the time, I was reading China Miéville's Looking For Jake. Managed to get through all of the stories in there except for the novella at the end, 'The Tain', so I'll probably finish that tomorrow. I really, really liked a couple of the stories in the book, and even those that didn't endear themselves to me as much had sufficiently offbeat premises to make them interesting anyway. Anyway, I found The Ugly Truth slightly odd because its a typical romantic comedy plot, but I just can't imagine Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl as a screen couple. Having seen Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, I don't get why Megan Fox gets so much flak. In a show that required minimal acting, she didn't seem any worse than the rest of the cast. In fact, I found Shia LaBeouf more insufferable. Overall though, too much metal crashing around, and it wasn't even that visually appealing. The Host was good until it reached the ending, which was very unsatisfactory because it didn't directly address the implications of its opening scene! Four Christmases began promisingly, but descended into a formulaic, rushed ending, albeit with a slightly more believable screen pairing of Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. So I guess you could say that I found About A Boy the most satisfying film of the lot. It's quite funny to see how Nicholas Hoult's facial expressions haven't changed between playing 12-year-old Marcus in the film and playing Tony on Skins, five years later. I also now have a renewed appreciation for Hugh Grant's abilities as a comic actor.