Flying the New Moon Route

As the shamelessly commercial Twilight: New Moon hogs up to a third of cinema screens this weekend (and surely a lot more of the box-office) I find myself unable to see even the most mediocre, middle-of-the-road Oscar vehicles. Amelia has made a paltry amount this week (less than The White Ribbon?!) but it's hardly surprising given that Mira Nair's film is the pummelled filling in the gargantuan This Is It/New Moon sandwich. Having just returned from five days in London I'm flat broke, and somehow considering paying seven pounds to see Amelia outside of my cinema subscription, on the off-chance that Hilary Swank manages a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama.

But back to London, where I managed to do many fun things, the highlight of which was to meet blogger-extraordinaires Gabriel of Modern Fabulousity (best known as ModFab) and Raj of Electroqueer (whose taste in music is impeccable) for coffee and a fiendishly good martini. I also did manage to see The White Ribbon, which I liked but wanted to like more. The visual saturation is better and less off-putting than in Schindler's List for example, and its starkness is stunning to behold, but Haneke's constant attempts to distance you from the characters somewhat frustrated me and it's a lot more conscious and definite about its themes than I would have liked. Haneke does however manage to get a lovely performance out of Leonie Benesch as the teenage affection of the film's narrator and true lead.

Yeah, maybe I don't want to see The Aviator: Part II after all.