I hate not writing, but I was so depressed and fed up over the last couple of days, I did not have the heart to even turn on the computer.

Maybe I will elaborate with details at a later date. Suffice to say that emotions are running high about my job and Jennifer's success or otherwise in doing her job being in jeopardy if I continue to work at the same place as her. I guess I have known it for a long time. The Company has taken her away from me. I cannot forgive them or her for that. My anger and annoyance is eating me up. Wanting to punch people in the face every day is probably not a healthy way to live.

I need to do something. Time to move on. Fuck 'em.

Anyway, movies. Did you miss my gibberish? No?

Oh.

"Happy-Go-Lucky".



Some UK critics have been saying that "Happy-Go-Lucky" is the happiest and most cheerful movie that Mike Leigh has ever made. Well, I don't know if I would exactly agree with that. It is and it isn't.

Sally Hawkins' primary school teacher Poppy is, indeed, a very happy individual. Annoyingly happy, insanely cheerful, depressingly optimistic and psychotically 'Up!', most of the time. It is a tribute to Sally Hawkins performance that, once you get past the initial irritation with her, you completely fall in love with Poppy, her goodness, her openness and, yes, her simple niceness.

Then there is Eddie Marsan's driving instructor Scott. Scott is the very antithesis of happy. Scott is rigid, angry, frustrated, impatient, knotted up and racist. A borderline OCD sufferer, who is tortured by who-knows-what in his past. Scott is the most bitter and overwhelming character in a Mike Leigh film since David Thewlis' Johnny in "Naked". It is a towering performance by Eddie Marsan.

If Poppy is the light, Scott is definitely the dark, but it seemed to me that dark shadows inhabit the whole of "Happy-Go-Lucky". The unhappy schoolboy, the glum Sister, the other sister - a social climber who dominates her husband. Little vignettes of irritation and annoyance. Typical Mike Leigh.

"Happy-Go-Lucky" is a really good film, if you stick with it. I liked the way that Poppy does stop smiling towards the end. Maybe the world is too much for even the most dedicated optimist?

"In Bruges".

After a hit goes badly wrong, two hired killers (one of them older, experienced and word weary, the other raw, inexperienced and emotional) are ordered to hide out in the city of Bruges in Belgium, and to await further instructions from the Boss. Why beautiful, old, scenic Bruges, where nothing much happens, and when it does happen, it happens very slowly? Ah... Well there is a reason, which is crucial to the plot, and I am definitely not going to go into it here.

It's hard to know how to describe "In Bruges". Maybe it would be best to describe it as an existential comedy? I don't know. All I will say is that, if Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter had been commissioned to write an action movie/buddy-buddy comedy, they might have come up with something like "In Bruges". There are definite echoes of "Waiting For Godot" and "The Dumb Waiter" in the dialogue, the situations and the characters.

Simply put, "In Bruges" is just a gloriously funny and so-black-light-bends-into-it comedy. A brilliant confection of poetry, cynicism, innocence and slapstick. Great turns from Brendan Gleeson as the older, philosophical hit man Ken and Ralph Fiennes as barking mad Essex dog Harry, possibly the most unstable British gangster seen onscreen since Ben Kingsley in "Sexy Beast". Maybe surprisingly, for some, Colin Farrell shows what a fine performance he can produce when cast in right part. His young killer, Ray, is a mixture of willfulness, innocence, childishness and regret. You feel for him. Really you do.

"In Bruges" will not be a box office smash. It is probably too lyrical and introspective for huge success, and also it has hardly been promoted, but I have no doubt that it will find it's audience as a cult movie on DVD and on late night Indie movie channel screenings.

It's a great film. You should go and see it. Really you should.