Brussels

We didn't eat any waffles

It was a bit of a disappointment

The night we got to brussels it was raining, but thats ok because we found our way fairly easily to our hotel. thats right HOTEL. no hostel for us. only because we left it too late and they were all booked out. Our hotel even had its own bathroom with a heated towel rack thing. wow. AND breakfast. with eggs and everything. 

when we got outside it was still raining. and my umbrella had turned inside out and promptly been thrown out in amsterdam. I was destined to have bad hair for the whole day. damn. LC and I decided to head to one of the flea markets only to find that flea markets are not so fun in the rain. SO then we decided to A. get some soup and B. find a cinema and see a film. After wandering around for several hours we finally found some yummy lentil soup (it was good but a bit salty) and a cinema that was showing a plethora of crap. We decided that Woody Allen's latest installment was worth a shot and as it turned out it wasn't too bad. 

there was a shop full of things made of dead things. amazing.

I kind of look like a man. how unfortunate

Within he first 5 minutes I had decided that if the film continued at the same level i would have to walk out. This is a pretty big deal, I have only ever walked out of one film before and tat was due to it being overly crass, utterly unintelligent mindless drivel. Luckily it was just a particularly uncomfortable scene and was over along with the protagonists marriage. The film was, admittedly, a little bit left of centre. It was challenging to the hollywood schema and often grating to watch (although never more so than those first two scenes). The thing is, while at first glance it seemed to be pretty shit, in reality it showed Woody Allen once again examining the boundaries of cinema. Now, I haven't seen that many of his films but i can say for sure that Annie Hall is very different from some of his more recent 'hollywood' style films (especially those featuring young Scarlet). Annie Hall is a very different sort of film to Match Point or Scoop. In Whatever works Allen uses techniques which are considered faux pas' including talking to the camera. At first this makes you cringe, then you realise its just trying to get you to think about this like a film. Allen also uses the character boris (played by Larry David) and a grossly egotistical parody of himself. In some places you realise that basically, Woody Allen has just done the cinematic version of jizzing on your face. He is just sooooo in to himself. But maybe this is just another way of making you more aware of film- making you aware of the director/auteur. There are definitely some very charing moments though, the parody sometimes goes a bit far (in a hilarious i can't believe he just did that kind of way). The characters are endearing once Allen develops them past the point of parody. and his wit is undeniable. 

If you want to read more go here. If you want to go see it, do. It is not a film for everyone but, grin and bear it because it is really a nice story.