(no subject)

[muckefuck]

Tonight I had basically three choices on the entertainment front (four if you include "watching crap on YouTube for hours on end while playing solitaire", but I was determined not to pick that one):

1. Finish reading El embrujo de Shanghai
2. Watch last Sunday's Mad Men
3. Watch Flirting

I'm very happy I went with (3). An absolutely beautiful film, well acted and featuring an astoundingly gorgeous 19 year-old Thandie Newton. I was very startled to recognise the male protagonist immediately, given that I know him only from this music video set to a gloriously cheesy song by Alphaville and which, by a strange coincidence, I had watched again only the night before:

Apparently reviewers of the time found it "a little dull" due to the familiarity of the plot and setting, but I found the general lack of melodrama and sentimentality refreshing and the small details very well observed. Definitely one to watch again sometime.

Actually, I did manage to fit in some of the Marsé as well after all. I've got only twenty pages to go and I'm determined to finish it before I leave town. I don't why, given its many virtues, it's taking me so damn long to reach the end. Although I love to savour the language, I'm doing my best not to look too much up. I can always read it again sometime if I want to, right?