Jaws Night

Back in November, my daughter and her boyfriend attended a movie All Nighter  together. Despite large quantities of sugary snacks and power napping through the mystery film, Spinal Tap, they were not able to stay awake for the iconic shark movie, Jaws. By way of compensation (and because it is one of my favourite films of all time) I suggested we have a family Jaws night during the Christmas holidays.

I had planned on making some shark fin biscuits and themed cupcakes but it was so difficult finding a time when we were all available to do it, that we settled for a spur of the moment 'let's do it tonight' attitude that didn't allow much in the way of preparation time. I did, however, have one little surprise that I thought would elevate a 'stay in and watch an old movie' night into something much more memorable.

During the time that my friend Kirk came to visit before Christmas, we had a shopping trip. Kirk has an uncanny knack of finding the weird and the wonderful lurking in unfamiliar places on familiar shelves. But it was me this time that spotted the Giant Inflatable Remote Controlled Shark at the bargain price of less than a fiver. All you  had to do, according to the box, was inflate with helium for your very own 'Airquarium'. It had to be done. I knew we had a canister of helium at home and it seemed like a perfect prop for our Jaws night.

There was an awful lot going on over the few days that Kirk was with us so we did not get the chance to breathe the noble gas life into our aquatic inflatable and experience the 'ultimate reality 3D' watching our movie. When the opportunity did present itself, I was ready.

The box had described the shark as 'Giant' but I was surprised by just how enormous it was. I began to doubt that our helium canister would be up to the task but I kept the faith and put the batteries in the remote control. There was a complicated kit containing antennae, a receiver, fins and various other bits and pieces that the instructions failed to clarify the purpose of.

The audience was ready and waiting, the DVD was on standby. I was starting to panic.

As it turned out, the instructions and the complicated kit were rendered obsolete by a pathetically inadequate volume of helium. We emptied the whole canister into the greedy Great White and barely managed to make an impression. It lazily lifted its pointed head vaguely skyward to reveal a gaping mouthful of sharp triangular teeth.

My initial disappointment that I would not be able to remotely steer the magnificent predator into a living room of people eagerly awaiting shark entertainment was offset by the fact that we had inadvertently recreated the Jaws movie poster.

I had to admit defeat and manually reveal my rather limp offering (to my rendition of the duh, duh...duh, duh theme music).

We did all have a good laugh along with speculating how much it would cost for the quantity of helium that would be required to actually fully inflate the beast.

We enjoyed Jaws so much that we later bought and watched possibly the worst shark movie ever made - Sand Sharks. That could be a whole other blog post!

M is for Movie Night

My husband and I have good reason for wanting to crack on with our Alphabet Dates - not simply because we enjoy the excuse to make time for each other but because we have another project in the pipeline that is going to keep us busy.

We thought about climbing a mountain together for our M date but then settled on a less adventurous cosy night in with a Movie. In keeping with the M theme, we planned to make a Mushroom curry to get things started.

Our town has a thriving street market every Wednesday. I am not a great lover of markets but I do have one or two favourite stalls that I sometimes frequent. One stall sells fruit and veg and often has large boxes of mushrooms for a couple of pounds. My plan was to buy one of these for my curry.

Unfortunately, as is often the case on Wednesdays for some unfathomable reason, the God of Market Traders was not smiling. It poured with rain. Not just ordinary rain but great big hailstones. By the time I got into town to hunt down my primary dinner ingredient, the boxes of mushrooms were reduced to a soggy, slimy mess. Tragic.

I had a rich mushroom sauce in the freezer, leftover from the last box of mushrooms I'd purchased. My husband used it to knock up a never to be repeated, mushroom and chickpea spicy concoction which if we'd been blessed with imagination, we could have named something beginning with M!

Choosing a movie that we both wanted to watch wasn't that easy. I like horror films - he doesn't. He likes espionage and political thrillers. I don't. Then we had a brainwave.

I have an early childhood memory of staying up past my bedtime and seeing a snippet of a film that my parents were watching. I clearly remember a circus ring, a woman dressed in black leather riding a white horse and a ring master with a whip. The ring master whipped the woman, slicing into her leather    clothes until she was naked.

Although the imagery stayed with me into adulthood, I had no idea what film it was from until a chance facebook conversation some time ago. A friend of mine (also from my childhood) supplied me with the title of the film and the leading lady of the black leather fame.

My husband bought me a German import of the film but I was in no hurry to actually watch it in case it did not live up to my memory. It sat gathering dust on my DVD shelf. The film (from 1968) was Girl on a Motorcycle and the leading lady was Marianne Faithfull.

There would really be no better time to confront my childhood memory than on our M date!

We were late starting the film so we went to bed to watch it. We had a few false starts because we couldn't find the remote control and then we couldn't work out how to change the audio from German dubbing back to original English but we eventually got there. The iconic scene, etched in my memory was very early on in the film and I had no memory of anything that followed. (I am guessing that  at that point, my parents must have realised I was watching, deemed it unsuitable viewing for a child and sent me off to bed!)

I'm sure that it in its day, the film would have been spectacularly ground breaking and risque but I'm afraid it was just a bit too slow and dated to keep me awake all the way through. I did, however, love being snuggled under duvet and in my husband's arms, snoozing! As for the circus scene that made such a dramatic impact on me all those years ago before I could have had any comprehension of the significance of it all - it will remain one of my favourite film sequences of all time.

Movie Meme #3 - Director

I tend not to pay a great deal of attention to Directors but there is one that stands out for me for his wonderfully gothic visionary style and that is Tim Burton.

Edward Scissorhands (1990) is such a beautifully crafted piece of story telling which he goes on to match with Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd to name a few.

Burton's close association with actor and object of lust Johnny Depp does him no harm in my eyes either!

Short post today on account of poorly babies :(

Black & White - Movie Meme #2

As Wendy has already written about my first choice (Tod Browning's 'Freaks')  I will have to go with my second choice - The Elephant Man (seems to be a theme emerging here!)


The Elephant Man is the beautifully told story of the fascinating and tragic character, Joseph Merrick. Suffering from severe deformities, Merrick is made to exhibit himself in a Victorian Freak Show before being 'rescued' by a London surgeon, Treves.

Anthony Hopkins plays the part of the surgeon to perfection as his relationship with Merrick develops and he comes to realise that beneath the disfigured exterior beats the heart of a gentile, articulate soul.

Although the dark, sordid environment of the Freak Show is in stark contrast to the bright, medical world in which Merrick finds himself, fundamentally, he is still a curiosity, exhibited now to an entirely different audience but still stripped of dignity.

As the story progresses, Merrick does find a heartwarming sense of belonging.

There are some incredibly touching moments. When Treves presents Merrick with a grooming set, we see the side of the man that cares about his appearance and desperately craves acceptance and love.

There are also some harrowing portrayals of the inhuman treatment Merrick had to endure.

I tend to forget that it is John Hurt who plays the part of The Elephant Man. The make up used to create the physical disfiguration is totally transforming and his voice is disguised by the impediments to his speech that further strengthen the illusion of the facial deformity. It is a totally convincing performance.

The fact that The Elephant Man was filmed in Black and White adds a beautifully atmospheric quality that is so easy to lose yourself in.

On a completely different note, I have a bit of a thing for Dexter Fletcher and this is yet another film where he has a minor role.