A Night Out with Mrs Sums

I haven't been getting out much. Apart from nipping up to the shops for a few food essentials, like "Manager's Special" fino sherry, I've been hard at work on the next set of pictures.

I have to get six to eight pictures done by 27th August. At the present count, I'm two short, but yesterday I made the stretchers, stretched the canvases and primed them. Three of the pictures are finished, bar some tweaking, three are well on the way, and I have ideas for the two new canvases.

So basically, I'm not worried about meeting my target., But it does mean I'm not getting out much.

Last night, however, Mrs Sums and the Architect invited me out to the cinema. Actually, to be accurate, Mrs Sums invited me out to the cinema. It became clear later that this was to keep the Architect happy because he was less than enthusiastic about the movie. He's more of a Star Trek: Nemesis or Spiderman 2 kind of guy and the movie we were going to see was Japanese Story.

Somehow, any mention of this film passed me by, despite its critical acclaim. The Tyneside Cinema thought it its public duty to let the local populace have another bite of the cherry. Would that the multiplexes operated this kind of policy.

I wasn't sure what to expect. The film concerns the relationship between a bluff Australian female geologist and a reserved Japanese business man and how it deepens to become something more profound as they drive through the desolate Pilbara region of Western Australia.

It's a road movie and a love story and just as you think that's as much as you're going to be given, it twists itself into another dimension, concerning itself with the nature of obligation and grief.

Toni Collette, as the geologist, gets to work her way - splendidly - through the whole gamut of emotions and rather overshadows Gotaro Tsunashima, who gets to play mostly handsome and reserved (but very engagingly)

It's not the film I'd have chosen to go to see, so thanks to Mrs Sums for that, because it's a hell of a good movie. Thanks also to the projectionist for switching off his radio before someone got up to brain him.

And the pint of Ossian in the Bacchus afterwards went down well, and cheered the Architect up, too.

There's an excellent long review of the movie here.