on the plane i saw, and was horribly disappointed by, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, which i had such high hopes for after the trailer. i quite see why julian and yen didn't care for it, and agree with what they said, especially about the way the guide looked. gad. it's depressing to think no one may ever make a satisfactory hitchhiker's guide, except, possibly, terry gilliam, and maybe even then not. and that if there is another version it will probably not be in our lifetimes.

anyway before poach wags a finger at me i shall say i was relatively restrained and got on with my dickens, watching only four movies on the first leg, and none at all on the second. none of them were good movies, but all of them were easy-watching entertainment. there was the interpreter which of course i had to watch for the name how can i resist watching a simultaneous interpreter at work and at the un no less? they really did film it at the un headquarters! it was somewhat insipid and implausible and i would rather there was more intrigue and talking and less guns and bombs, and then there was also catherine keener in it and i've always been dead scared of her since seeing being john malkovich. these evil-lawyer hawk-faced manipulative sardonic brunette types always freak me out. fortunately she's not on screen much. i don't know i care for the movie too much but i want more than ever to meet simultaneous interpreters!

and then jingwu jiating, oh plot what plot people in black fancy-fighting and breaking things and a ridiculous showdown/rescue at the end where the father is sealed in some kind of rocket-like orange chamber with his oxygen running out and the daughter trying to break the glass with a crowbar. that. kind of movie. ludicrous premise and completely faffy and cheesy and you know exactly what each person is going to do or say next, you know, when they're kneeling in the rain and saying qiu qiu ni jiu wo baba, and all that sort of thing. but fun precisely because of all that. and you see it has the wonderful anthony wong in, so that excuses everything.

then marilyn monroe and laurence olivier in the prince and the showgirl, which doesn't quite work - should they have been in the same movie? - but i did like it, in a rooting for the american way, and it was really rather funny. everytime she said your regency! i burst out laughing. and she was so feminine, so delicately beautiful in that movie.

and then i was a good girl and slept and read dickens.