Driver's Guide To The Universe

Yawn, it seems every time I stay overseas I become a night owl. Going to sleep earlier then 12 seems to cause havoc with my system.
Thanks to the lovely food poisoning I am finally starting to make a dent in my Movies folder. It is quite amazing how many movies there are out there.

I've finally managed to start watching "Hogfather", the first live-action adaptation of Terry Pratchett's. Having been a huge fan of his for the past 10 years I am once again amazed at the level of complexity he weaves into the story. Among the humour and the main premise he weaves the concept of people's ability to 'not' see what is really out there. The mind's power to see exactly what it wants to see and discarding anything it no longer believes in as it grows older. This is quite a recurrent theme in Terry Pratchett works.

This theme of 'seeing what is really there' is what I believe lies at the heart of "Pan's labyrinth".  The heroine, bookish whimsical Ofelia discovers the fairies and the magical dark fantasy world that lies just underneath the real, but no less dark world she is living in. The movie is set in post-Civil-War Spain. General Franco's brutal regime of putting down the Resistance reached into every corner of Spain and noone is unaffected by this. I cannot say more without giving away the movie, but the ability of children to see more then the adults ever give them credit for is quite evident in this cinematic gem. The score to this is quiet amazing, combining the eerie elements of a dark fantasy with the more conventional sounds of battle. I really do recommend seeing it.

Back to the "Hogfather" adaptation, like with all live-action adaptations of a fictional world written on paper first, some characters of course are not the same as I would imagine them to be. For example, Mr Teatime just lacks the menace of his fictional counterpart and the Dean of the Unseen University is not as rotund as in the books. I was quite disappointed by the fact that the Bursar was still sane, but the Archancellor made for it in spades. Other characters made a small appearance, characters that are quite prominent in Pratchett's other books. Although Nobby Nobbs was a bit more human then one would expect.  The main character of the story, Susan Death, played by Michelle Dockery, Death's own granddaughter is absolutely amazing, especially when she does "The Voice". I could really go on and on, but so far, the mini-series has done its job of bringing Discworld to the screen. Now, if only I could get my own "Born to rune" t-shirt...

P.S. I mustn't forget Alfred, the actor was absolutely hillarious. I see that he will also be /rincewind in the upcoming adaptation of "The Colour of Magic".

Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of

evil...prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed

to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...

    (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)