Terminal

Last night a friend and I watched the old (2007) Tom Hanks/ Steven Sielberg film "Terminal". She'd picked it up in a shop in town in an effort to entertain us one evening when the relentless football got a bit too much and it was too cold to sit in the garden drinking beer and burning cardboard.

I wished she hadn't the moment she mentioned it. I don't like being rude to anyone, at least in person (my native rudeness comes out in the blog), and when anyone gives me a gift I try to show due appreciation for their kindness. But I can't bear either Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg. Still, I thought I would give the film a go, just to be nice.

It was dire, despite the News of the World (what do we expect?) calling it "superb" on the jacket of the dvd. Tom Hanks is at his excruciating worst, overplaying the sincerity of his character Victor to charm or jerk tears of sympathy from the audience. The side characters (with the exception of Catherine Zeta-Jones') are as one-dimensional as Spielberg tends to make his side characters, and the various plot strands that tie everybody up together are as sentimental as a cartoon for 4-year-olds. And as insincere as an electioneering speech by a Liberal Democrat. Which is bad, I think you'll agree.

I can't help feeling that all the money spent on tripe like this would be better spent if it were given to the poor.