I'd decided to have an easy one today, due to the busy week I'd had (and also the hangover from last night was slightly crippling me), so spent most of the day watching stuff and reading my anatomy book, so I'm ready for the prosthetics and special effects sections of the course. I also got some Skype action in with the Red Lion folk, which was nice.

I looked around on the internet for things to do, but couldn't be bothered to go to the beach, or Hollywood, or any proper sightseeing, so I went for a walk around The Grove Farmer's market (http://www.thegrovela.com). On the way I saw the CBS studios, which I assume was having some kind of live audience orientated event, as there were lots of people dressed up and queueing up. It's a bit more touristy round there than most other shops, but was quite nice all the same. After wandering round looking at all the stalls for a while, I felt like seeing another new film. I was torn between 'Drive', ' Contagion' and the remake of 'Straw Dogs'. I think I chose badly, as 'Straw Dogs' pales in comparison to the original. It had it's moments where it looked promising, but ended up trying to be like the 'I Spit On Your Grave' remake, where violence outweighs quality direction and dialogue. It's also changed from being set in Cornwall, to some middle-America 'hick' town, so it's much more Americanised. The great thing with this film is that James Woods is in it.*

I've noticed I always try working out how the effects are done now, so hopefully I can start getting ideas together for when we get to that stage of the course. NB; After the horrible experience with the idiot in the cinema last night, I chose to get a medium popcorn and medium drink, so that I could potentially be as annoying as anyone else. Fortunately, there were no morons tonight, though despite eating popcorn continuously throughout the film, occasionally breaking to sip my Sprite, I still had loads left. Medium is actually rather large. I could probably have fit my entire head inside the bag (minus the popcorn). It's also a lot cheaper than the UK.

Headed straight back home after the film to catch some Z's before the early rise tomorrow, but not before popping into a 'Carl's Jr.' for a Charbroiled burger. It was alright, although I shouldn't really have had fast food takeaway two nights on the trot. I feel guilty.

*SPOILER ALERT*

There's some alright make-up effects in it, mainly involving gunshots, but there's a great broken arm prosthetic, some cool nail-gun-through-hand action, and a pretty cool bit with a bear trap wrapped around a head.