I just recovered from going out for my birthday. It wasn’t due to heavy drinking, even though I did try. It was from the long day I had. I got up early, as I was giddy as a child on christmas, and I went to bed really, really late. It was a long day. Good day, but long. Though it wasn’t actually my birthday. It’s tomorrow, but as I am working on a film I couldn’t meet up with friends.

I got into London in the morning, so I could catch an early screening of Die Hard 4.0 or 4 point-0-less. I found it tedious and long. How many explosions can Bruce Willis survive? The villain was really weak. And his reasons for what he was doing was really crap. I like Tim Olyphant. He is great in Deadwood. Here he is wasted. The original Die Hard and Die Hard With A Vengeance had really good villains. They were really great characters and it is they who make you come back to watch those films. John McTiernan is a great action director, who knows how to make films with characters that you like and actually miss when they get kill. I mean Predator is a great Arnie film. Len Wiseman is terrible. In this film all he does is throw things at John McClane. Look here’s some men with guns. Here’s a helicopter. Here’s an explosion. Here’s another explosion. Here’s a jet. It got boring for me very quickly.

Emerging from the cinema, I then rushed on to the Prince Charles cinema, so to catch An Inconvenient Truth. The Prince Charles show this film every week and rightly so. Known as the film that got Arnold Schwarzenegger to give up his Humvee and start caring for the environment, because he saw it in a film. It was startling to watch. Even though we are living in the era where the environment is high in the news, it was startling what could happen to this planet if we don’t change our ways. This could of been boring, but Al Gore’s slideshow presentation and the way the documentary was made was entertaining. Nothing like being told about how we could end the world. It changed my mind on global warning. Don’t worry. I won’t be preaching to you about the environment, but I will say that if you haven’t seen An Inconvenient Truth, go out and see it. It’s an eye opener.

I came up out of the Prince Charles, and then went on to meet with Ben Woodiwiss and his brother. We went to my favorite restaurant, the West End Kitchen, for dinner. I chatted to Ben about the script. He’s been busy. At that point he had written 22 pages of the scripts. I didn’t talk much to his brother, as he had his friends with him. He did ask me if I was that director who was making that film, which of course I replied that I was. It’s about as far as it went.

After dinner, we said goodbye to Ben’s brother and headed to 101 Bar in London to meet with the rest of my friends for a drink. I invited a small group of friends, as I like to chat with everybody. When it’s a large group, it’s hard to talk to everybody. I had a few friends missing. Though they did let me know that couldn’t make it. It was either down to work or other commitments. Which is far enough. So the roster for the nigh is: Andrew Lawden, Clive Ashenden, Benjamin Green, Matteo Prezioso and Ania Gastol. All who work in the film industry.

I remember talking a lot about about the feature. Everybody  was interested in how it was coming along and what it was about. I even had few ideas for the film thrown my way. Some were good, some were bad. But that’s ideas for you. I might use some of them. I will have to see what the script is like.

I brought along my stills camera, which Ben and Matteo Prezioso were taking photos of the evening. I put the best ones on the site (see Photos). There a quite a few of myself, which is rare as I am usually the one taking the photos. Matteo asked if he could come down for the weekend during the shooting of the film to take stills. I agreed to that he could, though we will have to sort out the arrangements nearer the time of the shoot.

So looking back, I really enjoyed my day. It’s was good to spend time with my friends. A bit weird celebrity before my birthday, but I have to work. Here’s to good firends. Here’s to being older and wiser. And here’s to being on this Earth for one more year.

PS. Don’t forget The Plague is tonight on BBC 2 at 12.15am. I will be watching it. Will you?