Yesterday was a rather productive day in terms of revision and I'm happy for that. Whereas things were looking quite dark before I started revision, right now I'm much more confident and I hope I can do well. Today is pretty much the last day before the exam so it's time to wrap things up.

Anyway, last night I still found some time (rather late, though, which is crap as I've been trying to maintain a sane schedule) to see Phone Booth with Joel Schumacher's audio commentary. Earlier on, I had seen a 30 minute featurette also contained in the DVD documenting the making of the movie and it was a delight. It's one of the most insightful documentaries I've seen as a DVD extra, really. One thing that struck me was that I didn't know director Joel Schumacher other than by word of mouth and I've found out he's quite a character. As strange as it may seem, he looks very old and very young at the same time, with all the wrinkles and long white hair but he has some (kinda queer but funky) way about him which sets him apart from pretty much every other director I've seen before. I confess I wasn't overly impressed though and the focus was on the making of the film anyway. What's particularly astonishing about it for me is the privilege of being able to see footage of the shooting of the scene where Colin Farrell is making a rather emotional speech to his wife and pretty much every gathered in front of the booth. We're talking about over 5 minutes of monologue and Farrell delivers it flawlessly without a single break. Remarkable. Needless to say, after the "Cut!", a big applause instantly broke from the crew and all extras. It's not everyday you see something like that and Farrell has just gone up a few spots in my rank.

Later, as I said, I set out to see the movie again, this time with Joel Schumacher's commentary. And my oh my, was I impressed. The way he speaks (a derivative of his manner I described before) makes you feel really comfortable watching the film "virtually" alongside him as he provides fascinating comments providing each character with context. We get to learn some of the actors are actually regulars of his movies, particularly Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys, Flatliners (sounds particularly interesting) and A Time to Kill and many others in Tigerland, as well as of his profound admiration for Forest Whitaker (make it two). All in all, an interesting journey which makes me want to see more of his movies, considering he also directed the adaptation of one of my favourite John Grisham novels, The Client with Brad Renfro and the awesome Susan Sarandon. Perhaps his recent adaption of Andrew Lloyd Webber's famous stage musical, The Phantom of the Opera?