Wonderful cinema in Xabia - Gone Girl

It's turned distinctly minty cool in Xabia the past couple of days with

Spanish poster for Gone Girl 

bursts of heavy rain and some gusty winds that have got our awning into a serious flap. The awning is still standing strong, but it does make a racket, especially at night time when there's no other sounds in competition. I begin to imagine disastrous collapses until peering through the window reveals absolutely nothing to worry about at all!

Hopefully our slow cooker will come into its own if the day temperatures stay similar and I've been thinking of comforting winter foods. Tonight I'm doing a cheat's Chicken Tikka Masala and yesterday I adapted my Rhubarb Crumble to use up some plums we got from the market a couple of weeks ago but that which had resolutely refused to ripen properly. They were delicious once baked.

We've discovered the local cinema in Xabia now, Cine Jayan, and were very impressed with it. The auditorium is easily the size of a smaller Cineworld screen and the high-backed chairs have good viewlines AND are comfortable. I was expecting an enthusiastic but amateur fleapit and arrived in a clean, modern cinema! Four nights a week - Tuesday through Friday - they show subtitled foreign films in their original language. We frequently attended similar evenings at Hailsham Pavilion back home but, of course, here the 'foreign films' are mostly American offerings subtitled in Spanish.

This week's film was Gone Girl, or Perdida in Spanish, based on the Gillian Flynn book which I enjoyed reading last winter (book review here). I tend to avoid films of books I've liked as they usually disappoint. Plus this one stars Ben Affleck who I'm not overkeen on either. However, once I learned that Rosamund Pike was playing Amy Dunne, I changed my mind and we stumped up our six euros each. Pike is a fabulous actress and we were lucky enough to catch her performance in Hedda Gabler at Brighton's Theatre Royal a few years ago. I get that Affleck is the bigger star, but it's irritating that a book named for its female protagonist who is one of the strongest female characters to emerge for years, relies on a male image to sell cinema seats. Grrr! Anyhow, the film is surprisingly good and we both came away from the cinema effusively praising it, especially Pike who is perfect in her role, and Kim Dickens as the police inspector. We've been watching her on DVD in the brilliant Deadwood Ultimate Collection Seasons 1-3 [DVD] over the past few months too.

Sadly, the foreign film for this week coming is something violent and bland starring Liam Neeson so we'll give that a miss, but maybe the week after will be more promising and we can make a second visit?


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