It was a pity that after the excursions of the rest of that evening, Saturday was completely lost and we spent the day barely in the land of the living. This did give us the chance however, to take advantage of the hotel film service and eventually get a gander at the superbly brilliant 'American Beauty'.


Unfortunately, we blighted the experience by following it with the utterly ridiculous 'The Bone Collector'. This epic, for you poor souls who haven't had the pleasure, consists of Denzil Washington playing a 'best in his field, now-paraplygic' forensic investigator who never leaves his mechanised bed but seems to be the only man in New York capable of bringing to justice a bloodlust psychotic with a penchance for collecting the bones of his victims. Whoever came up with the screenplay for 'The Bone Collector' obviously learned their trade at the school of totally implausible plots.


Our hero's legwork is done by a love-interest female rookie who's come from the traffic department, has no experience of forensics and doesn't want to do the things Denzil wants her to do. Resembling a New York cop about as much as Kate Moss resembles a sumo wrestler, her lips are stuffed so full of collagen that they look like a small arse stuck under her nose whilst her inane, puppy-dog expression is mostly concealed by the six layers of Max Factor that had to have been applied by a builder brushing up on his rendering skills.


Anyway, being the great 'dick' he is, Denzil sends Arsemouth off alone into dark, deserted underground buildings where serial killers hang out, with no back-up and no training, to report all the gory details of each murder via walkie-talkie while the real cops very sensibly remain in safety outside. I won't go on - just take it from me, David Fincher needn't worry.