ianbee: this is instead of getting a dog

Do you have a 'character face'?

 

I think the guy with the ginger beard didn't get in, not becuase he was too tall, but because he was holding a twig against his head.

Saturday

Despite the fact that they are unwelcome in the green bin, it is possible to recycle paper-based drinks cartons if you are prepared to save them up and take them along to the tip. In order to save up enough to make it worthwhile, your home does smell a bit of stale milk. And when you get to the tip the man who works there assumes you drink an awful lot of juice.

On the way back from the tip I bought some broad beans from the Meanwood Valley Urban Farm. They were grown locally, probably picked by young offenders. The community-service beans were a bit tough, and required double-shelling which raised the hassle-to-benefit ratio to 'barely worth it'. However, when served with quinoa, mint and lemon they were brilliant.

I shelled the beans while watching the Hitchcock film 'Rope' on the telly. It's a thriller about a man who considers himself superior to those around him. Considering himself morally superior to the rest of society, he uses this belief to justify a horrible killing then seeks to profit from his action to make a macabre point. WIth the miserable news from Norway on in the background, it was either inspired spontaneous television scheduling or a sobering coincidence.

The King's Speech

Just been to see that film that's really popular at the moment, you know, the one that contains swearing in a "speech therapy context".

I enjoyed it, but all the hype was a bit over the top. However It's probably entertaining enough to get my parents into the cinema for their annual trip. The best bit was seeing the blond moppet from Outnumbered playing a young Princess Margaret. She was great, although I kept expecting her to start talking about nits.

Dreaming

I saw Inception at the cinema today. I really enjoyed it, I can't remember when I was this excited about a film. I certainly won't sleep tonight, and I will never ever sleep on a plane again ...

It can be described as a cross between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the Matrix. With a bit of Grand Designs thrown in. You may have heard people say that it is best to go into the cinema for this film not knowing too much about the plot. This is true, although you are likely to leave the cinema also not knowing much about the plot. This doesn't matter. There is bad CPR technique, and no dogs, but despite these failings it is enthralling. I suppose it's classed as science fiction, but there isn't really any science, just a silver box with a button that gets pushed occasionally. The rest is pure beautiful story-telling fiction.

The only thing that is in 3D is the script; assembled like a tower that you can sense wobbling and shaking around you, intelligent and frenetic. It's as if you were reading a page from left to right, then jumped to a footnote, then the footnote had a footnote, then a reference to the back and before you know it you have fingers and thumbs keeping every other page of the book open before you untangle it all and get back to the original sentence. It actually gave me a headache, but I didn't mind, it was a worthy battle scar.

I have also recently seen Heartbreaker which is a French film starring Vanessa Paradis. It's about a team of con-artists who break up couples to order. Essentially a comedy, but best described as a heist film, with a bit of Dirty Dancing thrown in. The bit where Vanessa is secretly miming to Wham in the front seat of her car is an exquisite comedy moment, albeit one that is better experienced than described! I laughed loud and often during this film, almost as much as during the preceding trailer for Tourism Australia, which if you're lucky I'll find on the internet and show you.

You should judge what kind of mood you are in, and then choose one of these films accordingly. Then go see the other one too.

A cross between Conair and Happy Feet

... was how Avatar had been described to me before I saw it last night. I've not seen Happy Feet, or Conair, so I can't comment on the accuracy of that comparison. I thought it was maybe a cross between The Jungle Book, Starship Troopers (without the ironic subtext) and An Inconvenient Truth.

I have never seen a 3D film before, and decided to go to the IMAX as my friend felt sick seeing it in 3D on a normal sized screen so I thought I'd see how far I could push my body. The 3D bits were fun. I liked it when something floated in front of the screen, or you felt like you were looking over someone's shoulder. They did not distract at all from the plot or the script, because the script was shocking and the plot was totally predictable. (This coming from someone who is always cheerily surprised by the twists in the Harry Potter films, even though he's read the books.) It was as if key moments in Avatar had huge luminous post-it note arrows pointing at them saying "relevant for future plot point, watch out". And the plot recaps given by the characters were so turgid they may as well have turned to the screen and winked.

Taken as a whole, Avatar was brilliant, wonderful rubbish. Yes, the script had been refined down to a lowest common denominator, and yes, as soon as the film started you knew how it would finish (although ironically the crushingly-bad Leona Lewis song that played over the end credits was the only major plot twist). But, there was a hard-as-nails bad marine guy who was so tough be could hold his breath for ages. And robot space suits. And helicopters with depressingly vulnerable rotor blades. And lots of pretty, pretty trees ...

Four films and a fire alarm

The fire alarm went off this morning, at 2am. Everyone in the building was running around dazed and confused looking for smoke. Thank goodness I grabbed my penguin torch on the way out. There was no fire, but as I had the only torch I felt pretty heroic.

I have been to see three films recently all suitable for you to recommend to your mothers.

An Education - a story of teenage love set in the 60s and starring the adventurous blond one from the Dr Who episode with the scary statues that we all hoped would be the next companion. Except in this film she looks like a young Audrey Hepburn. I asked my actress friend how this was possible and she said "it's called acting".

Me and Orson Wells - another period piece, this time with the best screen Orson Wells you are ever likely to see. The film was oozing with charisma, very little of it supplied by Zac Efron or Clare Danes. Christian Mckay stole the show, but I think that was the point.

Away We Go - a simple, charming, hilarious look at themes of home and family. We follow a couple who criss-cross North America as they try to find a place to settle and bring up their baby. We get to see Allison Janney from the West Wing as a bonkers mother whose parenting strategy is based around mocking her children. We also get to see Maggie Gyllenhaal as the worst kind of new-age earth mother in a delirious scene of push-chair rage. Very warm and, dare I say it, fuzzy.

I saw District 9 on the plane. I would not recommend this to your mothers, due to multiple angry mob limb-tearing sequences. But I really enjoyed it, a fresh approach to the shooty alien film genre, that makes up for not getting the Halo movie from we all wanted from the same director. If he can make films like this on a budget, please don't give him any more money.

A month of film

Last night I watched Lars and the Real Girl. Can't begin to tell you what it's about, other than in the broadest terms, loneliness, love and community. Really enjoyed it, didn't expect to. Can anyone tell me what was going on at the lake?

I came away from the film pining for snow and seasons. Ontario looked so cold but with the right pullover and a big pair of boots everyone seemed to get by okay. And their excitement at the first day of spring was palpable. I remember that in the past I have made a point of commenting on resuscitation practise in movies, so I should really mention Lars' efforts at reviving a teddy bear in the office canteen. His 3:1 ratio was probably a reasonable assumption although with the amount of recoil you would get from fur I reckon he could have made the compressions faster. Still, the outcome was good.

It was the fourth film I have had to watch this month, in preparation for church. That's right, cinema is the pulpit of the 21st Century, so we have spent the last four sundays sitting around talking film and theology. Japanese anime, Van Damme and Bill Murray; it's been the best month of teaching I can ever remember.

Talking dogs

In the latest of an infrequent series on films that have dogs in, I'd like to recommend the latest Pixar offering, Up. The dogs in question all wear "translation collars" so we can hear such wonderful lines as "I have just met you and I love you!" and "Squirrel!" 

 

The film is a warm and surreal comedy about an old man who takes his house to South America using hundreds of helium balloons. A Korean Boy Scout stows away and a pack of talking dogs tries to foil their adventures. One of the best characters is the old man's wife who, in a teary introduction montage, has a miscarriage and dies within the first ten minutes.

The laughs soon return and I doubt there will be another film this year in which you will experience the protracted sound of a small Korean Boy Scout being dragged slowly across the windscreen of a zeppelin crewed by talking dogs.

Huge muffins / Eric Cantona

I'm back in Hobart, Tasmania. One of my favourite places. I'm staying in a really posh hotel, the sort of establishment where they have a stab at working out your family tree and post it under your door while you're having a nap. It's only for one sleep unfortunately, tomorrow I downgrade significanty, however I couldn't pass up the chance to spend a night in a converted jam factory. mmmm jam ... This afternoon I made a pilgramage back to the Machine Cafe in Salamanca Square for one of their muffins, which I believe to be the best in the world. They are huge; you're presented with a square slab of bun the size of a kitchen floor tile. It doesn't look like a muffin until you turn it over and see the muffin-base pimple protrouding like a Braille full-stop on a sheet of A4. Today I had wild mushroom and parmesan. For lunch and tea. Tomorrow I will go back and try the strawberry and white chocolate. Aside from muffins, can I recommend the film Looking for Eric? I've been a bit nervous of Ken Loach films since I went to Cinema Paradiso in Wanaka and accidentally watched a miserable one about drug addiction and setting fire to caravans. Looking For Eric certainly has it's Loach-allotted portion of drugs, guns and gang violence, but despite this it is a warm and funny film at heart. Much of the warmth and humour comes from Eric Cantona who plays himself in the context of a depressed postman's invisible friend - bet you didnt see that coming! It is a valuable lesson in what happens if you cross a postie: "I know where you live..."

Gran Torino

Nothing I have seen at the cinema in ages comes close to being as good as Gran Torino. I saw it weeks ago now (at the Cameo in Edinburgh), but it keeps popping back into my head. So many films leave fleeting, temporary impressions. You pay your money and the images fade when you walk out of the cinema, next morning you find the ticket stub in your pocket but you can't remember quite what it was about. In contrast, the experience of Gran Torino seems to be burned onto my retina. I catch myself playing back scenes in quiet moments. It caught me completely by surprise; funny and harrowing, light and dark, violent and heartwarming. Clint's vocabulary consists mainly of  penitrating stares. And growls. Grrrrr.

And it had a dog in it. I'm coming to believe quite strongly that many of the best films have dogs in them, we're not talking "Lassie" here, or "Marley and Me", but dogs as supporting actors.

We're not talking talking dogs either, dogs just being dogs, hanging out with their owners. Like in "Tell No One", "I Am Legend", "Hot Fuzz" ... as is usually the case with the internet, there is a resource dedicated to everything you can think of. Even the cataloging of dogs in films.