Babies and Umbrella Birds

We've been doing Baby recon today. After a downer of a morning, Ellen, X and myself paid a visit to Mothercare to look at a potential choice of wheels for Little One due in March.

I've always had the realisation that bringing life into the world is A Big Deal. I'm cool with it. Scared silly, but still cool with it. The choice of the right pram is a prime example - I originally thought 'if it's got good wheels and keeps yer baby safe it's good enough for me'. However I didnt consider, mobility, control, colour, adaptation and cou

ntless other qualities which need to be pondered.

If this spins me out, God knows what a choice of school will do!

Thankfully I'm going into this with a seasoned veteran. Ellen has the T-Shirt from bring Xander up. She's done a sterling job this far, so I guess I'm with excelle

nt company.

Anyway, being Half Term (I've been reacquainting myself with the school year - something you easily forget), we paid a visit to Oxford. You can sense the waves of energy and youthful idealism coming of the young people in the street, it's wonderful! They all look ready to take on the world and make it better - a feeling from my student years I w

istfully (if somewhat dimly) remember.

Amongst other sights we saw the Oxford Natural History Museum. Full of the usual dino bones and slightly more down home stuffed birds and beasts. My favourites of which were the tropical birds they have in a case close to the door - the hummingbirds, rollers and the remarkable looking umbrella bird - the undisputed Elvis of the bird world.

Uh-huh!

Surrealist or Porn Star?!

Was doing a spring clean today. Sorting out some of stuff from our last Germany trip, I came across a poster advertising a Salvador Dali exhibition in Berlin.

It reminded me of a fact I picked up on a previous visit. German advertising posters often seem just the slightest bit surreal or inappropriate, off centre enough to make me think 'What was the PR department saying, here?'

Case in point above. Salvador Dali or Ron Jeremy? What do you reckon?

It's the end of the world as we know it..

A striking sight to see.. but a potential inconvenience to your day, perhaps?

I see what he did there!

Yeah, Lars Von Trier's film is all about feeling miserable: a great big blue planetoid hanging serenely over the planet before crashing down and [probably] killing us all.. lots of people at a wedding party struggling with depression, desperation and barely supressed panic. The first act finishes with the relief of the guests being able to leave the wedding reception after a particularly awkward day. The second with the viewers' relief at Melancholia smashing into the ground and vaporising the remaining protagonists of the movie.

Despite this fact I easily rate Melancholia as one of the top five films I've seen so far this year. It easily runs 30mins too long, has some clunky dialogue and wooden characters but stimulated an emotional response in me unlike 90% of the films I have ever seen. When the credits rolled on 'Inception' I mentally shrugged my shoulders and thought "Ok, whats for dinner?". When 'Melancholia' ended I couldn't stand up for several minutes and had to mentally gather my thoughts from the far corners to which they had been scattered. I always think a film should get you thinking, it should be floating in the recesses of your mind for several days after. LVT certainly achieved this - he was part psychiatric outpatient, part showman in his promotion which really got interest up for this movie's release. But the substance of the film itself deserves the praise it has received. Melancholia looks stunning, from the first few minutes of Kirsten Dunst's face framed by falling birds behind, you realise you're viewing something distinctive. Amongst other things, the POV shots of the planet gradually looming, retreating and coming back [spoiler, hah!] give the film a wonderfully claustrophobic nature. It's clear that there is no escape, which makes you sympathise for the characters even more...

Funnily enough, I didnt feel for Dunst in this film. Apparently it is a breakout role for her (boobs out = break out?), but I'm not so sure. Once again, it's Charlotte Gainsbourg who seems to bare all for her craft, this time not so literally. She runs through the full range of emotions, culminating with the most terrible (the alternative definition of 'terrible' here) look of despair I think I've ever seen etched on somebody's face - genuine or otherwise..

Meanwhile the rest of the cast serve as filler, Kiefer Sutherland interestingly delivers like he's gargling gravel and the rest flitter in and out of view with little consequence. The sisters are the stars of this drama, as well as the big blue planet which makes a hell of impact on plot developments at the climax of the film..

..pardon the pun...

A.

A snooze within a snooze within a snooze..

This week the movie Inception hit my letterbox courtesy of the nice people at Lovefilm.

And what a load of overblown nonsense it is! I've seen several of director Christopher Nolan's offerings and frankly, have not been that thrilled by any of them.

Don't get me wrong, the ideas which come out of his films are worthy and meaty enough to get your teeth into. The visuals are seamless and stunning too - Inception is a perfect example of this. However, halfway through the second hour with no third act yet in sight the attention cannot help but wander. Personally, I lost any attachment with the characters involved by the hotel scene. I never get tired of the Matrix style wall and ceiling running when its done well, plus Arthur's ingenuity to pull the good guys all out of the dream [within a dream..within a dream] was wonderfully conceived. It's just the introspection and torment of the main character, his missus and the guy they were trying to con just bored the hell out of me!

Just like Memento, Inception has been praised by the fanboys to the heavens. For me its similar in being an incredibly well crafted story but (on the minus side) is just as ponderous in its' beard stroking seriousness. The tone is serious, cold and logical, which in small doses I can tolerate.

Two and a half hours of this kind of stuff, no matter how well crafted will always put me to sleep.

A.

JCB Joyride: Cops chase down stolen forklift