Loose change DVD

This film is fascinating – take with a (small) pinch of salt. Now available on DVD, make up your own mind about what happened on 9/11. You can also view it on the website.

Twice in one weekend

This weekend has been really odd – I just couldn’t settle on anything. Colin is home on Monday, and apart from a few bits of tidying up there isn’t much more I can do around the house.

No more packing for moving can be done as everywhere is full of boxes! And anyway most of the things left out are either in use or I’m just not sure what to do with them!

So on Saturday I drove across Snake Pass to Stockport to meet Emma, Gee and Diane to see the new Harry Potter film (Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix – the four one I think).

I enjoyed the film, I love the way the cinema can bring to life the wonderful worlds and scenery from the books; but the fact that the cinema was stuffed full of kids talking, rustling food and kicking seats really did nothing for my enjoyment! I hate multiplexes at the best of times.

Afterwards we went for a wonderful meal at a local Turkish Restaurant – as I am still trying to stick to being a vegetarian (at least when I’m out and therefore have no idea where the meat has come from) I was rather limited in choice.

Very unlike me, I chose Evil Chickpeas and spinach -

Evil chickpea
Originally uploaded by Ms. Moll.

It looked disgusting, but actually tasted really nice – but there was a little too much so I had to leave some and the waitress thought I hadn’t liked it.

So, on Sunday I went to the cinema again!! This time to my favourite cinema, The Showroom, to see something a little more ‘highbrow’! Moliere.

Théâtral
Originally uploaded by alibaba0.

Subtitled, this period drama (17th century) tells the farcical (in the style of one of his plays) story of the French playwright’s life.

What a difference from the night before; not only was I probably the youngest person in the cinema; but this film required concentration (it was a little slow to begin with, but worth the effort).

The film of the book – Fast Food Nation

Lunch
Originally uploaded by Ms. Moll.

‘Fast Food Nation’

The film has had the same effect on me that the book did – I can’t face eating meat right now.

Although this was a dramatisation of the book (and suffered for it in my opinion), it still addressed the original main theme – the fast food industry is selling us shit food, processed by immigrant workers who are treated like shit, made from animals who have a shit life and an even worse death.

The story follows three people involved in the process, a Mexican immigrant who comes to work in a packing plant, a young girl who works at Mickey’s (a thinly veiled clone of McDonald’s), and a marketing exec from Mickey’s who is sent to investigate how ’shit’ gets into their burgers.

Everyone should be made to watch this film – especially those who haven’t read the book.

The last scenes of the film are shot on the ‘kill floor’ of the packing company…….

We’ll see how long I stay veggie for, but one thing is for certain, I’ll only ever eat unprocessed meat now. I’ve always maintained that burgers and sausages are full of ‘lips and arseholes’ (excuse my language), but now it’s obvious they are also full of shit.

This is England

skinheads graffiti
Originally uploaded by eyko.

I remember the 1980s – for me it was school, Madness, The Police and later on Madonna. We lived in a small Gloucestershire village, and in the summer we would go out to play in the fields and not return until we were hungry or it got dark. The Falklands war was a long way off and I didn’t know anyone who was involved despite the fact that there was an army base nearby.

I’m not suggesting it was all wonderful, my grandmother died in the early 80s and my parents divorced at the end of the decade – but on the whole it was a great time.

In the North and Midlands inner cities things were very different – but at the time I only saw this on the television with news reports of miners strikes.

Despite originally coming from the North of England (in the late 70s), the North in the news reports was completely alien to me.

This is England, the new Shane Meadows film is set against the backdrop of the Falklands war and the hijacking of the Ska/Skinhead movement by the BNP.

Set in a Midlands town it tells the story of a young lad’s loneliness after the death of his father in the war, and his acceptance into a skinhead group.

Brutal, and in places very touching, I really enjoyed this film. The acting blew me away, especially the lead played by Thomas Turgoose.

I don’t expect it will have much of a run in the multiplex monstrosity cinemas (thank Bob for the Showroom), but, if you can, you should try and catch this film. British film making at it’s best.

Unknown White Male

One morning Doug Bruce finds himself aboard a subway train (in New York, where he lives) with no idea who he is – not a clue.

Luckily he has the name and number of a slight friend in his wallet – so he is able to begin to rediscover his life.

Unknown White Male is a documentry by Rupert Murray, an old friend of Doug’s who follows the first two years of the rediscovery.

Imagine having no history, nothing to make comparisons to and no pre-conceived ideas – everything is new and an experience – even meeting your friends and family.

Although I believe this film is doing the rounds of cinemas (the better ones which show documentries), it was also shown last night on Channel 4. Not worth a great deal of effort to find, but well worth a look if it’s on near you.

Been to the cinema again…

I’ve been to the cinema again, so I’ve another film to tell you about – Stranger than Fiction (starring Will Farrell, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman).

The chance to go to The Showroom is something I never miss, and in this case the film I wanted to see was on there (they don’t always have mainstream films).

Stranger than Fiction follows Harold Crick, a taxman who leads a boring life until one day when he starts to hear a voice in his head. The voice is actually narrating his life; and not surprisingly Harold thinks he’s going mad – until he discovers that he is the main character in a novel and everything that she (the voice) says has happened; which becomes even more distressing when she announces that he is going to die – imminently.

He has to find the author, and try to stop her from killing off her main character.

This film as been compared with Being John Malkovich, but I enjoyed it more as it’s not quite as weird (although I loved Being John Malkovich).

Will Farrell is perfect as Harold – and you really start to feel for him as he discovers that he’s going to die.

My favourite bit of the film is when Harold falls for a baker, he brings her ‘flours’ instead of ‘flowers’ – lovely! Reminds me of Mum’s friend Ian who once sent Mum a card with photographs inside of different type of ‘flours’ – wholemeal, self-raising, plain, etc.

I won’t tell you the end – you’ll have to go and see it!

The Prestige

Apart from the fact that Hugh Jackman is gorgeous, go and see this film!!

It’s excellent, I can’t tell you anymore than it’s set in 1890s London and about the rivally between two magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale).

Despite the fact that about two-thirds of the way through I knew what was going on (there is a really big clue if you can spot it), it was still excellent and one I certainly would watch again.

Just in case Hugh Jackman or Christian Bale aren’t your thing it also stars Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie (yes, David Bowie!).

Go see this film – you will not be disappointed (but that’s only my opnion!)

Howl’s Moving Castle

I’ve just finished watching what has now become my favourite film of all time, Howl’s Moving Castle. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, this is a Japanese animation based on the book by Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones, and unusually for a Japanese animation it has an English voice over.

But it doesn’t matter what language it’s in the story is fantastic, the animation is wonderful and the characters are lovely. I’m not going to tell you the story; you HAVE to watch it, but I will copy the notes from the DVD sleeve -

“Sophie’s life is thrown into turmoil when she is literally swept off her feet by a handsome yet mysterious wizard named Howl. Subsequently transformed into a 90 year-old woman by the wicked Witch of the Waste, she embarks on an incredible odyssey to lift the curse, and finds refuge in Howl’s magical moving castle.”

I have to give a special mention to Billy Crystal who is completely inspired as the fire!!

Coffee and Turtles

On Tuesday I managed to drag Colin away from work and we went to the cinema; the Showroom to the DocFest to see a couple of films.

The first was Black Gold, a look at an Ethiopian Fair Trade Coffee Co-operative and how it is fighting to get a fair payment for the coffee it produces. How the big companies (Starbucks, Kraft, Sara Lee, etc) are driving the prices down so that it almost costs more to produce than they can sell it for. It follows Tadasse, who sells the coffee on behalf of the co-operative, as he talks to the producers, the buyers and comes to London to trade fairs to sell his coffee. An excellent film which really clearly shows why we should all be drink Fair Trade coffee (and tea). You can visit the website of the Oromia Coffee Union to find out about their coffee.

In the break between the two films we popped into the bar for a drink. I looked over to someone on a pc, and she happened to be on Flickr – so I reached over and gave her one of my Moo cards!! We got chatting and hopefully she’s going to come to the next Sheffield Flickr meet, I also told her who Drunken Monkey was (as he was in the bar too!).

The second film was, The Chances of the World Changing, which I enjoyed but Colin wasn’t sure about. It told the story of ‘Richard’ who lives in New York and one day went into a Chinese restaurant and saw a turtle for sale for food – and bought it. Five years later and he’d spent $500,000 and was homeless. He’d continued to buy turtles and tortoises originally destined for the cooking pots of China, until he had thousands but had lost his home. He dreamed of setting up an institute to save the creatures (some of which were now extinct in the wild), but ended up losing everything (even the animals which he ended up having to give away).

Colin was unsure because he feels that people like Richard are creating a market for these animals and therefore encouraging people to remove them from the wild. I thought it was a sad film about one man who was trying to do something for a these creatures who are unable to help themselves.

Death of a President – scary but not in the way you’d expect

Last night I sat down to watch what has been billed as ‘very controversal’, a film (made in the UK) called ‘Death of a President’. Set one year from now it is a mock documentary which uses ‘footage’ and interviews to describe what happens when President Bush gets assisinated.

Real footage with actors digitally inserted, is interweaved with interviews (supposedly a year later) with the White House staff, Secret Service Staff, those suspected and their families; to tell what might happen if Bush was shot.

What I was most interested in was the fact that many US politicans have ben outspoken about the film; with the Texan Republican Party describing it as “shocking” and “disgusting”, and Senator Hillary Clinton (who is a Democrat) saying “I think it’s despicable… I think it’s absolutely outrageous. That anyone would even attempt to profit on such a horrible scenario makes me sick.”

So is it worth the fuss? Well, it was interesting but nothing was surprising or even controversal – if anything I don’t think it went far enough. The film suggests that an American veteran pulled the trigger, but that the blame was given to a Yemeni national who happened to be in the building from which the shot was fired. It shows that the US government would round up and question hundreds of ‘muslim’ looking men – no surprise there, and that the new President would bring in a ‘Patriot Act III’ which would give the government more powers to detain and question – no surprise there.

I guess the most ’scary’ think about the film actually was the amazing us of digital manipulation to insert actors into scenes and basically change history. For me this is much more scary than the death of Bush – the thought that it is totally possible to completely re-write historical footage, or manipulate current news footage so that whoever wants to can change collective knowledge and belief.

George Orwell’s world of 1984 is upon us, instead of just changing books in libraries, it’s now possible to change everything – scary thought……