RAVE - Yes, you CAN fly!

Adventurer Jeb Corliss seems to have perfected his flying device, little more than a padded bat suit.

This video of Corliss literally flying down the 2,400ft Corcovado Mountain in Brazil, somewhat disrespectfully buzzing Christ The Redeemer, is breathtaking.

Before you look for one these suits on Amazon, bear in mind that Corliss earned his stripes over years of BASE jumping, another thing on my "never in a million years" list.

RANT - Snoring is bad for you

A so-called Report on Sleep on Yahoo yesterday was in fact a thinly-veiled ad for a contraceptive. And no, that was not intended as clever writing, it just came out that way. And no, neither was that intended as clever writing.

A New Solution That Stops Snoring and Lets You Sleep.

First of all, let me admit to being a light snorer, on occasion. In fact, I may be a frequent, heavy snorer, but I'll only admit to the lesser offence.

But who on earth snores enough to warrant strapping this WWE-sized belt around their head every night? You may as well snore, because there's no way you're going to get the light tap, tap on the shoulder and the "Are you asleep? Do you want to fool around?" question from your partner while wearing this contraption.

And while I'm ranting, why do marketing people think that a "buy one, get one free" offer is going to appeal to anyone but the terminally married?

And (grr!) the marketing team must've been smoking industrial quantities of herb to make the claim that this is "... the Easy Way to Stop Your Snoring".

As countless cartoons characters would say: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

RAVE - Paranormal Activity 2

If you were like me, caught up in the hype around the first Paranormal Activity movie, excited by how such a unique film could have been made with so little money - around $15,000 and therefore less than a week's catering budget on most other films - then like me you will have looked forward to Paranormal Activity 2.

The premise is strikingly similar: family hears noises and suspects a ghost, installs cameras around the house, ghost (or worse) manifests itself, horror ensues.

This one cost $2.75m to make. The money must've gone on renting a fancier house, because everything else is pretty much the same as the first time around.

Genuinely creepy, and at times scary. But in the end, nowhere near as ground-breaking as numero uno.

RAVE - Triage

Aside from the historical, political and geographical faux pas of labeling this a "war in Kurdistan", when there are only terrorists fighting inside sovereign Turkey (I know that from all of the broken English protestations on imdb.com), this is an excellent movie.

Two other pieces of trivia I learned from the same source are that:

• To prepare for his role, Colin Farrell (who I thought was already a lucky, skinny bugger) shed 44 pounds to achieve a skeletally-thin appearance, and
• At the age of 86, actor Christopher Lee had to learn more lines of dialog for this role than for any other film he has made before, in a career spanning 60 years and over 300 film and TV productions (I guess everything up until this role had only required stuff like "burn in hell, vampire!")

What started as a film about photo-journalists in a "war" zone, developed into a film about post traumatic stress, and then into an examination of the cold-blooded way in which photographers insist on getting their high-value close-ups of death, with retired psychiatrist Lee (Farrell's father-in-law) helping him through.

One of many heart-rending events he's forced to confront in flashback is a grief-stricken widow in Africa pleading with him to pick out her husband and children from a pile of skulls retrieved from a mass grave.

The analysis unravels to a sad and shocking climax, and I'm surprised so little has been said about this thought-provoking film.

One great line from Lee explains why, as an ardent thrasher, I'm in excellent shape: "You know that when you sleep, you are peaceful, like a baby. That is not good. If you had been thrashing in your sleep, it would mean your problem is near the surface, ready to come out. Peacefulness in a grown man is not a good sign".

A perfect rejoinder to the "stop moving around and go back to sleep" complaints I get so often from Mrs P.

RANT - Wardrobe Malfunction Hypocrisy

This is one of those stories that just can't do with fewer than three pictures.

From today's Yahoo Sports report comes news of a silly episode at The Australian Open. The start of the match between Ekaterina Makarova and Kim Clijsters was delayed when the umpire decided that a logo on the front of Makarova's shirt was too large and had to be removed. Makarova had to leave the court and change into an inoffensive outfit before starting the match. Later in the match she re-applied the logo in a more suitable location.

Grand Slam rules dictate that logos on the front of the shirt cannot exceed four square inches. Larger logos are allowed on the sleeves, which is where Makarova's banned logo eventually was placed.

Quite why Venus Williams was allowed to play earlier in the tournament with a dress that allowed her ass to flash before millions of global sports fans is beyond me.

REVIEW - Open Water 2: Adrift

I can remember the first Open Water movie. It caused a bit of a stir at the time (no pun intended). It was an allegedly true story of a couple of scuba divers abandoned when their dive boat left them at sea. I sat in the front row and kept pulling my feet in as the sharks circled.

This second installment concerns a group of 6 friends and a baby taking a yacht out of a Mexican resort. Poor planning and stupidity - traits that stick with them throughout - lead to them all jumping in the water with no ladder extended to help them back on board.

As they spend the next day or so attempting to find a way out of the water, the baby screams away in one of the cabins. If that's not annoying enough, they make mistake after mistake, so much so that you just want to jump in with them, bang their heads together and tell them to focus.

An interesting story and challenge, if a bit frustrating in the way they address that challenge.

RANT - Slaughter

Serves me right. Downloading a movie with no known actors, and a name like Slaughter.

Horror films require a bit of, um, horror in them. What they absolutely cannot be is dull. I know M. Night Shyamalan stretches this premise in every one of his films, but the Slaughter team seemed to spend its entire, tiny budget on a bit of violence, leaving absolutely nothing for story, direction, or suspense.

I fell asleep twice, and one of those times was a lot more than just for a momentarily dropped head. Unfortunately there were none of those in this lame-fest.

Several times I thought the film was ending, as someone made a break for it, but each time actors and audience alike were dragged back into the mire.

And after 90 minutes of tedium, the director had the nerve to end on an attempted cliff-hanger, with some open-ended hanging twist thing.

Like a terrible singer (e.g. Justin Bieber) coming on for an encore.

RANT - I Spit On Your Grave

Back in the early 80s in the UK, a new wave of cheap-ass horror movies were given the supposedly belittling, but eventually promotional category of Video Nasty.

Most were entirely forgettable, and sure enough I've forgotten them, but the one that was always used by the moral minority as a despicable example of violence for the sake of it, was I Spit On Your Grave. It would have made a couple hundred dollars at the video rental store if the prudes had just kept quiet about it, bit oh no, they seemed determined to give this one tons of unwarranted publicity.

How totally pointless therefore, to remake it in 2010.

The video quality is marginally higher, but the story is the same rape / revenge that sparked all the fuss 30 years ago. With our hardened sensibilities, no-one has bothered to object to this remake except Roger Ebert, who have this version zero stars, the same low-to-no score he gave the original.

There, you've been warned.

It says "unrated", but I happily give it a "drivel" rating.

REVIEW - Black Death

This starts out a bit like Pillars of the Earth without the cathedral-building project - many of the same actors and identical sets give this air - and turns into a dark tale of superstition, witchcraft, and medieval mumbo jumbo.

Plague has brought out the worst in an already pretty unsophisticated lot in 12th Century England.

A bishop sends out an armed party under the able supervision of Sean Bean, to investigate a witch who has been claiming to protect a distant village from the plague, and thereby flaunting the "true God".

Quite who this witch and her followers are we never learn, but as Bean refers to them as "blasphemous scum", maybe they were the Blasphemous Scum wing of the Druids? One of their number calling out to the "unholy trinity divine" as he giddy-upped some horses to tear Bean limb from limb should have given the game away, and revealed that they were downright cads.

It's a not at all taxing story of a village cut off from the plague by a marsh, but hiding a dark secret. Harmless (oh how tempting is was to drop that H), and unremarkable.

RAVE - 127 Hours

I've vacillated over this film for weeks now. Should I see it at the theater? Can I find someone else that wants to see it? Should I see it on my own? Will I be like that dipstick CEO of Just Desserts who was photographed having fainted during one of the early showings of the film. Surely he didn't do that just for the publicity?

In the end, I downloaded it and watched it on my Mac.

Beautifully filmed, as you'd expect from Danny Boyle and team. Probably hard to imagine anything being more different from Slumdog Millionaire.

James Franco's unabashed approach / attack on the Moab, Utah canyons is brought to a crash when he gets his arm trapped by a boulder in a crevasse.

As he realizes his predicament, things get tense. Just how much tension Boyle squeezes out of the film, considering how every man and his dog knows how it panned out, is amazing. When considering the editing, the film owes more to Boyle's ground-breaking Trainspotting than you'd ever imagine.

127 hours is the time he's trapped, during which 5 days he watches footage filmed on his digital camera, gets weak and delirious from lack of food and water, imagines noises in the dark, but generally fares better than would someone less fit.

Everyone knows what he's going to do. Perhaps HE realizes what he'll have to do, but that doesn't stop him methodically scraping away the rock and fiddling with his gear while his chronometer marks the time he knows he can survive in the cold of the crevasse.

I know I wish I hadn't known in advance what he was going to need to do to get out. Perhaps that would have made it more than just the build up to the gruesome-ness, and the ramp down from the gruesome-ness, of the escape.

Was it the most intense scene in any movie to date? Probably. It certainly had me clenching and un-clenching my fists, looking away and then back, and hitting the mute button, but it was the constant awareness that someone had actually done this in real life that prevented it from being just another light-hearted cutting your arm off to escape from a crevasse situation.

A good film, but not necessarily a great one. I can see why it's not up for any awards.

RAVE - Bhutto

I know many people would rather watch Joey re-runs than sit through a 2-hour documentary on Pakistan's equivalent of Boudicca and Margaret Thatcher rolled into one: Benazir Bhutto. But this was totally absorbing coverage of mostly recent history.

The Bhutto family has, for good or bad, attempted to rule Pakistan like a royal family.

Benazir Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was removed from office following a military coup in 1977 led by the then army chief General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who imposed martial law, charged Mr. Bhutto with conspiring to murder the father of an opposition politician, and then had him sentenced to death and hanged in April, 1979.

Zia-ul-Haq was one of the slimiest pieces of work ever to hold office. Allegedly.

Bearing in mind the way he treated his country and people, and the Bhutto family in particular, one exchange in the film made me gasp. He was asked by a BBC reporter what he had to say about Benazir Bhutto having challenged him to an election. "Chivalry prevents me from challenging a woman" he answered. Priceless.

Zia-ul-Haq was killed by members of his own army, in 1988, and Benazir Bhutto was elected prime minister.

Her government was brought down, she was imprisoned, then exiled, then returned to power, then overthrown again, exiled again, and upon returning to Pakistan in December, 2007 she was assassinated.

While she was undoubtedly a strong personality and charismatic leader, and while the documentary painted her in the brightest possible light, she was a long way from perfect.

The ensuing late supper and Stoli at Max's Opera Cafe was peppered with assertions from Mrs Page that all of Pakistan's and India's problems were caused by the British, so I beat her with a rolled up copy of The Times and and we retired.

We'll be discussing The Irish Problem next week, and I'll probably settle that one with a copy of The Belfast Gazette.

RAVE - Barry Munday

This is a grower.

The notion, that lame womanizer Barry Munday innocently accompanies a woman to the movies, gets attacked by the girl's father brandishing a trumpet, and wakes up in hospital having had his testicles surgically removed, all seems a bit pointless at first.

The apparent pointlessness continues when another woman accuses him of fathering her yet-to-be-born child, a woman he has no recollection of ever meeting, let alone sleeping with.

But as Munday clumsily but caringly accepts his responsibility, getting to know the woman and her family, attending pre-natal classes, and then the birth, you'll find yourself gaining respect, and then a keen liking for his character.

Doesn't sound like much of a comedy, does it? But this indie, no-big-star production is funny awkward, and eventually rewarding.

Not a big date night movie, but as it's now out on Netflix streaming, a not too difficult choice.

RANT - Ricky's hypocritical detractors

We already know the media is deeply flawed.

Whether it's goading demonstrators into violence on camera, making big headlines out of otherwise inane stories, or trying to convince us that "high definition doppler radar" makes their weather forecasts more accurate than "US minted coin flipping". But the fuss over last night's Golden Globes Awards, and specifically Ricky Gervais' mastering of ceremonies, is 100% hypocrisy.

Every news outlet not worth its salt was this morning bemoaning Gervais' "off color" remarks, while at the same time gleefully re-printing those exact same remarks.

And drawing special attention to how Gervais introduced Robert Downey Jr with the words ".. many of you will know him from his appearance at facilities like The Betty Ford Clinic, and Los Angeles County Jail" but NOT mentioning that Downey's speech then went on to creepily suggest that each of his female co-stars sleep with him to get his luck to rub off on them was just plain unbalanced.

Why am I surprised?

Anyway, this is too good an opportunity for me to repeat what I thought were refreshingly funny introductions:

"And now, Ashton Kutcher's dad, Bruce Willis".

He described the film I Love You Philip Morris as "Two heterosexual actors pretending to be gay – so the complete opposite of some famous Scientologists, then". Neither Tom Cruise nor John Travolta were in the audience.

Paul McCartney was though, to hear Gervais introduce The Social Network, a film about gazillionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg by saying "Heather Mills calls him 'the one that got away’".

There were jokes about Charlie Sheen: "It's gonna be a night of partying and heavy drinking. Or as Charlie calls it: 'breakfast'".

He also poked fun at The Tourist, the flop starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp - both of whom were in the audience smiling gamely. Explaining that it had been a big year for 3D movies, Gervais quipped: "It seems like everything this year was three-dimensional... except the characters in The Tourist." 

Twisting the knife, he said "I'd like to quash this ridiculous rumour going around that the only reason The Tourist was nominated was so the Hollywood Foreign Press could hang out with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. That is rubbish. That is not the only reason. They also accepted bribes". 

The HFPA is currently being sued for $2m by a publicist who claims its members accept lavish gifts in exchange for supporting particular films. The HFPA denies the allegations.

Gervais also made a dig at the organisation's president, Philip Berk, saying: "I had to help the HFPA president off the toilet and pop his teeth back in." 

Lovely stuff Ricky, even if it's the last time they invite you.

RAVE - Aura

The 'Aura' refers to the seconds preceding an epileptic attack, a condition experienced by taxidermist Esteban Espinosa. The fact that he's a taxidermist and epileptic are completely irrelevant to the main story, namely his belief he can plan and execute the perfect crime.

A hunting accident and a series of subsequent coincidences leave him with information and connections to two separate but related targets, and the anonymity from which he can execute a multi-million dollar armored truck heist.

The very un-Hollywood slow speed of this Argentinian film may put some people off, even though it belies a relatively complex plot, and the many twists and turns in the story.

Before you go looking for this at your local multiplex, it's a 2005 film probably only available through Netflix.

If only I could learn a language while enjoying all these foreign movies. Instead, I'm learning how to plan robberies.

RAVE - A Prophet

This French movie makes you forget you're reading sub-titles, while at the same time reminding us that Hollywood can be out-done by virtually any country on earth.

After refusing to snitch, 19-year old Arab Malik El Djebena is thrown into a French prison, where the Corsican mafia rules the roost. Malik is forced to murder another inmate, after which he enjoys the protection of the Corsican network.

How he balances his relationship with the prison mafia, his dealings with the other muslim inmates, and his own need to develop schemes that can help him survive and prosper make for a great film.

It could have been otherwise; many familiar themes (gang rivalry, double-crossings, smuggling) make up the story, but they're served up with an edge that makes the film very different from other prison dramas.

For example, when Malik gets involved in an assassination inside an SUV, the shots make him go deaf for some time after. How often do crime movies remember to show that unavoidable effect?

The name of the movie comes from a vision Malik has, predicting some incidental event mid-way through.

It's a powerful story, brilliantly told.

RANT - Is your Ark ready?

I had to check that I hadn't fallen into a coma and woken up on April 1st.

The fact that the Geological Survey director responsible for issuing this report is called "McKnutt", and the scientists' model suggests rain could last for a suspiciously Biblical "40 days" (and presumably, 40 nights) also made me pause.

Before you get all agitated, read the penultimate paragraph. I'm waiting for an appropriately alarming, but funnier headline to appear in The Onion.

From today's news "Scientists warn California could be struck by winter ‘superstorm’" ....

A group of more than 100 scientists and experts say in a new report that California faces the risk of a massive "superstorm" that could flood a quarter of the state's homes and cause $300 billion to $400 billion in damage. Researchers point out that the potential scale of destruction in this storm scenario is four or five times the amount of damage that could be wrought by a major earthquake.

The threat of a cataclysmic California storm has been dormant for the past 150 years. Geological Survey director Marcia K. McNutt told the New York Times that a 300-mile stretch of the Central Valley was inundated from 1861-62. The floods were so bad that the state capital had to be moved to San Francisco, and Governor Leland Stanford had to take a rowboat to his own inauguration, the report notes. Even larger storms happened in past centuries, over the dates 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418, and 1605, according to geological evidence.

The risk is gathering momentum now, scientists say, due to rising temperatures in the atmosphere, which has generally made weather patterns more volatile.

The scientists built a model that showed a storm could last for more than 40 days and dump 10 feet of water on the state. The storm would be goaded on by an "atmospheric river" that would move water "at the same rate as 50 Mississippis discharging water into the Gulf of Mexico," according to the AP. Winds could reach 125 miles per hour, and landslides could compound the damage, the report notes.

Such a superstorm is hypothetical but not improbable, climate researchers warn. "We think this event happens once every 100 or 200 years or so, which puts it in the same category as our big San Andreas earthquakes," Geological Survey scientist Lucy Jones said. [end quote].

Seeing as we live high on Potrero Hill, I'll be selling tickets for camping space on our roof deck.

RANT - Stuck in an elevator

What did you do last Sunday?

Oh, I got into trouble because my wife got stuck in our elevator, and then spent the rest of the day schlepping around while the fire department and a Schindler engineer sorted it out.

Why was it your fault your wife got stuck in the elevator, Philip?

Ummm. No idea.

I was already on job No.1 that I didn't want to be doing on my day off - namely, pushing a cart around Home Depot, buying oil to loosen up the front door as it hasn't been closing properly - when Pavey called me saying her afternoon of shopping was in jeopardy because she was in the elevator and it wouldn't budge.

Getting it working again, and her back on the shopping track, involved calling the fire brigade, who arrived within minutes and showed me how to use the key I already had in my hand (doh!), and calling Schindler to make sure it didn't crap out again.

Needless to say, the Schindler engineer spent the afternoon addressing the fault and tut, tutting about what a poor job the last "expert" had done.

In that respect, it was just like being at the dentist's office.

RAVE - Ozumo

Second sushi of the week, and I'm not a fish fan.

We slid in here around 10pm last night for the "snack" that Pavey needed.

"Slide in" is probably the perfect description of how one enters Ozumo, with its smooth and comfortable vibe - elegant diners matching perfectly with the decor, smooth music, and great, mostly counter-height seating in the front lounge area. There are more formal tables in the middle and back sections of this larger-than-it-looks-from-the-street restaurant, but we sat at the bar where we could see the Sumo channel and enjoy our cocktails and sushi.

The menu is more classical Japanese than alternatives like Blowfish or Tsunami, but just as good (especially the Hamachi).

People-watching is an especially worthwhile pastime here, as the neighborhood's cluster of restaurants (Boulevard, Chaya, One Market, Prospect, Americano, Ozumo, and more) draws in a wide range of interesting characters, as well as guaranteeing easy parking with the shared valet service.

REVIEW - Casino Jack

Another review I read perfectly summarized Casino Jack by saying something like "if someone made a fictional movie with this story-line, no-one would believe it".

It was hugely topical that we should see the film yesterday, the day that ex house of representatives majority leader Tom DeLay was sentenced to three years in prison for various financial shenanigans, including taking bribes from lobbyist Jack Abramoff (aka Casino Jack).

But despite that timing, and the truth being stranger than fiction, what let the movie down was that it added nothing whatsoever to the facts. Pretty much everyone knows what lobbyists in DC do, and that  Abramoff was one of the most prolific lobbyists of our generation.

The facts were played out without much added drama, and with little more than superficial coverage. It was one of those cases where we were aching to discover the secrets behind the newspaper accounts, and yet got nothing.

Perhaps the only insight was the degree to which Michael Scanlon, Abramoff's partner, was revealed as a slimeball. He seemed to add no value, could not negotiate, and his womanizing led to the partnership's downfall.

As Jack Abramoff said at the beginning of the film, this paying people to influence people is "American democracy in action", and only a fine line needs to be crossed before lobbying becomes bribery.

REVIEW - Press Club

Not really a restaurant: more a wine lounge with nibbles, but definitely more of a statement than most wine bars or lounges.

The Press Club must get business purely through word of mouth, because despite being smack bang in the middle of town, its down a traffic-free side-street that gets no drive-past action. You'd never know it existed unless someone else told you.

Last night it was Holly and Tom who drew us there, and then helped us have an elegant and tasty evening.

It's handy that the company was so good, because the place itself is maybe a bit too conservative, in its wine and food menu, decor and music, to become a regular destination. Its weekday hours, closing at 9pm Monday through Wednesday, and 10pm on Thursday, signal its main purpose of after work / happy hour type entertainment.

The place features wines from Napa, which would be fine if they had a larger Napa-nese selection. Perhaps it changes from night to night, but last night's selection was heavy on the Pinots, and just one or two of anything else. No champange, no soft drinks except a disgustingly sweet fizzy grape thing.

Whatever, we enjoyed ourselves massively, so just make sure to hook up with people with whom you like to talk.

RANT - Decaf, schmecaf

Having spent the night at Blowfish Sushi with an old friend who was more interested in sampling the decaf Japanese teas on offer than the excellent Asahi, Sapporo and Kirin beers, I entered a lusty debate on the advantages of caffeine.

I say "advantages" because I find decaffeinated drinks (coffee or tea) to be lacking a lot of what I like about coffee and tea. Namely, the taste.

Usually, I only drink decaf coffee or tea by mistake - either through early morning mis-handling of what's in our kitchen, or defective hearing and/or assumptions on the part of a waiter.

It's difficult to explain the taste, or lack of it. I believe this image perfectly explains the difference. It's probably somewhat deficient science-wise, but (to mis-quote the Monty Python team in Life of Brian), "what has science ever done for us?"

RAVE - ROFL

Apologies to those who already saw some of these jokes from a link I posted on Facebook, and at the same time thanks to my favorite chuckler Peter Weston for sending them to me.

• This truck full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster.
• I told my girlfriend I had a job in a bowling alley. She said 'Tenpin?' I said, 'No, permanent.'
• I bought some Armageddon cheese today, and it said on the packet. 'Best before End'
• I went to buy a watch, and the man in the shop said 'Analog?' I said 'No, just a watch.'
• My friend is in love with two schoolbags. He's bi-satchel.
• I went to the doctor. I said to him 'I'm frightened of lapels.' He said, 'You've got cholera'
• I met the guy who invented crosswords today.. I can't remember his name, its P something T something R.
• I was reading this book today, The History of Glue. I couldn't put it down.
• The recruitment consultant asked me 'What do you think of voluntary work? I said 'I wouldn't do it if you paid me.'
• I was in the jungle and there was this monkey with a can opener. I said, 'You don't need a can opener to peel a banana.' The monkey replied, 'No, this is for the custard.'
• This policeman came up to me with a pencil and a piece of very thin paper. He said, 'I want you to trace someone for me..'
• I told my mum that I'd opened a theater. She said, 'Are you having me on?' I said, 'Well I'll give you an audition, but I'm not promising you anything.'
• I fancied a game of darts with my friend. He said, 'Nearest the bull goes first' He went 'Baah' and I went 'Moo' He said 'You're closest'
• I was driving up the motorway and my boss phoned me and he told me I'd been promoted. I was so shocked I swerved the car. He phoned me again to say I'd been promoted even higher and I swerved again. He then made me CEO and I went right off into a tree. The police came and asked me what had happened. I said 'I careered off the road'
• I was stealing things in the supermarket today while balanced on the shoulders of a couple of vampires. I was charged with shoplifting on two counts.
• I bought a train ticket to France and the ticket seller said 'Eurostar?' I said 'Well I've been on TV but I'm no Dean Martin
• I phoned the local gym and I asked if they could teach me how to do the splits. The guy said, 'How flexible are you?' I said, 'I can't make Tuesdays or Thursdays.'
• I went to the local DVD store and said, 'Can I borrow Batman Forever?' The assistant said, 'No, you'll have to bring it back tomorrow'
• A waiter asks a man, 'May I take your order, sir?' 'Yes,' the man replies. 'I'm just wondering, exactly how do you prepare your chickens?' 'Nothing special, sir. We just tell them straight out that they're going to die.
• So I went to the doctor and he said "you've got hypochondria". I said "not that as well!"
• The police arrested two kids yesterday. One was drinking battery acid and the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.
• I met this guy with a didgeridoo and he was playing Dancing Queen on it. I thought 'That's Aboriginal'.
• A cowboy walks into a German car showroom and says "Audi".
• I was having dinner with my boss and his wife the other night, and she said to me "How many potatoes would you like Philip?". I said "ooh, I'll just have one please". She said "It's OK, you don't have to be polite". "Alright" I said "I'll just have one then, you stupid cow!
• I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say "bought", I actually stole it off a short, fat, ginger kid.
• I spent the other afternoon re-arranging furniture in Dracula's house. I was doing a bit of Fang Shui.
• A friend of mine always wanted to be run over by a steam train. When it eventually happened, he was chuffed to bits.
• I never sleep with fish. I'm halibut.
• I went into a pet shop and said "I'd like to buy a goldfish". The assistant asked "do you want an aquarium?" I said "I don't care what sign it is"
• Andrew Lloyd Webber went into Burger King and said "I'll have two whoppers". The assistant said "OK, you're handsome and you write great musicals"

RANT - What's my sign?

What's wrong with the universe, eh?

First, scientists tell us Pluto is no longer a planet. Do you know how many years it took me to memorize the sequence of planets stretching out from the Sun (or Earth, depending on which direction you're looking)?

And now, having spent a lifetime dissing Astrology, Astrologists, and anyone who puts any store in that whole fortune-telling mumbo jumbo, I'm told I'm no longer a Pisces!

Apparently (and most of this information comes from today's Washington Post), star signs were created some 2,000 years ago by tracking where the sun was in the sky each month. However, the moon's gravitational pull has slowly moved the Earth in its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment. Therefore, during what we think as the month of Pisces, the sun is actually in the sign of Aries.

So, having spent my life studiously ignoring the fact that, by being born March 9, I was a Pisces (allegedly intuitive, imaginative, unworldly), I'm actually an Aquarius (a water carrier, whatever that means).

For those of you that use the "what sign are you?" chat up line in a bar, or at the supermarket, or wherever your desperate search for love takes you (and I'm not just talking about you Gareth), the new dates and signs are:

Capricorn: January 20 - February 16

Aquarius: February 16 - March 11

Pisces: March 11 - April 18

Aries: April 18 - May 13

Taurus: May 13 - June 21

Gemini: June 21 - July 20

Cancer: July 20 - Aug. 10

Leo: August 10 - September 16

Virgo: September 16 - October 30

Libra: October 30 - November 23

Scorpio: November 23 - December 17

Sagittarius: December 17 - January 20

Do you need to change your resume, your devastating chat up lines, or (even harsher) your tattoo?

Or do you continue as normal, confidently assured that Astrology is about as scientific and relevant as chicken giblet analysis? I think the latter.

It reminds me that just a couple of weeks ago when Pavey, Felicia, David and I were in a wonderful restaurant in Cabo San Lucas, a guy came around after dinner with a little birdcage housing a pair of cute canaries. As each of us gave our star signs, one of the birds would hop out of the cage, pluck a tiny piece of folded paper from a box, and present to the bird-meister. He then gave us each our 'fortune'.

Poor man. He now has to completely re-train those little birds!

RAVE - My Blackberry's frozen

Revisiting the classic Two Ronnies (Ronnie Barker, RIP), Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield deliver a new gem.

RAVE - Sixty Six

There must have been dozens of movies and plays written about England's only World Cup win, in England, in 1966.

This one is told from the perspective of a 12-year old Jewish boy immersing himself in planning his bar mitzvah, or more specifically the reception and festivities after it. He has his menus, seating plan, musical entertainment all planned out, but then learns that the date clashes with the World Cup final.

If the England team makes it through to the final, there's a danger no-one will come to his bar mitzvah celebration, so he prays for England losses during the qualifying stages, sticks pins in dolls dressed in England football uniforms, and writes letters to England manager Alf Ramsey imploring him to keep his star players on the bench.

Every football fan knows his efforts were wasted, but nevertheless the film is cute and entertaining, if not laugh out loud funny from start to finish.

It's perhaps not a coincidence that many of my recent favorite films have been English (The King's Speech, Four Lions, Infidel, Made in Dagenham, Disappearance of Alice Creed), and that a couple of them have featured the delectable Helena Bonham Carter (The Kings Speech, Sixty Six). More surprising is how many have had a religious theme (Four Lions, Infidel, The Book of Eli) and Jewish stories (Holy Rollers, A Serious Man, Infidel, Sixty Six).

What these facts prove is nothing other than you can make lists about anything, and most of them mean nothing to anyone else.

RANT - Pointless Packaging

I used to work with an excellent sales manager in London (Andrew Sutcliffe, that's you!) who memorably used the line in one presentation: "Why use a picture when a thousand words will do". I've stolen that observation many times since then, especially when reviewing some wordy, bloated piece of marketing.

Having just sat on a sodium pentathol (truth serum)-laden syringe, I'll admit that I like talking. I like details. Which makes it all the more surprising that I'm combining THREE (count 'em) reviews in one!

I'm using my new point-and-shoot camera (RAVE - Canon S95) to take a picture of one of a ton of new cables I've bought (RANT - Pointless Packaging) to re-position my 4x1TB disk systems (RAVE: Western Digital 1TB USB Disk Drives).

The main point? Naturally, the RANT. It feels SO much better to complain than it does to applaud.

These power cables are packaged 3 for $11.95, shrink-wrapped in an annoyingly access-resistant outer pack. Once the excited buyer burrows into that outer pack, each cable is held doubled by a twist-wire. Why? The cables would have folded nicely and stayed folded inside the shrink wrap.

Then, each cable has 3 sticky labels. The first, a neat little gold label attached with industrial strength glue, gives the cable's voltage tolerance. Arguably useful information, but seeing as no commercial oil rigs, passenger aircraft or deep cut mining equipment is powered by a simple 3-pin power plug, there's not much danger of me hooking up anything more lethal than a toaster with these puppies. Nix the gold label therefore.

Second is a huge label clearly targeted at Neanderthal homeowners new to the wonders of electricity. "Danger: Electrical Cords are Hazardous". Well, place that straight in the "freaking obvious" file. The label goes on to describe the many and horrible ways the luckless Neanderthal can perish through mismanagement of the cable. They might as well slap on a "Caution: Tigers can bite" sticker while they're at it. Needless to say, no attention is ever paid to these labels, so the manufacturers can lose these too.

Thirdly, and possibly the stupidest label I've seen on any product, and that includes Japanese urinals, is the ludicrous "The length of this cable is eight inches". I'm not quite speechless, but certainly struggling to comment further without running foul of the censors.

It probably costs as much to attach the 3 labels, twisty wire and shrink wrap as it does to make the cable. It certainly takes longer to release the cables from their Fort Knox-worthy packaging than it does to deploy them, and so deserves a RANT.

RAVE - Our Times, by A.N.Wilson

Thanks to a recommendation from Amo, I read this book during our Christmas week in Cabo.

It may not have been a typical "holiday" read (not much swash-buckling bodice-ripping going on in this volume), but it was completely absorbing.

The sub-title explained what "our times" meant - "The Age of Elizabeth II", so covered 1953 (when Liz was crowned) to 2008 (when it was written).

The first half of the book covered stuff that happened either before I was born, or before I could care less about what was going on in Parliament, or the World. Not that this book included American goings on, but it was the same with Watergate, JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers ... I heard these news items in the background, but was too busy drawing pictures of long-haired guitarists to bother with the details. That's one of the main reasons why I love books and movies rooted in history, whether it's ancient or recent history. They not only entertain, but tell stories that matter.

Only now can I appreciate the seriousness of a London-based chiropractor (Stephen Ward) pimping London call girls (Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies) to the UK Government's War Minister (John Profumo) AND a Russian spy (Eugene Ivanov) at the same time! All of that happened in 1963, but only when it was made into a 1989 film (starring John Hurt as Stephen Ward, Ian McKellen as John Profumo, and Joanne Walley-Kilmer as Christine Keeler) did I understand what actually happened.

That little episode, and hundreds more, are detailed in this excellent book.

One thread running through the book is the writer's repeated quotes from my favorite satirical magazine since I was old enough to read 'proper' literature - Private Eye. Because A.N.Wilson is such a pedantic bugger, I remember that whenever Private Eye mentioned him, they intentionally spelled his name wrong - A.N.Wislon. Wonderfully childish - right up my street.

If I wrote out the reasons for each of my gasps, WTFs, and "so THAT's what all that was about" exclamations, I'd end up writing up hundreds of pages of notes. It's impossible to pick out a couple of headlines, and maybe if you're not British, or not the right age, or still drawing pictures of your favorite artistes, you won't care.

However, if are interested in knowing what happened behind the scenes at any point since Elizabeth II came to the throne, read this book.

RAVE - Unthinkable

Phew!

This is one intense movie. It's the ultimate "what would you do?"

An American citizen-turned-terrorist posts a video saying he's planted 3 nuclear bombs in 3 locations in the USA. He's caught, and interrogated by Samuel L Jackson, who plays Mr. Extremely Nasty to other investigators' Mr & Mrs. Lawful and Correct.

How far would you let the interrogation go in your pursuit of information about the location of the bombs? Is torture acceptable? And what about torture of the terrorist's wife, and children?

Samuel L plays a dangerously unhinged agent in pursuit of the truth most of us wouldn't have the resolve to dig out.

Like many, I'm glad we have professionals to make these choices for us, and hope I wouldn't bitch afterward.

Aside from the ending, I was left with a couple more imponderables:

1. While I wonder why the director picked an English actor for such an intense American role, Michael Sheen (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), did an outstanding job, and answered the "why?"

2. How on earth did this go straight to DVD? It's a travesty.

REVIEW - Yogi Bear 3D

I was hoping this would be much better, as I was looking forward to the juxtaposition of True Grit and Yogi Bear, the cinematic equivalent of seeing a snuff movie and Mary Poppins back to back.

Sohan (aged 4) laughed out loud on a few occasions. True, not at the intended funny bits, but he was happy.

I laughed properly, only a couple of times. When Yogi Bear said "What I've learned from foraging for pic-a-nic baskets is that Light Mayonnaise is nowhere near as good as real Mayonnaise" was a gem. A truer word was never spoken (at least not by an animated bear).

The original, "smarter than the average bear" was a childhood favorite, and I guess I was hoping for today's do over to act like a "let's go back, all the way back" session with an analyst. But several hundred dollars cheaper.

It didn't.

The too-heavy-on-the-live-action new version wasn't as cute as the original, and it brought back no memories, good or bad.

And I still haven't seen a movie where 3D added any real value. It still comes across as a cheap and clunky effect.

RAVE - True Grit

Let me first admit to this being a generous RAVE. 

The film wasn't perfect, but I was in a damned good mood (part spillover from dinner last night at Chez Papa, and part down to being with Pavey, Simi, and Amo), and that made up for the movie's imperfections.

Basically, True Grit didn't fulfill on its early promise. It started out very funny (although it's not a comedy), with a wickedly sharp script and impossibly gnarly performance from Jeff Bridges. He's going to have to pick his next role carefully, as the crusty old fart of Crazy Heart and now True Grit may be hard to shake off. Don't expect to see him in a crisp, white tuxedo any time soon, is all I'm saying.

It also failed to live up to the early makings of a low-down dirty manhunt for the killer of Maddy Rose's dad. A surprisingly sub-standard performance from Josh Brolin as the killer added to the underwhelming climax to the film.

A curiously casual Matt Damon added little but a foil for Jeff Bridges' / Rooster Cogburn's jokes.

So, all in all yet another enjoyable romp from the Coen brothers (A Serious Man, No Country For Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, to name a few of their best), but not quite gritty enough to be labeled "perfect".

RAVE - Our cat's a music fan

Just now I was woken from my slumbers, er, interrupted during one of my back-to-back phone conferences, by music blasting from our lounge.

I was at the back of the house in my office, and wondered who had broken in with a boom-box.

It turns out that one of our 2 cats, Zuma (pictured here in her "what, me?" pose), finds that the unseasonably chilly San Francisco climate demands warming her butt on the Apple Mac resting on the arm of our couch.

We've caught her there before, and given her a stern telling off. No wimpy "you're getting a time-out", or "go stand on the bottom step of the stairs" for her; I usually issue a swift threat of a boot up the backside and that clears up any misunderstanding.

Clearly I'll have to raise the threat level to orange (i.e a boot up the backside AND a clip round the ear), because today's butt-on-Mac incident resulted in her pressing enough keys to a) launch iTunes, b) select Blue Blood Blues by The Dead Weather and c) press play.

Now you'd have thought that Jack White's guitar would've scared her off, but it took me and my "WTF?" to do that.

For those of you anxious to hear what Zuma chose, and why she'll get an extra dollop of cat-food from me today, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg8DMqFuip8

Bill: don't bother, you'll hate it!

RAVE - England win cricket's Ashes Tournament

What better time to get Willow.tv on my Roku player, so I can watch England retain the Ashes in Australia.

Warning to American readers: you'll not understand much of this post, and if you did, you wouldn't care. 

This tournament is to Americans the sporting equivalent of Billy Bob Jug Ears beating Clint Whiskers in a Monster Truck drive-off in Rust Bowl, Tennessee.

The fact that cricket's rules might as well be written in sanskrit, and the point of the game is just as obscure, means that cricket on American TV is as rare as rocking horse poo.

And for all you Freudian Stanley Cup fans, The Ashes refer to the ashes of a cricket stump allegedly burned after Australia beat England in 1882. 

As you can see from the pictures, the cricket trophy is miniscule, and clearly Stanley Cup fans have serious psychological problems in the trouser department.

RANT - Who give's a rat's ass about Kim's haircut?

I see the new year has started by addressing the key issues facing the world.

Is it the prospect for peace in the Middle East?
Is it the new dangers of nuclear war between North and South Korea?
Is it even the question of how close we are to finding cures for cancer, or AIDs?

No, it's the mind-boggling news that Kim freaking Kardashian has a new hair-do.

Puhleeze.

When the stupid, materialistic Kardashians started getting their talent-less asses into the news, I thought "well at least that means we'll hear less about Paris bloody Hilton", but do you know what? It turns out they have about the same air/brain ratio as those other wastes of space, Lohan, The Olsens, and every person on Jersey Shore.

How can TV executives describe these mind-numbingly stupid shows as "reality"?

RAVE - The American

It's a shame that most people - me included - feel the need to discuss the pace (or lack of it) when reviewing this film.

So let's get that out of the way shall we?

The American is no Bourne, and there's no flash, bang, or whallop. This American is no Hollywood hit man, and the movie makes no attempt to zip along any faster than good storytelling will allow.

George Clooney is an assassin ordered to lie low in rural Italy when things get a bit messy on an operation in Sweden. The main body of the film follows Clooney as he goes about his daily life in a small Italian village, befriends the local priest and an equally local prostitute, while he is contacted by the co-planner of his next "job".

The slow pace allows each relationship, each element of the story to properly develop.

There's plenty of action in this film, but it plays out in a way that leads some to believe there's not enough. It's their loss, as this is an excellent drama, perhaps even an excellent thriller.

RAVE - NYE at Foreign Cinema

An almost perfect New Year's Eve celebration at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco.

Those of you that know the Mission District know it's a great neighborhood for socializing, even when it's cold and wet, as it was last night.

Felicia, Pavey, David, Gareth and I started lustily at 9pm in Laszlo's and then went next door to Foreign Cinema at 10.30pm for our dinner.

Our Foie Gras Torchon, Seafood platter, Lamb, New York Strip and Garam Masala Quail were all terrific. The Mushroom Risotto was just so-so, but that wasn't what stopped the night from being perfect.

The Sgt. Pepper's theme was announced after we'd made our reservation, but it wasn't the lateness of that announcement that stopped the night from being perfect either.

Those of you that know Foreign Cinema are aware that its name describes the usually foreign movies that are projected onto the wall of the inner courtyard. Last night featured a continuous loop of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour (there is no "Sgt. Pepper's" film footage). What detracted from the evening was that not a lick of Beatles music could be heard in the restaurant, so it was more like Silent Night than Sgt. Pepper's.

Great fun with great friends though. Happy 2011.