RAVE - Non-traditional Christmas

We arrived here in Cabo San Lucas yesterday (Christmas Eve) and we've got this beautiful house to ourselves until Boxing Day, when David and Felicia arrive.

So, with no-one to tell us otherwise, we slept through Christmas breakfast, surfacing just in time for a bacon sandwich lunch.

We then lounged around the Pool in the 84 degree sun, then when the sun started going down we switched to the hot tub. If anyone's taking down specifications for my next home, I'd like one of each please.

Then, just to keep the non-traditional Christmas theme going, we had dinner at Cabo's best restaurant, Nick-Sans. The sushi here is sensational, the service is impeccable, and I'm sure Santa would approve if we ignore the normal festivities and hang out there at least once more on this holiday.

RAVE - Whip It

I've always had a morbid fascination with Roller Derby. It's one of those trashy sports, like greyhound racing or monster truck racing, that you either never admit to loving, or wouldn't admit to knowing enough about to hate.

This movie, the first directed by the otherwise bottom-of-my-list Drew Barrymore, boasts an excellent cast, with Ellen Page playing Bliss Cavendar during the day, and Babe Ruthless at night.

The skaters' names are wonderful: Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis), Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell), Rosa Sparks (Eve), and Jimmy Fallon goes OTT as announcer "Hot Tub" Johnny Rocket.

The action is rough and ready, and the story, while basically a young girl's coming-of-age while trying to balance her mother's love of schoolgirl pageants with her own love of roller derby (well, it could happen), is a lot more fun than it could've been.

It's too late to catch this at the theater, so look out for it on Netflix.

OK, so just because I've admitted to liking Roller Derby, doesn't mean I'll admit to liking Drew Barrymore.

RAVE - Gift Advice for Men

I have to admit this is blatant plagiarism. Jeff posted this link from YouTube on his Facebook page, and like him, I found it too funny not to re-post.

Clearly, others did too, as there's a more recent follow-up.

They're clever viral marketing pieces from JC Penney, but the gotcha is: if I bought Mrs P any piece of jewellery from JC Penney, she'd lock me in the dog house, melt the key down and drop it off Golden Gate Bridge.

RAVE - The Fighter

While watching this at our local popcorn emporium, I was wondering "is this the best movie about boxing I've ever seen?"

At first I thought "it doesn't have much competition", considering that Rocky 1-5 were the first 5 movies to spring to mind. But then I remembered Cinderella Man (Russell Crowe), Million Dollar Baby (Hilary Swank), Ali (Will Smith), The Boxer (Daniel Day-Lewis), and Raging Bull (Robert de Niro).

Maybe it wasn't the absolute best, but it probably came equal first with Crowe's and de Niro's efforts.

Yes it had the requisite living in poverty, fighting for survival, will-he-or-won't-he-win angles, but managed to distinguish itself with the family aspect. 

Based on the true story of Micky Ward (who only retired from boxing in 2003, after 3 epic fights against Arturo Gatti), the film is particularly notable for Ward's family.

His mother believes she can be his manager, but only manages to hinder him. His 7 sisters adore him, but are the strangest bunch of lookers the casting director could find. His older brother Dicky - played by Christian Bale - wants to relive his own boxing past and train Micky to become a champion, but is hampered by crack addiction. Not exactly the model family, but such is life in and around the ring.

Mark Wahlberg turns in his usual "Mark Wahlberg" performance, but he's completely and utterly blown away by Bale, who again lost an unbelievable amount of weight for the role (as he did in The Machinist). I bet very few people know he's from the same home town as Rhys Ifans, that Welsh-est of Welshmen.

REVIEW - 2010's Top Images

Thank you to Yahoo, and some judicious editing and music, we have one group's view of the Top Images from 2010.

- 60' sink-hole appears in Guatemala

- World's tallest building opens in Dubai

- 30-pound Goldfish "discovered" in France

- Lufthansa cargo jet splits in half upon landing

- "Snowmageddon" slams US East Coast

- World's largest statue of Jesus in Poland

- Perseid meteor shower lights up the sky around the World

- 40' whale slams into yacht

- Rare tornadoes rip through New York City

- Record set for World's smallest man, at 26.4"

- And for World's tallest man, 8" 1"

RAVE - Made in Dagenham

It's been a challenge to explain this movie to American friends for a few reasons:

1. You have to first pronounce it Dag-en-HAM (like Berm-ing-HAM, or Chelt-en-HAM) and then explain it's a dull suburb north-east of London where Ford makes its dull cars.

2. You then have to make apologies for the dreadful clothes, accents and general unkempt-ness of the populace, or at least those represented in the film.

3. And then you need to apologize in advance for the rampant communism on display, remembering that the Labour Party of old - and the unions which kept that party in power in the 60s and 70s - was born out of strident, left-wing reactionaries brought up on Marx and accustomed to addressing one another as Brother this and Brother that.

4. I also needed to explain to Mrs P, who was not born until some years later than the 1968 setting of the movie, who Barbara Castle and Harold Wilson were, who was singing "All or Nothing" (The Small Faces), and what a sewing machine is for ;)

Having got past that lot, it's a wonderful film, a great slice of life.

It didn't really start out that way though.

For the first third of the film I wasn't sure whether it was going to keep my attention, but half-way through I realized I was being drawn in, and then became totally gripped by the developing story.

There were so many reference points that, while reminding us how dated everything looked (clothes, homes, cars and other products), at the same time it reminded us how much has changed in a relatively short period.

To think that just 40 years ago women were paid less than half what men were paid to do the same job, that it was common, if not expected, that a woman would do her job and THEN look after the house, cook the food, and ferry the kids to and from school, that men were entitled to this elevated position because they were "the breadwinners" - one might have been reviewing the history of slavery, or western governments' imperialistic rule over "foreigners".

The fact that you already know the outcome - Ford caved in and gave women equal pay, and the rule spread globally - should not stop you from seeing this excellent movie.

RANT - Linkedin Stalkers

Serendipity is the discovery of something good that you weren't necessarily looking for. I guess the "silver lining" allegedly in "every cloud" is evidence of serendipity.

Bill and I used to work with someone in Denver who, while selling our software, used to claim it had a "high serendipity factor". Now, this guy had a BS quotient of Biblical proportions, but that phrase stuck with me over the years.

What has this got to do with the price of cheese? Well, email is 30% SPAM, 30% annoying noise and 30% necessary, work-related, mostly fire-fighting noise. That doesn't add up to 100% I know, but you're missing the point.

That high TWF (Totally Worthless Factor) is present in most forms of information we receive. The split may be higher or lower, but most input is totally worthless.

Facebook, for example, comprises 90% SIDNTK - Shit I Don't Need To Know, even when it's from my closest friends or family members.

With Twitter, that SIDNTK is off the scale.

Linkedin follows the same pattern. Why do I care if person X is "returning from a trip to Cleveland" unless he owes me money and Cleveland is where he keeps his stash? Even worse is when person X has "booked his trip to Cleveland on Trip-It".

Linkedin has a more insidious side to it too. People who want to connect with you when a) you've never heard of them or b) you've heard of them and have no desire to get any closer to them. It's this last category that spawns Linkedin stalkers - people who keep on pinging you to try to get you to connect with them, while you keep on ignoring them because you kind of know them, like the fact they're not connected with you, and fully intend keeping it that way.

Which is why I particularly liked the serendipitous image I found in my email today, from Rob Cottingham's blog by way of Earley & Associates.

REVIEW - Top Movies of 2010

It's that List time of year again, so here's my totally scientific ranking of the movies I've seen this year.

Surprises? That Inception turned out to be a pile of poo. That the World didn't need another telling of the Robin Hood story. That Helen Mirren (Love Ranch) doesn't walk on water. That fact (The King's Speech, Fair Game, The Social Network, Temple Grandin, Carlos, etc.) is usually better than fiction. And that a great story and script (The King's Speech, Temple Grandin, The Extra Man) tops explosions any time (see the bottom 4 movies).

Oh, and that time flies. A lot of movies that we've seen and loved this year (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Infidel, etc.) were first released in 2009.

 1. The King's Speech - 9.5
 2. The Town - 8.5
 3. Fair Game - 8.4
 4. The Social Network - 8.3
 5. Temple Grandin - 8.2
 6. Made in Dagenham - 8.0
 7. Four Lions - 7.6
 8. Carlos - 7.5
 9. The Extra Man - 7.4
10. The Next 3 Days - 7.3
11. Salt - 7.2
12. The Book of Eli - 7.1
13. Inception - 7.1
14. Green Zone - 7.0
15. Legion - 6.9
16. The Ghost Writer - 6.8
17. Holy Rollers - 6.7
18. Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll - 6.6
19. Monsters - 6.5
21. Clash of the Titans - 6.1
22. Conviction - 6.1
23. Cemetery Junction - 6.0
24. Shutter Island - 5.7
25. The Kids Are All Right - 5.6
26. Joan Rivers, A Piece of Work - 5.5
27. Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps - 5.1
28. Hot Tub Time Machine - 5.0
29. Robin Hood - 4.9
30. Frozen - 4.8
31. All Good Things - 4.7
32. Love Ranch - 4.6
33. She's Out of My League - 4.5
34. Skyline - 3.5
35. Repo Men - 3.0
36. The Expendables - 2.5
37. Predators - 2.0

RANT - Inception

Complicated for the sake of it, this was a big, big disappointment.

Whoever thought that a movie based on the notion that 5 increasingly deep levels of dream, each with a corresponding thread of story, would be entertaining, must've been smoking industrial-strength drugs.

Fantastic scenery, even better special effects, but I couldn't help thinking the desire to have a cool special effect came first, then how to work that into the non-existent story. Typical of that upside-down thinking was an early scene (included in most of the trailers), where a Parisian street curls up like an orange peel. There was just no point to it.

It was trippier than a James Bond film, without the wafer thin plots that 007 normally enjoys. In fact, imagine the last 10 minutes of 5 Bond movies, all winding up concurrently, with the director jumping from one clock-ticking-down scene to another, and then to another. It's all just too stupid.

The sad thing is, because many people will be blinded by those special effects, this crud will probably get an Oscar nomination or two.

RAVE - The King's Speech

What an absolutely fantastic movie!

It's 1939. Storm clouds are brewing over Europe as Hitler beats his chest and starts warmongering. After King George V dies leaving his eldest son David to become King Edward VIII, who then abdicates in order to marry twice divorced Wallace Simpson, second son and lifelong stutterer Prince Albert is crowned King Geoge VI.

Just when the country needs a confident, resolute leader, it has a nervous stammerer who never wanted or expected to be King.

"Bertie's" wife, Queen Elizabeth "the Queen Mother" hires Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue to school her husband to fluency, and so begins a story that is heart-warming, dramatic, engaging and funny - or at least it is the way it's delivered by Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham-Carter.

The small theater was packed, and I'm assuming not everyone was British, so judging by the fun everyone seemed to be having I'd say this going to go down really well once the buzz catches on.

And talking of which, this time last year I was confidently pitching The Road for the Best Film Oscar. It got nowhere, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself about The King's Speech.

Strange that everyone in the film knew that Lionel Logue was Australian, but it was impossible to detect from Geoffrey Rush's accent. And equally strange they should have picked Australian Guy Pierce to play King Edward VIII, even though he did so with an impeccably correct accent.

See. This. Film.

RANT - Bad movie clichés

I don't mean "clichés in bad movies", nor do I mean "bad movie clichés like always having to have a happy ending". I mean "things that directors always overlook when putting a movie together". Read, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Watch any random five movies (maybe fewer) and you're guaranteed to see 80% of these movie clichés:

1. Car accident (could be a mega pile-up on a bridge or in a tunnel) and no-one but the main character(s) get out of their car(s). Maybe it's cheaper that way - no additional players to direct.

2. Man tears out of an office, sprints across the street, jumps into his car and immediately drives off - no fumbling for keys, no need to unlock the door, no struggling to get the key into the ignition, no need even to turn the key and start the engine. It's like the car was there, already unlocked with the engine running, waiting for someone to jump in and drive.

3. Man in his office / home, asks guests if they'd like a drink, goes to cocktail bar handily in office / home, gets no awkward orders of course (like, I'll have a crème de menthe frappé, it's always a simple whisky), man grabs the first bottle, pours drink(s) and never, ever, ever puts the top back on bottle. It's like it's a painful, time-wasting detail, but following their lead will leave your house stinking of alcohol and your alcohol losing its taste.

3b. And who, ever says, "oh, whatever you're drinking". No-bloody-one.

4. Person in an obviously haunted house, steps into a room and never, ever, tries the light first; always ends up creeping around in the dark, in order to further enhance the scariness. Life's not like that people!

5. Couple start "getting it on", interruped, man jumps off the bed or couch to answer the door or phone and is always acceptably-for-the-big-screen un-aroused, if you know what I mean. Either life's not like that, or he's with the wrong woman.

6. Couple have successfully "got it on", and one or both immediately lights a cigarette. This cliché dates from Biblical times, or at least back to when ciggies were first invented. This is statistically unlikely, if not impossible. The percentage of cases where both got-it-onners smoke is probably very low, while the percentage of non-smoking partners who'd be happy for their smoking partner to smoke indoors, let alone in the bed they're both occupying, is so low it's un-measurable. This is just a movie cliché to have them continue a conversation or advance the plot while still in bed, rather than do what must be done (i.e. go to the bathroom to clean up). Let's be real.

7. Car or truck goes over a cliff and always, always lands on rocks below and blows up in a spectacular ball of flames. I need an engineer to help me out with the probabilities for and against this. But that doesn't stop me branding this a cliché.

8. Cops versus villains shoot out: the cops all have kevlar vests, but the villains never aim for their unprotected heads, arms or legs. Never.

9. Unless it's a road movie, or a driving-coast-to-coast-in-a-stolen-car movie, drivers never stop for gas. You might think it's because gassing up is a boring detail, unworthy of screen-time, yet many productions are made up entirely of boring details, and they don't have to be called Seinfeld or Friends.

10. Cruising / driving around town in a car, the driver never, ever uses turn signals. Wait, that's not a cliché, it's a freaking fact of life. Americans don't know what that sticky out thing is on the steering column, so never use it!

11. Featured vehicles (whether they're picking up drugs, dropping in on people who need leaning on, tailing a suspect, etc.) always find a parking spot right where they need one. 

12. Plenty o' ammo; this one can go either way, and either way is a directorial oversight. You've got your limitless shots per gun (someone lets off 35 successive shots without reloading, and you don't have to be a gun expert to know there's no gun made with more than 20 bullets in a magazine), or you've got protagonists that DO reload but don't seem to have any problem carrying around dozens of magazines.

13. This one rankles the most. Any featured computer application makes swishing noises as it performs it's searches, screen refreshes, or responses. Anyone who has ever used a computer - and that's basically everyone on the planet except my Dad - knows computer applications don't make noises when each screen is displayed, and if they did the volume control would be super-glued in the mute position.

OMG - Cruise ship in high seas

OK, this video made by stomach churn, so much so that I feel compelled to break from the RANT, RAVE, and REVIEW nomenclature and add "OMG".

Aside from the increasingly intrusive "message from our sponsors", you'll see some south Atlantic action that, if you're a resolute land-lubber like me, will have you "parking a pavement tiger" as Billy Connolly used to put it.

Basically, "heavy seas" (that's raging storm, to you and me) with waves as high as 3 storeys (that's 3 storeys higher than I like) bashed a cruise ship around so much it lost one of its engines, which further compounded its pavement tiger-esque action.

It seems like everyone survived, but note to self - no cruises outside the tropics, and bugger the Bermuda Triangle.

One side note for all you budding globe-trotters, never rely on an American news source for geographically accurate information. This news report states that the cruise ship came into heavy weather off The Shetland Isles, Argentina.

Now, I learned at school that The Shetlands are north of Scotland, and therefore just about as far away from Argentina as one could get.

RAVE - Ip Man

A very, very rare thing happened today. Not only did I see a new kung fu movie, but I enjoyed it.

Usually for me, kung fu is like rap music. I rarely encounter anything that breaks the mould. There is so much cliché in both genres. That doesn't mean I don't like rap, but that I don't expect rap to push any boundaries further than it did when Run DMC crossed over with Aerosmith via "Walk This Way". That might sound like heresy to a true hip-hop fan but, like kung fu, you're either a fan or a hater.

Anyhow, what made Ip Man so special? 

Several things. First, it's based on a true story, although I didn't know that until the roundup was scrolling. Ip Man was a real character, one who invented the Wing Chung style of martial art and used it to resist the brutal Japanese occupation of China just before the second World War. After the war, Ip Man set up a Wing Chung school in Hong Kong, and none other than Bruce Lee became one of his graduates.

The production quality is high, the action is swift and serious, and the town scenes are not only authentic looking, but add a depth to action that in other kung fu films tends to only take place in a dojo, or a restaurant.

RANT - Valhalla Rising

Lean times at the Page Movie Theater.

Those of you who believe that dialog is a much over-used device in story-telling might love this, but it was desperately light on explanation.

It starts out with "One Eye" (he only has one eye, you see) being held by what turn out to be Christian Vikings (didn't know they existed) in a wooden cage for a period (we don't know how long), and being hauled out every now and then to fight other hard nuts (we don't know who they are, or why they're being matched against One Eye).

One day, his captors decide to march him somewhere else (again, we don't know why), and he manages to overpower them (i.e. slay them mercilessly) and escape.

He bumps into a group of bloodthirsty "Christian" vikings, who look the same as the group he just escaped from, and speak in the same Viking, er, Scottish accents. Apparently, they're on a quest to the Holy Land, so he hops in their boat and the next thing you know they're adrift in fog. After we don't know how long, they realize they're on fresh water, and wonder if they've arrived at the Holy Land.

Now, any fool could tell by the rain, bracken and fir trees that they're still in bloody Scotland, or at least at a Scottish latitude, but this group nevertheless presses ahead to build their New Jerusalem.

To cut a dull story short, they've actually drifted to North America (as you do), and all end up dying at the hands of native Americans.

Not sure why anyone thought this was a film worth making, but at least I can save you from watching it.

RANT - All Good Things

Starring Ryan Gozzzzzzzzzzzzzling and Kirsten Dunstzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, this is a dull, dull, film.

In fact, it's as dull as a rusty bucket filled with rust.

Oh, stuff happens. In fact, there are a number of murders, money laundering, a slum(dog) millionaire, cross-dressing, family angst galore - but the story's told at a pace that would embarrass a snail.

The film boasts the directorial equivalent of minimalism.

No, strike that. There IS direction. At any point when the story veers dangerously close to action, the director slams on the brakes, calms everyone down, instructs them to talk even quieter, and then continues at half-speed.

Should've been called "All Good Things Taken Out".

Aside from that, it was fantastic!

RANT - Snow Emergency

I don't normally just repeat someone else's rant - I'm usually full enough of my own vitriol and don't need the help - but occasionally I see something that's just begging for a "big up". 

Like this:

Yesterday, a woman in Kent, England, phoned the emergency services number, 999 (same as 911 in the USA), to report that someone had stolen her SNOWMAN!

Click here for the full story, but surprise, surprise, Chief Inspector Plod frowned on the call, saying it could have cost someone their life if they had a real emergency and couldn't get through.

Now, the fact that the emergency service is stretched so thin that someone can't get through to an operator is even scarier than someone being stupid enough to report a stolen snowman, but I'll leave that rant for another occasion.