Fashionably Cute

For the past few years, the fashion for "the cute guy" in teen movies has been a slightly scruffy looking guy with hair just past his ears (Zac Efron, Patrick Fugit, Chad Michael Murray, etc). Honestly? I hate it. I don't see the appeal - it's clean-cut attempt at scruffy, and I just don't get it at all.

Happily, with Robert Pattinson in Twilight, we seem to be heading back to the good old days of "good looking" meaning, to popular media, dark and brooding, wild yet sleek déshabillé. Yum yum.

Now that's style.

He's Just Not That Into You

I've decided I'm definitely seeing that film. I've just found out that Hedy Burress (Yuna, Final Fantasy X and X-2) is in it, and I want to see if I can recognise her.

I am very suspicious

New film He's Just Not That Into You has no less than nine famous actors shown in the trailer; Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, Jennifer Connelly, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly, and Bradley Cooper (I couldn't find the actual trailer I've seen at the cinema - the link is just the first one I found on youtube).

This makes me very suspicious, and I can see only two explanations. Firstly, that the script is so good that all of these big names agreed to accept a lower fee than normal to appear. Secondly, that they blew their entire budget on the cast.

The film is based on the self-help book of the same name by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. Turning a self-help book into a film has worked before, in Mean Girls (ignoring all those weird tribal sequences), which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, by Rosalind Wiseman.

He's Just Not That Into You (the book) came, in turn from an episode of Sex and the City, as discussed on Wiki.

Honestly, at first glance, it looks like an non-christmassy version of Love, Actually (which, to be fair, I haven't seen). And that whole myspace/facebook/text/buzzword/buzzword/buzzword thing? N00bs. I hate that thing, where people on TV inhabit either an entirely fictional version of the internet, or the glossy surface - as opposed to the gritty underbelly. Where everybody writes 'you' with one letter (that's in media world, not the real one).

I'm a bit of a purist. Like one of the original punks seeing a fifteen-year-old stick a pin through his ear, because that's what one does, these days, to be rebellious, don't you know.

Anyway, back to the film. I'll probably see it out of curiosity. Cynical as I may be, I hope that it will actually be an interesting film, not just a glittering one.

Inkheart

I like Brendan Fraser. I liked him in Scrubs (he was my favourite character, despite only appearing in two episodes), I liked him in the Mummy films, and I like him in this (perhaps a little less than in the Mummy films, although the effects are just as good).

Based on the trilogy by Cornelia Funke, Inkheart concentrates on Mortimer Folchart (Brendan Fraser), a man with a love of books and a strange ability. When he reads aloud, things leave their books, and are swapped with something from this world - as he finds out to his dismay when he accidentally swaps his wife for the villainous Capricorn.

Mo, and his daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett), begin fleeing from Capricorn, while searching for another copy of the book, Inkheart, in order to read their wife and mother out again. This is further complicated by Dustfinger (Paul Bettany), who wants Mo to read him back into Inkheart, and Capricorn, who, as well as chasing Mo, has no intention of ever returning to his former world - and so seeks to destroy every copy of the book.

All of the actors did well in this film - particularly Eliza Bennet, who is very young - but I mainly noticed Paul Bettany and Rafi Gavron, who played Farid. Gavron is very good - his accent is noticeable and effective, but not irritating, which can be hard to pull off. Sienna Guillory also deserves congratulations - she did brilliant things with a role in which, for the most part, she literally has no voice.

It is curious to note how many film studios copy each other. Finding Nemo and Shark Tale, for instance. And recently, Hotel For Dogs, Bolt and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Inkheart is out currently, along with Bedtime Stories. I cannot reasonably compare, since I haven't seen the latter, but I think it's the better of the two.

The film is rated PG, which I'd agree with. The Shadow might be quite terrifying to extremely young children, but generally, no one will be too traumatised.

Let Me Be Surprised

I need Brazil,
The throb, the thrill,
I've never been there,
But someday I will.

Adventure and danger,
Love from a stranger,
Let me be surprised.
Ladadadada...

Today there's sun,
They said there'd be snow,
When all's said and done,
It's fun not to know.

What keeps my heart humming,
Is guessing what's coming,
Let me be surprised.

Oh, ain't it great?

Ain't it great...

When fate makes you wait,
The world seems mirthless,
You feel worthless,
And suddenly there's a big bone on your plate.

Oh Charlie, please remember,
Down there's a world of used cars,
And single's bars,
Broken dreams and out-of-reach stars,

But it isn't over,
Not for this Rover,
I don't like to steal,
But I don't buy this deal.
In about three seconds, she'll have realised...

And she's gonna be...

Charlie, what are you doing?

Wait'll you see...

What's that you have behind your back?

She's gonna be...

Charlie, don't wind that watch!

Surprised....

Warning: This Post Contains Some Spoilers for Red Dwarf and All Dogs Go To Heaven.

I'm not entirely sure how many people are intimately familiar with both Red Dwarf and All Dogs Go to Heaven. And I'm not entirely certain how many of them notice the similiarities

between Arnold J. Rimmer (Chris Barrie) and Charlie B. Barkin (Burt Reynolds).

With both characters, we enter their stories shortly before their deaths - Charlie, at the hands of his double-dealing partner, Scarface, and Rimmer, at his own. They then spend much of the story (I'm using the word 'story' in place of 'film/series') dead. They are also both weirdly

attractive (considering one is an animated dog, and the other is a cowardly gimboid), but that's neither here nor there.

Now, the original dead Rimmer eventually becomes Ace Rimmer, his ultimate self. He is then reborn when the Red Dwarf is rebuilt by nanos and dies once again. This time, he defies death - as does Charlie.

Both do so out of fear. Rimmer, through fear of the unknown, and Charlie, through fear of the known. They are both cowards in their own way.

Charlie rejects heaven with the above song, claiming that he has too much left to live for, and

that the predictability of heaven would drive him crazy. Incidentally, there is one version of the Twilight Zone with a similar idea to this. A man dies, and believes he is sent to heaven. There, everything he tries works out. Everything he wants, he gets, and every time he gambles - which was his hobby in life - he wins. Which, most would say, defeats the point of gambling. Eventually, he realises he's in hell. For Charlie, a conman (dog), this heaven would have a similar effect.

Rimmer never learns what this afterlife would consist of. It's unlikely he'd be brought back as a hologram again. So, rather than Charlie's elegant song-and-dance, Rimmer simply knees Death in the groin (I need to say groin, since it's the only part I can reliably state that Death has) and makes a run for it.

It's ironic that Annabelle's warning to Charlie - down there's a world of used cars, and single's bars, broken dreams, and out-of-reach stars - consists of what doesn't bother Charlie, but that which would terrify Rimmer. While Charlie's heaven would probably suit Rimmer a lot more than it does Charlie (except for all the dogs), Charlie might also prefer Rimmer's slightly threatening, unknown end to his safe, structured heaven.

It could be said that both Red Dwarf and All Dogs Go To Heaven follow, respectively, Arnold J. Rimmer and Charlie B. Barkin from their deaths to their heavens - Rimmer's as Ace Rimmer, the man he both hates and always wanted to be, his ultimate self, and Charlie's as someone who has actually earned a place in heaven, and come to terms with the end of his life. Or perhaps not, as the reprisal It's Too Heavenly Here states in the sequel.

Heath Ledger

Sometimes, I take care of a small child. An eight-year-old boy. And while The Dark Knight was on in cinemas, we went past one on the bus. And he asked why the film was so well-advertised.

Now, there's a curious kind of power you have when in the care of a small child. You can tell them whatever you like, and for a few years, your word is gospel. It's especially cute when my grandmother tells me he's been repeating what I've said.

Anyway, instead of talking about Batman, or it being a sequel to quite a famous film, as well as a sort of requel of a lot of earlier films...I told him about Heath Ledger. And he didn't understand.

I am twenty years old. I was nineteen then. Heath Ledger's big break came, in my opinion, with Ten Things I Hate About You, released the summer I turned eleven, if memory serves. He was young, and new then. I haven't seen all of his films, but I've seen several over the years - notably, The Brothers Grimm and A Knight's Tale. While I haven't watched his every film, it's fair to say that I've known of and loosely followed his career since the start.

And then, as we all know, he went and died.

For most people of our generation, while this wasn't the first time a celebrity we knew of had died, it was, probably, the first time a celebrity who's career we'd known of from the beginning had died. We'd watched him grow, in fame and ability, right from the start. And suddenly he was gone. And you realise how your parents, and older generations felt, or feel, when their stars die. The people they've seen grow from humble beginning to whatever they become.

And this child couldn't understand, because, for him, Heath Ledger was before his time. Ledger was famous before the child was born. The child wasn't even old enough to watch most of his films. So how could he understand?

I suppose this is how my grandmother felt when Elvis died. I wouldn't say that we mourn him like a family member - that right is reserved for his actual family - but he was one of ours. He was the first one, for most of us. And he was too young. And every time I see one of his films, I remember, again, that he's dead. Not with depression, but with surprise. Because it's so downright silly for Heath Ledger to be dead.

Klaatu barada nikto

I spent part of the morning reading the new year issue of New Scientist - and, honestly, it's rather depressing. Following the lack of success of the Kyoto protocol, the threat of global warming is now more than merely a threat, and the talks in Poznan are not optimistic. Except for the politicians, of course, who fervently believe that dangerous climate change can be avoided if we stop the average global temperatures rising by 2°C - and that this can be achieved by halving CO₂ emissions by 2050. However, it would be more accurate to say that we need an 80% cut by 2050 - and that still only gives us a 70% chance of avoiding the 2°C rise.

Long story short, after our long and strenuous efforts to kill it, the Earth is beginning to die. Well done.

So, following that kind of morning, it made a curious sort of sense to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still this afternoon. A requel of the infamous 1951 sci-fi film, The Day the Earth Stood Still seems more poignant today than it probably did back then, what with the focus being shifted from nuclear war to environmental damage. Or perhaps not. Think of the phrase "Jesus wept", from the Biblical event of Jesus weeping tears of blood. This is said to be because he could see the future, and see what humanity would do. Children - and adults - have accepted this without question. Before World War I. After World War I. Before the Holocaust and afterwards. As David Sosnowski pointed out in Vamped, isn't it funny how we keep moving the bar on that?

Of course, the original dealt with the space race, and humanity's first ventures into space. It criticised our violent natures, and basically said that we couldn't be trusted to play nice with other races. This film says something similar, only it's more personal. We cannot be trusted to get along with other races on this planet, not on others.

The film focuses on astro-biologist, Dr Helen Benson, played by Jennifer Connelly, her young stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith), and the strange invader, Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), who claims to be a "Friend to the Earth".

...now what could that mean? I wonder.

The film's gripping and absorbing, and yes, suitable for twelve-year-olds. The special effects are fantastic - they're not too flashy or showy, which, after the many years of lasers we've suffered, is a good thing. They're such good quality that, without concentrating, you're unlikely to pay attention to the fact that they are special effects. Good use is made of light - after all, since the audience is sitting in a darkened cinema, blinding them with light is a very dramatic way to bring them into a film where the characters are suffering from the same affliction.

A lot of critics have given this film bad reviews, and I honestly suspect that they were watching a completely different film altogether. The main criticism levied is against the plot, which some say is slow-moving, or against Keanu Reeve's infamous stone-face. Perhaps these critics have seen the original 1951 film, and already had some idea of where the plot was going? Coming to the film fresh, I really enjoyed it. And I also think that Keanu's deadpan was very effective.