The final countdown

Aki and Tina came to visit us this weekend from Australia. Well, on the way home to Australia from Leeds to be precise. We had a pretty nice weekend and we even got to drink Jim Beam and coke like old times. And get a bit of a hangover like old times too.

But on the Saturday night as I was in bed falling asleep, I realised that all the things we have been waiting for have all happened now, except one. We have been to Ähtäri for Ulriikka's dad's birthday. We have had Aki and Tina visit and now all that is left is for us to get married. It has been good that we have had things going on the whole time so that I haven't had much time to panic but now there is nothing inbetween now and then.

Last week we went to see the judge in the courts. He took us into what looked like a normal interview room off the main corridor, only for it to turn out to be a proper courtroom. The judge took his, presumambly regular, seat behind the judge's desk and we were sat in what looked like the defendants seat. He then asked us some questions about why we were getting married. Under the pressure of it all my Finnish shrank to a tiny squeak and I was too shy to say very much.

Before that I have to navigate my family and friends to Tampere from varous arrival points in Finland. However, Tampere airport is not very big. There is only one bus stop and only one bus stops at it. Helsinki airport is only slightly more complicated. So I am not expecting them to face the kind of problems that I would imagine come from landing, say, in Delhi at 2am. That said, it won't be the same without them so I hope that they make it.

Nothing to see here

I was planning to say something. I can't think what it might have been. I suppose it doesn't really matter. Sorry for wasting your time. Just for the sake of it, here is the view from my window.



Incidentally, the video shop is supposed to close at 11 today but it's already closed. I don't know what the world is coming to. Standards have slipped.

3D is not the future of cinema

After recycling Mark Kermode's opinions on 3D cinema for a while, I finally went to see a 3D film of my own. Some might argue that since time is a dimension, we have been watching film in 3D for quite some time now so perhaps it should really be called 4D. But since 4D is a Channel 4 series, actually quite popular in Finland, detailing the more freakish elements of society, I'll stick with 3D.

The film we went to see was Ice Age 3, which follows in the tradition of third films being 3D which dates back at least as far as Jaws 3D and probably further back. This makes this particular 3D feel like a Gimmick already. There have been other gimmicks in cinema - John Water's "Odorama" is one that I feel glad to have missed out on. But 3D in it's current incarnation is being sold as the future of cinema although I don't see it myself.

I went to see Superman Returns in the Imax a few years back. That film only had a small number of scenes in 3D which meant that the glasses had to be put on and taken off constantly. The 3D parts felt like they were in the film purely in order to be 3D a 3D film - they added nothing to the film, which would have worked fine without those scenes. I will admit that the sight of Superman apparently flying above the cinema audience is impressive. Unfortunately on at least one occasion it was a Superman with no feet flying above an audience. Cinema, especially super hero films, is supposed to be about escaping into a different world. Nothing drives home the fact that you are watching a film in Manchester as opposed to fighting evil aboard an asteroid than seeing half a superman and half an audience at the same time.

There are other problems with 3D. The glasses you have to wear are pretty uncomfortable - we all had indentations in our faces after coming out of the cinema. It's also more expensive - €12.50 here in Finland, which is €2 more than usual. It seems that this more than covers the cost of the projectors and the glasses you need, although the film industry itself denies a rip-off.

Ice Age 3 was a pretty terrible film so I was able to judge the 3D on it own. There were definitely some nice images and effects and I could see how it could be made into a pretty impressive spectacle. But at the moment I just can't see the point in 3D cinema. It doesn't add anything to the film viewing experience and I can't see it being a success. For all that, James Cameron's Avatar might show me to be wrong when it's released later this year.

Next week: How the time travel aspects of the new Star Trek film don't make sense and how Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure shows that time travel in a film usually renders the rest of what you've just seen largely pointless (although in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, it's genius!).

The Riff Raff in Burger King

Every once in a while I drive up to visit my sister in upstate New York, this is about a 4-5 hour drive and usually I stop about half way to get something with no redeeming health value to eat a Burger King. There is one along that way that I prefer as it is very convenient to the highway.
In April I found myself stopping at this particular Burger King, while I'm sitting there eating my BK Big Fish, I overhear an elderly guy. And I'm not even trying to over hear him, which is unusual as I enjoy eavesdropping in random place. This person starts to get louder. He is saying things like "look at her, yak yak yak." I don't think much of it and pull my phone out to check if I have any messages, at which point I hear "oh now she has her phone out, look at her." This makes me feel weird as the place is not very crowded. I look over at this table where all the yakking is coming from to see a large old man staring at me along with two old women; they all have thick glasses on which make their eyes bug-like and crazy. The do not stop staring when I look at them as they clearly think I am a freak of nature. This makes me for uncomfortable and a strong urge to flee comes on.
On any given day I'm sure I do lots of things that could warrant strangers making fun of me, but I don't think I've ever had this sort of experience with the elderly. I have to walk by them to leave and manage to look at them again and sure enough their crazy bug eyes followed me out.
The last time I visited my sister I decided to stop there again, assuming that the menacing old folks have moved on and it is a much more crowded July 4th weekend. While I'm waiting for my food, I think I had a chicken sandwich if anyone was wondering, the 16 year old cashier starts yelling "Don't you want your change!?" Everyone turns to look at an old man, the same one that was making fun of me in April. He is standing in his glory with the crazy eyes and a bizarre grin on. Another customer offers the cashier that he will take the change over to the man, the cashier declines with an exasperated "He does this all the time!" After standing around for a while he goes over to a table with other old timers seated at him, where they just sit around, stare and point at other customers. It was like a geriatric version of Mean Girls. I will definetly stop there again on my next visit.

Alko, pizza and fried fish

I guess that I haven't written anything for a while. Mainly it's because I've been moving house, but there is a bit of laziness involved too... But anyway, apologies for my laziness and thanks to Johnny and Krista for at least writing something from time to time.

But we have moved house and it has used up pretty much 4 solid weeks of my life in painting, moving, packing and unpacking or other house moving related activities. Although I should at this stage point out that Ulriikka did significantly more work than I did!

We've moved to a slightly more residential part of the city centre. So even though we're on the ground floor we haven't heard the same amount of noise as we did in the city centre (although even there it was never too bad). We are right next door to the Alko store which means that we will never be struggling for high-percentage alcohol as long as we buy it before 6pm. We can also see a Kotipizza from the kitchen window, which might make it hard to decide to eat something healthy though. Nearby is Tammelantori where the main market is, so we can get our fried fish in the mornings.

We reserved our sauna slot for Friday evening so spent last Friday tidying away the last of the unpacked things then relaxing in the sauna. Well kind of relaxing. We have the 7-8pm slot and we were a bit late and went there at about 7:15. We didn't take a watch with us so we didn't know what time it was. After a bit we decided we'd had enough and though we should leave before the next people came banging on the door. When we got back we found that we had been away for 15 minutes. Maybe we can take it a bit easier next time.

Living in a block of flats leaves us with quite a few odd little things that we can use. We have a space in a cold storage room (which currently has paint in it) and some storage space in the attic. There are also some drying rooms which are a little bit spooky. There is also a bike storage facility but it takes about two days to walk through the maze of corridors in the cellar to get to it - where it exits out onto a different street than we live on.

But otherwise it's all weddings over here. I was in Helsinki about three weeks ago to see the UK consulate. I was made to swear on the bible that Ulriikka wasn't my sister or anything else on a list of about 30 different relations. It was all very bizarre. I had to leave all my belongings in the security lodge, taking "only the papers you need" with me. This meant that I left my cash in my bag and had to go back to get it - I suppose that would have come under the "papers I need" section of my belongings so it's my own fault. I also had my suit with me (I was at a christening the next day) so in the end I left quite a bit of stuff in the security lodge, some of which I needed. Apart from getting my first attempt at the form wrong, including writing my age down wrong, and getting my address wrong (I wrote "road" instead of "street") it all went smoothly and I should hear in the next few days whether or not I am free to get married. Or rather I am free to ask the Finnish authorites if I can get married. It's all very complicated this international romance thing you know.

I Love Lamp

Around 2005, I had a pang of sadness. George Lucas had released Episode III and the Matrix and Lord Of The Ring trilogies had finished 2 years prior. There was nothing cinematic left to look forward to. (In hindsight, it's a good thing that Lucas stopped at that third prequel and didn't go on to make the much hinted-at 3 sequels which would follow Return Of The Jedi - although we can live in fear everyday).

Anyway, my point is that although excellent films come along all the time (has anyone seen the most excellent French thriller Tell No One yet? C'est superbe!), there were no franchises left to plunder. In 2005, I was looking forward to Bryan Singer reigniting the Superman films but instead he made them drastically worse by introducing a new character which will inevitably plague any future films. And even though I knew a new Batman film (...Begins) was imminent, who would have thought it would go to become the new benchmark for comic-book movies and origin stories?

So, all the way through this period - and back to 1995 even - there's been one source of filmaking that is (almost) sure to hit the spot every time: Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California.

My fondness for Pixar started somewhere following the release of Toy Story. I used to watch the film endlessly at university, stunned not at the quality of the computer animation, but at the depth of the characters and the inventiveness of the plot. In hindsight - and in comparison with later work by the studio - there are faults with the animation: the humans aren't quite right, and everything has a glossy Star Trek-sheen as though it was (surprise surprise) created inside a computer. But the story has charm and it is this that has held the film in high regard for the last 15 years.





















Although I think A Bug's Life is a fine film, it is probably one of the weaker Pixar films - mainly because of the massive debt it owes to The Seven Samurai / The Magnificent Seven - but also it was a poor contender to Antz, which was released by Dreamworks at the same time.

Things got back on track a year later with the sequel to Toy Story - and the first of many Pixar films I would catch on the big screen. The animation is far improved from the original - just check out the fantastic opening 10 minutes - and they finally managed to get human beings looking a little less like a random assortment of geometric shapes.

Monsters Inc., released in 2001 remains one of my favourite films from the studio. It's the first of many Pixar releases that seems to be aimed more at adults than children - and considering I don't have the innocent mind of a 5-year old any more, that can only be a good thing. Again, it's the characterisation - and the interplay between the two leads - which pulls the film out of family-friendly cartoon territory and into comedic genius.

2003's Finding Nemo marks the first time the studio won the Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards. Although not a favourite of mine - mainly because of how child-friendly it is - there are some magnificent moments, and it looks amazing. But it is 2004's The Incredibles where Pixar really hits its stride.

Right from the trailer - which makes use of John Barry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme - the ingredients are perfect: a bunch of superheroes in hiding (à la Watchmen), a megalomaniacal villain encamped on an island hideaway (à la You Only Live Twice), an Art Deco design scheme, a John Barry-esque soundtrack, and a satirical edge so sharp it demands a second viewing just to digest it all.

The Incredibles was the second Pixar film to scoop the Best Animated Feature award and marks the first time a Pixar film was written and directed by an outsider. Brad Bird's touch takes the focus away from the whimsy of John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton and thankfully there's no Randy Newman songs to sour the deal either.

Of course, when you're at the top there's only one way to go, and that's down. 2006's Cars is a definite low. There's pretty much nothing going on here to keep anybody's attention, and the fact that the central character is so obsessed with money and celebrity is a really odd choice for a children's film. The same can be said of Shark Tale, Dreamworks' 2004 attempt to ape Finding Nemo. I understand that it's all about the journey, and that the message is 'friends before fame', but when you consider that most children would see a character only in the way that they are introduced, what does this teach them? Of course, it works perfectly when you look at the culture we live in: American Idol, The X-Factor, Big Brother, Britain's/America's Got Talent, and so on and so forth. Simon Fuller has a lot to answer for.

Unfortunately things manage to slip further downhill with Ratatouille, released in 2007. There's just something very un-Pixar about this film. I had high hopes, with Brad Bird returning to the fold, but it just stinks of Disney. Perhaps I need to revisit it - it won Pixar their third Best Animated Feature award, and it seems to be universally lauded everywhere else.

WALL-E, released in 2008, represents the closest Pixar has come to a nomination for the Best Picture category. Advised on lighting and atmosphere by Roger Deakins and Dennis Muren, the film looks scarily realistic, especially in the scenes on Earth in the first act. Given that it's a cartoon, the fact that certain shots that look like the real world is a testament to how far the animation has come since the very smooth-looking Toy Story days.

Another impressive feat is that WALL-E is practically a silent movie for the first half - a bold move from a studio which usually puts so much stock in the quality of its scripts. Most of all however, the one thing that makes the film truly deserving as the studio's fourth Best Animated Feature is the fact that there is more emotion and interplay between the two leads - a couple of robots - than there is in a year's worth of formulaic Hollywood bullshit.

I haven't seen Up yet, and given New Zealand's whacky release schedule, I doubt that I'll see it anytime soon. But I can't wait. It doesn't look to be aimed at children, considering that it revolves around the adventures of an old man, so that's good - and it's in 3D which I'm also looking forward to. I can't speak for a proper live-action film in 3D as I haven't had the pleasure, but an animated film is the perfect medium for it - Monsters Vs. Aliens looked amazing recently.

So that concludes the Pixar story so far. I recently read that the studio is about to start moving into live-action filmmaking, which I suppose shouldn't be seen as a surprise given the few glimpses of it we saw in WALL-E, but it makes me wonder why they would venture into a field that has been tried and tested? Pixar spearheaded computer animation so I would like to see them move into unkown territory again.

There's also a rumour that the studio will be shooting a remake of Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. It will be called Finding Nimoy.

EPILOGUE: THE SHORTS
One of the best things about seeing a Pixar film at the cinema is that you get the full experience of a short film, followed by the main feature. This is excellent as the shorts are always high on laughs and are usually just as good as the films that follow them. Given their length, they're a really good thing to have on your iPod too.
I'm not going to list every one, but here are my favourite 3:
For The Birds - a silent film, backed by some nice jazz, about a group of birds on a telephone wire. Shown prior to Monsters, Inc.
Lifted - a dark sci-fi piece following a training session of an alien spaceship as it attempts to do a spot of midnight abducting. Shown prior to Ratatouille.
Presto - a hungry rabbit and an intolerant stage magician do battle on stage over a carrot. Shown prior to WALL-E.

And finally, I can heartily recommend The Pixar Story - a feature length documentary by Leslie Iwerks, which can be found on the special features of the WALL-E DVD.

Feelin' Groovy

I'm seldom impressed when I go to see a gig. I don't know what it is, but I think I'm just very hard to please. My friends Robbie & Natalie always tease me about my standard review of bands I'll go and see at Glastonbury. "It was alright," becomes my stock response. And I think that can be applied to most musical performances. Unless something special happens - or if you have your head buried in the sand to the degree that you have no frame of reference - it's just very hard to be hit for six.

So it's with great pleasure that I can report one of these rare occasions. On Sunday, I was honoured to be able to see Simon & Garfunkel live in concert. They're not even touring! They're just doing a few dates in Australia and New Zealand for shits and giggles. Presumably so Art Garfunkel can scope out the competition for opening a chain of steak restaurants in the Australasian market and so Paul Simon can go to the open casting calls for the new Hobbit films.

I always see photographs of them on stage, with an acoustic guitar draped around Paul Simon, and I always wonder whether he's actually playing it or whether it's just for show. Mystery over - he's a freakin' genius. Although they were backed by a very proficient band, the songs that they performed alone with just their voices and the acoustic guitar really showcased his guitar playing.

They played practically all of their sixties singles - even throwing in my own favourite S&G song The Only Living Boy In New York, and my one of my favourite Simon tracks from his solo career, Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard. Halfway through they each played a short solo section, so after sitting through Art Garfunkel bringing back bad memories about bunny rabbits with Bright Eyes, Paul Simon walked on stage and an African musician on an accordion played the intro to The Boy In The Bubble - the opening song off the Graceland album. Fantastic - and I was officially hit for six.

Even their band amazed me. Their lead guitarist managed - in the instrumental section of Hazy Shade Of Winter - to play a backwards guitar solo. This was previously impossible without the aid of a time-travelling device so presumably somebody has invented a new guitar pedal. Bit of a shame really - as now truly everything The Beatles recorded in the studio can be fully reproduced on stage.

Anyway, I'm going to stop gushing now.