1.21 jigawats...? GREAT SCOTT!!!

So you may know that the town I was born in back in the UK is Oldham in Lancashire; but what you may not know is that I grew up in Royton, a small suburb of Oldham.

The village of Royton stands halfway between Oldham and Rochdale, and comprises of a small shopping precint, a library and a public swimming pool.

Since a very young age, I've always thought some of the features of Royton were very familiar.

Allow me to explain:One of the main landmarks of Royton is the clock tower:










This is situated on the roof of the Royton Public Library, which lies next to a zebra crossing:















(I've highlighted the yellow of the crossing lights to give a clearer idea of exactly where the crossing is).

Now, the road which this crossing lies on is called Rochdale Road. It is a very straight, flat road.

Here is what I have always thought: I can use the zebra crossing (and its proximity to the clock tower) to travel through time.

1. I need to find a car that is fast enough and contains time circuits and a flux-capacitor, I'm thinking of something like this:
















2. I need to be able to predict when a bolt of lightning will strike the clock tower. I'm not sure how I will do this yet but I'm working on it. When I have this information, I will arrange for some electical cable to be ran from the clock tower down to a cable arranged between the posts of the zebra crossing.

3. I park the De Lorean at this junction:


















The start point is also marked on the 2 following photographs in yellow (with the clock tower highlighted in green):































4. I accelerate the De Lorean from the start point, and time it just right so that I hit the cable - and the bolt of lightning - when the car reaches 88mph. This will create a chain-reaction and will supply the 1.21 jigawatts necessary to achieve time travel. Easy really.























PS. Strangely enough, a few years back I played the Royton Assembly Hall - a stone's throw from the zebra crossing - with my old band Delta 7, and we did indeed play Johnny B. Goode. A bit like this:

Inception (2010, Dir: Christopher Nolan)

I saw Nolan’s new film before it was released here in New Zealand, but I held off writing a review of for two reasons: firstly, I was suffering from a brain-splitting migraine when I first saw it and secondly I felt it to be an injustice to critique the film after only one viewing.

It’s a strange affair to watch this film with a headache. The film itself is a headache, like a splinter in your brain pushing itself deeper and deeper into your grey matter, before being absorbed by your subconscious. After two hours I was confused whether the pain in my head was physical or a symptom of the spiralling narrative strands in Christopher Nolan’s heavy screenplay. To add to the perplexity, Hans Zimmer’s otherwise sublime score drowns out the occasional line of dialogue in the final act, leaving you straining to make sense of one character’s line whilst the next line is being spoken.

Thematically, Inception is closest to Nolan’s first film Memento than any of his more recent works. It’s a headfuck on celluloid, and you can’t really say that about his two Gotham City films. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight might be brainier than your average blockbuster, but they still follow traditional narrative structures. It seems that for these other films, Nolan is seeing how far he can take his audience down the rabbit hole without leaving them completely dumbfounded.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a fair bit of hand-holding in this film. We get one fairly hefty opening scene, where we don’t know what the hell is going on, followed by what seems like scene after scene of endless exposition, as Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio) teaches Ariadne (Ellen Page) – and us, of course – about the technology that allows his team of specialists to operate within other people’s dreams. Under a different director, Terry Gilliam say, we wouldn’t have the benefit of an explanation until mid-way through the second act. Once we are along for the ride however, Nolan refuses to let the film, or the audience, breathe. It’s refreshing to see this in a major blockbuster. The last time we were tested by such a challenging narrative was The Matrix, although even this 1999 film looks tame now that the rest of Hollywood has caught up to it.

Casting-wise, Nolan’s films keep going from strength to strength. Alongside Dicaprio and Page, the team is rounded out by Joseph-Gordon Levitt, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao and Ken Watanabe. Watanabe, the decoy Ra's Al Ghul from Batman Begins is only one of many returning Nolan alumni, with Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy also appearing. Rounding out the ensemble cast is a criminally underused Pete Postlethwaite, a criminally unrecognisable Tom Berenger (I had to watch the film twice to figure out who Berenger was playing) and a bewitching performance by Marion Cotillard. Thankfully, Nolan doesn’t dwell on the romantic aspect of the script, keeping the twisted love-story between Cobb and Mal (Cotillard) to a welcome minimum.

I was half-expecting Ellen Page to be well out of her depth in a film like this – her know-it-all egotism has made her a two-dimensional character in everything I’ve seen her in – but it’s really Gordon-Levitt who resembles Nolan’s greatest casting faux pas. Watching him trying to hold his breath above water amongst an otherwise powerful cast is pretty uncomfortable. Leonardo Dicaprio used to occupy this role – an almost prepubescent frame motored by a whining and nasal voice – until a glass ashtray smashed over the head of a barfly in The Departed announced his newfound masculinity. It almost seems like Nolan is trying to remind us of Dicaprio’s embarrassing past by casting Gordon-Levitt next to him.

More than anything, Inception is just The Sting for the 21st century, with less jaunty piano music. Fortunately the mood isn’t lightened by endless repetition of Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer, with Inception’s only recurring piece of popular music (Edith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien) being the film’s best in-joke (Cotillard played Piaf in 2007’s La Vie En Rose).

I’ve already heard talk about a possible sequel – the characters are ripe to revisit - but I hope that it really is just speculation (look what happened to those Matrix sequels). Nolan doesn’t seem to be averse to sequels (he’s now preparing his third and final Batman film) but hopefully he’ll see the merit of leaving Inception to remain as a standalone piece of work. Part of the appeal of Blade Runner is that there’s no Blade Runner 2.

The film seems to have divided public opinion. A friend claimed that he fell asleep and dreamt that he saw a good film. I would say that if anything, it’s too clever for its own good. This is not a film that deserves to be seen, it’s a film that deserves to be seen twice.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010, Dir: Edgar Wright)

I shouldn’t like this film. It tries far too hard to be cool and it’s basically too clever for its own good. If it was directed by a stock Hollywood director, wheeled out to join the dots on an existing piece of work (the film is based on the Scott Pilgrim comic book series), it would be a dire, dire affair. However, under the hands of the very talented Edgar Wright (Spaced, Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz) it’s a very refreshing and genuinely funny comedy.

It could have been a bad move for Wright. Away from his regular collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, he could have suffered the same fate as other successful directors tempted by the Hollywood machine (see Jean Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection for a horrible reminder of how disappointing this situation can be). It’s also refreshing to see Wright take someone else’s work and run with it – each of his previous accomplishments have been original pieces of work co-written with Pegg.

The film introduces us to the nerdish Pilgrim, rehearsing with his equally outcast punk rock band (Sex Bob-omb), and introducing his band-mates to his newly acquired Asian schoolgirl girlfriend. However, when he meets the girl of his dreams – the eye-catching Ramona Flowers – he decides to switch partners, a decision which leads him having to battle seven of Ramona’s evil exes.

As you can probably imagine, the film has one foot planted firmly in reality and the other planted a whole stride away in a weird video-game-martial-arts-comic-book fantasy world. Although cineastes not fatigued by the spectacle of martial arts infecting every corner of cinema will probably be blown away by the action, it left me feeling slightly nauseous. I’m all for a film turning a genre onto its head, but I think I’ve just seen too much of this sort of thing – as though the whole world can be solved by kung-fu. If it could, Jackie Chan would be a world leader.

Where the film really shines is in the script (again, co-written by Edgar Wright, with Michael Bacall and the writer of the comic book Brian Lee O’Malley) and the lead performance of Michael Cera in the title role. The first act, prior to the appearance of Ramona’s first evil ex, is very funny, introducing us to Scott and the way in which he looks at the world. Much like Wright’s history with Spaced, much of the esoteric humour is aimed at video-game counter-culture, with a personal favourite being a dream sequence set to the princess’ descending theme from the Zelda games.

After this, the next instalment in Wright’s Blood & Ice Cream trilogy is a must see...

Four Lions (2010, Dir: Chris Morris)

Patiently waiting for this film to start in the Civic theatre in Auckland, I was amazed at the number of white-haired cinema patrons sat around me. I wasn’t sure if they were in the wrong venue or if they were simply pulled in by the allure of a British comedy on a cold Friday night (probably the latter). Either way, I bet Mrs. Popcorn Logic that they wouldn’t make the duration of the film. I’ve been exposed to a fair bit of Chris Morris’ comedy, and if there’s one understatement to make, it’s that he doesn’t really make the sort of comedy to please older people.

However, it seems that I overestimated how extreme this film was going to be. As long as you can get past the initial thrust of the film – that it’s a farce about four moronic British Muslims who decide to become suicide bombers – then its relatively easy going. Although you would expect Morris to up his game, freed from the constraints of television, he doesn’t really use the power of the silver screen to shock. Instead, his debut feature isn’t too far from the wholesome television comedy that Britain is famous for.

We open on the four in Sheffield (although I’m sure any Northern England mill town would have been a suitable stand-in) and a half-botched attempt at filming a home-made video to proclaim themselves as Jihadi terrorists. After a failed training trip to Pakistan, and the inclusion of a fifth member of the group, things get slightly more serious as they blunder into one situation after another.

It’s pretty hard to review a comedy and give enough sense of the film without giving the jokes away. Hence why it’s always a very bad idea to watch trailers for comedies. All I will say is that the film goes where other comedies dare not tread, without going too far.

(By the way, I lost the bet – the white-hair brigade stayed until the very end and seemingly enjoyed every minute).

I Love You Phillip Morris (2009, Dir: Glen Ficarra, John Requa)

Last Christmas I finally got around to watching Bad Santa, the festive film starring Billy Bob Thornton as a vulgar department-store Santa, assisted by an equally vulgar elf. I loved every minute of it. It represents everything that is wrong about Christmas, and for that I cherish it. So, when I heard that a new film by the writers of Bad Santa was playing at the film festival, I jumped at the chance to see it.

People have criticised I Love You Phillip Morris for its stunt casting, but I really feel that the high level of comedy that it employs warrants some big name stars. What we get is a top-notch Jim Carrey performance, in full goofy form, and a quieter Ewan McGregor, the Phillip Morris of the film’s title.

Initially, Steven Jay Russell (Carey) is a hard-working family man with a deep love for his wife (Leslie Mann). After an encounter with his long-lost birth mother and an almost-fatal car crash, Russell comes out – in a big way – and decides to stop living his life as a lie. His new extravagant life ends up costing more than he bargained for and his brief career as a con-man sends him into an endless cycle of prisons and subsequent escapes. In prison, Steven meets his soul-mate Phillip and their subsequent romance – and forced separation – provides Steven with the impetus to endlessly deceive the world around him.

Stylistically, the film plays like much of Hollywood’s fare – aside from a couple of extremely clever camera tricks – but it is the comedy that is the highlight of the film. Compared to Bad Santa, it’s a little tame – presumably to appeal to a larger audience – but the jokes really are top notch. The end result is a film that no only makes you laugh, but has the guts to tackle some of Hollywood’s extremely taboo subjects head-on, with impressive results.

Oceans (2010, Dir: Jacques Perrin)

Oceans is a real attack on the senses. What with Pierce Brosnan’s narration and the noisy family behind me in the Civic – moronic child kicking the back of my chair, talking loudly, rustling a packet of sweets, and last but not least the smell of an overflowing nappy – my senses really were bombarded.

I hate Pierce Brosnan. I hate his stupid hoarse voice. I think I might hate him because it was during his tenure that the quality of the Bond films declined like never before. I understand that the end result of the Bond films wouldn’t be his responsibility, and that my hatred is therefore unfounded and illogical, but isn’t that usually the case with hatred?

I spent the short running time (84 minutes) of Oceans trying to figure out who I hated more – Pierce Brosnan or the moronic family behind me. Fortunately we don’t have chavs in New Zealand, but they were perhaps the next best thing. Throughout the film, moronic daughter was asking moronic Daddy a whole raft of questions, to none of which moronic Daddy answered with a request to keep quiet.

At one point, a clownfish popped up onto the giant screen, and moronic daughter turns to moronic Daddy and says “Elmo!”. After giggling to myself for a few seconds, I thought that she would correct herself, or that maybe moronic Daddy would help her out. Instead she said again, “It’s Elmo!” Moronic Daddy probably thought the film was called Finding Elmo too. (You might question the motives of Disney, the studio behind this film – and coincidentally the owners of the Pixar films – of inserting a few shots of an innocuous clownfish into an otherwise remarkable visual film. Or am I just being cynical?).

I might be cynical but at least I can be considerate to other cinema patrons. As Bill Hicks would say, “A miracle is raising a kid that doesn't talk in a fucking movie theatre.” I understand that with parenting, you should encourage your child to ask questions about the world. How else are they going to learn? Well in this case, by listening to Pierce Fucking Brosnan.

Moronic Daddy must know best – who am I to question his parenting skills? – as he answered each and every one of her questions.

Maybe he hates Pierce Brosnan too.

A Prophet (2009, Dir: Jacques Audiard)

It’s easy to see why this French offering was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the 2010 Academy Awards. It’s a nice little film which turns the Hollywood tradition of prison movies on its head and actually manages to say something new and exciting about the genre.

We awake in an almost dreamlike vision of a holding cell, and watch as Malik – guilty of assaulting a police officer and looking like Kelly Jones from The Stereophonics – is led to serve a six-year prison sentence. Inside, he swiftly falls under the protection of members of the Corsican mafia, a relationship which he struggles to maintain as external temptations threaten his way of life and his approaching release date.

The camera work is just right, a handheld style making full use of the claustrophobic and cramped environments, and although the narrative does extend to a few scenes outside the prison, the majority of the film plays out within its walls.

The only drawback about the film is its length. At a running time of 150 minutes, it really does seem to be at least 30 minutes too long. Anything longer than 2 hours is okay if there is enough variety in the film, but not in this instance where the prison environment begins to get stifling.

Around an hour into the film, Malik grows a small moustache, making him look less like Kelly Jones, and more like Harry Enfield’s scouse caricatures. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get this image out of my head though the remainder of the film as I was expecting him to turn around at any moment, raise his eyebrows, and with a dumb smile say “Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh”...