Children of Men

Last night we went to see Children of Men. I went in to this movie with great expectations. It was an interesting idea with a great cast. There is a lot of people being killed as well. I was incredible moved by most of the movie and the thought that this is entirely possible. I found though that there were so many questions left unanswered. Why is the UK the only country left standing, why are they expelling all immigrants, why has the whole of the UK turned into one big Guantanamo Bay, why exactly has the world become infertile? I was also disappointed as to how this movie ends. I felt a little cheated. This movie was well filmed and the horror of the fighting scenes was done, I guess accurately as it looks like something we see happening in Iraq.
I think judge movies more harshly these days. Maybe I expect more from them than I use to. I like a movie that challenges my thinking. Unfortunately, this one didn't make it. Which is a shame because it was a good movie.

Elizabethtown

The latest movie watched is Elizabethtown. I went into this movie with anticipation. I am a fan of Cameron Crowe and love his attitude towards road trips and the music to go with it, think Almost Famous.
I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the fact that the roadtrip only made up a small part of the movie, but the soundtrack was spot on. All hail Cameron Crowe.
I thought Kirsten Dunst character was a little annoying, but interesting. I am a fan of Kirsten Dunst so am happy to let it slip (hanging out for Marie Antoinette, also another favourite director Sophia Coppola). On the whole I would recommend this movie, though if someone can explain to me what happened with the shoe I would greatly appreciate it. I know something big went wrong, but I am sure that is never explained. The relationship between Eleanor and Orlando Bloom's character was shallow and never fully developed, I guess left to our imagination. A little sad for him.
I did find the end slightly predictable, but at least it didn't fall on its ass like Hitch. I apologise to anyone who liked that movie, but I am sorry, the ending really sucked.

Famous People

This week at Daytona has been a week of famous people. First we had Gilly from Hollyoaks. This is a pretty dodgy daytime soap here in the UK. It is actually filmed in Manchester so it is possible to see the actors around. This is the first time I have actually seen someone famous that I recognised and pointed out to other people, I was pretty excited and felt that I needed to tell everyone. His character in the show is pretty dopey, thankfully in real life, not the case.
The next famous person was incredible exciting, not only is he famous in the UK, he is worlwide famous. His name is Ross Noble. When I heard he was coming, I got very excited, even more so when he actually arrived to race. I could not believe that this massively famous person was standing right in front of me. Thankfully no tonguetying or silly sentences. I made prefect sense. I was way to nervous to ask for a picture or an autograph, so I had to leave to my trustworthy receptionist Hannah, who was also a massive fan and had seen him earlier this week. He is currently in Manchester for comedy week. Now if any of you write to me and ask who is I will be very unimpressed and may disown you. If necessary look him up on the internet.

Amsterdam

We had a fantastic weekend in Amsterdam last week. The flight across was delayed by about half an hour due to fog in Manchester. Andrew wasn't so good with the take off, and thankfully the flight was only 55 minutes long so he managed to get through it okay.
We started off by visitng the Heiniken experience. 10 euros to get in and you get 3 free beers. It is a tour about the start of the company and the brewery. It was pretty good. you also get a free gift at the end as well. It was a bottle opener.
Then we wandered around town and went into a few different pubs and a couple of cafe's. We then headed back to the hotel and got something to eat. Dutch take away, not really that different to anything else. But they do have mayonnaise with their chips, which is my new favourite thing.
On Saturday we headed to the Rijksmuseum, which is the state museum. Very good museum. There was a big deisplay of Rembrandt paintings, including the Night Watch. you could get a sheet that explained the different points of the painting including the girl in the middle, and various people as well as the fact that the painting was cut down when it was moved to the town hall so that it would fit on the wall. Nobody knows where that piece is and people can only speculate as to what is contained in that piece.
We spent the afternoon wandering around again stopping into various places of interest, including the Sex Museum. A friend of mine went there when they visited Amsterdam so we decided to check it out. A very interesting look into the porn industry since the early 1900s.
That night we went out for dinner at an italian restaurant.
On Sunday we went to Anne Frank House. I found this really interesting having read her diary. You can't really imagine how small the area was that they lived in for all that time until you actually see it. The staircases were very steep and not very wide.
For lunch that day we had fish and chips and the biggest pancake I have ever seen, it was bigger than the plate it was brought to us and the plate wasn't exactly small. We then spent the rest of the day walking off lunch.
The whole time we were there everyone spoke English to us which made getting around so easy. All the restaurants as well, except the menus were in Dutch so that was a little difficult. Amsterdam isn't that big and you can walk pretty much the whole way around pretty easilt. We had 3 different maps to help us as well. It was what I expected a European city to look like, with the canals and the old buildings, it was all very romantic. On Friday it seemed very drab and everyone seemed grumpy, so I wasn't overly impressed. On Saturday though it cleared up and everyone seemed to relax and have a laugh. It made the city feel very personable.
We did go to the red light district because we wanted to see just what it was like. I found the girls very depressing and not very attractive. Most of them looked like they didn't want to be there, but all the men walking passed hem seemed to find them a great entertainment. each to their own I guess.
On the whole I can completely recommend Amsterdam for anyone planning a trip to Europe.
One last note a big congratulations to Russell and Junko on their baby girl Emily, i pray they are both getting stronger by the day.

Death of a Presdient

Last night we watched a mocumentary on the assasination of George Bush.
It was 'made' a year after he was killed and what happened in the aftermath. Cheney was named president, and the FBI went into overdrive to catch the killer. A suspect was found and questioned, he was Syrian and had spent time in a camp in Afghanistan. Immediately Cheney wanted the evidence to prove it was him, there were people pushing for the link with other people to commit this act. There was evidence against this guy, but not enough to convict beyond reasonable doubt. It felt very similar to the way that George Bush wanted everything to be about Saddam. I am not sure the people were that made this, but it was done really well. I think if anyone had been flicking channels they no doubt would have thought that he had indeed been killed. The footage that was used had been doctored incredible well to actually make it look like these people, such as Cheney, really were talking about these issues. The determination to have the Syrian man charged blinded everyone to the truth of who really killed George Bush. If it gets shown whereever you are, I certainly recommend it for an interesting look into American Politics of this age.
It also talked of the issues with North Korea and a 'Sea of Japan incident.' This wasn't fully explained but assumed that there was an attack.
I would have liked to have seen more of the aftermath. There was no signs of a country in mourning for Bush's death. He was in Chicago and there were a large number of protestors. When they heard he had been shot they were cheering. There was no pictures of people crying and mourning the loss of their president. It was straight back to work and focus on the investigation. They did show his funeral. Now if I was George Bush I would have been a little unsettled at watching my own funeral.
I wonder if he gave his approval or if it was done completely without his knowledge, either way it is a fascinating watch.