Funny that

I went to see Eagle vs. Shark the other day. It's an odd, funny (sort of) little film from New Zealand similiar in style to Napolean Dynamite or You, Me & Everyone we Know. Although nowhere near as good as either of them so don't complain if you don't like it. The best part for me was in the trailer (is it me, or is that happening more and more these days?) when Jarrod tells the guy on the phone that "Justice is waiting for him". Look at the trailer, the clip is near the end - it made me laugh.

I didn't know any of the actors in the film (I'm not really up on my Kiwi culture) and hadn't really given them a second thought since I saw the film last week. This morning, Steve sent me a link from youtube. I didn't get a chance to look at it all day but I saw him briefly this evening and he reminded me to put it up here. Since he's getting married on Friday and I haven't got him a gift yet I thought I'd better do what he said. So I came home and looked at it. Look! It's Jarrod from the film. And he's funny. A lot funnier than the film anyway.



Turns out he's quite famous. In New Zealand anyway. Just goes to show that no matter how many films you see, tv shows you watch, or hours you waste looking at clips online, there's still lots of great things you've never heard of waiting to be discovered. I find that quite exciting really.

Now I'm off to read a book I was given recently. It's called The Da Vinci something or other. Never heard of it. I'll let you know if it's any good.

Bringing Up Babies

As with football, music and Christmas, childbirth has always been a tricky subject for filmmakers to tackle. The temptation to fall into cheap sentimentality while avoiding the sticky (literally) matter of childbirth itself has always been a problem. For every Raising Arizone, there's been a Nine Months; for every Snapper, there's been a Junior and for every Three Men and a Baby, there's been a, em, Three Men and a Little Lady. In the last couple of weeks there's been two films released that deal with the topic of unwanted or unexpected pregnancy. The first one, Waitress, tells the story of, wait for it, a beautiful, smalltown waitress in a pie restaurant who finds herself pregnant at the hands (and other appendages) of her abusive, deadbeat husband. The other new release, Knocked Up, concerns a beautiful tv presenter who finds herself pregnant after a drunken one night stand with a chunky, stoner, deadbeat Canadian. What is it with these smart, beautiful women and deadbeats? And where can I find one?

While not belonging in the same category as rubbish like Nine Months or Look Who's Talking, Waitress doesn't offer anything particularly new or interesting. Or good. Our heroine, Jenna, played with just the right amount of sweetness and toughness by Keri Russell didn't plan and doesn't want her baby. Instead she's been planning on running away from her husband to make pies somewhere else but now she's got this darned baby (one in the oven, oh-ho!) to deal with. Jenna starts to have an affair with her married gynacologist but that's ok because her husband hits her and the doctor is cute. Anyway, she makes lots of pies and writes letters to her unborn child and I guess she learns what's important and stuff. She has friends in the diner and they're on their own life journey too. Oh yes. One of them is also having an affair with her married boss. Whose wife is their friend. Jesus, with friends like these..

It's been hard to read a review of Waitress that hasn't summed it up by using an easy food reference. As sweet as apple pie, as cheesy as, a really cheesy pie, etc etc. So here's mine: Waitress is like a dessert you shouldn't have ordered after dinner. You think you want it, you've seen other people around you having it and they seemed to love it but halfway through, the combination of sweetness and stodginess just becomes too much and you wish someone will take it away before you have to run to the men's room.

Ah - maybe that's a bit too harsh. Look, it's rubbish but perfectly nice, watchable, forgettable rubbish. It's written and directed by Adrienne Shelley who died tragically last year. She was a great actress and there's just about enough here to suggest that she might have produced something good in the future. But Waitress isn't it.


Knocked Up, on the other hand, is another great comedy from the people resonsible for 'The 40 year old Virgin'. Surprisingly for a couple of films that seem to be targeted at fans of gross-out comedies like American Pie and There's Something About Mary, these films show a sensitivy and awareness that are at odds with the way the films are advertised in their trailers. The story is nothing special - beautful woman has one night stand, 8 weeks later she realises she's pregnant, she gets in touch with slacker dude who, after a reaction that he describes as 'unfavourable' realises that he nedds to straighten up and take some responsibility for his actions. There's lots of bumps in the road and hey - lots of laughs too but it's really quite sweet. Apart from the drugs, the lapdancers and slacker dude's moron buddies. And the actual childbirth itself is really well done. It's funny, educational (I knew nothing about crowning or the bloody show before today) and well worth catching.

Some people are having a go at it for its conservative slant (abortion is never an issue here and both couples in the film face up to their responsibilities and are commited to each other) but doesn't every romantic comedy aim for the same thing? Isn't it the plan for these people to get together at the end and not fall apart. Seems a bit odd to criticise a film for follwoing time honoured convention. There's a reason When Harry Met Sally leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy at the end and Annie Hall leaves you feeling sad and melancholic (and smugly intellectual too, if truth be told) and that's because Harry gets the girl and Woody doesn't.

The cast are terrific, Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen are great as the odd couple and Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann do more than enough with fairly thankless roles as the sister and husband of the expectant mother. It's over 2 hours long which is ridiculous for a comedy (Harry & Sally and Annie Hall are both under 90 minutes with no fat) but it doesn't feel like it's that long so that's a good thing. There's a bit too much unnecessary padding though - do we need to see American Idol's Ryan Seacrest complainng about the vacuous nature of modern celebrities (irony, what?) or the sister character berating the doorman of a nightclub for refusing to let her in? There's a lot of that sort of stuff to distract us from the only people in the film that we really care about. Still, when it comes back to Katherine and Seth (sorry - I can't remember the character's names. I think his was dude) there's more than enough there to warm the coldest of hearts. Ignore the off-putting trailers and posters - give it a chance.

State of Play

So - the latest on the Mighty Like a Rose fiasco..

After I received the last copy of the disc, I contacted play (again) and asked them (again) to send me the correct cd. This time though, unlike all the other responses I got from them, I received a reply that was a bit more personal than the usual "Thank you for contacting play etc etc" mail that I had been getting. Not only was it different but it seemed to address the issue.

Here it is:

Thank you for your query regarding this item.

We have had a stock enquiry carried out and can confirm that there was an error in our warehouse resulting in the wrong item being sent out. This issue has now been resolved and we are able to offer you the correct item.

Could you please contact us to let us know what you would like so that we can make the appropriate arrangements.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused to you in this matter and thank you for your time and valued custom.

Kind Regards,
Play

Brilliant. Fantastic. Happy Days. Finally it seemed like the was in sight and I could look forward to hearing the version of 'Deep Dark Truthful Mirrors'from EC's 1991 Unplugged show. I saw it on tv at the time and. to be honest, was really the onlyreason i wanted to buy the cd in the first place. Admittedly I was a bit puzzled by the part that asked me to contact them to let them know what I would like. As if it wasn't perfectly clear what I wanted. Still, undaunted I sent them a mail asking that if it wasn't too much trouble, could they possibly send me the extended reissue of the album and not the same one they'd been sending for the last 6 weeks.

About an hour later I they sent me this:
Unfortunately this item has now sold out. This means that originally it was only available in limited quantities and that unfortunately all copies have now been sold. As it is unlikely that we will be able to offer the item again in the near future we have refunded the amount in full.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Kind Regards,

Play

I mean where do i go from here? I've written to them asking for a better explanation but I won't hold my breath. You shouldn't either..

Good grief..

Thanks to Steve in London for sending me this..

Paved with good intentions

Terrific documentary on BBC4 tonight about the history of the motorway. The British Motorway in particular. A quality piece of television documentary-making. Part 1 of 3 covered the 14 years between the openings of the Preston ByPass in 1958 and Spaghetti Junction in 1972.

It's narrated by Philip Glenister (him off of that Life on Mars) and told from various different viewpoints - the engineers who had to figure out how to make it all work; the Irish navvys who worked tirelessy in, at best, difficult and, at worst, treacherous conditions; the graphic designers who designed the motorway signage that was so effective that it's still used today; the locals who had to get on with their lives while all around them was being torn down and built up and the AA and Emergency Services that had to deal with the inevitable breakdowns and accidents that came with the exciting new development.

Hard to believe that when it was first opened in 1958 there was no speed limits on the motorways. In fairness it wasn't really a problem because most cars weren't built to travel any faster than 45mph. So lots of overheated radiators and tyre blowouts for the AA to deal with. There was a heap of great archival footage of educational films telling people how to drive on these new, straight roads. I'm not going to say that a lot of drivers today could do with watching the same films to learn a few things. Not saying that at all.

The great thing about it is that it was simply informative and entertaining. Unlike BBC2's History of British Cinema documentaries that have been running forthe last few weeks, there was no matey narration, no jokey links and no bloody celebrities telling us that the M62 is probably their all time favourite British motorway. Just the people who were directly involved telling their story. I thought it was fantastic. Parts 2 and 3 are on over the next 2 nights. If you get a chance it's well worth a couple of hours of your time.

You know, there might just be a market for this kind of thing.

A nagging injury..

Well, it seems I rushed back too soon from my ligament injury. I started running again last Tuesday and although I took it easy last week, I opened it up a little more at the weekend. It felt great at the time - a little sluggish but no reaction in the knee and I was getting optimistic about the marathon in October. Unfortunately by Sunday night a little knee-knack and stiffness had set in and it was clear that all wasn't right. I went back to what was supposed to be my last physio appointment this evening and Fionnula isolated the problem and worked on it for about 30 minutes or so. She didn't seem too worried by the latest setback. I suppose she has the advantage of it not being her knee so why would she be worried? At one point she tried to console me by telling me that 'at least you got a week out of it'. I'm not sure she realised that I was hoping that I might have it for a bit longer than a week. I said nothing

The main reason I said nothing was that at the time she said it I was lying on my stomach and she was manipulating the back of my knee. I haven't felt pain like it for a long time and I was putting so much effort into not screaming that talking wasn't really an option. I think I was appropriately stoic.. I guess it's good that she found the problem and by the time she was done she told me it wasn't in bad shape at all. Yeah, maybe I'll get another couple of days out of it..

Anyway, she told me again that if I carry on doing the exercises properly and regularly (I don't think she believed me when I told her I have been) and don't run before I can walk - literally - I should be fine. I guess she sees this kind of thing all the time but I find it very frustrating. Either way It looks like Amsterdam is off. I'm going to hold off for as long as I can before I cancel but it's 8 weeks from this weekend and I'm way off schedule..

I'm surprisingly gutted. Still - there's always next year, right?

Everything in its place

I had a man in last week (Vlad - contact details on request) building shelves in the living room and kitchen. I've been in the blue house for about 4 years and haven't really done anything to it besides painting the living room a couple of times and hoovering now and then. But a few weeks ago I got a new fridge and now these shelves. It won't stop there either - I've big plans for the coming months. Especially now that I've found someone who can do the work for me because there's no way I'm doing it! I'm a little embarassed at how happy a few pieces of wood have made me but there's nothing I can do about it so I'm not going to fight it anymore!

The fantastic thing about the new shelves is that at last I can have all my books, records and DVDs in one place. The blue house is relatively small so, prior to this weekend, everything's been scattered all over the place. But now that everything is in one place I've realised that I haven't read at least half of the books I own. How can that be? I read books. I mean, I'm not getting through 2 hardbacks a week or anything but I read. All the time. And yet there's tons of stuff here that looks like it's never been opened, never mind read. Some of them I don't even remember buying. It's very odd. And while I'm at it, where are all the books I've read lately? They've vanished! Has the book fairy been to my house and swapped things while i wasn't looking? Very odd.

I guess I know what I'm going to be doing for the next few months, so. Just as well I wasn't planning on going out this Autumn..

The Lowe down

I found this clip on David Hepwroth's blog. It's 'Hope For Us All' from Nick Lowe's new record, At my Age. There's a stunning song on his last record, The Convincer, called 'Lately, I Let Things Slide". It'd be nice to think that this is the light at the end of that particular tunnel. He just gets better and better.

With most singers of his generation, it's often the case that you should start with their earliest records and as you work through chronologically, you find that the albums get longer while the insights get shorter. As Randy Newman sang in "I'm Dead But I Don't Know It": 'Each record that I make is like the record I just made. But not as good'. But with Nick Lowe the opposite is the case. If you like this and feel inclined, start with his new album, At My Age, and work backwards through The Convincer and The Impossible Bird. After that, you won't need any convincing.

The bare-faced cheek..

I don't know what to make of this story. About 3 weeks ago, a 19 year old student from Donegal who's been volunteering in Senegal for the summer dropped his trousers and mooned outside the home of one of the governor's homes. The article here claimed he did it as part of a series of dares. A local man saw him doing it and, enraged, apprehended the kid and held him until the police arrived and threw him in the slammer. Where he has been for 3 weeks. Presumably he's spent some of that time thinking that, in hindsight, he probably should've taken the forfeit on that dare.

3 bloody weeks! Think about that. Yesterday, his latest hearing was deferred until next week. So by the time he gets out he'll have spent almost a month in prison (reportedly with 40 inmates) for droping his pants in public.

Apart from it being a bizarre story, the thing I find interesting is that it's not getting a lot of attention in the press over here (although I haven't seen today's papers so that may have changed). I guess between Aer Lingus, Brian O'Driscoll and the Rolling Stones at Slane there's only so much news the papers can handle. But what would have happened if a 19 year old Sengal man did something similiar in Donegal and spent the better part of a month in prison? The Evening Herald would be apoplectic (nothing new there), the switchboard on Joe Duffy's radio show would be in meltdown and the anti-racism groups would be raising all kinds of hell. Irish people love to stick up for everyone but ourselves it seems. I wonder are there are any local groups in Senegal looking out for the dumb Irish kid in prison. I think I can hazard a guess.

I was just reading the comments on Devine's bebo page. Someone has sympathised with him and told him that at least he'll probably get an appearance on the Late Late Show when he's released. I don't know - hasn't he suffered enough?

Couldn't Call it Unexpected No. 4

A few weeks ago I was buying some bits and pieces from play.com I use them more than most of the other online stores because postage is free and you can usually pick up the odd bargain or two. Or four as it's turned out. I was looking through their sale section and spotted 'Mighty Like a Rose', Elvis Costello's difficult to love album from 1991. Big brother Gerry had it when it came out and the first time I saw Elvis when he was touring the record the year it came out but I hadn't heard it in a long time. Anyway, the version on the website was one of those expanded reissue things with bonus tracks and liner notes and all that hoopla. It was £2.99 and since I hadn't heard it lately and was buying a bunch of stuff, I threw it into the basket. Virtually.

So a few days later everything arrived - West Wing series 7, Andrew Collins latest book, What Was Lost (which I talked about last week) and a few cds. In amongst the pack was Mighty Like a Rose. Unfortunately they had sent me the original release of the album. This happens sometimes when I shop online and they usually resolve the issue quickly. I wrote to play explaining the error and they asked me to send back the old copy and they'd send me the correct one. Easy, right?

The following week the cd arrived in the post but again it was the wrong one. The invoice with the cd listed it as the expanded issue but somethig must have gone screwy in despatch. I wrote again to tell them what happened, adding that the first error was understandable, the second one less so. The following day I received a mail telling me that they'd posted the cd. It struck me funny that they'd do that since I hadn't returned the old one yet so I decided not to return it til I saw what they sent. Sure enough, 3 days later the wrong cd arrived. Again. I wrote once more and they sent it once more. It arrived this morning. It's the wrong one. I've now been sent 4 copies of the wrong cd. A cd I didn't really want in the first place but bought on a whim..

I'm curious to see how many they're going to send me if I just keep telling them that they've sent the wrong item. Also, I can't help thinking that nobody is reading my mails to play.com anymore. Or else they don't have much of a sense of humour.. Either way, I'm hoping that if things continue like this I'll be able to give a copy to everyone I know at Christmas.

I hope Elvis doesn't get to see this bump in sales on his next royalty statement. He always said that the record, which was slaughtered when it came out would find an audience in time. Who knew it would find its audience several times in the same place?

I listened to it today in work. It's great. Better than I remembered. But hey, if you don't believe me, I've got a free copy if you want it..

By the way, the title of this entry is the name of the last song on the record. It's a belter and given that today's arrival of MLAR4 was completely expected it seems appropriate.

This just in..

And happy birthday also to Ana Matronic, Steve Martin, Halle Berry, Gary Larson and Wim Wenders. I wonder what Ana Matronic does on her birthday.. I hope she's having a good one.

More water..

Lovely youtube movie of the shipping forecast playing over scenes from harbours all over the UK. Strangely captivating.

I love to get out and walk down the piers at Dun Laoghaire and Howth as often as possible. When (English) Steve lived in Dun Laoghaire we'd sometimes go out late at night after dinner and walk to the end of the pier in almost darkness. We couldn't see anything in front of us but the flashing lights from those chimneys in Ringsend. Having a crafty fag and putting the world to right. For the night at least. There's an exposed walk down to Poolbeg lighthouse that blows away the cobwebs no matter what time of year you go down there. It's always windy and always exhilerating. Nothing puts you in your place quite like getting to the end of a pier and looking out to sea at the horizon. Behind you, home and warmth and comfort. In front, well, nothing but water. I think part of the attraction about places like that is that those piers have been sitting there untouched for so long. I have photos of Howth from a hundred years ago and nothing's really changed. You can stand there looking out and the view is the same as it was way back when. Unless the Stena Line is passing in front of you at the time, of course. Which kinda breaks the spell..

At the end of the movie there's a line from Betjeman: "Here where the cliffs alone prevail, I stand exultant, neutral, free. And from the cushion of the gale behold a huge consoling sea." I think that's what I'm trying to say.. Not not as well.

Incidentally, there's not many places left like that but the War Memorial Gardens in Kilmainham is another one. When you're in there you can't see cars or roads or cranes in the sky. It feels like you've gone back in time. You should go.

It really is that good

Took myself down to the IFI tonight to see On the Waterfront. There's a Brando retrospective on at the moment and Waterfront was the first screening. Over the coming weeks, there's going to be screenings of many of his films including The Godfather ('offer he can't refuse' etc..), Apocalypse Now ('the horror, the horror...' etc.) and Last Tango in Paris ('eh, where's the kerrygold' etc.) Anyway, enough has been said about Brando that sometimes it's hard to remember how good he is. He's like Elvis. Actually he's a lot like Elvis. Ridiculously good-looking men who produced fantastic work, knocked the world on its head and died fat, figures of ridicule. He's also like Elvis in that he's been a legend for so long that you forget about the the art. When was the last time you actually listened to Heartbreak Hotel and tried to imagine the impact it had in 1957. Ot just listened to it and marvel at how good it sounds 50 years later?

On the Waterfront is the same. I first saw it about 10 years ago. I think I caught it late at night on tv more recently too but tonight was the first time I watched it in the cinema. It's wonderful. Brando's transformation from mob gofer to conscientious whistle blower is extraordinary. There's a scene in a bar with Eve Marie Saint where his masculine front and indifference to everyone and any emotion is stripped away and his softer side fights to come through. I don't know what he had to do to reveal that insecurity but, God, it's right there in front of you. Phenomenal. In a way, the classic 'coulda been a contender' scene doesn't have the impact you expect. You've seen it a thousand times on clip shows and know it's coming.. There was so much more that took me by surprise. I've never really noticed the scene where Brando's Terry walks with Karl Malden's (and how good is he?) Father Barry and tells him everything he knows but it really stuck with me tonight. Terry leaves the watching priest and goes down to talk to Edie. We don't hear his confession because of a ship's horn blowing in the distance (oooh - we can't hear the whistle blower because there's a whistle blowing!) but we see her reaction and the scene ends with Terry standing on his own with no way of going back and no easy way to go forward.

After that he's got nothing to lose and there's only one thing to do..

If you haven't seen it before and ever get the chance to, you know what to do..

What Was Lost

Was out at a stag party last night and woke up this morning with a bugger of a hangover and a lingering dose of the booze blues. As a result, most of today has been spent indoor reading the papers, drinking endless pots of tea and wasting time on youtube (see below). It hasn't been a completely wasted day however because I finished reading Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost this evening. Apart from the cover, which at first glance looks like another chicklit novel (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course) it's a fantastic book.

It begins in 1984. A young girl, Kate, who's obsessed with detective work, wanders around her town and neighbourhod carrying a notebook and documenting every suspicious character she sees. Gradually we're told of her family and friends and school background, and of the Green Oaks shopping centre, which she visits every day.. Then the story comes back to the present day (well 2004) and the introduction of 2 people who work at Green Oaks. Kurt, a security guard and Lisa, an assistant manager in a record shop. They both have a connection to Kate who it turns out disappeared 20 years earlier and was never seen again.

From the beginning, Kurt and Lisa are portrayed in such a way, and with such insight that it's easy to identify with them. It's not so much a novel about the disappearance of a child as it is a novel about the disappearance of hope and how people live with the pain and isolation the hopelessness brings. How the consequences of our actions or inactions can haunt us. The people in the shopping centre (each chapter ends with an anonymous account from various shoppers and employees in the centre) and the mundanity of their lives is outlined in such a way that you can't help feeling for them and hoping that they can find a way out..

The ending seems a little rushed but for the most part it just motors along, feeding us information as we need it and letting us wait for the rest or imagine it for ourselves. And right at the end, after everything has been resolved (in as much as anything is resolved - this is real life after all) there's an account from Kate's notebook written just before she disappeared. It's heartbreaking.

I can't recommend it enough.

Fionn in a million

It's been a long, slow Sunday at Connolly Towers. Spent far too much time link-hopping around youtube and finding various bits and pieces. I gave up on music videos years ago (don't have any music channels on tv here and haven't been exposed to anything at all recently) but this terrific video from Fionn Regan really stands out. I've never seen anything like it before. Didn't care much for the song the first time I heard it but it's gotten under my skin this evening and now I think it's really quite lovely..

Transformers

Sometime in the past, an old geezer called Wikywacky or something is exploring the North Pole (or somewhere really cold). He falls through a crack in the ice down to something that looks like the Fortress of Solitude from Superman II. Essentially a big icy room. So down there, the old man discovers a huge robot that may have been there several thousand years. He accidentally resets the robot's operating system (as you do) and one way or another the robot reflects the location of a magic cube that controls absolutely everything in the universe onto the old boy's glasses. And then old Wikywacky dies.

No, really.

Cut to the present day. It's all kicking off. More robots, bad ones - let's call them the Badtrons, have arrived on planet earth to get their tinny little hands on The Cube. They don't know where it is but they know a man who does. It's the old geezer's great grandson. Or grandson. Nobody seems to know for sure. This clueless gobashite (I can't remeber his name - let's call him Derek) has been trying to sell the magic glasses on ebay to raise money for a car. If he raises a few quid and studies hard his old man will get him a set of wheels. Not the car he wanted, mind you, but a junky old Camaro or a Pontiac or Thunderbird or something. There's a girl too. She's hot. But Derek is a bit of a dork and has no chance with Little Miss Hotstuff (except you know that he really does). Oh she's all kinds of foxy though. Let's call her Fidelma. So the junky car turns out to be a robot too. It transforms itself into a big walking robot thing. But it's one of the good robots. Let's call them the Goodtrons. The Goodtrons get to Derek and ask him for old Wikywacky's glasses. If they get the glasses then they can find out where The Cube is, kill the Badtrons, get back home to Robotland in time for Tron Idol and live happily ever after. Oh - we know all this because these fellas can talk too. They learnt how to talk from looking at the world wide web. So, one of them talks like Dirty Harry and one of them talks like Mr T. The others just sound like normal good guy robots. You know the type. Except for Derek's Robot car which desn't say anything at all until the end, when he comes across as maybe a little too clingy for a mighty world-saving Goodtron..

Oh - there's something else going on: America's Under Attack! The Badtrons have been on Air Force One stealing codes and killing secret service men. And they've been in Kerplakistan or somewhere like that stealing codes and killing soldiers. American soldeirs. Stars and Stripes forever and all that. Well that's just not on. So Jon Voight, or Christoper Walken - it's hard to tell the difference these days ( I think they both visit the same wig parlour), gets angry and runs around a lot. I think the Badtrons were stealing codes and copying files because the know that John Turturro (sleazy, excellent) has a secret little team of creepy agents who know where the cube is. Not sure about that though - it gets a bit frenetic. It turns out that The Cube is buried in the Hoover Dam. Just as well. Imagine if the robots got to California and learnt that The Cube was in Monaghan or Brussels or Sydney. Oh, speaking of which, there's an Australian girl. She's very smart. She knows all about computers. She has a little fat friend. He knows even more about computers. I don't really know what they were doing. She was very pretty though. Something for the boys who find Ms. Foxy a bit too intimidating.

From that point on, Transformers just gets a bit silly and unrealistic.. It's rubbish American blockbuster nonsense but at the same time, it's not really that bad. If you've seen Armegeddon or Pearl Harbour you've seen this. Apart from the transforming robots of course. It's bloody noisy too but that's nothing new.. And let's face it, the dialogue is so lame that whenever it quietens down you wish something would explode just so you don't have to listen to decent actors embarass themselves. Saying that, Shia LeBouef plays the young guy and he's not at all bad. He was in Bobby and A Guide to Recognising Your Saints earlier this year and was good in both of them. Particularly the Saints film. So he's set for bigger things. The girl, whose name I see is, appropriately enough, Megan Fox, doesn't have a lot to do. But what little she does she does in cropped top and tight jeans. The rest of them are just punching the clock and counting their money. All in all though, it wasn't the worst 2 hours I've spent in the cinema this year.. That's still Miss Potter. And it's going to take something special to top that!