The Museum Of Modern Thinking

Another YouTube clip that made me laugh - the guy at the end with the accordion inspires me The music choice is also excellent…

Hat tip to TheFightGeek.org

At last, a council has seen sense on speed cameras, calling them a “blatant tax on the motorist” - which they are

Fatalities were falling year on year until the introduction of speed cameras, and they’ve fell markedly less after that. Speed cameras only catch people who are exceeding (usually financially-motivated) speed limits; they don’t catch drink drivers, drug drivers, people on their bloody mobile phones, uninsured drivers, untaxed drivers, drivers who are being idiots, etc…

Let’s hope this a start of something…

At the weekend, I took my son (and myself) to see Kung Fu Panda, a film I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. In this Dreamworks animated tale, Jack Black voices a panda called Po serving up noodles in his dad’s noodle shack, but dreaming of joining the Furious Five - a group of highly-skilled martial artists. Obviously,with a name like Kung Fu Panda, every character’s an animal, so the Furious Five are actually named (and actually are) the animals their styles are based on, e.g. Mantis, Monkey, etc.

Through what appears to be an accident, Po is picked as the next Dragon Warrior, tasked with protecting the valley from the fearsome Tai Lung, voiced by (of all people) Ian McShane. Amazingly, old Lovejoy is superb in the role, really sinking his teeth (ho ho) into his Snow Leopard role. Tai Lung is, of course, held safely in a mountain fortress whilst Po begins his training - which basically consists of having the tar kicked out of him as the sifu (Dustin Hoffman) and the other Furious Five want him to leave.

They eventually warm to him (apart from sifu) just in time to Tai Lung to escape and head to the valley, seeking revenge on the sifu and his master for not declaring him the Dragon Warrior. Can Po unlock the awesome kung fu powers within him to rise to the challenge? Will the Furious Five survive their rop bridge battle with Tai Lung? Why is everyone an animal? Why the heck is Po’s dad a duck?!

Questions aside, the humour in the film was spot on, not too much, not too little, just right. Jack Black holds himself in check to deliver some quality lines, and it’s always nice to hear Jackie Chan. I didn’t even twig that Tigress was Angelina Jolie, but Viper was obviously Lucy Liu.

What I didn’t expect from the film was a small but welcome amount of philosophy. Sifu’s master Oogway talks about Panda’s destiny after Panda was named the Dragon Warrior and says, “A man often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”. Later, Oogway and Sifu are discussing the nature (or illusion) of control, as sifu feels he let down everyone by turning Tai Lung into a psycho - yep, that’s right, sify did it. Anyway, Oogway and sifu discuss the planting of a peach stone - sifu says he can control where he places it, how it grows, and Oogway counters that sifu can’t control what it grows into - it’s peach tree, always will be, can’t be anything else.

And it’s there that the simple message of the film lies, but hey, this film doesn’t really need a message. It’s funny, the animation is outstanding (rivalling Pixar, I would say), the martial arts choreography is exceptional (Tai Lung’s prison break-out is especially good), and the last twenty minutes or so of the film is the epic final battle - and I’ve not laughed harder in a cinema for ages

In all, it’s a worthy 9 out of 10, with a point deducted for not letting Jackie Chan speak more. I value this film so much, I’m buying it on DVD. Whilst that sounds obvious, I can pretty much remember a film after a couple of viewings, so a film has to be a bit special before I buy it.

I’m an occasional visitor to The Onion, and the following is absolutely hilarious:

Brief, but funny