Royal Rumble 2012 - A Ginger Surprise

The first read head to win the rumble?

World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan def. Big Show and Mark Henry (Triple Threat Steel Cage Match)

The big question coming into this match was whether Daniel Bryan would be given a longer run with the title or whether Mark Henry would take the strap. The steel cage stipulation made me favour the former and I was pleasantly surprised that Bryan once again escaped with the title. Show and Henry did a good job of beating up Bryan while he attempted to escape any chance he got. The finish was clever with Show unable to prevent Bryan from dropping to the floor. The one disappointment was the lack of action by Henry, who still might be injured, as Show was the only one that hit any convincing offense.

John Cena Promo

Didn’t we realise that Cena was such a caring and compassionate superstar? Or did we need to be reminded how passionate he is about wrestling? Either way, it was well put together and played well to Cena fans.

Divas Champion Beth Phoenix, Natalya & The Bella Twins def. Eve, Kelly Kelly, Alicia Fox & Tamina

My question about this match was: why waste time on this when the world heavyweight championship match could have gone for longer? Booker T calling the fight a “Diva-brook” was the best part of the match as the Kelly Kelly top rope dive was clearly telegraphed and wasn’t even very athletic. With Kharma returning in the rumble match, Beth destroying Kelly Kelly at the end set up Kharma as the next challenger but apart from that not much here.

John Cena vs. Kane (Double Count Out)

I’m surprised Cena used Benoit’s finisher the Crippler Crossface submission in this match that was pedestrian from both superstars. Kane choked and beat up Cena before inexplicably stopping just as he went to super-plex Cena from the top rope thus leading to the Cena come back. They then fought outside the ring to a double count-out and through to the back. Kane then attacked broken back (no sorry, just herniated disc) Zack Ryder and brought him back to the ring. He then destroyed Zack with a tombstone and Cena with a choke slam. It sets up the two for a match next pay-per-view but hopefully they can do more in ring and not rely on post-match antics to save them.

The Rock Promo

This promo was meant to show that the Rock was both a movie star and wrestler: cue copious gym work and shots of his toned upper body. He harped on about never really leaving the WWE and shining bright at Wrestlemania – yawn.

Brodus Clay def. Drew McIntyre

I read on a IWC post speculating about how they would work the Funkosaurus’ dance into the show and this was it. Clay squashed McIntyre after about 1 minute of offense and just kept dancing. The only surprise was that William Regal didn’t make an appearance to promote the feud.

WWE Champion CM Punk def. Dolph Ziggler (Special Guest Referee John Laurinaitis)

This was the best non-rumble match of the night. Johnny put himself outside the ring to seem impartial and even evicted Vicky as per the match on RAW a few weeks ago. Ziggler once again looked like main event material in this match with some of his offense but never seriously looked like he might pull out the win. The end was well booked with a ref bump and Johnny costing Punk the win after the anaconda vise, a roll up and a couple of GTSs, especially when Punk called Johnny “clown shoes”. Johnny then helped the ref with the 3 count after Punk kicked out of a zig zag and hit a final GTS. [Funnily, this is an almost identical end to the HBK vs British Bulldog WWE championship match with Mr Perfect as special guest referee at the King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1996.] Punk celebrated the win and Johnny just walked away.

Sheamus won the 30-Man Royal Rumble Match

With all the press surrounding Miz and him entering #1, the first half of rumble match was him and Cody Rhodes beating up clear non-winners. Some of the funnier moments were: Ricardo Rodriguez coming out as Del Rio; Mr Socko (Foley) vs. The Cobra (Santino); all the announcers entering the rumble; Kofi Kingston handstand walking back to the ring; and the return of Kharma. By the time Road Dogg came out, it looked like Miz might go all the way but when Show came in at #30, he cleared house and put an end to that. The final four had Show, Orton, Jericho and Sheamus squaring off. After a thunderous RKO to Show, Orton eliminated Show and was promptly up ended by Jericho. Jericho and Sheamus had some near wins but eventually a Brogue kick saw Jericho enter and leave at #29.

The interesting thing about this outcome is that it seems to contradict many predictions about Wrestlemania. Most IWC commentators had either Jericho winning and facing Punk at Wrestlemania or Orton winning in his home town and facing Bryan at Wrestlemania. This might be a deliberate swerve by WWE as it seems that one of those outcomes is now scuttled. They might have Sheamus putting his title opportunity on the line like Mysterio did against Orton but that would seem illogical and Sheamus has worked hard to earn his Wrestlemania moment. Other options could be: Jericho is no longer going to headline Wrestlemania (maybe he could win the Money in the Bank match which he created and get the title of Punk like that) or Orton might need more time off after his back injury. Either way, it was refreshing to see Sheamus win despite Jericho yet to win a rumble in his storied career and he will be good at Wrestlemania.

Overall this was one of the better pay-per-views in the past year or so. The rumble was fun because it was shorter, had some fun story lines and a serious end. Punk retained the title with Johnny Ace calling it straight in a strong match for Ziggler while Bryan retained the title in a match that reinforces his strong run with the title at the moment. Kane/Cena was predictably poor in terms of wrestling but continued the story line coherently and logically. The other matches were typical filler material. As usual, WWE has its thinking caps on leading up to Wrestlemania: may it continue up to Florida and beyond.

Go see it for the Dog!

Young Adult

The tag line for this ‘comedy’ is: “Everyone gets old. Not everyone grows up.” It neatly sums up this Jason Reitman film but it is also the film’s weakness: the characters may not have grown up but the audience has.

This is not the first outing for the duo of Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody. The two combined successfully to create the comedy Juno that tackled the issue of teen pregnancy and not growing up too quickly. More recently he directed current Oscar favourite George Clooney in the adult romance Up in the Air. While both these films are fun and engaging, watching them back on DVD I started questioning why I had enjoyed them so much to start with. The problem was the pacing: at the cinema, hostage to my $15 ticket and captive in my seat, I was willing to ride out some boredom for a decent film. In the comfort of my own home I just wanted to hit fast forward. Unfortunately, this time I was hostage to my $15 ticket and in a packed cinema: with Young Adult there was no escape!

Young Adult is about ghost writer Mavis Gary, played by perennial Oscar favourite Charlize Theron. Mavis is an alcoholic, Diet Coke guzzling, reality TV junky, struggling to finish the last of an increasingly unpopular series of Young Adult (YA) novels. Upon receiving an email from an ex-boyfriend, she decides to return home and try and win him back. Already the shallowness of the plot was starting to worry me: at least Juno had a baby and was experiencing real problems. Instead, we follow Mavis as she checks into a hotel with dog in tow and goes about winning back her high school boyfriend from his wife and newly born baby.

For the next hour and a half the audience is subjected to the shameless flirting of Mavis that is both pathetic and lacks any of the promised comedy. In fact, the dog doesn’t have any lines but elicited more laughs in the cinema than any of the characters. Moreover, the plot fails to develop past these threadbare premises until right on cue, the third act begins with the obvious message of the film in the clichéd drunken excursion to the woods: you need to move on from the past and grow up.

And this is the heart of this film’s failure: Diablo Cody forgot that the audience of Young Adult were in fact adults and that they could handle something a little more complicated. One of the reviews claims this is “Juno’s wicked older sister” but at least Juno had something important to say about life, whereas Mavis only exists between alcohol fuelled day dreams of high school romance. Moreover, she is encouraged in these hedonistic and apathetic pursuits by one of the minor character who states that the small town folk are “nothing” and that “they may as well die” thus absolving her of guilt for wanting to wreck a happy marriage and validating her empty life.

I don’t know what happened in the script writing process that this occurred or whether Reitman just couldn’t be bothered bringing some sense to this story. The entire film instead validates the existence of the small town folk as fulfilled and enjoying their lives while the big city star is the one who wants for rewarding relationships and purpose. Then maybe again I’m reading too much into the film. Or perhaps that was the point all along and I was too annoyed at wasting my money on it to see that. Either way, someone screwed the pooch on this one.

Simple and Simply Disappointing

Arrietty in one of the beautifully drawn sets of the film

Arrietty (or The Secret World of Arrietty)

I’ll be honest: I haven’t seen Up and I don’t plan on seeing it. The thing is: it’s too adult for me. In fact, a lot of the animations that currently populate the cinema landscape, such as Despicable Me and The Smurfs, don’t really seem like animation films I grew up with. They seem too serious, play too much to the attending adult and not enough to the child. They lack the innocence that made classics such as Bambi and Snow White so enduring. That’s why my recent trip to see Arrietty was so refreshing: finally, an animation for children.

The story of Arrietty revolves around the miniature person Arrietty and her family that live under a human’s house. When Sho, a sick child, visits the house, her existence is detected and hence her family’s safety put at risk. The plot has its obvious bad guys, in this case the house keeper, and good guys, Sho, with a strong, heroic lead, Arrietty.

While this may sound boring, in fact the plot doesn’t develop much more, this is part of the charm and appeal of this delightful animation. The plain and uncomplicated desires of the main characters, friendship and understanding, make them easy to respond to and support as they face their trials with strength and determination. It sounds naive and indeed lacks some of the greyness that is real life but if I had wanted that I would see something rated M.

The other obvious major attraction of the film is the animation. The Studio Ghibli crew have once again put together a highly decorative and colourful set of characters and settings to entice the audience. The design and detail of the doll’s house is particularly beautiful while the cat is the best animated character by far. Moreover, you truly buy the Arrietty and her family as small humans thus making them even more appealing.

While this film may be seen to lack the humour and sophistication of more recent animations, Arrietty is a delightfully simple film that shows courage and friendship are sometimes all that is needed to create an engaging tale for all ages.

The Descendants

George Clooney is a great actor. If you want proof see him in any of the following: Goodnight, And Good luck, Up in the Air, or even The Ides of March. However, if you go to see The Descendants don’t expect to find gorgeous and talented George hanging about because you’ll just be disappointed.

In search of my disappointment at The Descendants, I first decided to blame the film critics and award season hype. This year was meant to be George’s year and this was his vehicle to Oscar success. Moreover, most reviews seemed positive and the film didn’t overly offend or venture to out of the norm for the voting panels. However, it would be a shame for George to win it on such an up and down performance compared to Up in the Air, a similar style of film that he excelled in (a bit like Denzel Washington receiving an Oscar for Training Day.

Yet this wasn’t at the heart of my disappointment; I looked closer at the film. The premise was solid: the impending death of his wife leads a man to confront his fractured family life and the man his wife was having an affair with. The casting was good: most acted their parts well and his family unit was convincingly portrayed. The music was ok: I got a bit sick of the repetitive Hawaiian refrain but it was part of the setting. The script was... awful!

The main problem with the script was the inconsistent emotions and behaviours of the characters. On occasion, Clooney or his older daughter began to scratch the surface of anger, resentment, despair and sadness that would accompany their plight but then only to break it with almost mandatory comic relief. Almost farcically, the spouse of the man who had been having the affair comes into farewell the dying wife and actually forgives her! Call my cynical but the death of a spouse is not lightened by such feel good moments that affirm the power of forgiveness. Moreover, it was bemusing at the speed at which the recalcitrant and troublesome daughter goes from drinking and skipping school to being the model daughter – act out for goodness sake! Finally, this was made all the worse by the tiresome length of the film that ran at nearly 2 hours.

So this was my disappointment: a poorly written, long, unbalanced piece of award night tenderloin that was served up with a good dollop of George Clooney to add a depth of flavour. While this may be palatable for members of the Hollywood Foreign Press, I prefer my George slightly more aged with a hint of spice.

The Monkey still on our backs

The 'usual' pre-game tradition at the WACA turns into a booze up

Nothing typifies an Australian summer than cricket. Clichéd? Yes but then again, every year without fail, I find myself glued to the TV set as Australia play at iconic grounds such as the MCG and SCG. However, while the Australian team has changed and evolved, it seems the fans and the coverage has not. Cricket still brings out the worst in Australians and the world is beginning to take notice.

An instructive example of this could be seen on the Friday edition of The Drum this week. As the host interviewed two Indian journalist/cricket enthusiasts, a trio of seemingly intoxicated Australian cricket fans noticed the TV cameras and decided to yahoo behind the Indian guests. Usually such idiots amuse themselves like this for 30 seconds or so and move on but not these clowns. Instead, they spent most of the 5 or so minute interview pretending to take wickets, be on the phone and generally disrespect the Indian guests. To their credit, the guests politely ignored the morons and made their points in a dignified manner. In fact, it was so bad, that every member of the panel roundly criticised the yahoos and admitted that such behaviour only shames our nation further.

Is this an over-reaction? Don’t people yahoo for the cameras everywhere in the world? Are we being precious just because they were Indian?

Regardless of your response to the above questions, the fact remains that this is a continuing symptom of Australia’s poor image overseas. Earlier in the week, another Indian player was reprimanded for giving members of the public the finger after probably copping more abuse while go-karting. That’s right: Australians can’t even leave a touring team alone when they are having a break from cricket. This followed another player being fined for doing the same to the SCG fans after they abused his mother and sister during the match.

Now, as professional sportsmen they need to be able to put with niggle and crowd interaction. However, we need to question the extreme abuse they must be getting to feel the need to respond in this way. Australians must not simply blame the tourists and claim they need to be more professional, we must look at ourselves and question what are we doing?

This incitement is not limited to the players. The travelling Indian press corps has had similar allegations levelled at them in the past week. One of the journalists broke a story of the WACA curators and staff partying on the test wicket the night before the game started. No big deal you might say and the Australian Cricket Board, WACA staff and Australian papers were quick to label it an Indian conspiracy and that the tourists were over-reacting. Moreover, they claimed it was a tradition.

They were wrong.

The tradition, as some Indian journalists discovered (notice the use of research and not simply mouthing off without checking facts), was to celebrate under the grandstand with a limited number of people. The reality was about 20 people on the ground, walking all over the pitch and looking more like a bunch of drunken teenagers then responsible adults. Moreover, the Indian journalists then had to refute claims that this was being used as an excuse for the team’s poor performance.

Once again, Australians let themselves down by jumping to conclusions and failing to be honest. All the Indian journalists wanted was an admission that the ‘celebration’ was not usual and that maybe it was inappropriate considering the test was on the next day. At no point did they claim it affected the team performance and they were justified by the ensuing investigation into the incident.

Then on the first day of the actual test, in which India again performed poorly, Australian batsman David Warner got into a verbal stoush with Indian bowler Sharma. No big deal in itself but it says something about the mentality of Warner that he can’t help but stick the boot in. India had already been embarrassed by their batting and he was embarrassing them with his ease of batting: why not simply let his whirlwind century do the talking for him? Australian players of old would have simply scored the century as their comeback, enough said.

However, James Brayshaw (part time cricket commentator and pathetic football caller with Channel 9) couldn’t get enough. He stuck the boot in further by continuing the sledging in the commentary box. He seems to forget that he is a commentator not a cheerleader for the Australian team. He is paid for his (cough cough) ‘expertise’ [I use the term very loosely because unlike the other commentators I can’t remember him playing an actual test match for Australia] in cricket and not his matey, jingoistic drivel that seems to spew forth from his mouth.

Thus, we have yobbo fans that feel the need to personally abuse players everywhere they go; journalists who can’t research and support lies fed to them by the WACA staff and Australian Cricket Board; and boorish commentators who would rather abuse the touring team then call the match as it stands. Sound familiar?

The reason is that it is a repeat of the last Indian tour of Australia. Headlined by “monkey-gate”, in which players were accused of racial abuse, and the “wild pack of dogs”, in which the Australian team pressured umpires unfairly in order to win the SCG test, this was seen as a low in Indian-Australian relations. Apparently, due to T20, these relations have improved but I fail to see any change.

In fact, this continued behaviour explains the poor reputation Australia has overseas, particularly in India. While their stations show coverage of blatantly racist behaviour towards their national team, we sit idly by and wonder why the numbers of overseas students keep dropping and our players are shunned in the IPL. Moreover, this footage makes its way around all of Asia thus reinforcing the racist reputation this nation has developed.

It seems there are some monkeys we can’t just shake of our backs.

Mysteries of the 6th Floor

Please not another long action sequence

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Director Guy Ritchie knows how to produce a rip roaring action film. His cinematic debut Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was a no holds barred look at a criminal underworld and thus it is no surprise that his versions of Sherlock Holmes retain much of the same spirit. However, his latest instalment in the Holmes series is a disappointment.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows takes place around the nuptials of sidekick Dr. Watson. Robert Downey Jnr. and Jude Law reprise their roles, as Holmes and Watson respectively, with the same chemistry that made the first film so enjoyable. This time they assist Madame Heron (Noomi Rapace) as they battle Holmes’s nemesis Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) and try to stop a world war. Stephen Fry makes a welcome cameo as Mycroft Holmes and plays an integral part in the final outcome.

The strength of the first Sherlock Holmes movie was its different take on a classic character. Robert Downey Jnr. gave Holmes a more macho persona to balance out his intellect with a knack for gadgets to get himself out of tricky situations. This is continued in A Game of Shadows but the novelty of seeing fight scenes played out before they occur wears a bit thin and one wonders what else Holmes has to offer. In fact, Holmes seems less intelligent in this film and relies more on a parade of ridiculous looking costumes rather than brains to escape most situations. Combined with the fact that Moriarty is clearly better prepared than other adversaries, the upside of this is that it does create the real tension that Holmes may in fact be beaten.

The other weak points of the film are the dialogue and action scenes. Whereas Holmes and Watson maintained a witty banter in the first film, their interactions seem dull and lack spark. This is not the fault of the actors as the lines they are given to work with are clearly below par. Moreover, this is made worse by the indeterminately long action sequences that seem designed to show off every special effect possible rather than entertain the audience. The fight through the woods spruiked in the trailers is perhaps the best example with an overuse of close ups, slow motion and explosions while not adding significantly to the storyline.

Ultimately this is not the worthy successor to the first Sherlock Holmes film. Guy Ritchie has been hamstrung by a poorer script but this cannot negate the fact that his handling of the action sequences was tiresome and the film overlong.

Women of the 6^th Floor

This is the first film of the year I have walked out of the cinema for. Honestly, it was that cringe inducing and predictable that after forty minutes I had had enough. In fact, it made Melancholia seemed bearable as at least I had an interest in the final outcome.

My major gripe with this film: realism. Touted as a “sleeper hit” and an “upstairs/downstairs comedy”, I expected a quirky film with some funny class jokes. Instead, Phillippe LeGuay delivers a trite and predictable comedy that reminds me why I avoid “sleep hits” like Death at a Funeral. His characters are plain, everyone overacts their roles and the situations are improbable and fanciful.

Take the leader character, Jean-Louis Joubert, a wealthy Frenchmen and stockbroker. No matter how kind he might be, he wouldn’t suddenly be spending money on plumbers and phone calls to placate house maids in his building. The whole premise of the “upstairs/downstairs” comedy is that the rich cannot understand what real life is like and thus must be exposed as frauds. Thus, making your main character sympathetic to start with already fails the formula. Also, his obsession with boiled eggs, meant as a joke no doubt, makes him appear to have a borderline personality disorder.

Finally, it seems that in an effort to exaggerate the workers from the rich, the director insisted that all the Spanish actors heap on the “Spanishness”. Never in one scene have I seen so much yelling, hand gestures and over the top emotions as when they all decide to help the new maid clean Joubert’s house. Apart from the improbability of them skipping a whole days work and avoiding punishment, the singing is truly awful and makes the housework seem enjoyable (once again counter to the whole upstairs/downstairs genre).

In retrospect, despite having only seen forty minutes of the film, its awfulness is apparent in the length of this review. Don’t waste your money or time with this French garbage, cleaning your own home would be a much better way to spend the two hours.

On the backs of Dragons (Or Books vs. Internet)

I recently finished reading one of the book series that defined my childhood: Magician, Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon – Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar trilogy. Reading of the adventures of Pug, Tomas and the Mikidemians brought back that childhood exhilaration of riding through a horde of ugly, violent trolls on horseback, wielding a sword and seeking revenge on any enemy that got in my way. It also made me stand in awe as the sky was filled with sparks that were all colours of the rainbow as magicians bend the fabric of time and space to their will. Moreover, the plotting and intrigue of court politics was a grim reminder that not all are noble or honourable and that those who appear not to be often are. All this was relived on two imaginary worlds created by Feist and it reminded me of my love for fantasy fiction during my teenage years.

Unfortunately, if recent research trends are to be believed, I may be soon considered a museum piece for having experienced such excitement in print. In fact, there is a risk that the next generations will not only miss out on the exhilaration of reading a great adventure tale from another world but maybe more boring as a consequence. As an English teacher I find this disturbing but as a member of the human race it makes me terrified.

Reading the Sydney Morning Herald on my iPad yesterday, there was an article entitled “Don’t let technology stultify your brain – download a book” by Gail Rebuck. It started with the usual opening gambit of articles about reading: why bother? Mostly this is followed by the tired but not untrue argument about cultural heritage and that we can’t understand society unless we understand our past. However, this article instead pointed to research that suggests that reading plays an important role in developing neural pathways in the brain that leads to the development of empathy and a sense of self. This was an argument I hadn’t heard before and now I was hooked. It then continued on to suggest that a generation that read less would in fact change society itself by creating less intricate, empathic and interesting people. By this time I had noted the name of the book the research came from to download later. Finally, it promoted the use of tablets, e-readers and the internet as the future of reading that must be embraced: message over medium. Ironically, despite owning an iPad I still feel that paying for an e-book is a bridge too far. All up the article left me a little shaken: the future of the planet might be dependent on reading and we were losing the battle noticeably.

The main reason for my concern is what I observe daily in my job as an English teacher. Often when I introduce myself as such, people give me a wry look and boast about how the last book they read was in school. I used to think this was a worry because despite having to read a lot for my job, I always find time to read books that interest me. However, even more worrying now is the number of people who not only boast of not having picked up a book since school but also boast that they didn’t even have to read books to get through school! Thanks largely in part to the internet and the democratisation of information, there now exist multiple sites to help the lazy/struggling/uninterested student who doesn’t want to read their assigned text but still be able to pass an in-class or examination essay. These notes not only provide detailed plot analysis but even give you quotes to show that you have ‘read’ the text.

This epidemic is getting worse: in my recent senior English class I could count on one hand the students who actually read the entire text. The reason they gave me being that the film version was more accessible and English didn’t matter anyway. This proved incorrect as those who had read it shone through in the final exam but if this is any indication of the students to come I am definitely up against it.

One of the major reasons I think for this degradation of reading is the school system itself. As teachers we try to make reading accessible and user friendly for the students. This often means choosing softer text options that should be readable for all students so that staples of yesteryear such as a Bronte, Austin or Steinbeck get put to one side in favour of young adult fiction such as Marsden, Meyer and Rowling. In itself this is not a bad thing, choosing a text that can be differentiated for each student is a must for equitable classrooms so that all students get a chance to learn. However, we do ourselves a disservice when even this lower standard is flaunted and students fail to read even these simpler books. Where do we go next? Do we start setting magazines as major texts? Perhaps we should abandon the written word altogether and just watch movies?

The other major reason for this decline is parents themselves. Schools play a major role but are not the only ones responsible for a child’s education. In fact, a lot of the child’s attitudes and behaviours have been shaped before school even comes into contact with them and thus parents need to take their share of responsibility. While this avenue relates to almost every aspect of education (and warrants at least another essay in itself), this is particularly true of reading. Positive modelling, that is sitting down with a book on a daily basis for pleasure, is one of the best ways to encourage children to read. While in an ideal world this is done regularly at school, I hear stories of schools that incorporate this into their timetable and weep, an over-packed curriculum made busier by National Curriculum doesn’t provide this space. In fact, the only way I do it in my own classroom is to prioritise time away from other activities for reading. Thus parents need to be actively encouraging reading by providing opportunities to read and showing their children its value by doing it themselves.

Before I hear cries of I’m too busy or my child spends all their time on the computer, I have one thing to say: remember, you are the parent and they are the child. This may seem an odd statement but the number of kids who seem to control their own mobile phone and computer usage at home makes me wonder if the inmates are running the asylum. I’m often amazed at the parents who bemoan the fact that their child doesn’t get enough sleep because they spend most of the night texting or using social media such as Twitter of Facebook. I’m not a parent but eventually someone needs to take responsibility for the child’s action and contrary to popular belief it is NOT the schools.

So reading is in decline and the world faces a boring and less bright future for it. Is this concern new? Not really, Orwell wrote about this very topic in 1946. Speaking to workers he discovered that they would rather spend money on cigarettes than a book because the latter wasn’t worth it. In typical Orwellian fashion he wrote an essay on it and decided to run some figures to find out if it was so. Unsurprisingly for the writer and avid reader, he found that reading was not more expensive than smokes, the movies or the races but was in fact cheaper. The reason he came up with for the lack of reading in 1946: it was less exciting.

This is a simple answer but illuminating. Reading can be less exciting, particularly when children are directed to the shallow offerings of Twilight’s Meyer and Harry Potter’s Rowling. Much better that they are directed to more challenging texts (yes you may encounter poly-sibylic words that require a dictionary and complex sentence structures) that take them on grand adventures and don’t just pander to their limited imaginations. I would rather that they struggle through a classic such as Wuthering Heights than be left to run through the latest instalment of a Gossip Girl serial. Is it as enjoyable? By ‘enjoyable’ meaning fun: not really. However, the achievement of finishing such a novel has uncounted pleasures: the knowledge of overcoming a difficult task, expanding your vocabulary significantly and seeing that well crafted Literature takes time and patience. This is the true gift of reading, expanding those neurons, and something society can’t afford to lose.

Cruise control

Just when you thought that Tom Cruise might push his movie franchise Mission: Impossible one movie too far, he again delivers an action packed thrill ride with Ghost Protocol. Mixing insane action sequences with a light hearted but plausible storyline, this instalment proves why Cruise remains a mainstay, if somewhat jaded, star of Hollywood.

Ghost Protocol finds Ethan Hunt (Cruise) locked in prison and escapes thanks to M:i3 computer analyst turn field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and new comer Jane Carter (Paula Patton). In this typical Hunt sequence, he not only changes up the mission on the fly but is able to get his fair share of martial arts moves in too, proving that he may be older but he hasn’t lost any of his skills. From there things get progressively worse: their next mission ends up with Hunt suspected of blowing up the Krelim, the IMF is disavowed and only Hunt, Dunn, Carter and government analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) remain to stop the impending nuclear holocaust. Over the top? Maybe but then again this is an action film not an art house drama.

The cast and script writing on Ghost Protocol make this a worthy successor in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Pegg provides light relief throughout and his commentary during the Kremlin mission compliment Hunt’s straight man performance. Brandt is equally funny but he is able to back it up with strong action sequences and an emotional intertwining storyline with Hunt. Patton is solid as the newer IMF agent and doesn’t overplay her role. This is all tied together with a strong script that has strong messages about the risk of nuclear holocaust and the need for teamwork.

The star for me though is Cruise. In reprising the role of Hunt almost 16 years after the first film, released in 1996, he knows better than to be the same energiser bunny that we saw exploding out of the restaurant or jumping from an exploding helicopter onto a fast moving train. Cruise adds a sense of irony and lethargy to his performance, seen in his reluctance to jump from the hospital early on in the film, but maintains his desire to stop the bad guy despite any odds. His defiant cry of “mission accomplished” at the end is both comic and serious: Ethan Hunt still had the drive to save the world, even if he is a bit slower than he used to be. It reminded me most of Mel Gibson’s later performances in the Lethal Weapon series that showed both a maturation of actor and character.

It wouldn’t be a Mission: Impossible film without the gadgets and again Ghost Protocol delivers on this front. I won’t spoil the movie by revealing all of them but just as nanotechnology makes your mobile phone as versatile as your laptop so too does IMF technology. Importantly though, the technology doesn’t overshadow the action but gives some plausibility to the intense action sequences.

All up then, Ghost Protocol delivers on the tried and true Mission: Impossible formula. With strong performances by the whole cast, intense and breath taking action sequences and cool gadgets to boot, Cruise again reminds us why he is a Hollywood star.