Dogs Are Barking

Conditions: Relentlessly Overcast

Woof.




If Jean Claude Van Damme has taught us anything, other than that being able to do the splits does not make you look cool, it's that when traveling through time you have to be very very careful not to do anything that might affect future events. A lesson that apparently was not passed on to a certain someone who has been spotted ...in a documentary filmed in the 20's for a Charlie Chaplin movie while seemingly talking on a cell phone.

George Clarke from east Belfast has been puzzled for more than a year by a scene in a film which appears to show a woman talking on a mobile phone.

The unusual thing is that the movie was made by Charlie Chaplin in 1928 - long before mobile phones were invented.

In the eight days since George posted the clip on Youtube - more than 1.5m people have viewed the video online.

- bbc.co.uk/news/

I know, it sounds outrageous, especially due to the not unimportant point that time travel is impossible. But you cannot argue with the fact that the person in the movie is clearly talking while holding a thing against their ear. And as we have all been conditioned to recognise over the last decade, anything a person holds to their ear while speaking is a cellphone. Simple.

You tube clip is here


Film Review: The Town

Ben Affleck directs and stars in The Town, a gritty heist movie about a team of professional bank robbers in Boston. Ben plays essentially the good-hearted bad guy, who wants to go straight but is trapped in this world of guns and money. When he falls in love with a kidnap victim of their last heist, things start to wind out of control. In terms of heist movies that have gone before, there really isn't anything new here. Affleck directs a fairly straight forward film where the stakes gradually get raised with the FBI hot on their heels. The difference really comes in that the ending isn't as bleak as I thought it would be.

It's still fairly bleak, but all things considered, it could have been much worse. Which applies to the whole film as well. Affleck seems to have found an actual director deep down inside, and aside from some occasional odd editing choices shows some good skill at putting scenes together. And acting wise he's putting on a damn good performance as well, trying to desperately find a way out of the life he's built for himself when he finally gets a glimpse of something better.

The film is fairly grungy, however. Boston comes across as a cheap, nasty downtrodden place to live, where everyone can't wait to get the hell out. And lets not forget the overall theme of the movie, something I feel is getting a little lost in all the Affleck praise. This film is about a bank robber, trying to get away with it. Things get out of control, people get hurt and killed. Exactly how is Affleck the good guy in any of this? Well he isn't. It's just the nice smile and big chin that makes the audience want him to be the good guy. So, a nice try. Three twangy accents out of five.


- Peace out