Hard Candy

If you follow me on twitter, you may have seen some of my tweets relating to a movie I have rented called Hard Candy. Starring Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson, I loved this movie so much I felt I had to write about it. You can sum this blog post up in just a few words,

“YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!”

Seriously, I’m not just typing this, I want everyone and anyone who reads this post to go out and buy, rent, steal or use some other means to get your hands on a copy of this movie. 

I really want to write a lot about how this movie made me feel, but just in case you do go out and buy it, I’ll try and avoid spoilers. 

 

The basic premise of the movie is that Hayley (Ellen Page) meets up with a guy she has been chatting with on the internet called Jeff (Patrick Wilson). At first, you get the impression that they are both consensual in their meeting and with their ‘attraction’ towards each other. Let me say at this point that Hayley is 14 years old, whilst Jeff is much older. Now considering the plot revolves around issues of pedophilia, I found myself at some points of the movie, being annoyed with myself at how I felt about the characters. A review I read said that I would be ‘pissed-off with myself” for feeling the way I do during the movie and I can honestly say I do. 
Jeff gets the tables turned on him in the movie, with Hayley getting her ‘own-back’ as it was. If your male and watching this film, be prepared for about 40 minutes worth of grimacing and squinting at the screen as it contains the most gruesome ‘castration’ torture scene ever.

 This movie is so subtle and yet so powerful, it’s left me thinking about it an hour after I’ve finished watching it. I’m not the best at writing movie reviews, so I’ll leave the final remark to the Director of the movie;

Roughly 50% of our audience love this film, around 25% come out of the theatre wondering what they thought and the other 25% hate us for making it.

You MUST watch this movie. You MUST!

 

Andrew.

American vs UK Apple Store Prices

I was a bit annoyed at how different the prices were in the UK Apple store compared to the prices of the US store (obviously, factoring in the exchange rate). I’ve drawn up a quick table below just to put the prices side by side.

As you may have guessed, MB = MacBook, MBA= MacBook Air and MBP = MacBook Pro. The models listed increase in specifications with MB(3) being the ‘old style’ MacBook.

I have taken the price from the US store for each product, converted to GBP using the current (15th October 22.30, 2008) exchange rate. Then listed the price given in the UK store and in the final column, calculated the difference. This final column is the one I am concerned about. 

%Δ of each product is as listed (roughly);

• MB (1) = 25%
• MB (2) = 23%
• MB (3) = 23%
• MBA (1) = 24%
• MBA (2) = 23%
• MBP (1) = 20%
• MBP (2) = 20%

So, as you can see, the average Δ% is around 22.5%. The question now is, where did Apple get this figure from. Why did they decide that the UK’s prices should be, on average, 22.5% higher than those in the US? Well, being the economist I am, I’m embarrased to admit that I haven’t a clue.

Obviously the Dollar is very weak at the moment (nigh on 2$ to £1) but this doesn’t really factor for the 22.5% difference in pricing. Again, it has always been the case that Britain’s are generally charged more for things because of our ‘once healthy’ economy. It’s like me (a Northerner) going to London and finding things much more expensive than I’m used to where I live, to use a better example look at the difference in property prices between northern cities and the capital – now, take this example and expand on it globally.

 

Like I said, I’m only suggesting some ideas but none can fully explain the extent to which Apple is charging it’s UK customers more. I encourage you to leave a comment should you know the answer to this, or even if you just have our own theories, because I’d really love to know.

Anyway. Rant Over. Signing Off

Of Doodles, HHGTTG and the Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster

A couple of months ago, I bought two new Moleskine notebooks. They’re quite expensive compared to most notebooks, and I always feel a bit stupid buying them, but they just feel better to write in. I can’t explain it. I generally take one with me wherever I go, I’m no artist or poet or anything fancy like that, just for the mundane stuff like writing down dates, places etc. Whilst sat in a Research Methods lecture yesterday, I found a new use for my Moleskine, filling it with my random doodles. 

 

On an entirely different note, I’ve always been a fan of the movie – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy (the one with Zooey Deschanel and Martin Freeman). Recently, I downloaded the original radio series’ of the same name, from the 1970s I think, and been listening to an episode each night before I go to bed. I love them, they’re so ridiculous and quirky and weird. This is just a small example of genius from the mind of Douglas Adams;

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It’s a nice day, or You’re very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behavior. If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months’ consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don’t keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn’t know about.

Andrew

What’s a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster?

The best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster The effect of drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick