Testing with crawling

I want to run a test to see of linking out from this site boosts PageRank for another site, and means that some pages start to get crawled by Google et al, as they seem not to be being crawled at present.
So for the Explore Living website, a link to a section all about the new residential housing division, new homes from Explore Living, careers with explore living in residential housing, let's see if anything happens. Didn't get a majorly useful explanation from Google, but expect it is a lack of inbound links...

Another reason to say "Kidman, a star?"

"Bewitched", personally I was bemused today, and will somebody tell Will Ferrell to be more Elf and Melinda, Melinda and much much less Anchorman, Old School and Wedding Crashers - when he did the "Yikes..." thing, I was thinking "That's you, that is Ferrell!" (apologies to the Mary Whitehouse Experience). Even worse was the inclusion of Steve Carell - personally I'm going to avoid any movie with him in from now on...
The better bit of our double-bill was "A History of Violence", top-notch Cronenberg, well-paced, well-directed, well-acted and thoughtful: it reminded me of the excellent Ondskan more than any other Cronenberg films, although the unsettling naturalistic style is still there.

Batman Begins...to get better

I really enjoyed "Batman Begins". As a bit of a batfan - with more of an emphasis on the Dark Knight of Frank Miller and Alan Moore than the sixties "POW" style - I enjoyed the stressing of the mythological and personal histories. I was also delighted that the Scarecrow was the villain (for the most part, and not wanting to give too much away) as I've always found him a cut-above, what with his fine academic background and all...!

I'm not 100% convinced that Christian Bale embodies either Bruce Wayne or his alter-ego - and I say this as a big fan of the Machinist, American Psycho and Empire of the Sun - but the overall mood, acting and direction tends to smooth out any annoyances with any one element of the film.

It was a bit of a delight to find a Hollywod blockbuster actually living up to its billing after the range of disappointments that were Mr & Mrs Smith (dire, despite a good director this was neither action nor comedy nor insight into Hollywood lusts), Revenge of the Sith and God knows what else that we've seen recently.

Plitvice Lakes

Plitvice Lakes,
originally uploaded by thristan.

This is a photo from Flickr

Taking the Sith...

...extracting urine or large wodges of cash via marketing? I'm not a Star Wars devotee, but have always remembered my five-year-old impressions at the cinema as well as the Darth Vader poster from The Empire Strikes Back that would scare me witless when the lights went out. Well, I was not impressed by Episode 1 with that blasted Binks thing, but thought that Episode 2 brought back some of the tension - what a disappointment Episode 3 was then. Don't get me wrong, some of it was good from a story perspective, but some of the lines were appalling and I got the impression that the effects were pulling the strings, not the plot. The problem with these prequels has been that they never captured the gung-ho enthusiasm of Star Wars onward (as embodied by Han Solo) - what a shame.

Eastern Europe or Central Europe?

I'm not really sure what we're supposed to say now (where is Eastern Europe if Hungary is Central Europe?)...anyhow...

I'm just back from a road-trip holiday with my wife in Hungary and Croatia, and was really surprised at how like "Western" European cities the Eastern European cities like Budapest actually feel. Munich and Geneva don't feel too different, and it's not just the Art Nouveau architectural influence of the Austro-Hungarian empire either. It's made me come over all European at a time of increased euro-scepticism (anyone for referenda?). It probably sounds a bit dense to anyone who lives in one of the former Eastern Bloc countries, as I guess it must be about 15 years or so since most of the iron curtain finally rusted, but I was really surprised.

What's worth watching at the moment?

Not a lot if the cinemas anything to go by. The only film I've thought a cut above the rest recently was The Machinist, but then Christian Bale seems to pick his films well (and should embody the Dark Knight very nicely). The film made me think of Kafka's short story the Hungerkunstler. Constantine was awful, but enjoyable trash - Keanu dialling in a performance again (quite how Rachel Weisz manages to come out of this sort of film - think "The Mummy" - untarnished, I have no idea), as was Ring 2, a shame as the first re-make was on the money for me - although I do think Ringu 2 was weaker than the first in the cycle anyway. Hostage was a giggle for a bit, but a damp squib later. Melinda and Melinda was amusing Woody Allen (and a return to form for Will Ferrell, why on earth was the execrable Anchorman being praised to the hilt?) but far from his best. Both Robots and Valiant showed that a lot of the creativity lacking in mainstream films is being channeled into animation at present. When is somebody going to release something decent to watch?

Hair and Japanese Films

I don't know if this is a recent thing or not - but watching some trailers for Asian films on Tartan DVD the other night, I noticed a lot of horror films where female black hair (usually wet) is being used to create an aura of terror. I'm obviously thinking of the Ring cycle in particular, but also of The Grudge and others as well...
I'm well aware of some of the symbolism of male hair representation (power and sexual potency) in literature (and you only have to think of werewolf films to think of some male hairiness examples - Ginger Snaps didn't cut it in my book, and was of course more about blood than hairiness) with Samson shorn and the Father in Balzac's Cousine Bette suffering a hyperinflation of hairiness and sexiness (as the rest of the family goes down the tubes). This seems somehow different.
I know blonde hair has a strong connotations (and I seem to remember reading a review in Le Figaro a few weeks ago about a Cambridge Professor's book about blondes - apparently female blonde hair is strongly associated with saintliness in parts of Africa, and certainly Virgin Mary representations play a strong role in this). Rapunzel lets down her hair (blonde in all the books I remember), Rumpelstitskin weaves the blonde hair into golden threads...but I don't remember much in the realm of black hair (which will obviously play a more central role in Asian symbolism) - even red hair I can think of more symbolc links (although these are generally evil, being connected with the Devil and vampires).
Anyway, I'd love to know if anyone knows much about the symbolism of long, straight, dark hair in Asian cinema (or literature and art), and why it appears to be linked to female ghosts, I'd love to know.