I won't miss an opportunity to slate Palin

Somehow, Sarah Palin seems to think that showing Al-Qaeda a photo of Osama's body may incite the sudden realisation that if you attempt to destroy America, they might try and kill you. Like 'Shit guys, look at this! This has gone too far, we better try get a refund on all that fertilizer and think of something else to do'.

I bet Palin was always the girl in school who never missed an opportunity to scorn anyone else's achievement. She's even managed to find the opportunity to call Obama a pussy.

White Trash

I totally forgot to write about this at the time, but it deserves a mention,

Apparently one of the most popular joints in Berlin at the moment (according to a respectable-looking guide). We just happened upon this place by accident. Unfortunately I don't think it knows if it's a brothel, a grimy restaurant or a steamy foreign bar. Apart from the terrifying array of trolls, dead animals, chicken feet and boudoir-esq furnishings, it's all really rather harmless and kitsch. And you can't argue that the owners don't know how to flaunt their bohemian tackiness, the menus showed pictures of girls touching themselves and inside just looked a bit like a Microsoft font disaster zone. Finding something on the menu that sounded like a meal was perhaps the hardest thing to do. After that one can just sit back and watch a German movie about a 14 year-old girl who gets addicted to heroin, discovers the body of her best friend in the toilets of a cinema (OD'd on a cocktail of coke, vodka and bad parenting), etches various sins into her arm and then ends up going out with a boy who sleeps with guys to get money. The highlight came at exactly the same time as our food, where this adolescent tosses of an old man for 10 marks, which I believe is about £2.

If you get the opportunity, definitely go.

Black Swan

If I were attempting to review this as a film critic, I'd probably go for something like  'psychadelic nightmarish mish-mash of reality and fiction'. Unfortunatley most of the time it is impossible to tell whether or not what is happening is actually happening or whether it's all schizophrenia or something equally nauseating.
Aronofsky's most confusing decision here was the attempt to not be too blatant with the storyline, despite narrating the entire thing at the begining. As a result it is impossible to tell which charcter is which for at least half of the film. This isn't helped by the fact that all the girls seem to look exactly the same most of the time.


The highlight is definatley Natalie Portman's performance. I know she got a hard time from critics because of Aronofsky's choice to cast an actor rather than a dancer, but then I guess he didn't want to make a film about a dance company. And Portman is excellent anyway.

Berliner

Berlin is a city still so terrified of embracing its own history that they don't seem to know whether to build museums or run around throwing grenades at the numerous spots Hitler had his get-togethers. Its hard to tell whether the trauma of the Berlin wall still lingers after 20 years. It seems to me that the majority of Berliners couldn't give a shit. They certainly seem less bothered by this than the notion that Hitler once used most of the building they live in. In fact, only last year Berliners apparently voted to have Hitler's massive bunker filled in with concrete - a sure indication that despite being utterly broke the last thing they want is to become a tourist destination for GCSE History students or army nerds. Or perhaps inspired dictators.

The strangest thing of all is that this inability to make a decision over the importance of their role in history has led the government to build a fence around the existing wall; This has to be the most ridiculous and ironic decision I have ever witnessed. Now the last remaining piece of wall stands as a testament to the continuing authority of the government, constantly surrounded by groups of tourist who can marvel about its 3 layer concrete/steel rod composition and sheer height. What a spectacle.