Blood Diamond/Flushed Away

Firming up details for Bangkok trip. Flights, hotel stay confirmed. Prolly one final jaunt at adventure before the drudgery of school and work for eternity.

Pardon me if I sound pessimistic, but there's no way to be chirpy and positive when I'm feeling pretty unwell now. Woozy. Weak. Nose starting to clog up.

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Watched Blood Diamond on DVD, and well, it's sensationalist-crap-done-well. I mean, what's with those in-your-face moral preaching of "DIAMONDS MEAN EXPLOITATION OF AFRICANS"?

Ignoring that, it's a pretty good movie. Leonardo Dicaprio stars as a mercenary diamond smuggler, who crosses paths with an African with an extremely huge diamond. The rebel forces had caught the African, and enslaved him as a diamond panner. He was lucky to have escaped with that huge pink blood diamond, but with the rebel leader, the diamond smuggler and the military all seeking to get their grubby hands on the diamond, chaos ensues.

Teamed up with an American journalist, the diamond smuggler soon finds himself in a tangle of moral obligations, his principles, his desire for money and power and most of all, his safety. There's simply no way for him to disentangle everything all at once, and of these there are things he has to sacrifice, and things that he holds close to his heart.

I won't give away the story, but it's a film that you prolly won't regret watching if you're a sucker for plots where everyone double-crosses each other. It's Hotel Rwanda without the cheese but with a solid, engaging plot.

Go watch it, it's great stuff.

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As for Flushed Away, it's this Aardman (of Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run fame) comedy about Roddy, a lonely mouse in a rich British (human) family who meets an unwelcome visitor who threatened his role in the family.

Deciding to get rid of him, he called the toilet bowl a jacuzzi and requested he soak in it. However, the visitor, despite being a boorish oaf, saw through the trick and pushed Roddy in.

Roddy discovers a city full of fellow mice, and like the stereotypical movie, finds himself in uninvited trouble, and thus, a series of energy-packed events happen, yada yada so on. Would Roddy choose friendships forged over a spit and a handshake - and the pride of saving a town of rats? Or the lonely comfort of his own luxurious cage in a posh Kensington home?



It's not so much about the premise of the plot but the sheer kawaiiness of it.



Don't you think the screenshots are oh-so-pretty? There's singing slugs, Monty Python styled humour and a solid cast of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet and the ever-so-likeable Bill Nighy, what's there to not love?