More

Apparently it's been available on YouTube for about a year, and was made ten years ago, but I've only just stumbled across this amazing animated short film by Mark Osborne. It's beautiful, with an atmospheric soundtrack, and it's only 6 minutes long:

The Academy-Award®nominated animated short-film tells the story of a lonely inventor, whose colorless existence is brightened only by dreams of the carefree bliss of his youth.By day, he is trapped in a dehumanizing job in a joyless world. But by night, he tinkers away on a visionary invention, desperate to translate his inspiration into something meaningful.When his invention is complete, it will change the way people see the world. But he will find that success comes at a high price, as it changes himself, as well.

To me it says that there will never be a gadget that finally makes us happy, there is no gizmo waiting to be invented that will make our lives seem OK. The pursuit of technological answers to a humdrum stress-filled life is in fact what is making our lives stress-filled and humdrum. The real way to be happy is something you can't buy - after all, children know how even though they have no money, and even though they live in the same grey built environment we do.

But I suspect different people will read different messages in it, and that's what makes it such a powerful film. What does it mean to you?

An Inconvenient Truth

I finally got round to watching An Inconvenient Truth last night. It's everything it's cracked up to be. If I say it's a 90-minute long lecture you won't want to watch it, but oh boy, I wish lectures were like this when I was at college, with shorts made by the Futurama team, jokes that are genuinely funny (unlike the jokes my lecturers made, and I'm afraid probably the jokes I make in my own lectures) and gripping movie clips.

I love the way Gore argues that acknowledging and acting on the reality of man-made climate change is not a political issue, it is a moral imperative. And I love the way his message is one of hope. At the end of the movie is a fabulous sequence - he has just convinced his audience (if they had any doubt before) of the reality and the seriousness of the problems we face. Then he lists all the amazing achievements of humanity - we fixed the hole in the ozone layer, we defeated fascism, we brought down communism, we ended the cold war, we put men on the moon, all by international co-operation. Illustrated with a montage of newsreel clips and probably accompanied by stirring music (I wasn't concentrating on the music), it makes you feel gosh darned proud to be human. Really. And then he mentions that we already have all the technology needed to solve climate change too. The only thing lacking is the political will to do so. The credits roll, listing a score of ways you can help - all simple like writing to your MP, changing your lightbulbs, or encouraging others to watch the movie.

I encourage you to watch the movie, especially if you still have any lingering doubt about whether man made climate change is real or not. It doesn't beat you around the head with stuff you've heard already. There was much in it that was new to me, and I consider myself fairly well-informed about this topic. It genuinely takes on the concerns of the sceptics and answers them. It's also entertaining. And it's on Sky Box Office (the pay-per-view section of Sky) at the moment, or you can search for cinemas showing it.

Top Ten Movies About Self-Sufficient Living

1. Out of Africa - how could you not love a movie that opens with the line "I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills"?
2. The Land Girls - tractors, sex, and feminine bonding
   
3. Witness - I love the Amish barn-raising scene in particular
   
4. Cold Mountain - fabulous performance from Renee Zellweger getting stuck into vegetable-growing
   
5. The Outlaw Josey Wales - one of my very favourite movies ever, and they all settle down on their homestead in the end. Perfect
6. Little Women (the one with Susan Sarandon) - a very creditable adaptation of a classic book
7. Chicken Run - remake of "The Great Escape" with claymation chickens from the makers of Wallace and Gromit
   
8. Signs - spooky crop circles
9. Oklahoma! - a movie about farming with songs you can hum. They don't make 'em like this anymore
10. How to Make an American Quilt - feel-good chick flick with a great stoner granny, but for God's sake girl, stop dragging the quilt in the mud at the end of the film!
    

Barnyard Movie

You don't want to go and see a science fiction movie with me. Or a technological thriller. I'm the kind of person who ruins movies like that by complaining that the science is wrong. You couldn't really destroy an alien civilisation with a virus written on an Apple Mac, the whole northern hemisphere couldn't freeze up by the day after tomorrow, an overdose of gamma rays wouldn't turn a mild-mannered scientist into the hulk, it would simply kill him.

But now I've discovered a whole other class of movies I can't bear to watch - those which feature gardening and agriculture. I can believe the impossible (talking animals don't bother me, for example) but not the improbable or the downright ignorant and so I shall not be joining the family to watch Barnyard:

"Barnyard" is a lighthearted tale centering around Otis, a carefree party cow, who enjoys singing, dancing and playing tricks on humans.

If Otis is a "he", he's a bull not a cow and he certainly doesn't have udders. I'm not trying to ruin your movie Mr Oedekerk, just draw him as a bull or bullock and leave out the udders.

Anyway, Gary Larson's take on the same idea was funnier.