It's just a jump to the left.

Today I was not at work and was tasked with looking after our puppy and my grandparents' dog for the day. This meant I had the house to myself so spent the day watching films. I started off with Alone in the Dark, the Uwe Boll movie that I have heard so many bad things about. It started off as a very silly movie; it has the general tone and style of a standard family archaeology/adventure movie, but with violence and horror that gains it an 18 certificate, negating the family audience it seems to play to. Nonetheless I am one of the few with the right frame of mind to enjoy its camp b-movie-esque silliness, with pseudo-science that isn't even well-written enough to use long words to throw the average viewer off the scent: most of the script is so clearly bollocks that an eleven year old wouold go "umm, what?" at many scenes. By the halfway point it had introduced some really annoying elements in a film-noir voiceover occasionally popping in uninvitedly, an unexplained on-off love interest and a generic nemesis with characterisation and intrigue of a level usually reserved only for Disney straight-to-dvd villains. It then tried to become enthralling and more serious, which in practice made it become tedious so I gave up and switched it off in favor of Repo! the Genetic Opera.

This is a film I've seen loads of times already but because I was alone in the house I could blast out the surround sound enhancing the awesome soundtrack. It's not to everyone's taste but I absolutely love everything about the film from the cyber-punk visuals to the explicit gore and dark humor. Also I challenge anyone to nay-say the scene in which Paris Hilton's face falls off. 9/10.

Lastly I watched Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ashamedly I had never seen it until today. I am somewhat glad of this though, as if I had seen it younger a lot (if not all) of the oddness of it would have been lost on me. I was hooked for every minute of it, laughing out loud every couple of minutes. The music is great, all the cast are excellent and the story is so bizzare that it is still so original 35 years on. A lot of it I have no idea how they got away with back in the 70's, but I'm glad they did because it makes for a hilarious movie. My main thought of the movie is that Tim Curry is a hero. 9/10.

This evening we switched on Mythbusters over dinner simply as something to have on, but mine and my entire families minds were blown by one experiment they did where they discovered that elephants are in fact scared of mice. This wasn't some prank or technicality, the elephants were clearly perturbed by the presence of a mouse. The experiment consisted of elephant dung hollowed out to conceal a mouse laid on the ground. When an elephant came by they pulled a cord which gently moved the dung, allowing the mouse to escape. They tried it without the mouse to see if the dung's movement was startling it but it couldn't care less. When a mouse appeared however, it stopped in it's tracks, retreated a few steps then gave it a wide berth as it went by. The same happened a couple of times. I might be dwelling on this a bit too much but I am still amazed by seeing it happen.

One last thing, I want to thank Caroline for reminding me that it is national star wars day (may the fourth be with you etc, etc). Had I forgotten I would have been gutted with myself.