Kerinthian's

I found myself in a snazzy little restaurant the other night that I feel I need to shout to you all about – O’Sarracino on Mt Eden Road, Auckland. In Star Trek one has to step onto a transporter to be teleported from one place to another; but on Eden Terrace to go to authentic Italy all one need do is step through the doors of this fine establishment! The walls are decorated with the autographed serviettes of previous patrons, swearing their culinary pleasure and everlasting allegiance... one customer impressed enough to include her number! It seems the dance of the dinner plate left an impression on more than a few hearts before my own entered the building... Our starters saw our party of five sharing the Antipasto del Saracino; a mixed platter of casatiello, Naples style vegetable and seafood. I hogged the seafood. I scoffed down the marinated baby octopus and tender squid like it was chocolate, it appears cephalopods have a similar affect on my brain’s endorphin reflex. The waitres...

In recent years I’ve gone off the Horror genre. On one hand it’s a spiritual thing, as a Christian I have a natural disposition against most horror films. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like a “Thou shalt not watch Horror movies” thing... its more like a feeling in my gut when something doesn’t feel quite correct. Movies like the Exorcist or Hell Raiser with their occult themes seem fun on the outside but vex my spirit as if there is something else in the room tormenting me while I watch. It’s hard to explain to someone who has never been exposed to the idea that in Christ you are a new creation but that’s it in a nut shell really. On the other hand I’m sick of the same old recipe, especially in slasher movies, that goes like this: *Young couple or group alone camping or baby sitting. *Nudity or sex scene in the first 20 minutes to seduce male audience. *Everyone gets massacred, especially the naked people, bar one survivor. *Introduce next couple or group who are somehow smarter than th...

On one hand this was a bright and refreshing movie. On the other, it was disturbing and had a cringe factor of 9.5 out of 10! If awkwardness had a liquid state then you would be soaking in it before the credits begin to roll... the annoying thing is, I can’t tell you why, not without spoiling the end for you entirely... This is the movie that reminds most of us why we don’t entertain family gatherings all too often. It is the story of a dysfunctional, dissatisfied, distracted group of self absorbed individuals who are all unfortunately related. Greg Kinnear plays the Dad, a loser who just can’t admit it. In fact he is so big a loser that he has over compensated by developing a 9 step program to be a winner in life. He’s like Tony Robbins only he’s nothing like Tony Robbins at all. He spends half the movie hanging on the hinge of a book deal that never eventuates. Then there’s Tony Collette’s character, the mother, who is just trying to keep it together, doesn’t believe much in the 9 st...

The last Diane Keaton movie I saw was The Woman. It was like having my teeth pulled without an anaesthetic and by a butcher instead of a dentist. As I found myself settling down for an evening in front of the cable movie network with the in-laws to watch this film I was holding onto my teeth. But thankfully I was able to let go of them and eat my fish and chips without fear of the third worst thing after child birth – a bad chick flick. This was far from it. A good script despite the excruciating cast. Actually Katie Holmes isn’t so bad, I’ve liked every film I’ve ever seen her in from Go to Pieces of April... its just the stigma of Dawson pulling one arm and Tom pulling the other throughout her career that makes me instantly go “Oh no, not Katie Holms...” But I mustn’t tar her before I feather her. I was after all devastated that she was replaced in Bat Man Dark Knight by that Gyllenhaal girl... Then there’s Queen Latifa... for a moment there I thought of her as the Woopie Goldberg ...

Time for my weekly update on stuff and nonsense... and oh darn it its nearly 3 a.m! I’ll make this quick... This week I seriously stuffed up at work. It was horrible. I cost the company mega dollars worth of complimentary passes all because I left a teeny weenie little button pushed in on one of the projectors. I’ll spare you the details, but it meant over 160 people missed out on Harry Potter last Sunday night. I’ve been sweating over it since because it was such a stupid thing to do, but I guess I had been up until 4 in the a.m. the previous morning juggling a grizzle guts known as my baby girl who has been playing a game of “Hey mom and dad, I know you’re tired but I’m bored and haven’t learnt how to entertain myself yet so you’re going to have to do it....” and “Sleep? What’s sleep?” This went on for nearly two weeks. You get to that point where your dream world begins to merge with your reality, where you’re so tired you wish you were the one wearing the nappies! At last, after re...

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” - Ecclesiastes 9:10 In Toy Story Pixar taught us that when our backs are turned every toy comes to life. Every kid wants this to be true! I remember many times as a 10 year old quickly turning around to see if I could catch my GI Joes in the act of acting! In Cars, Pixar succeeded in making me, a guy unusual among men in his total lack of enthusiasm for the automobile, actually enjoy 90 mins of talking vehicles (even though it drove me nuts that they had no opposing digits, therefore I couldn’t figure out how they ever managed to build any of the towns they lived in, let alone the roads!) In The Incredibles we got a dose of reality; that if there really were super heroes then no one would appreciate them and also the idea that most heroes are just normal people who approve Insurance Claims for lovely old ladies. Then there w...

Although I keep telling myself that blogging is just something I do when I am bored I do find myself frequently checking my stats to see if I’ve had any visitors. A normal person would do this once a day but I’m not exactly normal and find that not checking my email for more than 2 hours at a time is tantamount to not using the bathroom, I start hopping about on one foot with crossed legs until I get the fix of having read an email or a comment from someone... Well, I finally got my wish... This one chap wrote to me several days ago and asked the following question: I'm interested in your view on Christianity's role within the Western capitalist system. As the major religion in the most wasteful society the world has ever known, surely Christianity is playing a role in the destruction of the earth, God's wondrous creation, through its endorsement of this way of life? I wrote back saying I would chew on it a while and as I chewed I realized quickly that I was biting down on ...

Just for a bit of fun, and seeing as there was no reason to get up from my couch to do anything else at the time, I decided to do a search for Star Wars parodies on Youtube... you know, as you don't... I came across this little Gem of a take-off which explores the star wars universe through the lens of a grocery store, in which Luke is a Cucumber, Yoda a pot of Yogurt and I couldn't quite figure out what Obi Wan Kanobi was meant to be... Cleverly woven into the 5 minute mayhem is the obvious message of going organic... but don't let that stop you from enjoying this clever little film... Enjoy Stay tuned for more of my favourite Star Wars Parodies in the days to come...

Well, the truth is they don’t have to. The problem is that such films are being made by people who either have no foundation to base their sense of morality on or by those who deliberately want to undermine the hold that Christianity has had on the West for centuries! (See my review on The Golden Compass). The swearing, Sex and violence is one thing but worse are the subtle attacks on our children’s minds which come in the shape of small phrases supporting evolution, adult jokes of a sexually implicit nature that fly over the child’s head only to nestle itself somewhere at the back of their subconscious, misquoted bible verses that are twisted into humorous anecdotes, references against traditional norms are A.O.K and ideas about God or life after death that exclude Jesus Christ and suggest that God is an Oprah Winfreyesque push over who will cave in the end and let everyone into his perfect Heaven. We don’t notice these so much because we have been duped by them...

This is a tricky one to approach without raising a few eyebrows. No pun intended. I understand that many Christians have mixed feelings about this icon of the occult and fair enough, it is about witches and wizards after all. I have heard over the years a great deal said about J.K. Rowling and her motives for writing this story that makes the occult look cool - usually along the lines of “...the spells cast in the series are actual spells used by real witches” and that “the names of spiritual entities are the names of real demons...” I have to say already I am a little suspicious of any Christian who would claim to know anything about the actual names of individual demons or the actual incantations of magic spells – they would have to be reading material that goes far beyond your average Christian bookshelf. So I’ve heard a lot of rumours that she wrote the series intentionally to undermine Christianity but if you visit her website she says nothing of her beliefs and a cursory glance ...

This was an interesting experience. My expectations for this movie were running down the highway of bad eggs until I saw it... and to my great surprise I found myself enjoying it. I was flying down the thoroughfare of family fun, 90 miles in the opposite direction... Maybe it’s a bit scary that a thirty year old man can admit such a thing, but I actually really liked it. As did my 8 year old niece who I caught singing along with Hannah every time the superstar burst into song. Although I had never seen the TV series and had no idea what I was getting myself into I didn’t miss out on anything, the plot was simple but fun. Miley Ray Cirus (the daughter of the man who brought you Achy Breaky Heart and that very memorable mullet, Billy Ray) plays a 16 year old girl, also called Miley, who like some kind of super hero leads a double life where only a handful of people know that once she dons a blond wig and a pair of stilettos she suddenly becomes Hannah Montana - pop sensation and every ...

I took my niece to see this film in 3D earlier this week. It was fun and that’s about all it was. This franchise has come a long way since the first movie which featured Manny the Mammoth, Sid the Sloth and Diago the Saber Tooth Tiger in their quest to reunite a human child with its “herd” and in the process the unlikely trio become a herd of their own kind. So already we see that this series is about multiculturalism! Two movies later (and I confess, slap me on the hand, I am yet to see part two) we find Manny and his Mrs Mammoth expecting a baby. Diago is getting cold feet about becoming an “uncle” and Sid is feeling a bit pushed out of the “Herd” as the baby cometh. The catalyst is clear when Sid discovers, in an ice cave, three great big eggs which he decides to adopt as his own and, you guessed it, the eggs are of the T-Rex variety which leads to a whole lot of trouble when the baby T’s tear apart Manny’s baby nursery, eating a few innocent prehistoric toddlers and regurgitating t...

I’ve had one of those nights. You know, the ones where you’re in a dungeon on one of those stretching rack thingies and someone is standing there with an iron rod glowing red and threatening to prod you with it every time you nearly get some sleep? No? Well my torturer was my 4 week old little girl. Got to love her but she just didn’t want to sleep at all and wanted the whole world to know about it! So I crawl out of bed this morning, check the letter box like a zombie dragging his feet up the driveway looking for brains and then, discovering the computers been left on I check my emails and am still here half an hour later for some strange reason… but its been good for giving the rest of my body a chance to wake up as well… In my inbox today was my daily newsletter from the Jewish World Review. I highly recommend this informative little mail out. Each day I get sent links to handy things like Ripley’s believe it or Not, cartoons, opinions but more importantly articles about how bad the...

I could say that this was a nice movie about a lovely old man overcoming his Xenophobia and fear of Asian cooking but then I would be lying! This is in fact a raw film about a grumpy old sod whose hate for everybody doesn’t exclude his own family. I have rarely seen a film jam packed with so many racial slurs and multiple cuss words and yet it leaves you thinking, Oh well, wasn’t that a lovely film? Except, it wasn’t! Walt Kowalski is the hard nosed Korean War veteran who has watched his neighborhood go from an all American Brady bunch style street to a veritable china town. His own grown up kids are indifferent towards him and his grand kids are only interested in what they can get out of his eventual carking it. His wife has beat him to the dirt pile and at the wake (funeral party) there is a classic scene with his grand daughter asking what his plans are for his couch because she could do with one in her dorm room! Next door there lies another world, a Chinese Mong family of 3 wome...

Many of the world’s greatest minds have not pondered this question, or at least not in the way that I am about to. When confronted with this scenario I would have to say that I personally wouldn’t do anything. I don’t know any endangered species personally and wouldn’t know an endangered plant if I stood on one. If I did, I would find myself in the same state of complacency because I don’t feel I’m in a position to do much anyway due to my lack of finances and basic motivation. On the other hand one would have to ask whether the endangered species was a socialist or a member of the New Zealand Labour Party, in which case I would again say let them eat to their hearts content because obviously as far as a species go, they’re not on my top ten list of animals I want to save… actually they’re on my top ten list of Animals I want to See Stranded on a Melting Iceberg. But all of the above is irrelevant and completely stupid. I don’t worry all too much about this sort of thing because frankl...

I think the words of a dear friend of mine summed this film up nicely - "It was two and a half hours of jar Jar Binks" - and indeed it was. If you can get past the dog humping antics of not just the films cameo Chihuahua, but also of a converted Decepticon who develops a crush for Sam Whitwickies girlfriend then you might stand a chance of enjoying this movie. Seriously there are a lot of adult concepts in this film and I pity the person who accidentally takes their children to see it expecting a good wholesome (and expensive) night out. There is also a great deal of "low level" swearing and although the "F" word is substituted for the "fricken" variety, well the intention is there and doesn't leave much for the imagination. Oh yeah, did I mention the sexual over-currents? I still can't get over the Minicon getting nasty with the movies love interest, as if we needed to be reminded that that was the only reason Megan Fox is in this film...