Gran Torino

Aw heck, what's not to like? This tale of the gradual rehabilitation of an unreconstructed racist old duffer ticks all the right boxes, though some of the performances are a bit dodgy and the script somewhat lame... but who cares? Clint is amazing throughout. He spends the first half of the movie doing little esle but growling, but these are virtuouso growls, I tell you. Good stuff.

How's the maths?
Ah, the old question. Not much here, punk. but I have been wondering about the possibility of using movies like this to develop a proof of some mathematical theorems. My current one? Every movie is almost exactly 10% too long. This movie is roughly 120 minutes long, and I definitely flagged around the 108 minute mark. It makes you think, doesn't it?

Paris 36

... or Faubourg 36, as it's known in France. I suppose Faubourg isn't too well known as a suburb of Paris, generally speaking, so I can see why it would be renamed for an international audience. Would a gritty Scottish movie called Pilton 89 be renamed Edinburgh 89 for foreign consumption? Go figure.

Anyway... this is a very pleasant French movie (well, duh) which is worth catching, though by no means essential. It's a musical comedy drama about a group of unemployed workers in 1936 trying to reopen a theatre shut down just after New Year - a sort of Ringing in the Seine, if you will. It'll put a smile on your face, like a cinematic creme brulee. Or something.

How's the maths?
Not much to see here, but as with any French film I did find myself whiling away an hour or two afterwards pondering this whole weird way the French have of counting - you know, the whole seventy-two is sixty plus twelve or ninety-eight is four twenties plus eighteen thing. 'Cos what I want to really know is, does this mean there are certain questions which a French maths teacher would never ask? I mean, why bother asking "what's four times twenty plus eighteen" in French?

Think about it. I do!