Good lord!!

I was on the bus this morning minding my own business flicking through the Metro when i saw a picture that made me audibly gasp and fan myself with my gloves! David Beckham modelling very tight fitting underwear in the new Emporio Armani campaign. His chest, his legs, his chiselled face...usually i like them a bit rough and ready but occassionally a pretty man will slip through the net and boy did he this morning!! the woman sat in front of me very nearly went to work with a very sticky neck! The picture is going to be on billboards round London - i predict many fatalities as pedestrians are distracted crossing roads as are drivers! Beckham kills!!



Last night i was bored and poor so took myself off to the cinema to see "The Golden Compass", As i said yesterday i am a huge fan of the Philip Pullman books so was very eager to see how it had been translated onto the big screen. The story revolves around a young girl called Lyra who lives in a world parallel to ours where each human being has an animal that encapsulates their soul, these animals are known as daemons. The first movie follows Lyra's quest to help her uncle discover ways to access new world through a substance known as dust. This is just the icing on the cake of the book as so much happens page by page, just read them, they are magnificent!!

The film comes from the same production studio as the mighty Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was expecting greatness and initially i was pretty impressed but having sat back and thought about it and flicking through the book last night i am now feeling pretty robbed! The journey in the 1st book starts in Oxford and takes us to the North Pole with much tension and many adventures along the way, in the film the journey takes less than 2 hours and is all a bit turn left at this continent, cross a bridge...oh here we are brrr!! The young actress playing Lyra is pretty fiesty but often seems out of her depth and the characters so intensely described in the book seem to be dropped into the film with the simple instruction of getting Lyra from one scene to the next.

It's not all bad, the special effects are amazing but not as grand and groundbreaking as anything seen in Lord of the Rings. The film has 2 saving graces - The Ice Bears, Ian McKellen and Ian McShane provide the voices for the 2 main bear characters - Iorek Byrnison and Ragnar Sturlusson are beaufifully portrayed and the fight scene is CGI genius! The other saving grace has to be Nicole Kidman who stunningly oozes evil and is so so watchable.



The most annoying thing about the film is the ending, i wont spoil it but they have basically cut the ending of the book out of the film and are instead going to open the 2nd film with the ending of the 1st book. You are left supposedly wanting more but i am honestly not sure if i do.

xx