Author: Scott Macdonald
-
Where the Scottie hires someone to make him fit
I often cycle to work. The bicycle is one of our greatest transport inventions, transferring up to 98% of the energy from the rider to the wheels, this means I don’t really need to put a very large amount of effort into it, and coasting – stop pedalling and letting momentum take you forward – is…
-
First ever bike touring trip
A no-longer-hypothetical bike run from Pitlochry to Nairn. I expect it to take two and a bit days, I will allow it to take no more than three and a half before running to the nearest train station.
-
Where Scottie writes to his Auntie
During today’s enormously successful, provocative and peaceful protests on the streets of London, there were several incidents of vandalism and infrequent rioter violence. This subverted the TUC protest and the subsequent media coverage. Let’s be clear. I do not support arseholes who think that chucking paint bombs at banks and smashing up hotels is a way…
-
An appeal to the well-read.
I am not very well-read. I know more about cinema than I do any other art form, and I suspect it’s hampering my abilities to communicate – at least in appreciation of shared contextual comedy and avoiding general ignorance. Therefore my New Year Resolutions (yes, they’re made to be broken – I’ll try not to) include…
-
For Gallifrey! For VICTORY!
For the least original blogpost in all history. Someone pinch me, 2010 was the year that someone actually remembered that Doctor Who is supposed to be fun. When it’s scary, it’s fun. When it’s light and funny, it’s fun. Matt Smith is blessed with the kind of natural eccentricity and downright weirdness not seen in…
-
I have ascended to the ranks of the gainfully employed.
I’m terribly happy. Right now, even as I type, I’ve got a glowing ember of joy in my chest; the kind of simple bliss that we all had when we were eight and knew Christmas was a couple of days away, or that first visit to a pretty girl’s bedroom. Even the simple act of…
-
The Karate Kid (2010)
Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) is a thin, wiry and likeable 12 year old from Detroit. Leaving America with his mother, who is relocating to Beijing for work (his absent father is mentioned only once, in a memory-laden height chart) – he’s got his work cut out. He can’t speak Mandarin well at all, he’s got…
-
Toy Story 3
“When I became a man, I put away childish things.” Toy Story 3 is a dazzlingly confident and magical picture that recalls Paul of Tarsus’s quote, but its makers have never forgotten what it feels like to be children. Pixar Animation Studios continue their near unbroken run of animation masterpieces with a colourful and emotional…
-
Blank City
I’m a sucker for documentary films that show me an outlet for unadulterated and exuberant passion. In and among the poverty of Seventies and Eighties New York, Celene Danhier’s remarkable film Blank City gives us a compelling and well worked out cinematic essay on the politics and artistry of the place and time. Ultimately, it…
-
Evil In The Time Of Heroes
Ancient Greeks and modern life meets zombies in a timeywimey action horror. Sounds like a laugh, right? Wrong. An ancient evil is released (don’t ask how – the movie doesn’t say), and a handful of survivors must hole up against a gargantuan zombie horde. The streets are deserted, other than the pockets of very fast-on-their-feet…