There are no sliced pigs ears here, Love Inn is completely vegan. The atmosphere is unpretentious and relaxed, perhaps a little too relaxed since I was the only customer for the duration of my lunch. The business has a religious air, with crystals on display and colourful literature available which perhaps puts people off. It doesn’t affect the food though, which is reasonably priced, speedy, and delicious.

This is the Cantonese-style noodles dish with lashings of ginger, the perfect start to a crisp winter’s afternoon. On a previous visit I had the curry vegetable soup which was also great.

(youtube)

(youtube)

It is interesting to see the general drop of in quality between the (generally sublime) 1983 top 20 and the (quite passible) 1985 vintage. If this trend continues, in just 28 years the countdown could be filled with complete rubbish.

Which would you rather fight – 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?

Honestly, I wish I had been asked sooner because there seems to be a lot of debate on this topic but the answer is obvious.

In the spirit of the question, I am going to assume that the battle will take place in reasonably open ground, with objects that can be used as makeshift weapons (cudgel-ready branches, etc). I am specifically thinking of that episode of Star Trek where Kirk is forced to fight that lizard man although I probably wont be able to make any gunpowder.

Anyway, given the above premise I would chose to fight the 100 duck-sized horses any day of the week.

Now a full sized horse is a formidable beast. They can bite and a proper kick from a horse can kill a human, but horses are not built for combat. Their mouths are made for cutting and grinding grass, and they lack claws. I doubt a kick from a tiny horse would leave much of a bruise. Perhaps they could give you a nasty nip with the front incisors, but I don’t plan on letting any of the horses get that close.

Lets talk about energy requirements. In general, large animals tend to have lower relative energy needs than small animals. Horses, being completely herbivorous, have fairly good stamina compared to most animals but require vast quantities of food. A small horse would spend more time eating and would tire very easily compared to a human.

My plan for winning involves letting the horses tire themselves out by bravely running away. Thoroughbred horses (say 2.6m in length) can run at about 50kph for short distances, a duck-sized horse (say 50cm long) would be much slower and be exhausted after a very short gallop. I am not saying it would be easy but I think I could take on 100 exhausted animals that weight 1/10th of me, particularly if I could separate the herd into smaller groups.

In contrast, a horse-sized duck would be a fearsome sight. Ducks are fairly aggressive creatures and although they also lack natural weapons, they do have spiny feet and a hard beak that could tear into anything man sized. Ducks are also covered in feathers which would deflect or cushion any blow I could hope to land.

Additionally, there exist horses that are quite small if not quite duck-sized. They do not look that tough to me. On the other hand, there used to be horse-sized ducks. They were called dinosaurs and they looked nigh-unstoppable.

In conclusion, this is a very silly question.

As with the first new Star Trek film, Into Darkness is a well made and visually spectacular 2 hours filled with action set pieces and explosions, aided by a fine cast. Unfortunately, as with the first film, the story is a terrible mess and the script is no better. In fact, Into Darkness is almost the same film as Star Trek 2009, with a crazed mad man seeking a stupid revenge.

But Into Darkness is also a semi-remake of Wrath of Khan, probably the only Star Trek film that counts as a excellent film outside the world of Trek. Turning Wrath of Khan (a cerebral battle of wits in which Khan and Kirk never meet) into a dumb action film (which ends with a long fist fight on top of a moving vehicle) did not go smoothly. Although Into Darkness keeps referencing the older film and the old series in general, the shoehorned lines and situations only remind the viewer how much better constructed Wrath of Khan was.

The biggest problem is Kirk. Into Darkness starts with Kirk getting demoted for being a dick. Star Fleet must be very lenient on gross insubordination because they only demote him one grade, and he gets command back 15 minutes later after a short lecture. Then the Enterprise is sent on a mission to track down the terrorist with a scheme so harebrained that even Kirk eventually realises it is a stupid idea, but comes up with an even worse idea by himself. Kirk then allows himself to be used by said terrorist even though he knows it is a trap. These are are actions of an idiot, not a captain. Because something similar happened in Wrath of Khan, Kirk sacrifices his life to save the ship for no reason but gets better.

Now I know that these film are explicitly not trying to be exactly the same as the old Star Trek, but this is some really weak writing. The original Kirk was a fairly level headed dude who generally followed procedure and only pulled out the audacious moves when faced with insurmountable odds. You could see why he was liked and respected by the rest of his crew. New Kirk is obnoxious and immature, and would be a danger to the ship if he was in charge of the laundry, let alone in command. I know the arc of the Into Darkness is supposed to be about Kirk learning responsibility, but a) that was Kirk’s arc in the first film, b) he is already captain here, and should act like it, and c) Into Darkness pretty much drops any pretense about character arcs after the first 30 minutes. Spock has much the same problem, his story in this film is exactly the same as the in Star Trek 2009.

Into Darkness goes overboard with weird little bits of continuity, strangely refusing to go its own way. I did like that in a film that cost $190 million, the tribble was still just a lump of fur but it was there for no particular reason except as a reference. Other callbacks are shoved in only for the audience and don’t make sense in the context of the film. The scene where Khan reveals himself is staged as if it is a major revelation, but none of the characters present have a clue who Khan is. This type of pantomime dialog where characters speak to the audience instead of each other gets very tiresome.

Having said all this, there are worse films you can spend your money on. Star Trek : Into Darkness requires that you shut down all higher brain functions, but once you accept that then, just like the first film, it has its charms. The best I can give is a lukewarm recommendation.

Maybe it is because I came late to the Georgie Pie phenomenon, experiencing it only when they opened a branch in Dunedin while I was at University, but I never developed a taste for Georgie Pie. To my mind they really only had 3 things going for them:

• Relative cheapness, even compared to service station pies.
• A location in Dunedin that was halfway between University and my flat in North East Valley.
• The temperature at which they served their pies, which seemed to be about 750°C. This was very welcome after 20 minutes trudging through icy streets on a dark Otago evening.

Of these points, the first is no longer true, the second doesn’t really apply, and the third probably contravenes modern health and safety practices.

The other side of the ledger only has one point:

• You paid good money for what tasted like a cardboard envelope filled with beef flavoured mucus.

Apparently MacDonald’s is not changing the recipe (except for not adding MSG – that was the best part!), so this will still be true. I will not be rushing along to MacDonald’s to try the new pie anytime soon.

I really enjoyed the first Iron Man film, it managed to be a witty counter-point to the dour hero cliché. Iron Man 2 was weakly plotted rubbish, but Tony Stark was the best part of The Avengers. So it is at least theoretically possible that Iron Man 3 could have been a fine film. Sadly, the film makers seem to have forgotten what made Iron Man so much fun.

First the good parts. Iron Man 3 is well put together and contains lots of fairly well directed action. Fans of things zipping around and exploding will not be disappointed. The acting is appropriate with Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin being a particularly entertaining standout.

The main problem with Iron Man 3 is the plot. The villain is suitably comic-booky, but his plan doesn’t really make a lot of sense and Tony Stark only gets involved for the most tenuous of reasons. This leads to a long sequence where Stark bonds with a kid who teaches him the real meaning of Christmas. Or something. I don’t know, it was pretty lame and saved only the kid actually being a pretty good actor. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments but the film jumps tone so often that it is had to make out what the producers were going for, action comedy or just gritty action. It is a little jarring.

Of course, it all comes to a suitably grand finale which might have been a neat surprise if it wasn’t spoiled in the trailer. At least Pepper Potts gets her own subplot, even if it goes nowhere. Also, Iron Man 3 contains the single most blatantly silly product placement I have ever seen, I hope Oracle paid well because they certainly got some screen time.

Iron Man 3 is not a terrible film, just a very forgettable experience. Recommended only if you like this sort of thing.

Oblivion is a decent attempt at an action sci-fi blockbuster. It is entertaining in all the right ways and gorgeous to look at. The design work is fantastic from the cool house in the clouds that the couple live in to the blasted landscape of the ruined Earth, to whatever process they used on Tom Cruise to make him look 20 years younger. It all looks impeccable.

You may not want to read the rest of the review, so I will just up front say that Oblivion is a decent film if you like this sort of thing, with a few lapses that prevent it from becoming really great. Oblivion really isn’t clever enough to avoid spoiling but if you really don’t want to know anything stop reading now…

There were some things I really liked about Oblivion. The script has a some cunning little nods that hint that all is not what it seems right from the start. Starting a film with a lengthy voiceover describing the premise is trite but I liked the way the characters recite certain mantras later one including the voiceover word-for-word.

The general idea is not original, Oblivion is very similar to the earlier film Moon (which I liked) in a lot of ways (I wonder if Oblivion’s shattered moon is a nod to the influence). But while Moon was a low key character study that gently let the audience discover the premise along with the characters, Oblivion is much more in-your-face, with lengthy action scenes inserted to liven up it. These look OK, but seem to have come from another film entirely or perhaps a video-game.

The acting is fine. Tom Cruise has dialed down his squintacting style. Morgan Freeman shows up as the world’s last surviving black man. Nobody really stands out, but nobody really needs to.

As I said before, the script has some nice touches but there is some terrible dialog at the beginning of the film, and a silly speech at the climax that ruins some of the tone. There are also some pretty big plot holes (how did he build that house without either Vica or Sally knowing? What happened to the other clones presumably monitoring other parts of the Earth? Where did they get the other life pod?).

Oblivion falls into the gulf between a turn-off-your-brain action film and a thinking-persons sci-fi mind-bender, becoming a thinking-persons-turn-off-your-brain-action-bender, which doesn’t quite work. Having said all that, Oblivion manages to be entertaining enough. Recommended if you like this sort of thing.

Today we visited a modest little Chinese place with a modest little name – Xi’an Food Bar on the corner of Anzac Ave and Customs St East. It doesn’t look like much but Xi’an Food Bar has two standout features.

The first is that you sit at your table and order via a strange retro-futuristic device that looks a bit like a calculator. The waiter gives you a menu but rather than place your order with the waiter when he returns, you type in the number that corresponds to your chosen meal into the device. Once everyone has chosen their meals the device transmits your table’s orders to the kitchen. A kitchen which is all of 3 metres away and clearly within sight.

This manner of ordering is completely silly and quite wonderful. It feels like you have walked into a cheap 80s scifi movie. I plan to go back on a rainy evening and pretend I am hunting replicants.

The other great thing about Xi’an Food Bar is that they make their own fresh noodles. The service is very quick, and in a couple of minutes you will have a fresh bowl of lumpy noodles covered in tasty sauce. The flavours are strong but well balanced, and the texture of the noodles is very appealing.

The first time I went I made the adventurous mistake of ordering the sliced pigs ears. It wasn’t the worse thing I have eaten, but even the best sauce in the world couldn’t make a silk purse out of that. I think it is probably meant to be a side dish.

So long as you keep the pigs ears to a minimum, Xi’an Food Bar is worth the walk. Get there early though, it gets busy.