Three days ago my trusty 1954 Morris Minor minced his gearbox on the way down the mountains from Dunedin. Thanks to Warrens Garage in Palmerston I was saved pretty quickly and given a new car to drive away with. So, let’s start:

1. Looks

vs

Ok, the Morris wins hands down. If you want to have a car to pick up women with, you would definitely want to choose the delicate and elegant lines of that Morris. The slashdot sticker alone makes it so much more desireable.

2. Economy

Er, ca 20 liter of diesel against 6 liter of petrol per 1oo km. Morris wins again.

3. Practicality

The nimbleness of the Morris wins in urban environments and on long trips on the highway. The Nissan Pickup can, on the other hand, drive up mountains almost vertically with two sheep, a dog and the kids in the back, but how often will you need that? I mean really, what should the kids do on a mountain. And your wife is bound to get bored up there. So again, Morris wins

4. Comfort

The Morris wins again due to the fact that 4 people can sit inside its compact cabin very close together and feel the love of their neighbours. You will also not need the heating when you’re that close. The huge inside of the pickup will disincentivise its inhabitants to socialise due to its cathedralic inside-space. If you want to have to yell at your neighbour because he’s so far away, pick the pickup.

5. Overall impression

1950’s design beats nineties bullyness hands down. Think about the environment and your loved ones the next time you choose a car.

Morris. You know it makes sense.

According to Salon.com, the Smart car is now gathering interest in the States. But please, let’s be realistic here:

The percentage of Americans who actually fit through the doors is far too low to make this venture profitable.

“China today combines the worst of all existing government systems: the corruption of oligarchy, the rampant ecological destruction of early capitalism and the oppression of free speech that was the hallmark of eastern socialism.”

The best girlfriend ever, thinking loud.

Today the best girlfriend ever and myself went to see the long expected Perfect Creature, a movie that was filmed in Oamaru, Dunedin and Auckland back in 2004 and after post production waited for a general release until this week. While I tried to keep up to date with the movie’s problems, I never quite understood why it took so long for the movie to be picked up by a distributor. Apparently directly to DVD in the U.S., this is now out in Europe and Australasia.

Being interested in the work of director Glen Standring and curious about the scenes filmed in the victorian quarter in Oamaru, I really had no choice but to see it. We saw the flick on a nice big screen in Dunedin’s Hoyt’s cinema on a saturday morning. Not the perfect time to see a movie, but a mercifully quiet cinema without annoying teens, mobile phones going off and people crunching chips behind me.

The movie looks stunning: with a comparatively tiny budget, Standring made good use of computer generated imagery but it blended in beautifully in with the ‘real life’ shots. Colourwise, the movie is a masterpiece: in tune with the bleak and unwelcoming world it portrays, the colours feel sucked out, and greys and earth tones dominate. A mainly Kiwi cast apart from leads Dougray Scott and Saffron Burrows does a good job and did I mention the visuals? The art directors and production designers Ivey, Basset and Bavin deserve an Oscar for creating a coherent and plausible steampunk world, that combines technology from the fifties with the interior design of the twenties and a streetlook of the victorian age. Very, very impressive.

So, it looks great, but is it actually a good movie?

The best girlfriend, who normally doesn’t like watch Horror/Fantasy/SciFi at all and who only tagged along to see Oamaru on the big screen, was certainly impressed. I was completely blown away by the richness of Standring’s alternative universe and the story kept me at the edge of my seat until the very end. Burrows and Scott can be proud of their achievements and Standring should become a giant of his genre.

Go and watch it.