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Back in the 50′s, a little gem of a science fiction movie was released called, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”.  While highly dated now, it still is watchable and entertaining.  50 odd years have passed and Hollywood has given it another stab.

It’s shite.  Why oh why God?  Keanu Reeves is really turning into Steven Seagal with his one tone voice, 2 style facial expressions and the “dopey looking head on him”.  (Technical term)

The movie makes no sense at all.  It tries to give us a message but unlike the original, I’m still confused as to what the message is.  Treat the earth nice?  Stop fighting with each other?

If the aliens are so bloody advanced, how come they didn’t just visit the UN direct rather than dropping off for a scenic view of Central Park first?  Did they expect hu-mons do be lacking in hostility.

I could go on but I will.  Will Smith’s son had a part.  He probably had the best dialogue to work with.  His on screen mother, Jennifer Connolly isn’t black.  But a clever script doctoring and hey presto we can explain it.  That’s about the only clever thing about the script.

Ok so its not all bad.  Jennifer Connolly is pretty and the movie is less than 2 hours long.  You want something more positive than that?  Um ok.  Gort does look cool.  Although he does feck all really.

Is it worth a look?  Nah, give your money to beggars on roundabouts instead.

Do you hear strange noises from your attic? Do you think you see something move in the corner of your eye when home alone? Do you often get the feeling of dread when you enter the attic? If the answer is yes, then you probably have mice or something. However there was a time when the only people you could call were called the Ghostbusters.

Back in 80-something, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis graced our screens alongside Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis with a massive hit of a movie, Ghostbusters. Its also featured Ernie Hudson, but no one remembers him. It offered great special effects, groovy tunes, marshmallows and the one and only Bill Murray. There is no denying; it was great.

Then in 1989, the 80′s were coming to an end and Ghostbusters 2 hit our screens. It wasnt a patch on the original despite the spooky Vigo the Carpathian possessing a painting. Lets be honest, we’d much prefer Sigourney Weaver haunting our fridge.

There was talk of a third movie, loosely titled “Ghostbusters Go To Hell” but it became more and more apparant that the team weren’t happy with Ghostbusters 2 and went on to other things.

But the idea never died. Speculation of a third movie grew over the years and talk of a CG movie was abound fueled by Ackroyd. Fortunately that died a death too.

However rumours abound of something Ghostbuster-ish abound in 2009 featuring the voices of the original cast. What resulted was the following trailers…

Excited? Probably not, unless you like your video games. While it will be nice to hear the original team back in the roles, it wont be the same as watching them on the big screen with a bucket of popcorn.

Then again, its probably better than watching “old guy” Ghostbusters pass the reigns to new up and coming actors like, um, Josh Harnett and er, some dude from Superbad.

Upon readying the always excellent blog by the Irish Times Conor Pope, his article today linked here, prompted me to write this article.

So we are in a recession, people are losing jobs, the government is increasing taxes, house prices are plummeting and its cheaper to buy a second hand car than a bicycle. Sign of the times? Well perhaps not.

As you can read from Conor’s article there are some questions to be asked about Tesco seemingly raising prices on some goods. However their spokesperson, Paul Cullen reminded Conor that Tesco has lowered over 9,000 prices instore this year alone. Wow says you! Maybe. How many products do Tesco sell? According to Tesco’s website, they provide in Ireland “an average of over 10,000 grocery product lines and almost 15,000 product lines in total”. However that seems quite a small number. Conor Pope commented on a figure somewhere between 35,000 but I have been unable to confirm it anywhere. So while 9,000 reductions may be good, it must be viewed in terms of total number of products and contrasted against value of increases.

Today brings another reason why business in Ireland is taking a hit. VAT. The higher VAT rate in Ireland now rises half a percent to 21.5%. However in the UK, the VAT rate has reduced to 15% leaving a whopping 6.5% difference. Time to jump in the car and drive to Northern Ireland to do the shopping? Of course, but bare in mind there is no VAT charged on many groceries in Ireland anyway! However you dont have to do much googling to see what savings can be made by going over the, um, border or whatever we call it now, and shopping in Newry etc. This thread here taken from our friends over at boards.ie highlights a large number of savings people made by shopping “abroad”. And abroad in this case, Newry is only about 60 miles from Dublin. I know personally, I will be doing most of my Christmas shopping, grocery and gifts, in Newry this week.

Is it unpatriotic? Well you could argue it on one hand, but feck it. I’m a big supporter of Irish business but when some large price variances can be seen, that loyalty all goes out the window. Even our government, in their brazen hypocritical tones and trying to push the unpatriotic card on everyone. Yet when it suits them they talk about the United Ireland when it comes to jobs, road deaths and politics.

One thing this VAT issue has demonstrated is how a concerned government deals with a recession. Gordon Brown and his crew knew what to do. In a time of sinking consumer confidence and dropping tax receipts, rather than put up VAT, which can only serve to makes consumer confidence worse, they saw the simplest solution from the get go. Decrease tax. Get people back in the shop. The British government is now benefitting from the bonus tax receipts from us Paddies traveling to a different county in “United Ireland” to reap the benefit. Perhaps Lenihan and Cowen are kicking themselves that they didnt think of it sooner. But then again they are probably too busy getting $410 haircut to give a toss.

But it doesn’t end there. We have some good news?! The LVA and VFI have come together and announced a freeze for the next 12 months on the price of alcohol. Considering many pubs already put their prices up in recent weeks, it means feck all really. If anything it is nothing more than a PR stunt. If the price of drink is already too high, freezing it for 12 months is nothing more than kicking the ghoulies off an already dead tiger. Pub trade is at the lowest is has ever been and while the LVA VFI are quick to blame everyone else they never once stop to think that the prices they charge have anything to do with it. Now I dont expect them to accept 100% responsibility but come on lads, keep off the sauce the night before you prepare your radio interviews. Take a leaf out of our friends in Northern Ireland’s book or you risk your pubs looking something like this on a Saturday night…

I could go on and give more examples, of which there are many, of where savings can be made, who is cheaper than who etc etc. But its not that cloak and dagger anymore. So here are my 3 simple tips for the Christmas:

1. Use the internet
2. Travel to Northern Ireland
3. Use your common sense!

Happy shopping.

Unfortunately Dara Ó BriaIn was too expensive to hire to do an ad for my blog so here is a picture of Santa Clause instead.