I have been wanting to watch Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland for a while now, I completely meant to see it at the cinema but alas life got in the way... Also there is that strange thing that when you live in Oxford with the Alice glass window in Christchurch and the Alice shop you tend to find yourself quite involved with the whole tale. So although 95.99 percent of me wanted to see it (Tim Burton's films being quite wonderful) a tiny bit of me felt protective of the original/story charcters. This obstacle was however removed by Jam who rented the DVD for us to watch while house/cat sitting for his dad.
Marvolous! The whole thing was a beautiful conjouring, the world, the characters and the costumes being completely Burton while still retaining their essence from the original tale. Personal favourites
were as ever the cheshire cat with the ever present smile, the mad hatter (what's not to love), Helen Bonham-Carter was magnificent as the red queen (before watching it I was unsure about her being computer generated, but her character is so strong you don't notice it after a while, and she gets all the best lines ('nothing like a nice warm pig' fabulous)) and bizarrely for the first time Alice. In previous versions I've always found her slightly annoying but I really liked the character in this version (possibly the fact that she gets mucky and turns down suitors rather than remaining pristine, not too keen on the ending, but I suppose you can't have everything). The rest of it absolutely worth a watch, so good in fact I may have to buy the dvd. Another Burton classic (and if you still don't believe me here is the trailer to convince you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9POCgSRVvf0)!
I have been waiting patiently for the new x-men film to come out for a while. When I was little I was a HUGE fan of the cartoons (& while I will acknowledge the films aren't quite as good) they tap in to fond memories of childhood of drawing a lot of characters and hoping to develop some superpower as I grew up. I REALLY wanted to go and see the new x-men: First Class film as it features quite heavily the beautiful James McAvoy. What I wasn't aware of however was that it also features my home, my one, my true, my Oxford (UK). Thanks to the roaming Paparrazi of the Daily Mail whose images are 'borrowed' here (thanks guys) we can see exactly what went down. 
Here is the aforementioned lovely JM standing beneath the bearded heads of the sheldonian with perfectly haired female companions (I'm not bitter it's just my hair would never do that, especially not in the rain...). Thanks to the equally awesome bleeding cool we can also see what the sheldonian set actually looked like). 
Unfortunately only the first part of the film is set in Oxford (I think the large country house which later becomes the home for the gifted is also supposed to be somewhere in the Oxfordshire countryside, in the later films it's def stateside). The main Oxford scene (which is rather awesome) is set in a (sadly fictional) pub called the Eagle (did the set people get confused with the Eagle and child one wonders?) JM is trying out a genetic chat up line on his fellow Oxford Students. 
Here is the pub in another bleeding cool photo (it should be on the corner of New bridge street by the copy of the bridge of sighs, alas it hath been CGI'd or it would have definitely had another regular (having said that my favourite Oxford pub is just around the corner). The film itself was very enjoyable, one of the 'new' x-men/woman I found really really cool (although Rogue remains top of my affections in those stakes). Charles Xaivier and Magneto were both played superbly my JM and the awesomely named Michael Fassbender (who is rumoured to be the new bond and is quite easy on the eye). Definitely a great addition to the fantasy cannon and well worth a watch.
