Permutation City Blog

I ate in the large branch and it certainly is atmospheric. (Lots of decoration plus you can sit on very low stools next to a coffee-type table or you can take the single western-style set of table and chairs.) Food was expensive with a main course costing around £10 nor were the portions large. The chicken tagine consisted of chicken, peas, and olives in stock. Simple but tasty. The lamb tagine looked more substantial with big chunks of potato and carrot. For desert there were baklava, mamoul, and roasted nuts. Overall this was nice but not worth the money. (All food is organic, halal, and fairtrade which would explain the price.)

Tucked away just off Byres Road this restaurant serves fusion food combining world and Scottish flavours. It can cope with large bookings. It's presentation was slightly fancy for my liking, I prefer big piles of honest tasty food. However what you did get was nice so I wasn't disappointed.

Given Metropolis's classic reputation I was keen to see it. Unfortunately it was terribly slow and dull. I suppose some of the cityscapes are impressive given the film's age but they weren't enough. Hopefully someone else can give a more positive response.

Coming out a couple of years before the award winning Spirited Away this is the film that led the way. It pays much more attention to Western audiences and has a reasonable dub, although I prefer subtitles. It deals with environmental issues, a common theme in Miyazaki's work, but also acknowledges that progress can bring benefits. Many characters' actions cannot be considered as good or evil but hover somewhere in between. I particularly liked the Kodama, tiny white forest spirits, with strange heads (but in a good way.)

The rotoscoping technique used to produce this film gives it a very distinctive appearance. Actors are distinctly recognisable through the animation. There is more detail than one is used to in animation but less definition. It is used to give a drugged vision of life, adding unreal objects and distorting what is really there. Actually I'm not quite sure what to think of the film itself. Good, bad, somewhere in the middle? Well, certainly not bad. I have read the book but can't remember the details. Although the animation was interesting it at times it distracted me from the story, I was watching the picture not the film. It may be I have to see this film again before I can really make my decision.

This is a very different film for Gilliam. It is set in in a very real world coloured by the visions of Parry, a man who now seeks the Holy Grail. Not a funny film but one dealing with consequences and responsibility.

Although the idea of King Kong will be well known to all fewer have seen the original film. It's not what I expected. Later adaptations make much of Kong being kidnapped from his native habitat and for Ann's sympathy for the misunderstood creature. In this version Kong is just captured and the terrified Ann is relieved that her ordeal is over. She does not have any tender feeling for the beast as she is carried screaming up the Empire State Building. At the end Kong is killed and that is that. Although I can suspend my disbelief and allow for giant apes and prehistoric dinosaurs the lost world still didn't make sense for me. It's just not a proper ecology, a silly quibble I know. At least our knowledge has progressed over time and we would no longer depict herbivorous trying to eat people. This was an interesting film that gives a lot of context to later imitations.

I love this little film for it's juxtaposition of reality and fantasy, accountancy and piracy. Plus it has a nice song.

Sometimes the muppets are very good but, unfortunately, this isn't one of those times. The storyline has been changed too much: Dorothy is now searching to start her singing career and Toto has become a talking prawn with attitude. I had to fast-forward through the songs. Bunsen and Beaker make an appearance, they're always good.

Err... What was that again? I know there is something called The Zone. I know the main characters are journeying towards a special room within The Zone. Pretty much everything else is hazy: why they are going there, what will happen when they get there, and so on. Interesting use of black & white and colour film to show different aspects of the world.