Musing on Movies: Just Say "No"

"Oh, him? He's harmless. Part of the free speech movement at Berkeleyin the sixties. I think he did a little too much LDS."~~Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

What do you think about smoking, drinking, and/or drug use in films? Doyou think that it affects whether or not/how much you use them? Do youthink it influences kids to use them? Do you think that films that showbinge drinking/getting drunk (not a glass of wine with dinner or JamesBond's martini) or smoking should automatically be rated R? (There is currently a proposal to the MPAA about this.)

Personally as long as it's not too over the top, I've got no problem with cigarettes or alcohol being shown in movies. I don't think that the rating categories should be changed either. I do have a problem with drug use, and when I watched "Trainspotting" with Ewen MacGregor I was actually quite shocked, I'd never really seen images like those before.

I do know that there was serious discussion during the filming of Lord of the Rings about Gandalf's pipe smoking and the blowing of smoke rings and whether they should be included in the plot in this modern day and age, fortunately Peter Jackson stayed true to Tolkien's original tale and those scenes didn't end up on the cutting room floor - although I've got to wonder just what was in the longbottom leaf pipe tobacco that Merry and Pippin were smoking after the battle of Isengard!!!

Book Review: Mammoth - Book One: Silverhair by Stephen Baxter

I bought this book because I was collecting Stephen Baxter's works on Ebay, but this is not a science fiction novel like Baxter's others works, it is a more down to earth story about the handful of Mammoths that are still struggling to survive in the modern world. Although not specified, I assume that the Family were moving around an Island off the coast of Alaska - somewhere remote anyway. The story does however have a little SF twist at the end, but I'll not spoil it further.

Over the Great Years of the Mammoth's history on earth, their numbers have gradually dwindled until there is just one Family of Mammoths led by a brave Matriarch wandering the icy tundra. The story begins during the harsh winter, and follows through into the melting spring warmth when the last of the mammoth families stumble across the Lost (or a wandering gang of modern-day humans) together with their dangerous Fire-Sticks (guns).

I have registered this book at BookCrossing.com. I do not think that I will want to read this novel again, so at some point I will probably release it into the wild.

7 out of 10