Inception: the elevator pitch

Being John Malkovich meets Tron: it'll take you to the next level.

What would happen if Christopher Nolan ever films a script by Charlie Kaufman?


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Blue eyes, Mensa IQ to go ...

Welcome to HuxleyWorld: theme parks located at London Bridge and Virginia where the hot ride on offer is to enter a raffle for an egg of your choice for IVF.

Science fiction? No, this is a real publicity drive punching a coach and horses through ethical worries about the sanctity of new life. This is bingo for babies: the winner cries 'House' and takes the DNA home.

Whether the initiative is banned or not it has succeeded in promoting its services. And it proves that people will always push against the boundaries of taste and decency to get noticed. We have gone from surrogate mothers to surrogate egg farmers in 25 years.


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Doctor Ooh

... or maybe even Doctor Ood. The first part of the timelord's 2009 Christmas special The End of Time shown on BBC One tonight was a postmodern mesh of self-reflection over the Russell T. Davies era: the whole dog-and-pony show.

There will also be millions of children who woke up to Santa bearing gifts this morning who will have nightmares tonight inspired by The Master. Lots of hand-holding, landing lights left switched on and favourite bedtime stories being read tonight, and that's just the parents.

Most expensive movie ever made

Déjà vu, all over again? James Cameron has blown the most budget on a film in Hollywood history, twice. This is is beginning to look like a marketing feature. And the length is on the gargantuan side, too.

Cameron lavished about $200m on Titanic, released in 1997, and squandered $316m on this year's 3D blockbuster, Avatar. At this rate, his next movie will surface in 2021, cost around $416m, and feature the intergalactic, 35th-century spaceship Noah's Ark (in which every pair of animals speaks its own bespoke language) trying to avoid being sucked into a supermassive blackhole at the centre of a galaxy: in 4D, the space-time continuum factor built in, with added 'feely vision'. Natch.

Titanic grossed over $1.8m worldwide, the highest grossing film ever. This is why Cameron got to play with an even bigger train set on Avatar. So, will he get to do it all again in 12 years time? Highly likely, and the wait shouldn't be as long if the rumoured Avatar trilogy is to be made: Avatar is a lovely movie that made a strong start on its opening weekend, though there is limited wriggle room for Avatars 2 and 3 as the story line for the first movie leaves few loose ends.

PS: Na'vi night-school classes may be on the agenda after all (see earlier post, Navigating Na'vi).

Homoeo apathy

There's been a bit of a bust up in the media over the last few days about homoeopathy and whether or not it works. This old conundrum never gets resolved, with people who swear blind on both sides of the debate.

Essentially, the active ingredient -- usually a toxin -- is actively diluted by a factor of 100 many times until there is no molecule left of the original ingredient, The solution that is left is said to have a 'water memory' and has potency for treating ailments. Whether or not this alternative medicine works is beyond my knowledge: there's been an argument for over 200 years. But think about other scenarios where the technique could be tried out.

• Politics: diluting policy through committee after committee until the remaining bill only has a 'water memory' of the original idea.
• Sport: Chinese whispers communication of tactics from coaches and manager to a squad only for the players to dilute the message when they get out on to the pitch.
• Media: a minion has an idea that gets stolen progressively up the food-chain hierarchy until the commissioner decides to act on the original, unrecognisable idea convinced it was his or her own Eureka moment.
• Relationships: repeated requests from wives and girlfriends directed towards their men get progressively diluted so that by the time he's slumped in front of the telly watching Match of the Day, the memory of what was said seems in the distant past.

This is human nature, I suppose, but in politics this can have positive outcomes occasionally, say when filibustering an unpopular bill, and at least the media projects get made, albeit with workers at the plankton level of the scale perhaps feeling used.

Children of an alternative universe

In a parallel universe all possibilities are up for grabs.

• Sarah and Michael Palins' offspring canvas for Global Presidency by campaigning around the world in eighty days flogging their latest book;
• Madonna and Lee Childs' little darlings solve celebrity crimes (fashion and otherwise);
• Winston and Caryl Churchills' sprogs fight the enemy in the bedroom, and;
• Genghis and Jemima Khans' lovelies lay a swathe through international Society.

Be afraid.