Interesting development – Amazon are moving into groceries.

Apparently the market leaders Ocado have never made a profit in their 10 year history. I presume this is largely because of the expense of the distribution network which of course Amazon already have in place. At the moment it’s just non-perishable items (no meat or veg) but I presume they’ll need to invest in some refrigerated vans before long – I can’t see people bothering to order meat/veg/fruit/bread from Sainsburys/Ocado/Tesco and everything else from Amazon.

There’s still some work to do on the website too to get it a bit more geared towards the needs of food shoppers rather than book shoppers (ie a weekly shopping list).

Another of the strengths of the supermarkets is their own-brand, cheaper alternatives to much of what they sell. How will Amazon compete unless they have their own Amazon branded baked beans etc and perhaps their own even cheaper Amazon Basics/Value range?

All that said, I wouldn’t bet against Amazon – they’ve  gone from being just a book seller to being the first place I look for books, music, DVDs and electricals so why not food?

Another important question is whether they will keep the “buyer reviews” functionality for the food section. I look forward to reading people enthuse about a particular loo roll or packet of crisps!

If you’ve never heard of this film then that’s exactly the point. This is a film about the symbiotic relationship between media, celebrities and advertisers and all the middle-people who grease the wheels between them. The same people that we rely on to promote to us things we might want to buy (and films we might want to watch).

The first half of the film is fine but fairly forgettable. Not so revelatory revelations that…

• Some parents will let their kids audition for morally dubious reality TV shows if told their kids are cute
• The media increasingly copy and paste press releases verbatim
• People aspire to fame as the short cut to happiness but also like to watch/read about the breakdown of celebrity lives

It’s in the second half that the film really gets into its stride, turning the tables on the tabloids by selling them completely made up celebrity gossip that gets printed and spreads around the world as truth (for example, Girls Aloud popstress Sarah Harding has shelves full of books on quantum physics) and subjecting tabloid journalists to the same kind of hidden camera stings they gleefully use to take down whichever celeb-du-jour. Even Max Clifford gets caught out.

And finally members of Make Poverty History coalition of charities talk about how their campaigning around G8 Gleneagles was hi-jacked and somewhat derailed by the Live 8 concerts that distracted everyone’s attention from the significant protests going on in Scotland and the actual issues but made us all feel better so we could go on consuming as usual. I felt this bit was slightly over-cynical but, if you believe the film, comparing the policy commitments and money numbers of what Live 8 actually achieved to what was said was achieved doesn’t come out in their favour.

All in all, it doesn’t do much to enhance your faith in humanity but then admitting we have a problem is the first step towards change.

An average guy gives himself 30 days to get one date with Drew Barrymore.

Part of the mumblecore movement of indie films, this is a film in which not a lot happens but in a quirky, hipster-ish kind of way. This is not a story film – it’s just a film about average interactions between average people with average baggage.

Sure, that doesn’t sound all that interesting but I still enjoyed it. I find the natural dialogue about nothing in particular and general unpolished nature that you get with mumblecore films quite refreshing from time to time though I can understand many people would probably think this film is boring.

That said, as something of an accidental hipster these days with my man-bag, Converses and liking for Polaroid cameras, I suppose I’m exactly the kind of person who would like this film (or who would say I liked it) but I actually did enjoy it, so there!

P.S. If anyone ever sees me wearing those ridiculously large-lensed, thick-framed hipster glasses, please pull them off my face and stamp on them.

During the first 15 minutes of this film I found the lead character (Poppy) intensely annoying. Thereafter I found her only slightly annoying.

Although I did enjoy the scorned flamenco teacher and Eddie Marsan’s performance as an increasingly troubled driving instructor, the story is largely fluff and I was more interested in most of the other characters than I was in Poppy. Maybe it was just the mood I was in at the time though.

I’ve signed up for Love Film which now includes a “watch online” facility for some films so you don’t even have to wait for the posting of films back and forth (which is usually only a 3 day process). Anyway, the result of this is that I’m likely to watch a lot of films in the next few months until I get bored and find I’m paying a tenner a month for films I’m not watching. I’ll probably post some of my thoughts on some of those films here.