Time Traveller Caught On Film?

Here’s something spooky for you on Hallowe'en...
This YouTube video assembled by Irish filmmaker George Clarke has gone viral, claiming to show a cellphone-toting "time traveller" at the premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus.
Now, remember this was filmed in 1928!
Look at the video, to hear Clarke wax long about the clip...and see it replayed over and over, closer and closer. This clip comes from a DVD extra from the film and shows a woman ambling by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, hand to ear, talking!

What was she doing? Clarke is convinced the figure's holding something slim and black...like a mobile phone!
In 1928??? Who knows?
*...and roll theme from The Twilight Zone...*

The Cost Of Sport

Now that the $6-BILLION Delhi Commonwealth Games are but a memory (and did you actually see $6-billion worth of facilities, attendance or competition?), questions remain. Transparency International (TI) reports the perceptions about corruption in India have actually increased in the wake of these scam-tainted Games.
There's been a drop in India's integrity score (ie: can ya trust 'em?), from 3.5 in 2007 and 3.4 in both 2008 and 2009...to 3.3 now. TI's scale runs from zero (perceived to be the most corrupt) to 10 (low levels of corruption). India's rank on TI's list of corrupt nations is 87th out of 178 countries this year, indicating a serious corruption perception. And surely this will have a flow-on effect for India in terms of international trade and trust.
Sadly there will always be some administrators who cannot resist temptation when that amount of money comes into play. At least here in NZ, we simply could not run an event of that size. In fact, the World Rowing Championships (starting this weekend on Lake Karapiro) and next year's Rugby World Cup may be the last global sports events we can afford to host: the passion, skill base and knowledge is here but it's just too expensive to put them on.
The rowing is expected to break even (after costing about NZ$16 million) while the rugby organisers anticipate a NZ$40 million loss, which will be covered by the government (ie: taxpayers) and NZ Rugby Union.
Auckland recently withdrew its bid for the 2018 Commonwealth Games after the government said it would not underwrite the costs. We simply don't have the commercial organisations sitting here saying they can bankroll it, or indeed enough population to support increased taxation to pay for it.
Still, I guess at least that means a proportional plunge in pinching possibilites in our sporting events...and that's gotta be a good thing!

Double Blue

More good movie news: Fox has revealed that James Cameron's next two films will be...
*surprise-surprise!*...
Avatar 2 and Avatar 3.
Avatar 2 has a prospective release date of Christmas 2014, while the studio is hoping that the third film will be finished in time for a December 2015 release.
Apparently Cameron will begin working on the scripts for the (currently-untitled) sequels early next year, hoping to start production later in 2011. He'll make the decision as to whether they will be filmed back-to-back after he has finished the scripts. This means of course that his plans to make Cleopatra are on the back burner for now.
Avatar has made almost $3 billion (!!!) since its release in December 2009, and it’s likely that the second and third films in the trilogy will build on that. Personally, I enjoyed it for its effects – I felt the storyline was simply a re-working of a tried-and-true concept - but I’d be happy to see more stories set in the same world, especially if Cameron can improve on the first film with more original storylines and new characters.
You may/may know that 95% of Avatar's special effects were done by NZ's Weta Workshops: hundreds worked full-time on it for three years. This'll mean that, following The Hobbit resolution, Weta will no doubt be hiring more staff... and so the good news continues!