The democracy of age

Have you ever seen a woman for a distance - hell, even a few metres away - and thought "I have no idea how old that woman is"? She's fit, classically dressed and has terrific hair - she could be anywhere from 27 to 48.

Then you get a little closer. The key is in the lips.

Because you can tell a botoxed pair of peckers. A little too taught, looking like lymph and globby fat is about to ooze out the seam between regular face skin and the pink mucous membrane of the lip. A Madame Tussaud's kisser.

And for reasons known only to dermatologists and witches, the lips are the first part of the body to show age. (Actually, the aged appearance is due to lip skin being particularly thin, and not having the usual protection layer of sweat and body oils which keep skin smooth. Thanks Wikipedia. Wink.)

Simply put, the lips don't lie. You can't dress them up in black cashmere or crust them in foundation. Like rings on a tree trunk, the wrinkles on the lips give the game away. And if you think you can beat the system, the only remedy - botox - is so glaringly obvious you may as well wear a spangly tracksuit and a bum bag.

Embrace the age, people. Love the lip wrinkles.

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When Geeks Go...Geekier

I'm lucky enough to see previews of films from time to time with the premise of reviewing them. The films generally aren't the studio cash cows, but a surprising number of times I see an out-of-the-way release that is genuinely extraordinary. Fanboys - the ode to ritualised Star Wars obsession - is not one of those films.

It is reasonably entertaining, but I haven't quite resolved the contradiction that a film celebrating the appropriation of Hollywood by the suburban masses could be so, well, Hollywood. It is a classic teen road movie superimposed with a particular kind of nerdiness, where the Holy Grail isn't a tumble in the back of a van with a high school fantasy girl but a sneak peek at the new Star Wars instalment.
If you're a fan, you'll love it. If not, you'll be entertained but be left feeling a bit uncomfortable with how the filmmakers managed to feed their hard-won obsession straight back into the machine.

Anyway, the screening was noteworthy not for the film but the company in the cinema. There were two guys behind me when I arrived - not reviewers but possibly bloggers - both in Star Wars T-Shirts with one sporting a Lucasfilms bomber jacket and the other a long black trench coat.

They were talking about the new Star Trek film - the revamped, youthful, effects-laiden, sexy new Star Trek film - and one guy said to the other:

Its like they took all the nerdy stuff about the original series, put it in a separate folder and pressed CTL, ALT, DEL.

I was paralysed. Gobsmacked. The layers of irony were more than my puny little man could handle. More than the filmmakers of Fanboys could ever have pulled together.

It was, quite simply, the most awesome moment of my cinema-going life.

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