i hate everyone.

In the space of only a week I have managed to see two films; one that made me want to throw in the towel and go live in a Mongolian yurt and the other open up a wide tree-hugging style embrace and resign to accepting humanity with all of its flaws. After only just seeing An Inconvenient Truth and having the bejeezus scared out of me I decided to catch another oil-centric documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?

It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?

Why indeed. Never mind that it has zero emissions and are cheaper to run than gasoline cars because the Bush Administration is working hard to bring you hydrogen-fueled cars. That won't be ready for 20 years. And cost a $1 million EACH to create. And are 7 times more expensive to run than a gasoline-fuelled car. GO HYDROGEN. Sometimes people are so stupid it makes my head hurt. I won't rant too much here but I firmly recommend going to see this documentary and then seriously considering swapping in your vehicle for a hybrid if you can.

After you've seen it, go back to the counter at your cinema and purchase a ticket to see this movie. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will make you wonder why there isn't any legislation on the table to outlaw the perversity of child beauty pageants.

I give you the Hoover family. The father is a victim of his own self-help regime, the mother is just trying to keep everyone afloat, the grandfather has decided to really live up his golden years by snorting heroin and subsequently being booted out of his retirement home, the teenage son has taken a vow of silence and only communicates via notepad in order to more actively disengage with said family and the daughter, well, she wants to enter into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Cue the family road movie.

I've heard so much hype about this film that I didn't want to get myself worked into a frenzy over it. I made that mistake with Lost in Translation and it didn't live up to my expectations whatsoever. I ended up loving it so much that two days later I told Stephen to go by himself to see it because I knew that I would just be annoyed if he ended up not liking it. I know it's ridiculous but it's just who I am, take me or leave me.

The basic synopsis is that everyone is flawed, some more than others but you have to love people through their flaws and stand by them when they need you, no matter what anyone else might think. Also, life is full of disappointments, some more avoidable than others. There's also a yellow VW bus, gay porn, Proust and a spectacular finale. Olive Hoover may be the most likeable child character onscreen since Finding Neverland.