Of Up!

Now, here is another conundrum about living across the pond.

Why is it that while America is the land that gave birth to Hollywood and thus, the first movie stars and celebrities, and where a majority of films and film companies originate, movies are so much more expensive over there than in Britain. I went to the local electronics store and saw a two disk special edition of Sweeney Todd priced at 10 pounds! That's 15 dollars! Wanna know how much that goes for on Amazon.com $22.99, retail price $34.99. In what world does that make sense?

Of course, that's just one example, I'm not counting the myriad of new releases that were all priced at 5 pounds. And at that point, I cursed US Region 1 DVD players.

Another thing that's cheaper in the UK, Ipods. And I am sure that Apple is not even remotely British. But that's another issue.

Yet, what does make me sad about being in the UK is missing the release of movies, since - "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" aside, the US tends to get first dibs on movie release dates. I will be missing the premiere of "Up" while I'm here and when I go back to California, guess what's going to get its first worldwide release in London? "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." Like the new "Wolverine" movie, this sucks.

And now, to alleviate the pain, the new trailer of Pixar's "Up," which opened the Cannes Film Festival. At least some film juries take animated pictures seriously, ie: no one in the Academy, whom I will never forgive for snubbing "Wall-E" in the Best Picture nomination. But again, that's another story.