Christmas Day was quiet here - too quiet. Apart from getting my head around the whole summer thing, there was no special Christmas telly at all! What does it say about Australia when the choice of Christmas day movie was between "Ever After" and "Christmas Vacation"! St. Stephens Day/ Boxing Day is the most popular day to go to the flicks here apparently and having enjoyed Batman so much on the IMAX previously we thought another full length feature on am IMAX screen would be just as enjoyable, even if it featured Keanu Reeves. Alas, that was not to be. The new IMAX screen, opening that day, could hardly be called that - it was basically just a regular big screen cinema with the same usual dimensions. And on top of that, one of the main reasons for going - namely, that in the trailer we saw Sydney being destroyed - was cut from the film! When the whole thing was over it left the impression that the story and script and being drafted on the back of a napkin over lunch somewhere. Anyway, a quick google when I got home confirmed that I hadn't imagined things..

If you're going to go see the new Batman flick, I can really recommend going to see it on perhaps the biggest IMAX screen in the world. The film was pretty good in its own right, but watching a full length film (and not some crappy 3D documentary) is a whole other experience. As the lights went out and the screen came on, the ads only took up about a quarter of the screen and I thought the film might be the same. Then suddenly, whoaah, the whole screen (and thus my entire field of view) was taken up by the frame. I had to move my neck and head just to see things happening down in the corner. In fact I'd almost say the screen was too big as at some points I couldn't make out what was going on. But that might have been the films fault as well..

Showing herself around Sydney for the weekend, I knew the first thing that she'd want to see was the brand spanking new Apple store in the city centre (*cough ..excuse.. cough*). It's the second largest one in the world apparently, and the timing of its opening its handy enough seeing as I've only just bought a computer in the last couple of months. The place was absolutely jammers, but without being able to fiddle with a new iPhone the novelty wore off in about 2 minutes. Also made a visit to the worlds biggest Imax cinema at Darling Harbour. Hoping to see lots of 3D action from a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, "Grand Canyon: River at Risk" turned out to be pretty underwhelming. The exciting 3D bits were kept to a minimum and anytime one of the actors (documentary participants?) opened their mouths the rest of the movie was ruined. There were about 4 different pointless narrators who couldn't say anything compelling. Not that I disagreed with the eco message, but I'd much rather watch some BBC quality documentary about climate change than listen to one where some guy goes on about his trip with his daughter before she goes off to college, all to the sound of jangly music in the background. Having said all that, the screen was really huge :)