Seen and heard

Saw The Motorcycle Diaries at the weekend. I enjoyed the film immensely, but then I think I could enjoy Gael García Bernal in River City. Or anything. I don't know much about El Che, either, but Garcia certainly captured the charisma behind the ubiquitous image.

I think I could watch the Latin American landscape in anything too. It was as much a character as Ernesto and Fuser, and played a more important role in the development of the story and characters than the Norton 500 - "The Mighty One" - of the film's title.

I also watched Spellbound on DVD. A wonderfully engaging look at the seamy underbelly of spelling bees in America. That's not true, actually. It's not at all like the beauty pageants. There is no underbelly (just a liberal sprinkling of pushy parents and extraordinary kids). The wonderfully engaging bit was true though - a nice story, simply told. A reminder of genuine all-American weirdness too.

An aside...around film fest time I was intrigued by the prospect of free DVDs for a month, and signed up for a trial at LOVEFiLM. Fully intending to quit after a month. But the service is so good, I'm hooked. Such a simple but well-executed concept. Makes me wish I'd thought of it.

Heard, yesterday, Marc Prensky, who lists among his job titles "visionary" and "futurist". He led a round table discussion (where we sat in rows, bizarrely...someone missed a point somewhere) on using technology to engage learners, and more interestingly, on applying the principles of game design to engagement. I particularly like his application of gaming to the 7 Habits... It's nice to hear people thinking about things differently.