adminGreetings cool team, I hope I find you well and coping with the exams. Thank you for the feedback on how our exam tips are helping you. It is just unfortunate that the revision period is short but at least you can grasp one or two key items from the tips. These days many students are cycling to school but have you heard about the “Giro Silo” which is a compostable bicycle helmet?
Described as an “environmentally friendly helmet,” it ditches the traditional EPS foam (e.g. Styrofoam) that helmets use for cushion in favour of a new bio-foam liner. Unlike EPS foam, you can compost this new liner after it reaches the end of its useful life, reducing your necessary bicycle accessory’s potential environmental impact. The “Giro Silo” isn’t all recyclable, of course.
It still relies on ABS plastic for its primary shell, but the entire liner has been kitted with E-PLA, a new foam that’s derived from plant biomass (they currently make it from corn, although using grass and other plants is something that’s possible down the line). Giro claims the new foam performs just as well as conventional EPS when it comes to managing impact, so you’re still as protected from accidents, while drastically lowering your environmental footprint.
Aside from the foam, the helmet’s straps, which are made from coconut fibre, are also compostable, leaving you with just the original shell to dispose of. I was happy to notice my boys from Churchill and Prince Edward Schools donning some. Go boys go.
Big Screen
We are still running with the promotion in partnership with Ster Kinekor Theatres from Westgate and Eastgate. This week some new releases have hit our box office such as “Pan 3D”, “Oops! Noah is Gone” and “The Jakes Are Missing”. “Black Mass” and “Perfect Guy” are still topping at the cinemas. Our pick of the week is “Pan 3D”. I watched the movie on Tuesday night. “Pan” falls short at being an imaginative original story for “Peter Pan”. The plot sees “Pan” introducing us to Peter (Levi Miller), a twelve-year old boy — living in WWII era London — whose mother (Amanda Seyfried) mysteriously left him at an all-boys orphanage when he was still an infant.
Peter and his best friend Nibs (Lewis MacDougall) come to realise that boys at the orphanage have been vanishing without a trace, but cannot figure out who is responsible — until one night, when Peter and several of his fellow orphans are kidnapped by a band of pirates (armed with a flying ship), who then whisk the children away to a distant magical place known as Neverland.
There, Peter is forced into slave labour by the pirates and their leader, Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman). “Pan”, as written by Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental Drift), is a re-imagining of the Peter Pan myths that serves as a prequel to JM Barrie’s classic play/novel “Peter Pan”; or, “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up”, as well as an origin story for the eponymous character.
Unfortunately, the film does so by crafting a “Messiah” or “chosen one”narrative that unfolds in a very formulaic manner, offering a derivative spin on many tropes while at the same time cribbing elements that have been used to greater effect in similar fantasy stories (“Chronicles of Narnia”, “Harry Potter”, etc.).
“Pan” also banks heavily on filmgoers being familiar with the original “Peter Pan” story — frequently re-purposing famous lines from the book/play and foreshadowing events that are only distantly relevant to what is happening in the movie — yet fails to offer fresh insight on the themes and ideas that are raised in Barrie’s original fairy tale.
But at the end of the day it is somehow watchable. I give it three stars.
Till next week . . . I’M OUT
Online Reporter