Why so curious?

Sometimes you see a play, or a film (or in this case a theatremovie), and it just feels perfect.

I read The CuriousIncident of the Dog in the Night Time a few years ago because I was tutoring a girl from Calrossy and she was studying it for the HSC. And I loved it. It is a novel  about an autistic kid written from his perspective, a seriously limited first person narrative. It explores some of the issues of relationships with autistic people, the difficulties of parenting, of honesty, of emotional nuance… But it is a really easy read.

When I found out the National Theatre (one of my favourite theatre companies, based in London, right down the road from where I used to live) was developing a production, I was sceptical. I mean, this is a really internalised novel, we get everything from Christopher’s perspective. How in the hell would they be able to translate that to bodies-in-space-and-time? Into a physicalized, theatrical performance? It’s not just a matter of having people say the lines, theatre is much more about immediacy, showing the audience the story rather than just the words on the page.

Then I read reviews. People I know. People I follow on twitter. The rest of the internet.

And it was universally loved.

Then by chance I saw that it was on at our little cinema, and it was just a chance that I needed to get on.

This is a story perfect for the stage.

They have externalised the sensory overload that autistic people can feel, and used some state of the art theatrical technics to really bring it to life. Performed in the round, with a floor made of LED displays, and crystal clear floor projections, it really immersed the audience into the performance, and this even translated onto the film. The ensemble cast nailed the transformative acting, and the dance/movement parts were so poignant and beautiful. I love it when the actors play all of the furniture in some of the scenes. And the guy playing Christopher? AMAZING!! He really captured the behaviour and difference of an autistic kid, without making it about disability or pity.

I wish I’d brought you guys with me. I wish I could take all of my classes, hell the whole damn school. If people say they don’t like theatre, I dare them not to be drawn into this personal, universal world.

Gravity Sucks

It has been far too long since I blogged. And the boot in the pants to get back to it is of course OscarsFest. If Tori can get back into creating amazing meals for each of the nominated Best Films, then the least I can do is a quick write up. (Especially since I already wrote one for my teaching blog.)

So here goes...

Gravity Sucks

By which of course I mean the gravitational pull of the earth, the force that attracts all physical bodies to each other. It sucks us to the Earth.

But the film doesn’t.

I saw Gravity today.

Wow.

One of the problems presented by space films is the emptiness. But Sandra Bullock really fills the blackness. Her performance is phenomenal. This is a story about survival and hardship and perseverence.

Given my emersion in all things Cold War last year, of course I couldn’t help but view the film through those lenses. The whole issue of getting Lost In Space was caused because those irresponsible, pesky Russians created too much space junk. The Reds are in the wrong again.

It could also be seen as an allegory of grief, a woman facing the chasm of grief, the unexplorable, unexplainable emptiness of life without meaning, without love. An unfathomable challenge.

There is also that hint of conservation story telling here. Lets stop junking up our skies, our planet, our lives. Because we only have one.

As I said, Bullock is incredible in thius film. She commands that character in a way I have never seen her do. Street beyond Gracie from Miss Congeniality. Such gravitas on the screen. Though George Clooney's performance is impressive as well. He's back to his thoroughly likable self.

I am actually pleased that I didn't see this at the cinema, and I'm stoked I didn't see it in 3D. I probably would have hurled all over the 3 rows in front of me. The cinematography is powerful and lurching, and imersion in that world would have sent my poor little tiny balance sea-sick ear bones into a tailspin. And given the fact that The Secret Life of Walter Mitty got no joy in the cinematography category, this is now my pick.

As far as space flicks go, this doesn't have goodies and baddies. There is no force or warp speed or beaming anybody up anything. Its real people, in tiny spaces, with loose tethers to things, the world, each other, themselves.

Worth it.

She saved the world. A lot.

Apparently it is still all about sexy vampires...
Sometimes, end of term smacks me around a bit.
Sometimes, it lays me flat. It lays me on my couch, with droopy eyes, and pale skin, and aches and pains in all the wrong places.

Tonsilitis is a real pain in my neck, and my special variety of Holiday Tonsilitis is a special variety of pain.

Solution? A well viewed DVD, or several; end on end. Really get that flatscreen cranking.

Over the course of this term, culminating in a panadol-infused binge, I have rewatched the entire 7 series of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

Yep, this show is old. Fifteen years old. And I am STILL in love with it.

For seven years, for 152 episodes, for 6,384 minutes, Joss Whedon created a show about a young woman and her friends finding a place for themselves in the world, through high school, college and beyond. And along the way they fight demons and avert multiple apocalypses. Sure it has dated a bit (did I mention it is FIFTEEN years old??) but it is still rivetting, relevant television.

I was initally skeptical. I mean, who wouldn't be? Could they have chosen a more vacuous sounding name than "Buffy"? Could they have created a more naff sounding title? But that is entirely the point. The expectation is that Buffy is going to be some incapable blonde bint more concerned with nail integrity than saving the world. And the irony is created when that expectation is utterly confounded. She does care about nail integrity AND saving the world. (Side note: I managed to actually teach my year 9 boys what Irony is. And at least 5 of them got it. I'm calling it an Educational Victory!) I remember scoffing about it to my flatmate at the time, and he persuaded me to give it a shot. I fell way more in love with it than he did.

The central metaphor is not difficult to grasp; the demons and monsters she fights represent the challenges and battles faced by  us all in our lives - making friends, keeping a boyfriend, dealing with parents... just magnified into big rubber suits, prosthetic make up and mucusy slime. A friend of mine from uni wrote her thesis on it (and I would STILL love to read it...)

In season 2 (not seen it yet? a. you're an idiot, b. there will be spoilers in this paragraph) Buffy and her vampire-with-a-soul brooding boyfriend Angel (what kind of a tough guy name is that??!?) consumate their relationship for the first time, in a very tender, fleshy montage with lots of close ups of hands and closed eyes. The act of lurve, the moment of perfect happiness breaks the curse on Angel, and frees him of his soul, returning him to the nasty, manipulative, violent vampire he was before. A little bit like that older guy who convinces that teenage girl to give up her V-Plates and then immediately after the act turns into King Jerk of Jerk town. Except with more blood lust and desire to torture. See? The analogy is not really that much of a stretch.

As the series progressed, each season dealt with increasingly more complex issues. Politics. Science. Theology. Grief. Community. Communication. Power. Leadership. Humanity. Not all just broken nails and boy troubles.

Back in the dark ages of the late 90s, there wasn't much in the way of kick-arse chicks on television. Sure, we had Xena. But she was so overly stylised and camp, that she couldn't really be applied to real life. Buffy was (and evidently still is) a pretty kick arse hero of the show. She isn't a heroine. She is not the tacked on, token female character. She isn't the love interest. But she also isn't masculine either. She fights bad guys using mad kung-fu moves in rediculous high heels. She chases down other bad guys in floaty fabric blouses. Her hair is pretty hot, almost all the time (not as hot as Connie Britton from FNL, she still wins the hottest hair award.) The show only ever really makes a big deal about Buffy being a girl when it is ridiculing people who make a big deal out of her being a girl. Those enemies or bystanders who refer to Buffy as "just a girl" or "a little girl"usually come to a sticky end. Or at least quickly change their mind. But that is it. They don't harp on about it. To harp on about how empowered would completly undermine the empowerment in the first place.

The legacy of her kickarse status as a female hero is not difficult to see. Sydney Bristow Alias followed not long after her. Sarah in Chuck isn't the hero, but she is a damn site more kickarse than the central character. Recently we've seen Emily/Amanda in Revenge. None of these would have been the same without the pioneering work of Joss and Sarah Michelle Double-Barrel Gellar and pals.

In his own creations, Joss continues to create girls with guts: Zoe in Firefly and Echo in Dollhouse, and while she is kind of on the perifery, Scarlett Johannsson's Black Widow does some pretty awesome arse kicking in The Avengers. He's even done a modern reworking of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, the Bard's most arsekicking feminist play of all.

I've spoken before about my love for Joss and all he does, but my inspiration for the Buffy rewatch was a meme I saw on facebook. And I love it.

(I decided to end the rant of love there. I don't think there is room for me to discuss the nuances of the other characters, the hero's journey and redemption, the understated representation of a gay couple, the delightful intertextual geekiness, the postmodern thinking that runs through every scene, and every line of dialogue... My love for this show runs way too deep)

Just one final thought:

Pushing Fantasy

I'm not usually a fan of fantasy novels. It has to be a special kind of fantasy to get me hooked. Harry Potter for example had me thoroughly hooked right from Privet Drive. But (and I confess this with a healthy dose of the Sheepish) Lord of The Rings I found confusing, all those Saurons and Sarumons and beared humanoids of differing heights. It wasn't until I saw the brilliant film version and could get Viggo and Sir Ian and the Seans differentiated in my head that I could then tackle the weighty tomes of Tolkein. But once I had the casting straight, I found it a breeze.

It is a similar story for A Song of Ice and Fire. Or as fellow HBO fanatics call it Game of Thrones.

I have had Sean Bean brooding on this spiky seat on my bookshelves for over a year. A very clever fellow from the Boy Factory pointed me in its direction AGES ago, more specifically to the HBO series, and I like to do the book first.

And I tried.

But I just couldn't separate the Roberts and the Robbs. The Eddards, the Edwins and the Edwards. My imagination just didn't have the casting sorted out. So I dove right into the HBO series.

And when has HBO ever let us down?? Entourage, Sex & the City, True Blood, Band of Brothers. Can they do ANYTHING wrong? I think not.

As ever, HBO structure each episode in a V shape. Most narratives are an A frame: introduction, building action, climax, resolution. A Shakespearean tragedy does it in the most text book way. But an HBO episode of almost everything does it in the kind of opposite way. It usually starts off with a BANG, and then the action kind of dwindles a bit. Then the characters go through the motions, and stuff begins to get exciting again, and just as it is about to really kick off????

Credits. Wait 'til next week. Or even worse, next YEAR if it is the end of the season!

I got stuck in to the HBO Game of Thrones on Good Friday. And what a good Friday it was. I was meant to be cleaning my house and packing for a holiday. But instead I just watched 10 eps of TV gold, back to back.

And then promptly went out and bought the second book, A Clash of Kings the next day. Just because I NEEDED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!!! And once again, with the casting all sorted in my head, the book was a breeze.

So what is it? A multi-perspective story of a fantasy/medieval nation in the grips of the vices of humans - lust, greed, ambition, corruption. The title refers to  the machinations of a number of characters as they tussle for the top job in Westeros.

King Robert asks his mate Eddard to leave the cold North to be his right hand man.

Eddard keeps telling everyone, in a most foreboding fashion, that "Winter is coming"

 Robert's toxic wife Cercei doesn't seem to have much loyalty to anyone, especially her husband.

Her similarly toxic son Joffery is heir to the throne. Have you ever seen a more slappable face? Ever?

Her short-statured brother is sensible, but much maligned for his height, or lack thereof. Peter Dinklage is pretty darn awesome in this role, but sometimes his English accent is a little Over Done, which grates on me a little. I've been told to let it go...

Meanwhile in exhile is the stunning silver-haired Daenerys Targaryen is being sold into marriage as her brother tries to manouver himself back to his rightful spot on the Westeros throne - Robert usurped his family before we even got there. She is my favourite. Maybe because we don't get to see enough of her, with the directors always leaving us wanting more. But mostly because her name is Dany...

There are battles, sex sword fights, sex, a litter of direwolves (like super-wolves), more sex, a possible winter-induced zombie invasion from Beyond The Wall (read: Scotland) and complex polital system of banners and manner and symbols and slogans that needs vast tracts of explanation in the back of every novel. In fact there is SO much sex combined with complex backstory, that the term "sexposition" has been coined - exposition + sex! The way to make boring explanation just a touch more palatable. And with the complicated backstories like these, there needs to be a spoonful of sugar.

"They" are calling Game of Thrones a "cross-over hit" or a "gate-way drug" to fantasy. I think of it more like Clayton's fantasy. The fantasy you like when you don't like fantasy. I have been a little bit evangelical with this, trying to push it onto fantasy tee-totallers. Once they give over to the idea, they are pretty much as hooked as me!!

Post-Script: I'm now up to Book 5 of  A Song of Ice and Fire and there is still another one to go!! And at 1000+ pages, the reading of these is a significant achievement!!

Two Weeks with the Sleep

I guess I must be still recovering from the trauma of Term 1.
Term 2 wasn't exactly traumatic, but it is always hectic. Four straight weeks of hunting reports is manic and draining. And yes, I could just create a formula, a report by numbers. But I do actually really care about what I write for my students. It is important to me that they (and their parents) have some idea of their progress... I am not wired to write "Billy is progressing well in this class" and leave it at that.

But this is why we get the two weeks. Two weeks to catch up on housework (it took me two and half hours to tidy my desk/dining room table). Two weeks to eat way too much fabulous food (my clothes are a little bit tighter now. I do so love the fact that Sparky can cook!!) Two weeks to make a quick trip to the Big Smoke and remind my Farest and Dearest that I still love them (and in the process drink few too many coffees and glasses of vino). Two weeks to catch up on DVDs and TV (Friday Night Lights, Game of Thrones, Mad Men and starting The Wire? Sounds FAB!!) Two weeks to catch up on registers and programming and planning and marking (but of course there is no bottom of the pile when it comes to being an English teacher!)

So now I am staring down the barrel of Term 3. The business end of My First Advanced HSC Class (I can just imagine them as My Little Ponies... Seriously, I can picture some of them as mauve with lemony yellow hair!!) and a term of football finals and chilly mornings.

Bring it on!!! 

Radio Silence

So things have been pretty quiet around here, haven't they?

This last term has been my most difficult one ever, and I have wanted to write about it, but it really hasn't been my stuff to write about.

So I haven't written.

In the mean time, as well as smothering myself in work, and trying to figure out how to compartmentalise my thoughts (why can't I be more like Sydney Bristow??!?!) there has been much good stuff in my life that really needs acknowledgement.

The Hunger Games film was released. And I have been evangelical about these books for a few years, and now it seems the rest of the world is on board.

Game of Thrones has sucked me into its gritty castle walls. All ten eps of season one devoured on the first day of the holidays, and now I'm sucked in to the books. Full post on that one to come.

I said goodbye to Henry. And I said hello to Jezabel. New wheels is a pretty big decision in a lady's life.

And here comes Term 2. A new football season. A new lot of reports. A new set of promises to myself about how to keep myself much more sane. Like: Write more on this blog.

OscarsFest 2012: The Rusty Bitch

No doubt, Margaret Thatcher was a formidable woman. No doubt she shattered glass ceilings and broke barriers that have made way for women to do many other things in the fields of politics, business and any other thing she fancied.
But that doesn't change the fact that I think she should be remembered as a toxic character in history, whose blatant disregard for the lives and quality of lives infected the political landscape of the world. Her vision was blinded by the bug picture. Economic rationalism at its sort potent.

I was reluctant to see The Iron Lady because I didn't really want my sludge coloured lenses infected by any rose colouring at all. I didn't want to feel any sympathy for her. I didn't even want to see the background biography of How and Why she became such an economic hardarse. But, bound by a commitment to the OscarsFest code of consumption, and an overwhelming admiration for all things Streep, see it I did.

As a tangent (me? Never!) a few days earlier, my mother took my grandmother to see this film. Thinking she was taking her to see a fairly unemotional and innocuous biopic, Mum persuaded Grandma to see the first film she has seen since she moved back to West Bubblefuck. Certainly since my grandfather passed away 14 months ago. But it isn't just an unemotional empty shell of a film about an unemotional shell of a woman. The framing of this narrative is all about Mrs Thatcher coming to terms with her dearly departed (and much more good humoured) husband, played near perfectly by The Busiest Man In British Cinema, Jim Broadbent. She knows that her hallucinations and conversations with him are not real. His belongings to be packed and sorted and sent to good will shops bring forth a tirade of conveniently chronological flashbacks. But this wasn't something that Grandma was emotionally braced for. This wee anecdote broke my heart, even more than seeing Michael Gambon resemble Fardy during last year's OscarsFest, and that was when his memory was still very raw.

But back to my much more clinical and unbiased (ahem) review. Meryl Streep does make Maggie more sympathetic than I would have liked. But I think the is much more to do with her phenomenal ability to find the pathos in the character than the idea that Thatcher was a likable human at all. There is some explanation as to How and Why she became the hardarse. There is some insight into what her life was like, the battles she faced against classism, sexism, bigotry and war. But none of this endears the character to me at all. It was the grief she experienced having lost the love of her life that did touch me. But perhaps I was just seeing Grandma and Fardy, and feeling that loss all over again.

Director Phyllidia Lord uses stock footage beautifully to illustrate the world that Thatcher is governing. There is a huge chasm between the upper middle class life that Margaret lives, and the world of the miner and the inhabitants of the Falklands. Images of protestors being bludgeoned by police, or trampled by mounted police, in an attempt to control their behaviour was sickening. I was still left utterly perplexed how she could see this privatization and hard line economics as "strengthening the country." But I suppose I AM. A bleeding heart liberal, and I DO actually think that the individuals are important and the human stories are essential, and that the "economy" of a country is not nearly as important as the quality of life of the people that live in that said country. Granted, when it comes to the idea of international markets and strength of currencies etc, I am a complete idiot. I guess I just care whether or not kids are being fed...

Physically the resemblance is pretty perfect. In the kind of way that Meryl looks more Margaret than Margaret does, just like when I saw Keating The Musical.

Pic via wearemoviegeeks

As far as Golden Statues go, Meryl has seen more nominations that pretty much anybody. She is under recognized and could quite conceivably be handed the weird naked gold man for any role that she takes on. Some commentators think that she won't get the gong because nobody saw the film. Or because nobody likes Mrs Thatcher. But she HAS fulfilled some of the requirements usually required for the Best Actress, namely Uglied Up and Suffered Greatly. If she wins, I will hardly be surprised.

OscarsFest 2012: Ascending

This is all about the connections we have, to family, to land, to history. What we can hold onto and what we can't.

The Descendants is a slow burning film about a man coming to grips with the fact that he doesn't really know the people around him. In the opening moments of the film, Elizabeth, the wife of George Clooney's character Matt King, has a jet ski accident. Or perhaps a boating accident (I can't quite remember). She doesnt die, but she is in a coma. And her chances for life back to normal are very slim. He is faced with two daughters who are consistently testing which boundaries they can break through and which will hold them. He is faced with revelations of his wife's infidelity. And on the side, he is faced with the fact that as descendent of the indigenous royalty of Hawaii;his extended family wants to sell off their birthright - untouched paradise wilderness.

A crisis. On all fronts.

He questions what it is to be a father. A husband. A patriarch of a tribe. And a responsible custodian of the land of his ancestors.

The HSC English Area of Study is currently about Belonging. And that word kept clanging in my head throughout this film. Having said that, I don't necessarily think the dudes at The Boy Factory are going to choose this as their related text for themselves. As I mentioned, it is a little bit slow burn. Sparky wouldn't enjoy it, as it doesn't have much of the prerequisites of a Bloke Film. Swearing, Shooting, Fucking and Fighting. Instead, there is Awkward Running, Long Silences, Quiet Tears and Determined Facial Expressions. Far less Blokey.

The Descendants could be seen as a part of a series for director Alex Payne. Movies about dudes experiencing a serious schism in their lives. At a fault line of emotions and reality. Sideways, About Schmidt, Election and this one see our protagonist Paul Giamatti/Jack Nicholson/Matthew Broderick/George Clooney faced with a change in their lives that turns their world upside down. He tortures these characters with humilation and awkward running - seriously, in all four films, the running is at a level of awkward you could only cringe to - that inspires pity and that might be why we connect with them. This humiliation of running in a weird way is possibly what knocks the innate hubris out of the guy, so that we get on their side.

The Awkward Run

George Clooney is pretty phenomenal in this film. He may well be bestowed with more golden statues this awards season, but I think that is because the academies/voters will also be rewarding him for a thoroughly rich career of performances thus far. Just like they gave awards to Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe a year too late, Clooney just might get the nod for being an all rounder, rather than just nailing this performance. Even better than him was his teenage daughter Alex, played by Shailene Woodley. Not to harp on about my own personal life experience but I know teenagers. I know their need for stability, and their self perceived right to simultaneously demand two opposing things, and their ability to spout violent spite in one breath and then respect and affection in the next. And man, does this chica nail it. Perfectly.

If I didn't already have a small plan to get to a piece of Hawaiin paradise some time in the next 12 months, this film would have propelled me to the nearest Flight Centre for sure. The premise that life in the tropical paradise is anything other than idyllic is shattered for sure by Clooney and Payne. But the blood deep bond with the land and it's history is tangible through the screen, reaching into my own veins and stirring up all those longings for wilderness and a little place of unspoiled paradise.

OscarsFest 2012: Life is a Cabret

Martin Scorsese loves films. He has made a lot of them, and has dedicated his life to being one of the greatest film makers the industry has ever seen.

Not all his films are to everybody's taste, and so he has finally made the kind of film that his kids can see. But Hugo is different.
Hugo is the kind of movie that kids can see.

But I don't know if they will love it.

This film is sumptuous in design. It is full of pathos and beautifully drawn (if two dimensional) characters. It draws from a rich history of film archetypes and devices. The threat of an orphanage. A mean, crippled ex-soldier. A child with a secret. An old man with a secret.

There is two stories in the narrative. Hugo Cabret and his attempt to reconnect with his dead father through repairing a clockwork man. And then there is the mystery of the angry old man. I am reluctant to really spoil it too hard, though of course all of the reviews I have seen tend to lay it all out on the table. Suffice to say, Scorcese gets to get down and dirty and play around with the history of early cinema. Each of these stories is emotional and deep, but bizarrely lacking connection to each other. There is a slow build to the arc of the combined narratives, but by the end, I was thoroughly invested and entwined with each of the characters.

My prejudice against the futility of the 3D fad meant that I missed out on seeing the magic that Martin created with the new form of cinema. My HT reckons I should have gone back to see it again, it made that much of a significant difference to the experience. But I didn't.

For me, the most magical parts of the film are the flashbacks and example of first generation stories on celluloid. I also loved the sumptuous colour, and the way Paris and the whole Art Deco design make this film so joyful to emerge yourself into.

Mr S said that he wanted to make a film that his kids could watch. And as a film nerd who is pretty immature, I really loved it. But I know kids, and I don't reckon they could sit through it.

OscarsFest 2012: It's time to get things started

I am fully aware of the tenuous connection between The Oscars and The Muppets. Nominations for Original Song still count as a nomination, dammit. And I won't hear another word about it.

One of the coolest things about summer is the really decent kids movies that get released. Since Pixar really kicked off their worldwide popularity with Toy Story there has been a very reasonable expectation that 'family' movies shouldn't just be about the kids. Shouldn't just be about the cutesy and the quotable and the merchandisable.

And I for one and very grateful about that.

My long standing fascination with The Muppets goes back to a point that I cannot remember. Even as a proper grown up, puppets fascinate me. Story telling through the animation of inanimate objects is an artform with a long history. And Jim Henson really nailed it.

How much do I love them? Let me count the ways.

The Muppet Theme is my ringtone.
One of my most beloved toys when I was a kid was a Rowlf puppet.
The first song I remember learning on the piano is "The Rainbow Connection".
I may well have chased my theatre loves based entirely on a desire to Kermit.
My darling Sparky's nickname in some circles of friends is Kermit.

This latest installment in adventures of furry stuffed creatures is a very self aware, very mature and amusing love letter to puppets. Once again, Jason Segel is involved in celebrating the floppy armed beings - last seen in the very amusing Forgetting Sarah Marshall. One of my favourite lines in that film is "How can you hate him? He's like ghandi. Except better - he's got puppets!"

This whole film feels like old fashioned, Holloywood family film. The kind of stuff I remember form my childhood. Except now I understand all the adult references that sailed over my short little head. Lucky I'm taller now. Because the adults jokes are rich and frequent, post modern, self aware and just plain funny.

There is a very clear Left lean to the whole movie as well. Big bad corporations trying to destroy all semblance of culture, history and joy in an attempt to make the big coin and to birth more crude oil into this world. And I speak here from my position that is firmly on the left - it was possibly a little too much. A belting over the head with the issue in the style of Gonzo slapstick.

The key messages of the film, about the power of unit, the restorative power of friendship, and the importance of performance and cultural expression for the health of a culture are all too true.

And the grand finale performance of "Rainbow Connection" sums all of these up perfectly. The new songs, particularly the Oscar nominated "Man or Muppet" are brilliant and joyful. Which stands to reason given they were penned by the musical and comic genius, Bret McKenzie. His resume includes Flight of the Conchords. Touching characters, dealing with the challenges of the human condition with hilarious lyrics. This is why he has recreated with his Muppets songs. They're fabulous.

There are some people who never got into The Muppets(like Sparky). There are some people that do ot care for the suspension of disbelief required when the characters break into song for no good reason (like my bro). These people will not enjoy the latest installment of Muppets adventures. But if you love major celeb cameos, if you love a little bit of meta-entertainment, if you have the nostalgia for the URST (unresolved sexual tension - staple of all TV shows and series of films) between a pig and a frog (I've still never quite understood it, but I love it anyway) then you will love this film.

I did!

Also - check out the publicity campaign on YouTube. Pisstakes of every genre imaginable. Gotta love a production company with a sense of humour!

Getting Hungry

Sometimes a story comes along, a character comes along, that is so well crafted, that it speaks to the reader with clarity. The voice of that tale and that character resonate in your head for days and weeks after reading.

The Hunger Games trilogy is one of those stories.

Book 1.

It might not be particularly high brow of me, but I bloody LOVE the fairly specific genre of Young Adult Distopian Fiction. The Chaos Walking trilogy is one that springs to mind. Acoming of age story, set amongst impossible obstacles and unlikely odds. I may well just be carrying on the Australian obsession with the Coming of Age of characters, what with the fact that we still don't feel like a grown up country. But that is a whole 'nother post.

I am by no means the first one to pounce upon Suzanne Collins modern YA masterpiece. I read it two years ago, and at that stage the first two books had been out for some time. So there have been many others waxing lyrical about the wonders of the world Collins has created. But I just reread the series, in a holiday frenzy of reading. And it is even better on a second read. Because on the first read, I was so tense and nervous and excited, that my eye would often skip over to the bit where the action was resolved in an attempt to know what was happening next.

In the not too distant future, the society of America (and for all we know, the rest of the world as well) has collapsed. Risen from its post-civil war ashes is Panem. The central metropolis, The Capitol wields a tyrannical power over the agricultural and manufacturing districts, with police control and heavy rationing. The people of most districts live a miserable life, especially in Katniss Everdeen's native District 12. Starvation is common, as are mine collapses. Generally not an awesome fun time being had by her and her family.

Another weapon The Capitol wields against Panem's citizens is The Hunger Games. Each year 2 children from each district are sent to The Capitol to compete in a reality television, to the death competition.

Yes, it is not necessarily an original story line. There have been movies and TV shows that have had this To The Death Reality TV thing before. But I like this one better. I think Collins has much more to say about politics. And power. And surveillance. And the media. And the inherent issues of gender. Herein lies the power of spec-fic!

Now, I don't really want to give anything else away. I don't want to give any more plot points, because the richness of my reading experience of this book was a great deal to do with the fact that I didn't know what to expect. Rest assured that you will want to turn every page. You may, like me, swing past pages in an attempt to stop hyperventilating. The dudes at The Boy Factory love it. You will too.

Book 2.

But speaking of expectation management, you need to get your eyeballs onto this book BEFORE the film comes out (March 22nd, at West Bubblefuck cinemas, in case you were wondering.) I am currently grappling with expectation management. I'm thinking I'm going to need to defriend The Hunger Games peeps on Facebook and Twitter because their PR spin is NOT helping me keep my expectations effectively bottled.

And once the film is out, I am probably going to get into a little more detail of the plot and the questions that the trilogy raises. There will be spoilers. There will be high brow philosophical post-feminist, Marxist readings, and I promise they will be Reading Too Much Into It as ONLY an English Teacher can.

Book 3.

So do yourself a favour. IGNORE the testimonial on the front cover from Stephanie Meyers. It almost put me off too. But the fact that she of Twilight steaming pile of crap has read it and likes it makes it even more unforgivable that she created such a steaming pile of sexist crap.

Read these books. Double Dare.

The Art of Being Grateful

So this year there is a new project. A Blog Project. A Blogject.

Some year ago, I was working in a fairly thankless job manning phones in an advertising agency. The delightful Gemma was working in a similarly thankless retail job. After a particularly average Friday, we were sprawled in her living room, feeling particularly strung out, frayed and spent. Fridayed.

And rather than stay there moping, and whining, and whinging about how utterly unlucky we were to be living our day to day dreary lives, we switched it up.

We began to make a list of all the things we were grateful for at that moment. One of the first ones was the glass of red wine that was in our hands.

And one of the more memorable from that evening was "I'm grateful nobody is yelling at me right now."

A decade plus on, and we are now living a life that is much closer to what we actually desire for ourselves. We do grown up things, like own large pieces of furniture, and fall asleep before midnight on a weekend, and try sipping brandy at the end of the night.

But still we hope to remain grateful, for the good things that we find in our lives. The small things that make us smile, and the big significant things that we strive for. So we're keeping a record. A Blogject.

You can find it here, at Gratis. It is already teeming with the tasty, and silly, the smiley and the serene. And I can't wait to find what else is on there!

Send in the Clooney

Politics is a tricky thing. There is nothing more public than the process of democracy. It is in its very nature the centre of all things public and communal.

But the personal CANNOT be extracted from the political, because it is the people that run the politics.

Wow, Danne, way to start your first proper post in AGES in the driest most boring possible way ever! (Recent posts have sneakily been drafts lying in wait.)

I'm not really ashamed of it, but I am a bit of a politics nerd. I watch Q & A religiously. I take matters of society and power quite seriously. I don't necessarily think Julia Gillard is a particularly strong or reliable leader, but I do like some things that she does. Blowing up the pokies, for instance. And I am quite fanatically fond of The West Wing. In fact there lots of political films that I love. Wag The Dog. Primary Colours. V for Vendetta...


So The Ides of March. I think it wins for Movie Poster of the Year. (Is there a competition for that? There should be.) This is What George Clooney Did Next. I loved Good Night & Good Luck, it spoke to the lefty communist that hides inside me. I liked it in a Wow McCarthy Was A Total Fascist And Bush Isn't That Much Better kind of way. Clooney is a very handsome man, with an exceptional talent for seamless performances and comic timing, especially in the hands of my beloved Coen Bros (who seem to have gone all serious now...). I can't say at I have ever really fancied him in a PHWOAR! kind of fashion. And this is a very healthy thing. When he porked up a little and grew a beard for Syriana he kind of resembled my father. And the only thing more disturbing than watching a dude who looks like your dad getting his fingernails pulled out as a part of a torture scene is the possibility of fancying someone who resembles your father. Digress, much? I guess the point is, I think Clooney is cool and I like what he does.

And as such, I like Ides of March. This title comes from Shakespeare, another dude whose work I hold in high esteem. Julius Caesar in fact. Old Bill's tale of political assassination has links with the corruption and back room dealings of Ides but that is kind of where the similarities end. The lovely Alice Tynan thinks that this is a serious flaw in this film - it doesn't live up to the lofty heights of the title.

In the final stages of a fictional primary election in the US, Lefty governor Mike Morris (Clooney himself) is fighting for his spot on the presidential ballot. Ides follows the press secretary Stephen Myers (Gosling) feeling his way up the ladder of political behind the scenes. He is initially supported by the very intense mentor/campaign manager Paul (Phillip Seymour Hoffman - my goodness he is a phenomenal performer) and intern Molly (Evan Rachel Wood). The interpersonal relationships at the heart of the political machine play out between these characters, with Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) weighing in as Paul's nemesis, and the dude behind The Other Guy's campaign.

Morris talks Big Ideas of Politics - foreign policy, defense, education, the environment and the car industry. Sometimes there is just a nuance that Clooney loaded this political flick with these speeches to give him a chance to express these ideas. While he harps on about the bug stuff, the petty conflicts of the personal shape how the debates are constructed. Because his opponent is short, in the first scene, Myers requests taller lecterns for a debate. The jealousies that drive party minds are rife. Ambition, lust, greed for power. Wrath, secrets and deceptions. Marisa Tomei's New York Times journo is affably manipulative.

This film reminds us that it is people tat are behind politics, and that is why the systems are so flawed. Communism works, in theory, but is brought crashing down by the inevitability of human corruption and greed. The free market democracy is also open to this serious human flaw.

The corollary of this is that not only is it the personal that drives the political machine, but the politics profoundly impacts the lives of the individuals. Who they shag, what they drive, where they work, how they deal with scandal. These decisions are of course our own, but they are sparked or at lest influenced by people in suits in closed rooms with fluro lighting.

While some might say this film has lessons to teach about integrity and honesty, I believe it is about how important it is to ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE!! Each twist, each turn, each disaster, at a micro or macro level, could be avoided if the character who OWNED the phone just answered it when they were called. Not too much to ask?

There is a touch of The West Wing to this movie. The behind the scenes of politics context will make comparisons unavoidable. I really think George was aiming for a Sorkin-esque snappy dialogue kind of movie, and I don't think he quite nailed it. But the sense of homage is certainly there. Unfortunately, my beloved Josh Lyman and CJ Craig are not. But that is what DVDs are for.

I really enjoyed this film. It is certainly allow burner, and definitely not Sparky's cup of tea, but for a family Boxing Day flick, it was perfect. Raising questions, getting us talking. If we had have gone in expecting the pomp of Shakespeare, the snap of Sorkin or the usual fireworks of a Boxing Day Blockbuster, I fear we would have been disappointed. But we weren't. Happy family viewing. For the slightly politically geeky family.

Turkey

Seeing as I didn't liveblog or tweet my Turkish Trip in realtime, things are now a little hazy. A school excursion (cough-only-6-kids-the-rest-were-parents-or-kids-from-another-school-cough) that toured sites of Ancient and Modern History, starting in Istanbul.

So rather than attempt to recreate the narrative of the visit, I thought I might go Dot Point With Pictures.

Day 1.

River Cruise.

War Museum.

Stuck in mega traffic jam because some doofus abandoned his Beemer on a roundabout outside Louis Vitton.

Baklava to die for.

Took students on a walk. Got mega lost. At sunset. In one of the most chaotic cities in the world. Tried not to panic. Good cure for jetlag.

Day 2.
Eggs & Feta for breakfast.

Topkapi Palace.

Spice Bazaar.

Turkish coffee = Tru Love 4 Eva

Awkward Hammam (Turkish Bath) and Massage. Possibly scarred for life.

Day 3.
Blue Mosque. Wow.

Hagia Sofia.

Grand Bazaar. Made up for being lost on the streets by navigating crazy maze of 4000+ shops.

Basilica Aquaduct.

Day 4.
Gallipoli.

Sunset over the Dardenelles.

Day 5.

Troy.

Pergamom. Theatre as therapy? Sounds perfect to me!

Day 6.

Temple of Apollo.

Ancient Theatres.

Day 7.

Ephasus.

Re-Wrote and Performed extract from Antigone in the Great Theatre. A highlight of trip, and possibly of life.



Next stop: Belgium.

Real men of Oz Rock

The highlight of the musical calendar in West Bubblefuck this year (apart from the Both Kinds Of Music Festival) has been Bogan Mecca - a Chisel reunion tour. There has been much excitement about the return of Barnsey, Mossy and Walker. The inevitable rendition of all the hits played in almost exactly the same way as they appear on the album, except for the carving Ian Moss solo has had the rednecks in a tizzy.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Chisel. They have some BRILLIANT music, Walker has written some lyrics that carve a deep scar into the Australian psyche, telling some stories that capture and articulate our vague definition of culture in this country. But the Fans of Chisel kind of irk me. Much like how the fans of Midnight Oil will belt out the lyrics to "Beds Are Burning" with gusto, but chuck around racist slurs with similar gay abandon. Similarly, the thuggish Barneseque Seem not to care about the anti-war, anti-suburban lyrics of the songs that criticize the way they live.

My personal highlight of the evening was not watching Jimmy sweat it out on stage, or even seeing the beautiful digital art on the backdrop.

Having Rock Legend, and Musical Hero Tim Rodgers in my town made me so freaking happy. I don't care what the bogans and haters-of-the-support-band say, Timmy and the You Am I boys slayed that stage, on a Tuesday night. It was stunning.

Smells Like Victory

All families have traditions. Those rituals to marks the milestones or merely the passing of time. And our family is big on rituals. We're big on a lot of things really. Mostly, we're just big. Like Nana used to say "Rats don't have mice" (Surely Nana could have had another quip that didn't so heavily involve my two biggest phobias???!)

Some of our rituals are big. We do Christmas like a boss, on both sides of my extended family. Meats, fruits, salads, desserts. Booze. New and ingenious ways to give gifts without breaking banks or collecting masses of plastic tat.

We do 21sts with gusto. There are many golden anecdotes of 21st tales. Mystery vomiters. Ugly sweaters. Shocking speeches. Drunk uncles who refuse to let flat mates into family photos (when really. He just wanted to go past to get to the loo).

Our weddings are stylish, our birthdays are feasts. But what I really love are the little ones.

Monday night is usually Fam Din (because we're just too lazy for all the syllables of Family Dinner). A chance for all the family who are in town to eat together.

But I think I like Saturday mornings the best. Coffee, and sometimes eggs, with a copy of the Sydney Morning Herals, bumper Saturday edition. More specifically The Good Weekend section. And The Quiz.

Trivial information seems to stick in my brain. Perhaps it is the allure of knowing something that not many people do. Perhaps it is that narssicistic joy of being right. Perhaps at collective junk of my brain just needs to have some kind of outlet. But trivial pursuits make me happy. When I lived in the Big Smoke, there was no mid week engagement more important or cemented into the diary than the pub quiz with my team, The Paddock Darts & Something Topical/Amusing Club.

Trivia teams require a delicate balance. A mixture of the extroverted and the introverted. Those willing to scribe, and those willing to whisper. Those keen to battle for their answers, and those happy to compromise, and then try not to shout "I TOLD YOU SO!" when the answers are announced. But even more importantly, there needs to be a balance of knowledge and interest. I like the music questions best. All the pop culture ones. Movies, TV, celebrity gossip. I also like the wordy ones - a word that can go before -jack, -box, -ban and -berry to make a new word? They are my favorites. But I am totally shithouse on geography. Mediocre on history. Sub par on fashion and architechture. Pretty rubbish on sport. (*there's too much sport*) But if you can build a team with the right balance, then your team will know no boundaries.

My family team is pretty well balanced. Dad covers off sport and geography like a champ. Mum is a history buff. Yes there are holes in our knowledge, but sometimes our brains trust for that week will fill them in. One brother does medicine, the other does psych and art (and does music a damn sight better than me). Usually we get about 11/15. Some weeks are worse. If we're less than 9, we're not happy with ourselves. If we're over 12, then we're pretty smug.

And we have said for a few years now that if we ever got full marks, we would take ourselves out to dinner.

Last weekend, we nailed it.

Dad rang me with 4 questions unknown. An Oscars one, a TV one, a comedy one and a celebrity one.

Smacked it out of the park.

That night we went to dinner at The Ritz. Tapas and tarts. And it tasted good. And it smelled like victory.


You can do the quiz in The Good Weekend magazine with the Saturday Sydney Morning Herald. Or you can do it on the smh app like I'm going to do right now!

Sometimes teaching isn't just about imparting knowledge and babysitting.

As a year coordinator at The Boy Factory, and also as a human being, sometimes you field lots of hard questions. Mental health. Relationship problems. Social awkwardness.

There are people that say that High School Is The Best Years Of Your Life. I feel pity for those people. Because if those years of uncertainty and horror and confusion and being in a perpetual state of judgement are the best in their lives, then I am thinking they never had the unbridled hedonism of university, the enormous self satisfaction that directing a play can give, the excitement, adventures and break from reality that happens in overseas travel...

School can be shit.

And this week I have found two things that I can use to help me understand/remember.

Triple J has bounded into the trend of the It Gets Better movement:

And Allie at Hyberbole and a Half has created a beautiful and haunting exploration of her own battle with depression: Adventure in Depression

All people have the bad times. Even, no wait, scratch that, especially kids.

White Coke

I'm not talking about illicit narcotics here.
Advertising and spin have a strange effect on me. I'm simultaneously intrigued and disgusted. Companies spending mega bucks on continuing to increase their ever swelling massive profit margins, the consumer being hoodwinked into handing over their hard earned, simple truths ignored for gimmicky tricks. All of which play into some seriously vague and unattainable vision of what We ( as humans, Australians, women/men etc) are SUPPOSED to be.

And I say this as a reformed advertiser myself.

I left the ad world for teaching, and have never regretted it. I loved the people I worked with, especially those that loved their job, but I thought it was a sad indictment on the society we live in that the most creative minds we have, the most talented artists, writers, photographers, use their talents to persuade people to buy shit they don't need. Instead of just art for art's sake.

Ah, crap. I really don't mean to sound like Judgy McJudge. This really isn't what this rant was MEANT to be about.

Advertising HAS brought some more golden gems into my life - as well as my pals from the agency lunch table. Gruen. 30 Seconds. Mad Men (HOLY CRAP!! Just realised I have written NOTHING on Mad Men!!! How is this possible??!?!). This Old Spice ad.

I try to remember some of these good things when I get a boiling ad rant going...

But...

Have you seen these?

All these photos via Coca Cola Australia's FB page 

As if the whole thing wasn't pissing me off enough already, some clown needs to bring the toxicity of Twilight into the equation

Notice anything?

Where is the representation of multicultural Australia? Where is Phu? Karma? Tamieka? Wallid? Teik Kim? At what point did the Brand Manager of Coke say "Yep. Our market here in Australia is all whitey white. Let's make them feel special about that."

And OK, my sample is not wide here. The bottles stocked in the West Bubblefuck servo may well be especially selected for our arch- Anglo demographic. Yes you CAN order your own custom bottle or can from the FB page, but they have to make choices about the ones they send to the supermarket shelves, right? Perhaps they corner shops in Cabbramatta and Lygon St are more reflective of the rich depth of cultures that we have in this country.

But I'm thinking not.

Grid Iron Addiction

So by now we all know of my weakness for trashy teenage dramas. (Of the television kind - I'm not in the least bit interested in the soap operas of the small people of The Boy Factory.) But my track record of being smitten with trashy TV is pretty well recorded. Gossip Girl. The OC. Glee. One Tree Hill. These are the machinations of the microcosms of society, through the lens of those burgeoning humans about to burst through the threshold into the world.

Or maybe that is over thinking it.

My latest true TV love is Friday Night Lights. I'd heard Good Things. From the kind of people who share a similar taste in glittering trashy tv as me.

And Good Things it is.

Even if you don't care for Grid Iron (and I really don't. I mean, what kind of a game takes so many hours to play, for so little game time? What kind of game has a separate offensive and defensive sects of the team?! What kind of a contact sport requires THAT much padding and headgear??!?) this show is LOTS of Good Things.

The titular lights of the Friday evening refer to the floodlights of the Panthers football stadium in the small football obsessed Texas town of Dillon. A small town school that is uber obsessed by football? Has the Boy Factory been transplanted to the US? I swear some of my life has been transformed to Texan teleplay somehow.

The story lines really resonate. Staff politics of a school. The Jocks and their privileged role in the school. Budgeting and the prioritising of sport over all else (one sport in particular.) Small town gossip mills. Those awkward mother-daughter sex conversations. This show is so well written, it stings a little bit.

The whole style of the show is pretty gritty. The breathtaking performances from the cast are largely improvised, one take with 3 cameras. It makes all the character interactions uber realistic. Talking over the top of each other, interrupting each other, the kind of pregnant pauses that pepper real life conversations. The camera operators chase the actors, rather than the actors finding their mark and delivering to camera. This all gives a real doco style to the show. Framings are usually skewed, focus is loose and the grainy stock gives a hint of the voyuer. There is a comfort in the score. Snuffy Walden's theme song drums somewhere between The West Wing & Studio 60.

And given that I have knocked over 3 seasons in 5 days (being knocked flat by stabbing sinus pain can sometimes result in Good Things), I am somewhat bewildered that I hadn't sunk myself into the brilliance before. Just watching the performances, and the characters is like wrapping yourself in a doona on my pride and joy comfy couch.

The central character, Coach Eric Taylor, is that kind of gallant, proud and hospitable Texas man that my US travelled friends tell me is a real thing. Kyle Chandler who plays him shows a parade of hidden emotions. He's come a long way since Early Edition... His wife Tami (Connie Britton) has THE BEST HAIR ON TELEVISION. I am suffering from some serious hair envy. I'm also pretty jealous of the way she has with students. As counsellor, she always knows the right things to say, the right comforting or motivating words- the kind that I am always looking for in my daily life. Jason Street & Lyla Garrity (Scott Porter & Minka Kelly) start out as the picture perfect quarterback/cheerleader couple. He is charming and chiseled. She is cute as a button, and is almost certain to play Rose Byrne's sister one day. But I do hope she is kicking herself for being involved in the horrid tv remake of Charlie's Angels (What? Axed already? Colour me shocked!)

But the character I am truly besotted with, the dude that just might have made it into my favorite TV characters ever (hmm, there is an idea for a post...!) is Tim Riggins. I can't even really think of him as a real person actor type human Taylor Kitsch. This dude is like the white trash seven dwarves all rolled into one being. Broody, Pouty, Boozy, Punchy, Sexy, Smirky and Occasionally Deep. Ridiculously good looking. Brilliant hair. A smile that could calm me down in the middle of 5th period Year 9. He is an utterly watchable rogue.



Phwoar!!!!

 At first I felt a little bit icky about being so pervy on a teenage character, given my daily dealings at The Boy Factory. But then I remembered that he wouldn't have been PLAYED by a smelly teenage boy - and it turns out he is only a year younger than me! (Thanks imdb.com for being so fantastic at alleviating Dragon 'Are You Old Enough' style guilt!!) And then I realised that he actually looks a great deal like my very own teenage pouty crush, River Phoenix. And then I realised that he played Gambit  in X-Men: First Class - my third favourite character EVER from the cartoons. Now I think I might very well hold my breath until they make an X-Men film focused entirely on Gambit. With Riggins back in the role.
Having my own life mirrored in Texan drawl is surreal and arresting. This show might sneak about like trashy teen drama, but it is gutsy and funny and highly addictive.

Post Scripts:
So after I wrote this entry, I have found/figured out some other bits of info...
The acronym FNL is an anagram of NFL!! Too word nerdy? Oh. Sorry.
ABC2 (for Aussie readers) is playing FNL on Friday nights!!! Fitting, yes??