Archive for the 'Australia' Category

“Setting the Scene” @ ACMI, Through The Eyes of a Cinema Layman

Published on January 10, 2009 in Australia and Film / Tv. 4 Comments

I’m not that much of a movie buff compared to some people. Sure, I like movies more than the average guy and did I spend most of my teenage years avoiding social activity by having Kubrick marathons, pretending to be smart by quoting Tarantino at my school teachers and re-enacting sections of Caddyshack with my pathetic friends, but I’ve never made a movie, gone to film school or even known anyone who works in the industry. These facts became painfully obvious when I entered “Setting the Scene” an exhibition currently on at The Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI, God’s gift to Melbourne).

ACMI Tickets

If you’ve ever been to an expo at ACMI, it’s downstairs. That sign on the stairs saying “be careful, it’s dark, your eyes need time to adjust” isn’t there for shits and giggles. Listen to it. I almost dropped my iPhone due to being inserted into darkness all of a sudden. Anyways, Setting the Scene. For those of you who don’t know, it’s an expo about movie set design. I had no idea set design was so elaborate. It didn’t occur to me that they often build these places they film movies in. There’s some big fuck off places built too. One part of the expo has in it dedicated to The Terminal. They built the set for that whole thing from scratch. The entire airport terminal. I guess if you’re Spielberg you can do that, but still, that’s a big fucking set. The exhibit has photos, clips of movies and for some movies, interviews with the set designers about the set of that particular movie. There’s also a large, large space dedicated to that movie Australia by our pal Baz. The exhibit is split into areas, I will list them here and give you my opinions on what I saw there:

Spaces of Power (Metropolis, Das Experiment and Minority Report). Metropolis is old and I don’t care. Das Experiment I have not seen but now want to as it is about the Stanford Prison Experiment and I like prison (from the outside). Minority Report was cool and so was it’s set. There’s photos of it here.

Private Spaces (Mon Ocle, The Sacrifice, The Miracle of Bern). Never seen or heard of any of these. Philistine!

Labyrinth Spaces (Alien, The Shining, The Name of the Rose). Alien is fucking awesome and one of my favourite sci-fi movies. The sliver of exhibit dedicated to Alien was underwhelming. A couple of photos up on the wall of the set with no people on it. Boring. I saw the set in the movie? Why do I give a shit? There’s not even any interesting back-story to it, or the set designer giving a monologue about how he designed it. Nuthin’, just a couple of photos and a projector playing a couple of clips from the movie. Ditto The Shining – I love the movie, but the exhibit didn’t add anything new to my knowledge of the movie except that bits of it were filmed in a real hotel. Wikipedia could have told me that. From the 90-second excerpt of “The Name of Rose” all I could gather was that it is about Sean Connery running around in a hessian sack for a few hours. What the hell?

Transit Spaces (Play Time, The Terminal, The Bourne Supremacy). Never saw Play Time and this exhibit failed to inspire me to. The Terminal, like I said earlier, is a Spielberg movie with a Spielberg set. I want to watch it now. Not just because I have a man-crush on Tom Hanks, but if they went to the effort to build a goddamn airport terminal for a movie, then it probably deserves I put some effort in too and watch it. There’s even a scale model of what they built in a glass case. Nifty. The Bourne Supremacy part had a whole bunch of bits they took from some hotel and other places as “research” for the set. That was cool. If you’re a huge fan, you might get a kick out of it.

Stage Spaces (A Clockwork Orange, Cabaret, Dogville). I saw the Cabaret section as it’s got a bloody Oscar in a glass case and I gawked at the shiny gold man, but the rest is so miniscule, that I didn’t notice that Dogville and A Clockwork Orange were there. That’s how insignificant it was. I even like those movies and I still didn’t notice.

Virtual Spaces (Dark City, The Matrix Trilogy, Chronicles of Narnia). Dark City is a great movie that I haven’t seen. The Matrix Trilogy has awesome CG and we all know it. There’s very impressive scale models of the robots and aliens from the movies that set my geek hard-on into rock mode. So cool, that it makes you want to buy them from the ACMI gift shop, even if they’re $500, but then you see the plaque next to them and they’re on loan from the actual set designer and not figurines you buy to keep on your nerd shelf (unfortunately). My girlfriend loved the Chronicles of Narnia movie and I think I heard her say “this is lame” while I was looking at a scale model of the car from Speed Racer. I wasn’t really paying attention.

Location Spaces (Night Cries: A Rurual Tragedy, Ned Kelly, The Proposition). Bunch of Australian outback themed movies I don’t give a damn about. The paintings from the Ned Kelly set planning were kinda cool though. I looked at those for about 20 seconds.

Australia (err, Australia). A whole bit about Australia. Boring as all fuck. I presume it appeals to middle aged women who wish they were on a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere being bonked senseless by Hugh Jackman? Damned if I know. Either way, the majority of the exhibit space is dedicated to Australia when it really should just be for Kubrick films. The whole thing should just be “THE SET DESIGN OF STANLEY KUBRICK” actually, that would have been way better than what I paid to see.

So do I suggest you go? Probably not. Unless you’re a massive Australia fan (haha, as if), have a fetish for scale models (there’s fucking loads) or work in the movie industry and have a thing for set design. If you are an actual set designer or a student of set design, drop that bag of chips, wipe your hands, put your Mac to sleep and get on a train to the city already. But if you’re just a movie nerd who enjoys some of the movies listed in the exhibition synopsis, you will be, like me, bitterly disappointed and lamenting the fact that the $15 entry fee could have been spent on two or three Steven Seagal DVDs. Seagal always delivers bang for buck.

Sorry

Published on February 12, 2008 in Australia. 2 Comments

I Can Has Boobies?

Published on January 4, 2008 in Australia, Boobies, Fulltime Casual and The Interwebs. 4 Comments

There’s been a bit of a brouhaha recently and Uncle Kevin’s new internet censorship laws, and what they will mean to you. Fucked if i know, but i’ll comment anyway.

I think the whole situation has been blown out of proportion by the usual suspects in the Australian blogosphere. They’re all in a huff arguing our politicians want to ban free speech, which is probably true. Kevvy and Conroy have also played a nice pr move by framing the debate in such a way that anyone concerned about the new laws are really supporting kiddie porn. Kittie Porn

Time out.

If you visit the excellent and informative Department of Internets, you’ll see the government just wants to protect you and your children from all internet porn, not just the kiddie kind. And i, for one, support this.

When i was just hitting puberty, there was no such thing as internet porn to warp my mind. Just the good old fashioned printed kind. Like most guys my age, i found my first porno mag on the side of the road. It was Club International, and I’ve had a soft spot for Club ever since. It was amazing, incredibly graphic, and despite being dumped by the side of the road, i loved it like it were my own.

A few months later, after exhausting all the hiding places in my house, and terrified my mother would eventually find it, i dumped it back exactly where i found it. 5 minutes later it was gone, hopefully to another young boy in need.

And thats the kind of experience i think todays kids, in our world of high speed boobies, are missing.

A few months after i gave up that issue of club, i realised the mistake i had made. I went to replace it, only to discover newsagents dont sell porn to 14 year olds. And that printed porn is actually quite expensive.

Again, our forward thinking laws helped in my development, they taught me how to steal. The first magazine i stole was a copy of the now defunct Australian Playboy from the Macquarie Fields Ampol Service Station. It was this issue with Drew Barrymore on the cover. I’m going into that much detail because i’m sure the clerk, god rest his soul, actually spotted me stuffing the magazine down my pants but let me steal the magazine anyway. After all, he was 14 once too.

In the next few years i became so good at shoplifting, that once i was able to casually slide another Club International down my jeans while talking to the newsagent. He didnt see a thing. Later, i graduated to stealing walkmans, jeans, silk boxer shorts (they were a status symbol when i was 16..) and even a gameboy, but thats another post.

The point is, i worked hard for the boobies. These days kids just need to be able to break the pointless firewalls and filtering software their parents (or the goverment) installed. And if the software is easy enough for their parents (or the goverment) to install, then the kids can break it.

Maybe, if Conroy and Co want to stop kiddies looking at porn, they should increase broadband speed/accessibility across the country. In fact, i vaguely remember that being an election promise. Cos as I’ve said before, atleast in my case, the higher the bandwidth, the less porn you look at. When you have the speeds to comfortably steal movies, tv shows, albums, download podcasts, and watch Youtube vids all day long, then porn is just another distraction. On shitty speeds, just about the only fun thing you can do on the net is look at babelogs.

Either way, these stupid fucking laws wont mean a thing.

Austereo are a bunch of Fucking Morons.

Published on October 16, 2007 in Australia, Entertainment and Soapbox. 2 Comments

I just heard that Tony Martin will be “getting the arse” after this year, by the fucking morons at Austereo.

Tony Martins Get This has been the best radio program in a decade, and the one thing that has brought me back to commercial radio, after a solid two years of listening to nothing but my iPod and podcasts.

I really dont understand how corporate media works. They seem to only promote the most mundane crap and cancel anything thats good.

Austereo, Get This was your Arrested Development. The intelligent, hilarious show that made up for the rest of the crap you broadcast. The show that made me think you werent as stupid as you clearly are.

I only hope another network will see Austereo’s mistake, and throw wads of cash at messieurs Martin, Kavalee, and Marsland. And maybe, just maybe, they will allow the boys to play music that they want to play, not the high rotation shit from the Triple M catalogue.

Very bloody angry….

Broadband Speeds Around the world

Published on August 30, 2007 in Australia and The Interwebs. 0 Comments

Uploaded with Skitch!

Cop that, Czech Republic!

Kevin 07

Published on August 6, 2007 in Australia, Fulltime Casual and Politics. 2 Comments

So the internet is abuzz with the new Labor Party site Kevin 07. I think i’ve made my political views fairly clear, but for those that came in late; John Howard is an amazing politician. As a human being though, he is a revolting, despicable little prick of a man. Let no one call Fulltime Casual one sided…

Anyhoo, i’ll leave all debates about the overall content of the site, and its design, to those that know what they’re talking about. What concerns me is the fact that the sexy Kevin07 tshirts are only $7 bucks. Thats pretty cheap…
God i hope the Labor party wasnt stupid enough to buy those shirts at a sweatshop. The second i get confirmation that those shirts were made by happy, well paid workers, i’ll buy one.

Fingers crossed.

John Howard, We Hardly Knew Ye…

Published on July 23, 2007 in Australia and Soapbox. 1 Comment

What a week for dear ole Johnny Howard. He posted his first ever video on Evil Mother Fucker. Youtube last week, possibly because he was depressed that he doesnt even have enough friends on MySpace to fill his top eight. Meanwhile Little Kevvy Rudd has some 6000 MySpace friends.

Not only that, but Johnny’s bestest friend Pete Costello, said Johnny was a shithouse economist. Completely fucked shit up while he was treasurer. By the way, for those that don’t remember, Little Johnny’s nickname, “Honest John” was originally ironic. It was based on all the lies he told as treasurer in the Fraser Years. Thankfully, Johnny cleaned up his act in the eighties and never told another lie.

So why I am writing this? Cos sadly, i think Johnny doesnt have much time left as our fearless leader. That awful Kevin Rudd has so much momentum behind him, that the only way i could imagine him losing the next election is if it was revealed he was a crack head, or a pedophile. Even then, I’m sure he could spin it.

But as i see Johnny climb down from George Bush’s lap, zip his fly and wipe his top lip, I am reminded of the one and only time I ever met the great man. The following is a true story…

In 1992, my sister took a temporary position at a senators office in the centre of Sydney. For those like me who take all there knowledge from cinema, the building was the one Tom Cruise drops through in MI:2. This building housed the offices of most Sydney based Federal politicians. On the final day of her two week stint, i went to pick her up from the office. As we rode the elevator down to the ground floor, the elevator stopped and Little Johnny Howard got in.

In 1992, Howard was a failed man. “Lazarus with a Bypass” as Keating called him. But he was still vaguely famous enough for me as a 15 year old to be a bit awestruck. Plus, he’s quite a bit bigger than you’d imagine in real life, so that was weird too.

My sister was always fairly outspoken, and at that time in her life she was about as angry as a young, socialist feminist growing up in a capitalist patriarchy could be. Clearly Johnny Howard was not her hero. She was not struck by the same awe as I was.

Johnny hit the basement floor button, we were getting off at ground. We stood in silence for ten or so floors, but as we approached ground my sister turned to Johnny and said “You’re a worthless, pathetic, repulsive man. I hate you, and I’m glad you’ve always failed as a politician…”

I almost passed out. Johnny didnt even flinch.

We hit the ground floor, and my sister and I got out. Neither of us could believe what she had just said.

Years later, when Johnny became leader of the opposition again, then eventually Prime Minister, we always wondered whether that chance encounter had some how motivated Johnny. Whether inadvertantly, she was responsible for him clawing his way back to power.

Either way, she was right. Johnny was and remains a worthless, pathetic, repulsive man. In the immortal words of Roy and HG, he is an embarrassment to himself, and a burden on the rest of us. In 1996, i was proud to be an Australian. In 2007, I’m not so sure.

I cant wait to see the evil prick go…

Archive for the 'Australia' Category